The Young Malefactor
A Study in Juvenile Delinquency, Its Causes and Treatment. :Author: Thomas Travis, Ph.D., with an introduction by the Honorable Ben B. Lindsey, Judge of the Denver Juvenile Court.
New York: T. Y. Crowell & Co., 1908. Pp. xxviii, 243, and 13 plates. “Juvenile delinquency pertains to all children, for all children are delinquent at some time or another… . Indeed, the boy who is not delinquent at times, as this term is now defined in the statutes, is so exceptional that I can conceive of none that would be more abnormal and give us more occasion for concern.” This is the well-weighed opinion of Judge Lindsey, and in it is to be found the conviction that led Dr Travis to write his admirable book. Work in settlements, institutional churches, boys’ clubs, juvenile courts, and institutions for homeless or backward children had encouraged him to believe that there is no such thing as a “born criminal” strictly speaking. That is to say, “There are no stigmata of crime or types of crime, but only of abnormality or degeneracy.” Furthermore, “a study of the delinquent with respect to his physical, mental, and ethical conditions, shows that at least 90 per cent and probably 98 per cent of the first court offenders are normal.”
It will be seen that the author openly challenges the conclusions of Ferri and Lombroso, and the whole Italian school of criminologists. He grants that they have described accurately a type of adult Italian criminal, but the criminals of other nationalities do not resemble this type in the least, and moreover the same stigmata are found just as conspicuously among the insane who are not criminals. On the other hand, he must not be understood to deny the connection between physical disability and delinquency. He says, “Many of the children are underfed and underdeveloped, some are mal-developed by reason of neglect or unwholesome work. The dentition is deficient in many; some have the outstanding ears described by the Italian school, others have abnormal palates, but few have these peculairities in such numbers or in such sinister combinations as would justify calling them abnormal.” The chief cause of juvenile delinquency Dr Travis finds to be the worthless home, or the lack of any home. As a substitute for the home, institutions have long been tried and found sadly wanting. “To summarize the effect of institution life we may say: it does not succeed with babies, and the orphan is not rendered efficient by its treatment. A summary of the results of purely institution life … reveals from 20 per cent to 50 per cent of lighter offenders not cured. And this percentage, when we remember that at least 90 per cent and probably 98 per cent of these culprits are normal and therefore curable, is not satisfactory.” What, then, has the author to bring forward as a solution of the problem? “The best examples of children’s courts revealed the same truth that the other plan had discovered, namely, the necessity of strong influence exerted on the child in his home. And the fact that wards were demanded in sufficient numbers by foster homes has shown that all offenders can be so located. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that instead of making placing out a department of an institution the reverse should be done, that is, the institution should be made a department of placing out, so that the abnormal offenders alone should be permanently handled by it. And the treatment of the normal delinquent should be the influence of a wholesome personality exerted in the atmosphere of a home, natural or foster.”
In the introduction Judge Lindsey sketches the development of the juvenile court movement, and relates for our amusement and profit some of his own experiences in the Juvenile Court of Denver. He is warm in his appreciation and praise of “Dr Travis’s splendid volume,” and believes that it is destined to do much good. It is pleasant to find ourselves in agreement, on this point, with such a well informed and wise interpreter of juvenile delinquency as Judge Lindsey.
No one would gather from reading the book that Dr Travis is a clergyman, so modestly has he kept himself in the background and so closely has he adhered to the discussion of his facts. He has been in charge of a mission church at Montclair, N. J., for the past four years, and has also acted as assistant to Dr A. H. Bradford. At the same time he has carried on graduate studies at Columbia and at New York University, and has made an investigation of the penal and charitable institutions of the county for the Montclair Civic Association. What his pastoral work has done for those under his care may be inferred from a story he tells in this book, about the young man who was indicted for obtaining money under false pretenses and was given “one more chance.” The story is so human and so humorous in itself, that our only regret is, it is too long to quote here. Those who read the book will not fail to discover it.
It is this sort of work,?painstaking scientific investigation, accompanied by hand-to-hand struggles with the weak of will,?that must be done by clergymen everywhere if they are to deserve their lofty title, “pastor,” and prove themselves, like Dr Travis, worthy “shepherds of men.” A. T.
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