Toch 1961 - Legal and Criminal Psychology

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RA 1148.T63
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Legal and criminal psychology

LEGAL AND
CRIMINAL
PSYCHOLOGY
CONTRIBUTORS
Abraham Blumberg, LL.B.

Jerry S. Cohen, LL.B.
Albert Ellis, Ph.D.
Harry A. Gair, LL.B.
Israel Gerver, B.S.S.
Jacob Goldstein, D.S.Sc.

Charles Hanley, Ph.D.
Albert I. Rabin, Ph.D.
Robert S. Redmount, LL.B., Ph.D.

Earl Rubington, Ph.D.
Alfred C. Schnur, Ph.D.

Robert H. Scott, LL.B.
Thomas S. Szasz, M.D.
Hans Toch, Ph.D.
William W. Wattenberg, Ph.D.
Charles Winick, Ph.D.
LEGAL AND
CRIMINAL
PSYCHOLOGY
edited by
HANS TOCH
Michigan State University
HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON

New York • Chicago • San Francisco
Toronto • London
Copyright © 1961 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-12216
August, 1966
28487-0111
Printed in the United States of America

Q
To the Memory of
A. Ross Pascoe
Preface
Psychology is many things to many people. "Psychology" in

the title of this volume is not intended to mean, as one might reason-
ably suppose, the domain of the professional psychologist. Instead,
the word is used literally, in its original sense, as "understanding of
the human mind." This broader usage does not exclude academic psy-
chology, but neither does it exclude any academic discipline which
can help us to an understanding of people. It also does not rule out
practical experience or common sense, insofar as these sources of
information can be prevented from misrepresenting freak particulars
as general rules.
We can characterize the role of academic psychology in the total
enterprise in the words of Sholom Aleichem, taken from the chatty
preamble to his short story "The Three Widows":
"Do you know what psychology is? There is a vegetable called parsley
. . . To
look at it's not bad, it smells nice, tastes good when you flavor
food with it. But you try chewing parsley by itself! You don't want to?
Then why do you stick psychology down my throat?"
The present volume carries no such intention.

Our "symposium." What may come
effort has the appearance of a
to mind here is a group of people sitting around a table exchanging
views about a subject of mutual interest. Nothing like this holds
true of our venture. To be sure, the book is a group effort. But each
contribution was written without benefit of interaction with other
members of the group. Moreover, the topics range in content, orien-
tation, and level of treatment.
If the product nevertheless has unity, this is only in small part a
function of editorial interference, which sometimes imposed a
slight semblance of structural uniformity; only minimal unification
was provided by occasional cross references in the text, and by in-
troductory chapters intended, in part, for the same end. The reason
why this book does show unity lies almost entirely in the compost
tion of our group.
vii
Vlll • PREFACE
i
It would be a mistake to classify this volume as an "interdiscipli-

nary" effort; it is not an attempt by representatives of various com-
partments of the ivory tower to pool their abstractions or to go
their separate ways under a common heading. No one here speaks
for a discipline or a school of thought or a set of techniques. The
members of our group are not congregated as delegates, but as in-
dividuals.
As they fall roughly into three categories. The first
individuals,
category comprises members of that rare group of practitioners in
the fields of law and correction who have the willingness and capac-
ity to step outside their profession and to look back at it. They are
thereby able to provide intimate portraits of prevailing practices,
framed in thoughtful discussions of the purposes and reasons behind
these practices. The second set of contributors includes social scien-
tistsconcerned with these same practices. They attempt to bring to
bear information, techniques, and thinking that can increase our un-
derstanding beyond the range of practical experience.
The third category of contributors to this volume is that of "prac-
titioner-social scientists" who, equipped with academic training, have
tested the applicability and limitation of their training in the court-
room or the penal institution. Thus our group includes lawyers with
academic degrees in a social science and a sociologist-turned-prison-
warden-turned-professor.
The have outlined converge into a sequence
three orientations I
of interdependent steps. In thespian terms, our "practitioners" pro-

duce the backdrop and cast for our play, our "social scientists" pro-
vide the themes and the story, and our "practitioner-social scientists"
bring the two together in rehearsal. Thus we can view the result as
a collection of efforts geared toward each other. This does not mean
that our symposium does not contain divergences of viewpoint. It
most assuredly These divergences, however, are subordinate to

