Juvenile Delinquency in an English Middletown
- Author:
Hermann Mannheim. Routledge & Kegan
Paul, Ltd. 1948. 12s. 6d.
This recent addition to the International Library of Sociology and Social Reconstruction presents a study of juvenile delinquency in Cambridge over a period that includes seven pre-war years and the first four years of war, i.e. up to and including 1942. It is an admirable demonstration of the value of an approach that is neither purely a mass of statistics nOr such a specialized view of the subject that one facet only is given intensive consideration. In this ecological study of a region, in which the problem is viewed from as many aspects as available data makes possible, the material is drawn largely from probation and supervision cases appearing before the local Juvenile Court; the 109 pre-war cases included 1 Care and Protection case and 11 Beyond Control, while the 123 wartime cases included 3 Care and Protection and 13 Beyond Control. The inclusion, among the wartime cases, of 20 evacuees living variously with parents or relations, billeted with foster parents and living at a Hostel for difficult children, provides an interesting group for certain comparisons, and furthers the author’s purpose to indicate the interaction of social conditions within a geographically limited area.
Reference is frequently made to reports from the relatively few places in which similar approaches to the study of the problem have been attempted, but it is to be regretted that lack of uniformity of data analysis has made necessary all too frequently the comment that, for purposes of comparison, the value of the data available from many of the previous reports is questionable because of its scantiness, or because the methods of classification used have been so different that all but the broadest comparisons have been impossible.
As a consequence of this difficulty we have, however, what is certainly not the least valuable contribution made by the author to recent literature on juvenile delinquency. We are both directly and implicitly reminded continually of the need for further concerted studies in which many separate lines of approach may be simultaneously followed, so as to provide as complete as possible an investigation of the multitudinous facets of a common problem.
Besides the importance of simultaneity in an integrated study, we are reminded also of the no less important need for successive studies at regular intervals, the comparison of which may reveal significant trends and alterations within even relatively small communities over surprisingly limited periods of time. From several comparisons with evidence from a previous study in which Dr. Mannheim collaborated (Young Offenders, published 1942), the effects of social changes within so short a time as 6 years are already obvious. Incidentally, the lack of adequate up-to-date information concerning matters of practical significance, both in Cambridge and in other areas, does not, as the author points out, merely limit investigators in their assessments of factors of diagnostic significance, but the use of out-of-date or too meagre references, for want of more recent material, may lead to invalid conclusions or to assumptions that are misleading.
The author has been particularly careful to indicate where he has been limited by inadequate reference material and where his own findings must be interpreted with reserve.
The fact, however, that he advises caution regarding some of his own findings, in addition to the fact that he has considered the factors contributing to juvenile delinquency from so many aspects, suggests many further fruitful lines of inquiry. Two of Dr Mannheim’s findings concerning home conditions are of particular interest to those concerned with the effect of material conditions on mental health, but at the same time warn us of the tendency of averages to mask individual variation. In dealing with the influence of housing conditions, the author draws attention to the fact that, although the number of rooms per family found among the delinquent population families were no fewer than those occupied by families in the general population, the mean number of persons per room was in fact nearly double. To assume from this however, that overcrowding alone was responsible for delinquency would be rash in view of the fact that, in the course of this study, it was found that the highest delinquency rates were not found in the most crowded central wards, but in new housing areas in outer districts.
Dr Mannheim contrasts these findings with those from some other* studies, but there are probably many places in which what were originally projected as model estates have acquired notoriety as hotbeds of anti-social behaviour, and the author quite rightly stresses the fact that re-housing in itself is no panacea without adequate social services.
Dr Mannheim has some interesting observation on the subject of ” beyond control ” cases, in which his findings again are not in line with what has often been assumed. The Cambridge evidence suggests that the occurrence of simultaneous delinquency in children brought before the court as ” beyond control ” is the exception rather than the rule. The high incidence of abnormal and unsatisfactory home conditions among this group, however, is significant. Further, the fact that in a remarkably high percentage of cases the unsatisfactoriness lay in psychological rather than purely material conditions adds point to the author’s plea for extended use of psychological services, not merely for diagnostic purposes after offences have been committed, but among preventive measures. The succinct manner in which a remarkable amount of material is presented in this book in the short space of 131 pages; the admirable summary the value of which is increased by useful paragraph references; a bibliography of 57 comparatively recent books (of which at least 50 per cent, are British) and some 16 pamphlets; and indices of both authors and subjects referred to in the text, make this volume not only an excellent reference book, but a fertile source of suggestions for further work. M.I.D.
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