Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/27

Rh , and. New Light on Delinquency and Its Treatment. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1936. 226 p. [


 * (William Healy, physician and psychologist, was at the time of this study director of the Judge Baker Guidance Center, Boston, and Augusta Bronner was associated with him at the center.)

This study presents the results of a research project conducted for the Institute of Human Relations at Yale University. The research was conducted simultaneously in three American cities (Boston, New Haven, and Detroit). Five hundred and seventy-four individuals of one hundred and thirty-three families were studied.

Only brief mention is made of the role of crime motion pictures as an ingredient of delinquent behavior. The authors report that:

"Interest in the movies was exhibited much more by the delinquents than the non-delinquents. Regular attendance once or twice a week was the habit of 88 of the delinquents as against 42 non-delinquents. Only a few delinquents, however, stated that they had derived ideas from gangster or other crime pictures upon which they definitely patterned their own delinquencies."

. Principles of Criminology. Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott Company. 1939, 639 p. []


 * (The author at the time of publication was professor of sociology, Indiana University.)

In the preface Dr. Sutherland says the purpose of this book is "to show some development of criminology toward science." He also states that "A science of criminology is greatly needed at present both for satisfactory understanding and for adequate control. The existing criminology is inadequate: It has consisted of obviously unsound theories of criminal behavior, of scattered and unintegrated factual information, and unwarranted application of that knowledge to practical problems."

Among other institutions which relate to crime, Dr. Sutherland says:

"The motion pictures are unquestionably an extremely important agency in determining the ideas and behavior of people, and especially of children. * * * In view of this significant effect produced by the pictures on conduct, the content of the pictures is highly important. * * * Children play as gangsters after seeing the pictures and are influenced in other ways. Within a mouth after 'The Wild Boys of the Road' was presented as a motion picture in Evanston, Illinois, during the Christmas holiday of 1933, fourteen children ram away from home. Four of these were apprehended by the police and three of the four stated that the freedom depicted in the picture had appealed to them. One of these was a girl fifteen years of age and she was dressed in almost identically the same fashion as the girl who had taken the feminine lead in the picture.

"In fact, the general tendency seems to be that the children who reside in areas where delinquency rates are high are influenced more significantly by the crime and sex pictures than ere those who live in areas of low delinquency rates. * * * Upon people who already have a fairly stable scheme of life, as adults and as children in good residential areas do, the influence of the motion pictures is less harmful than young people whose habits are less definitely formed and whose environment is more distinctly limited.

, "Radio Crime Dramas". Educational Research Bulletin. November 15, 1944, pp. 210–217, []

This study analyzes recording made of 20 radio crime dramas.

"By and large, radio crime dramas offer no realistic portrayal of the influences which produce criminals. Only three of the programs based upon the activities of law-enforcement officers made any attempt to explain the background of the offenders.


 * * * There is some evidence that children from delinquent areas listen to crime programs proportionately more than children from nondelinquent areas. This dues not mean, however, that listening to crime programs necessarily is a cause of delinquency. Instead, it is more probably that the same economic and cultural factors which produce delinquency also produce a greater number of young people who enjoy crime drama more than other types of programs.

"Children undoubtedly need a certain amount of excitement and aggression in their drama, but there must be a point beyond which the law of diminishing