does.
a common concern, that of arriving at understanding and construc-
tive reform.
The book is offered with a dual purpose: It seeks to provide the
student, the interested layman, and the specialist with facts about the
people involved in the process of criminal justice; more important,
it is intended as an attempt to challenge thinking and provoke argu-
ment about these facts. To fulfill the first objective, no effort has
been spared to provide basic factual information, taking as little for
granted as possible. In line with the second aim, several authors were
selected who are known to represent refreshing and challenging
viewpoints. These contributors were encouraged to make their in-
PREFACE • IX
sights and feelings explicit, no matter how sensitive or controversial

the problem.
An effort has been made in the following to spell out and define
an area of concern, that of "legal and criminal phychology." This
area is intended to comprise problems from a diversity of traditional
jurisdictions. It encroaches on the law school, on courses in crimin-
ology, on seminars in clinical psychology, and on a variety of other
domains.
We have chosen to discuss this miscellany under one cover, be-
cause it seemed to provide a common challenge, that of a very broad
area of our society which desperately cries for reform. Our effort
is intended to fall in step with the current trend toward more ra-
tional and humane practices in the administration of criminal justice

and the treatment of social offenders. The hope is that a comprehen-
sive discussion of psychological aspects of the process can help in
defining problems and suggesting possible solutions.
No author or editor is an island unto himself. In addition to those
who lend direct assistance, there are always the unsung ones who
have provided a friendly smile at crucial have shown
moments, who
patience in the face of short temper, or whose casual remarks have
triggered elusive ideas. A word of thanks for such support is never
superfluous.
The editor most directly indebted for the help and cooperation
is
he has received from the contributors to this volume. Almost every

chapter has entailed work far beyond the call of duty. The editor is
grateful for the sensitive understanding of his intentions, and for the
kindness with which arbitrary suggestions were received. Very spe-
cial thanks are due to Robert S. Redmount, Robert H. Scott, and
Charles Winick for helpful advice at critical junctures.

Mary Falcsik translated our scribbles into typescript; few others
could have performed this miracle. Albert Hastorf is to be thanked
for an act of faith in recommending publication of this work. Richard
Korn reviewed the entire manuscript and made a number of valuable
suggestions.
The editor is personally indebted to the Michigan Department of
Correction for their open-door policy over the years. Also valuable
has been a Summer Training Institute Crim-
in the Administration of
inal Justice presided over by Frank Remington and Victor Rosen-
blum, under the sponsorship of the Social Science Research Council.
East Lansing, Michigan H. T.

June, 1961
About the Contributors
Abraham B lumberg is a member of the New York Bar and teaches

Social Science at Brooklyn College.
Cohen is on the staff of the Subcommittee on Antitrust and

Jerry S.
Monopoly of the U.S. Senate. Until recently, he was Assistant
Attorney General of'Michigan in charge of the Criminal Division
of the Attorney General's office.
Albert well-known authority on marriage counseling and

Ellis is a
criminal psychology. He is the author of numerous books and
articles about sexual behavior, and is currently in private practice
in New York City.
Harry A. Gair is past President of the Law Science Academy and

former Dean of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He has
written books about negligence law, a field in which he is a rec-
ognized expert.
Israel Gerver lectures in Sociology and Anthropology at Brooklyn

College. He has written articles about problems of testimony.
Jacob Goldstein is associated with the New School for Social Re-
search and holds a number of other research positions. He is a
social psychologist whose publications deal with a variety of sub-
jects.
Charles Hanley is Associate Professor of Psychology at Michigan

State University. He has held a research position in a delinquency
prediction study of the San Francisco State College Foundation.
Albert I. Rabin is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Psy-

chological Clinic at Michigan State University. He is consulting
psychologist at the State Prison of Southern Michigan. Professor
Rabin is the author of approximately seventy journal articles and
co-editor of a book.
id
Xll • ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Robert S. Redmount is Chief Psychologist at the Psychological Serv-
ices Center of Connecticut, but also practices law in New Haven.
Dr. Redmount has published several articles relating psychology
to law.
Earl Rubington is with the Connecticut Com-

affiliated as Sociologist
mission on Alcoholism and the Yale Center of Alcohol Studies in
New Haven.
Alfred C. Schnur is Professor at the School of Police Administration
and Public Safety, Michigan State University. Among Dr. Schnur's
past positions is a term as Associate Warden at the Minnesota
State Prison.
Robert H. Scott is Associate Director of Corrections in charge of

the Youth Division, Michigan Department of Corrections. Mr.
Scott is a pioneer in the treatment of youthful offenders.
Thomas S. Szasz is Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, State

