Juvenile Delinquency
It is concluded that juvenile crime appears to be part of a major problem, including adult crime, which involves social and economic considerations, and more exact information regarding the age-constitution of local populations is required to gauge properly the differences between the incidence of juvenile crime in different parts of the country.
Abstract
IN a discussion on juvenile delinquency before the Royal Statistical Society on April 18 which has now appeared (J. Roy. Statist. Soc:, 102, 384; 1939), Dr. Rhodes concludes that juvenile crime appears to be part of a major problem, including adult crime, which involves social and economic considerations. More exact information regarding the age-constitution of local populations is required to gauge properly the differences between the incidence of juvenile crime in different parts of the country. In considering changes with time, we must take account of changing environment if we are to deduce anything from the facts of recorded crime regarding changes in the naughtiness of the juvenile population. Mr. C. P. Hill agreed that juvenile delinquency was linked both with density of population and with unemployment, but considered there were so many other unknown variables to be taken into account that no accurate forecast was possible as to the probable future course of juvenile delinquency from the data available. Mr. J. H. Bagot, from Liverpool experience, stressed the wastage in probation and education offices and police departments through the non-use of statistics, and concluded that the vast proportion of the delinquents were drawn from one section of the population, and, within that section, from a defective group, either from the point of view of family or overcrowding.