Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/543

 PSYCHOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY OF WOMEN CRIMINALS.

I.

One of the charges most frequently brought against sociology is that it consists only of theories, and these often of doubtful practicability. It is said its basis of fact is not sufficient to war- rant its claim to the distinction of being a science. If this is the light in which it is often regarded, how can it be made more accurate, more scientific ? This was the problem which at the out- set confronted this investigation in criminal sociology. In this, perhaps, more than in any of the other branches, the way has been paved for scientific observation. Anthropometry and the metric system have already been brought to its aid, trained spe- cialists have made the observations, and much statistical work has been done in relation to the social phenomena.

For the purpose of ascertaining the value and applicability of these anthropometric measurements to the female criminal in this country, and for the purpose of securing additional light upon the problem, an investigation was conducted by the writer dur- ing the summer, which consisted in visiting five institutions — the reform school at Geneva, penitentiary at Joliet, workhouse at Cin- cinnati, Ohio State Penitentiary at Columbus, and the workhouse and penitentiary at Blackwell's Island, New York city. At these institutions a laboratory was arranged in which the measure- ments and tests were made. Free access was had to the records of the institutions and to the prisoners, and every facility was afforded for an exhaustive stud}-. The results presented in the fol- lowing pages are gleaned from sixty-one criminals measured, these being compared with the measurements of fifty-five students. These results are divisible into three categories : the anthropo- metric and psychological, taken in the laboratory, and the socio- logical, which was secured by observing and interrogating large numbers of prisoners, by an examination of the records, by

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