University of New
York, Upstate Medical Center, Syracuse.
Among Professor Szasz's more than sixty journal articles are many
relating to criminal responsibility. Professor Szasz has written a
book dealing with pleasure and pain and one on the "myth of
mental illness."
Hans Toch on the faculty of Michigan State University, where

is
he teaches (among other things) a course in Legal and Criminal

Psychology. Professor Toch has worked in several areas of social
psychology, and has had an interest in problems relating to visual
perception.
William W. Wattenberg is Professor of Educational Psychology at

Wayne State University. In addition to having written books
about adolescence and mental hygiene, Professor Wattenberg is
known for his writings on juvenile delinquency.
Charles Winick a psychologist with many interests. He teaches

is
Applied Psychoanalysis at New York University, and has also

taught at MIT, Columbia, and the University of Rochester. Dr.
Winick directs the Musicians Clinic in New York and is known
for his work in social psychology and drug addiction.
Contents
Preface vii
About the Contributors xi
PART I • LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
1. Introduction to Legal Psychology 3
The Psychology of Lawmaking 4

The Legislator as Law Transcriber 5
Interpretation of Laws 6
Selective Sanctions 9
The Courtroom 13
The Psychology of Testimony 14
Forensic Psychiatry 17
Psychology and the Courtroom 19
2. Psychology and Law 22
A Psychological View of the Spheres of Law 24

Fundamental Characteristics of Law
and Psychology 37
Experiences in the Relations of Law
and Psychology 44
3. Trial Tactics in Criminal Cases 51
Nature of the Proceedings 52

The Prosecutor and the Defense Counsel 53
Selecting the Jury 55
The Opening Statements 58
Examination and Evidence 60
Trial 62
Final Argument 71
Epilogue 72
Conclusion 73
xiii
XIV • CONTENTS
4. Trial Tactics in Civil Cases 75
Evaluation of the Case 76

Settlement Tactics 77
Jury Selection 79
Opening Statement to the Jury 81
Order of Proof 82
Direct Examination 84
Bad Practices in Examining Witnesses 88
Setting the Stage for Cross-Examination 89
Demonstrative Evidence 90
Cross-Examination 91
The Final Argument 92
5. The Psychology of Juries 96
How the Jury System Works 97

Research on Juries 100
The Psychology of the Jury 105
Controversy over the Jury System 109
Suggested Reforms in Jury Procedure 113
6. The Psychology of Judges 121
The Judge's Job 122

The Making of Judicial Decisions 123
Some Contextual Pressures on
Judicial Decisions. 124
Some Personal Variables in the Judge's Career 127
Differing Views on the Basis for
Judicial Decisions 131
The Psychology of the Judge 1 36
Predicting Decisions 138
Suggested Changes 138
7. Criminal Responsibility and Psychiatry 146
What is Criminal Responsibility? 146

Historical and Social Aspects of
Criminal Responsibility 151
The Durham Rule and Its Implications:
A Critical Analysis 157
Mental Illness as an Excusing Condition 158
Epilogue 165
CONTENTS • XV
PART II • CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY
8. Introduction to Criminal Psychology 171
The Conception of Man Moral Agent

as Free 172
Divine Intervention in the Courtroom 173
Hedonism and Classical Anthropology 174
The Positive School of Criminology 175
The Criminal Man 176
Crime and Anatomy 177
The Evolution of Criminal Psychology 178
The Psychiatric and Sociological Views 179
The Legal Framework for Correction 181
Two Trends in Correction 184
Treatment and the Public 186
Treatment and Vested Interest 188
Epilogue 189
9. The Development of Criminal Predispositions 192
The Nature of "Crime" 193

Specific or General Causation? 195
Theories of Criminal Predestination 196
The Multiple-Factor Approach 200
The Development of Criminal Predispositions 201
The Study of Predisposing Attitudes
and Feelings 209
10. The Gauging of Criminal Predispositions 213
Delinquency as a Criterion 214

