The mentality of the criminal woman : a comparative study of the criminal woman, the working girl, and the efficient working woman, in a series of mental and physical tests / by Jean Weidensall.

  • Weidensall, Clara Jean
Date:
1916
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The mentality of the criminal woman : a comparative study of the criminal woman, the working girl, and the efficient working woman, in a series of mental and physical tests / by Jean Weidensall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Toward this end, also, Dr. Weidensall has more recently given the tests reported in this book, to a group of law-abiding sales- women, factory operatives (cigarette factory and bookbinding), waitresses and hotel chambermaids of New York City. Second: It has been also our hope to make a practical use of the results of our studies in determining more early in their career the special needs of each individual committed to the Reforma- tory with a view to classification and treatment. Third: The whole study will in the course of time furnish a large body of data as accurate as is obtainable under conditions imposed, which will bear on the causes of prostitution and de- linquency among women, and possibly point a way to, or em- phasize, the need of special social reforms. Recognizing that the study of the Bedford group includes only such women as in the judgment of the Courts are proper sub- jects for the Reformatory, the Bureau of Social Hygiene has made it possible beginning August Ist, 1916, to extend the study to include the various groups of delinquent women who are con- victed in the courts of New York City. This study will include a group of consecutive admissions to the Auburn State Prison, to the New York Penitentiary and the Workhouse, to the Mag- dalen Home as representing a private institution which receives delinquent women (possibly individuals in other private insti- tutions will be studied as well), and finally to the group of young women put on probation by our courts. Therefore, this study includes all groups of women who pass through the courts, and will furnish a basis of comparison as to difference in character- istics of the women who make up the several groups. It is hoped that it may throw some light on the problem of a possibly better correlation between the institutions which deal with de- linquent women. Such a correlation should also include the possibility of commitment to a custodial institution for defective delinquent women. It is needless to say that it is already pos- sible to commit a person who is manifestly insane to the proper institution. Owing to lack of provision at the present time, this is not true of the feeble-minded delinquent woman, whose proper care presents one of the most serious problems with which we have to deal. KATHARINE BEMENT Davis. New York City. September, 1916.
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