Reliability of a Predictor 216
Validity of the Predictor 217
The Base-Rate Problem 219
Types of Psychological Measures 220
Constructing an Inventory Measure 222
The MMPI: An Empirically Derived Inventory 222
Psychological Tests 232
Projective Tests 234
The Glueck Prediction Tables 236
Conclusion 240
XVI • CONTENTS
11. Psychologists and Juvenile Delinquency 243
Gang Children 244

Unsocialized Aggressive Boys 245
"Accidental" Delinquency 247
Mother-Daughter Feuds 251
Neurotic Delinquency 252
Mixed Patterns 254
Psychologists in the Juvenile Court 255
Psychologists in Treatment Institutions 265
Other Activities of Psychologists 267
Summary 268
12. Psychopathic (Sociopathic) Personalities 271
The Case of Roger Hayes 271

The Term "Psychopathic" or "Sociopathic
Personality" 274
Psychosis and Neurosis 275
Psychopathic Personality 276
Historical Development of the Concept
of Psychopathic Personality 276
Modern Status of Concept 277
Psychopathic Personality and Criminality 282
Theories of Causation 283
Treatment of the Psychopath 290
Summary 292
13. Current Practices in Correction: A Critique 294
Substitute Goals 296

Treatment by Time Clock 299
Adverse Effects of Treatment by Time Clock 302
Probation: The First Phase of Correctional
Treatment 304
Critique of Current Probation Practices 305
The Second Phase of Correctional
Institutions:
Treatment 306
Job Placement 310
Treatment 312
Parole: Third and Final Phase of Correctional
Treatment 316
After Correction, What? 319
CONTENTS • XV11
14. The Youthful Offender: An Illustration of

New Developments in Correction 323
Changes in Corrections 325

Corrections' Programs for the Youthful
Offender 327
A Concept and Program of Corrections 328
Institutions 329
Case Management 336
A Concept of Remedial Therapy 336
The Camp and the Nearby Community 338
Probation 339
Group Counseling for Youthful Probationers
and Parolees 342
Group Counseling for Youth in County Jails 342
Foster Family Care for Probationers and
Parolees 343
The Community's Role in Crime Prevention 343
Some Closing Words on Institutions 345
Psychiatric and Psychological Services 346
Conclusion 346
PART III • SPECIAL PROBLEMS IN

CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY
Introductory Note 351
15. The Drug Addict and His Treatment 357
Definitions of Addiction 359

How Addicts Develop 362
Alcoholicsand Drug Addicts 365
Crime and the Life Cycle 367
Why Treatment? 369
Treatment Programs 369
Change in the Kind of Person Who Becomes
Addicted 371
The Drug Addict in the Courts and Prisons 375
Drug Addiction in the Future 376
XV111 • CONTENTS
16. The Alcohol Offender and His Treatment 381
Characteristics of Offenders 383

Drinking Patterns 385
Routes to Dependency 386
The Skid Row Subculture 389
Treatment of the Alcohol Offender 393
Conclusion 398
17. The Sex Offender and His Treatment 400
Classification of Sex Offenses 400

Psychological Classification of Sex Offenders 402
Sexual Offenders and Sexual Deviates 403
Incidence of Sex Offenses 406
Characteristics of Sex Offenders 407
The Treatment of Sex Offenders 408
Social Prophylaxis 412
Index 419
Part I
Legal Psychology
HANS TOCH
Introduction to
Legal Psychology
When the man in the street thinks of the workings of the criminal
law, he tends to visualize a row of well-oiled machines. First in line
is Law-Passing Machine which acts like a thermostat. It gauges the
a
temperature of society, and passes a law against anything which raises
the level of public indignation beyond a tolerable point. Once the
law has been passed, an Enforcing Machine enforces it. This contrap-
tion surveys the landscape for any signs of disturbance, and clamps
iron tentacles on whoever seems to be responsible.
Next in line is the Justice-Dispensing or Courtroom Machine
which makes sure that the Enforcing Machine has been functioning
properly. This gadget operates like a vending machine. You insert
facts about the offense in one and pertinent laws in another.
slot,
There is a clicking of wheels and a flashing of lights, and "justice"

pops out of the dispenser. Justice means ( 1 ) a decision as to whether
the suspected culprit is guilty of breaking the law and (2) a rec-
ommendation as to how he is to be treated if he has been judged
guilty. This recommendation is passed on to the Culprit-Processing
Machine, which ( 1 ) punishes the person in proportion to the damage
he has done — and (2) changes him so that he will not offend again.
The civil law, analogously, may appear to take the form of a
Damage-Computing Machine, which calculates themonetary value
of broken fenders, fractured ribs, loss of income, pain, worry, and
the like. Justice would be when an aggrieved person has
arrived at
been compensated for any harm he may have suffered.
If this picture were accurate, we would not need a field like "legal
psychology." In however, the process of passing, administer-
reality,
ing, and applying laws is in the hands of people — not machines. And
"Justice" turns out to be a very human product indeed.
This is where legal psychology enters the picture:
Legal psychology as a science studies the process whereby jus-
3
4 • LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
tice is arrived at, examines the people who take part in this process,
and looks into their purposes, motives, thoughts, and feelings.
As a profession, legal psychology aims at reducing to a minimum
those psychological factors which detract from the objectivity of the
legal process. The final aim is to make justice as fair and construc-
tive as humanly possible.
The next chapter will examine the problems of legal psychology
as a science. In this chapter, we shall illustrate the need for legal
psychology as a profession, especially in the process of criminal
law. We can start with a look at our mythical Law-Passing Machine.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LAWMAKING

People are motivated to pass laws. They pass laws which reflect
Sometimes laws reflect very temporary concerns, as
their concerns.
they do when feelings run high because of a crisis which unsettles
people or an episode which shocks them.
Antisubversion legislation and witch-hunting laws are examples of
crisis-legislation. An
example of legislation inspired by a shocking
incident is the "sexual psychopathic law" typified by Michigan's
Goodrich Act. The Goodrich Act was passed in reaction to a par-
ticularly gruesome and repelling sex crime involving a child. It
extended, however, to a variety of sexual offenses, and created in-
equities and enforcement problems (Hartwell, 1950).
Even when laws are not a product of hysteria, they reflect prob-
lems which concern people at the time the law is passed. One type
of problem which laws may reflect are economic needs, or social
and economic relationships. In ancient Rome, land was a very
important commodity because it represented wealth and power. The
Romans therefore took an extremely dim view of offenses involv-
ing land. A person who dug up a boundary stone and transplanted
it to a more favorable location could expect to be buried up to his
neck and to have his head shaved off with a new plow (Duncan,
1940, p. 77). In England, especially in the days of the Industrial
Revolution, property became a dominant concern, and the law
showed severity with offenses against property — however slight by
modern standards. Many starving children were hanged for stealing
a loaf of bread or some exchangeable trifle in an attempt to survive.
To this day, the maximum penalty in England for destroying hops
or burning a haystack is life imprisonment, and verdicts are at times
rendered which reflect such medieval concerns.
INTRODUCTION TO LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY •
5
A more recent example of law motivated by socioeconomic

a
relationships is a nineteenth-century San Francisco fire prevention
ordinance making it illegal to maintain without a permit a laundry
in a wooden building. This ordinance was passed at a time of job
competition between Chinese immigrants and native labor. The
Supreme Court, in the case of Yick Wo
v. Hopkins (1886), found
that economic discrimination was clearly the object of the law, since
200 Chinese laundrymen had been unable to obtain permission to
operate laundries, whereas 79 out of 80 non-Chinese applications for
permits had been granted.
Laws are also passed because of religious or moral standards
of the time. Under the reign of Edward III, for instance, there was
a strongly worded law against wearing a mustache without a beard
(Duncan, 1940). Many communities have passed "blue" laws impos-
ing Sunday curfews on business establishments, which mirror both
religious and economic feelings.
Laws also frequently show signs of reflecting feelings of venge-
fulness or hatred. Psychoanalysts have speculated that such laws may
express a hidden desire in the lawmaker to engage in the very prac-
tices he proscribes (Weihofen, 1956). In Gilbert and Sullivan's
"Trial by Jury" the members of the jury express this type of feeling
when they declare:
"Oh, I was like that when a lad!
A shocking young scamp of a rover.
I behaved like a regular cad;
But that sort of thing is all over.

I am now a respectable chap
And shine with a virtue resplendent,

And therefore I haven't a rap
Of sympathy for the defendant!"
The extreme manifestation of vengefulness is the death penalty,

which one cannot claim to have a rehabilitating effect. As late as
March, 1960, a public-opinion poll showed well over half the adult
male population of the country favoring the death penalty. Juvenile
delinquency also draws its share of vengefulness, with strong public
demand for curfews, physical punishment, and "toughness." Such
demands become reflected in legislation, and therefore require study.
THE LEGISLATOR AS LAW TRANSCRIBER

The point has been repeatedly stated that legislatures do not make
laws. They only record or transcribe the laws which people suggest
to them (Chamberlain, 1936). Even in the act of transcribing a law,
it is standard practice for legislators to solicit reactions from all man-
ner of people who might be affected. A narcotics law, for instance,
might be submitted to physicians and pharmacists who would be
hampered by it, and to police officers who would have to enforce it.
One result of this process is who have an in-
that organized groups
can maintain pressures on legislators in the form
terest in legislation
of "lobbyists" who promote their biases and interests. (For a dis-
cussion and review of lobbying activities in Washington, the reader
is referred to Schriftgeiser, 1951.)
Legislators have no way of
telling how much public opinion par-
ticular lobbying pressure groups represent. It is easy to mistake
private desires for public demands. Pressure groups can increase this
illusion by stirring up feeling in support of their demands (Zeller,
1938), and by giving the impression that they can vote lawmakers
out of office. One former state representative reports that "the legis-
lator can hardly turnaround or make a move in the corridors of
the State House without being confronted with a veiled threat of
the effect on his political fortunes of a vote for or against a par-
ticular proposition" (Parkman, 1938, p. 98). The same author de-
scribes how the lawmaker "is bound to have a feeling of futility
because there is nowhere he can turn for quiet, unbiased reasoning
argument, and for impartial information as to the probable effect
of the enactment of legislation or the comparative experience of such
legislation in other states" (p. 101).
Thus lawmaking is far from an informed, accurate reflection of
public opinion. It represents a distorted reflection, resulting from
the legislators' exposure to lobbyists and interest groups, as well as
from their own personal needs and past experiences. These psycho-
logical sources of legislation must be exposed and explored.
INTERPRETATION OF LAWS
Demands whereas laws frequently remain. As each wave of

shift,
public or private pressure washes by, it leaves its deposit of unreal-

istic or unenforceable laws. Thus, as we shall see in Chapter 17, we
have legislation on the books in most states which outlaws sex prac-
tices that are extremely common, and therefore cannot be subjected
to punishment. Many states also have laws against gambling covering
church bingo games, bridge parties, and social poker playing. These
7
types of laws tend to be ignored or are only occasionally invoked

for special purposes.
Any prosecutor who did decide to "crack down" on penny-a-
point card games would undoubtedly be voted out of office at the
earliest opportunity. And, although we would laugh at a judge who
followed Herbert's Lord Chancellor's example and proclaimed that
from this day forth it is my intention to decide such disputes as come

before me in accordance with my good sense and judgment, ignoring
both precedent and Parliament where they are opposed to me, [Herbert,
1948, p. 158]
we do not expect judges to convict all persons who break all laws.
Judges have our full approval when they pretend that some laws
do not exist, or when they use them only in emergencies.
Another way of coping with laws which do not meet psycho-
logical needs is to pretend to act in accord with them while one is
actually "getting around" them. For example, in jurisdictions in
which adultery is the only legally accepted ground for divorce, 1
an elaborate pretense of infidelity is generallymade in the courts.
"Adultery" thus can become a transaction with a young lady like
Herbert's "Elizabeth Mugg":
Elizabeth has been in eighty-nine divorce cases, she tells me, under
various names, and has never met one of the parties yet. In this case, of
course, she went down to Brighton and stayed a night at the "Cosmo-
pole." Pratt's valet stayed there the same night, and put a pair of Pratt's
boots outside Elizabeth's room. During the night her boots met Pratt's,
and the next day the valet met one of the chambermaids and identified
the boots, and there you are. [Herbert, 1948, p. 39.]
These are the types of arrangements lawyers call "legal fictions."

They permit the letter of the law to be followed while its intent is
violated. A story which has been cited as a prototype of this process
is that of Tom Sawyer digging a hole with a pickax but pretending
to use a pocket knife — which "was the right course in such cases"
(Pound, cit. Garrison & Hurst, 1956, p. 410).
A third way of adjusting the law to human needs is to determine
the most sensible outcome for a given case and then to pick the law
or precedent which prescribes this outcome. This does not mean that
all laws apply equally to any given body of facts. It does mean that
there usually is a choice of laws or previous cases which can be
1 Some jurisdictions in which adultery is the only accepted ground for di-
vorce have a law against adultery. It is obvious that such a law cannot be
enforced.
plausibly invoked (see discussion in Chapter 6, pages 133-135).
Even the United States Supreme Court "selects" out of several con-
stitutional provisions the one it applies to any given case:
The Supreme Court knows that if it pushes the "deprivation of prop-

erty without due process of law" button, the answer will come out
unconstitutional. If it pushes the "state police power" button, the answer
—
will come out constitutional. But the machine of the law does not tell
the Court which button to push. [Rodell, 1939, p. 159.]
A verdict may thus be reached on the basis of extralegal consid-

eration, and a legal justification may be selected for it later. Psy-
chologists must be concerned with the motives which in fact inspire
legal decisions. In this connection, one basic assumption the psychol-
ogist must make is that the purposes for which a law is used should
influence the way in which it is perceived. The same law should
mean different things to different users. This process is demonstrated
by the fact that out-of-date laws can be reinterpreted and applied
to situations for which they were not intended. Levi (1949) pro-
vides an illustration in the history of the Mann Act. This piece of
legislation was passed by Congress on June 25, 1910, and was di-
rected against white-slave traffic, or
. . . any person who shall knowingly transport, or cause to be transported,

or aid or obtaining transportation for, or in transporting, in
assist in
commerce or in any territory or in the District of
interstate or foreign
Columbia, any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or de-
bauchery, or to engage in any immoral practice.
This problem was perceived to be very serious one. Congress-

a
man Mann declared that "all the horrors which have been urged,
either truthfully or fancifully, against the black-slave traffic, pale
into insignificance as compared with the horrors of the white-slave
traffic" (cit. Levi, p. 25). Organized rings of malevolent individuals
of alien origin were reputed to have captured young girls in this
country and abroad. They were assumed to have coerced their vic-
tims by unspeakable means into engaging in unspeakable practices.
The Mann Act was intended to curb the importation of the help-
less girls as well as their introduction into the red-light districts of
American cities.
Whether the problem ever existed, except in the minds of Con-

gress, is a moot point. What matters to us is that the law, once it had
been passed, was invoked against a diversity of persons engaged in a
variety of unrelated pursuits. As early as 1913, a southern theater
9
manager was convicted under the Mann Act for having made ad-
vances to a chorus girl whom he had hired in another state; in 1915,
a prostitute was indicted when she changed her residence from Il-
linois to Wisconsin. The Supreme Court upheld both convictions,
although in the first case transportation had occurred for the purpose
of employment, and in the second case the woman was admittedly
not an innocent victim. In neither case was white-slave traffic in-
volved. In 1944, the Mann Act was invoked against a family that
owned a brothel, and was returning there from a vacation trip on
which the couple had been accompanied by two of its employees;
in 1945, the Supreme Court reaffirmed a conviction arising from a
two-block taxi ride in Washington, D. C; in 1946, the Mann Act
was used against Mormons for practicing polygamy.
To
be sure, the history of this piece of legislation is not typical.
But it does dramatize the general point: Laws are interpreted and
reinterpreted in the course of being applied. These interpretations
are cumulative, in the sense that a court decision of yesterday can
be used by another court today as a basis for a more generous
interpretation. This in turn can be used tomorrow, with the result
that the law has radically changed its meaning by this time. The
judge who finally uses the law may be singularly unconcerned with
the problems that motivated its passage. The law is his tool, and
acquires (within limits) whatever meanings he may need for his
purposes. This creative element in the implementation of law makes
the people who apply laws important psychological subjects. This
is especially so since judicial interpretations have at times offset pro-
gressive social legislation (Goldberg and Levenson, 1935).
SELECTIVE SANCTIONS
The law does not cover different people in the same way, nor is
it uniformly enforced against everyone. Psychological factors help

to determine who is to suffer the brunt of the law, and who is to
remain relatively protected from legal sanctions. A case in point is
the selective enforcement against Negroes of the law in parts of the
United States. The tendency in several southern states, for example,
is to be extremely lenient with a Negro offender who has offended
against another Negro, but to throw the book at a Negro who has
committed an offense against a white person. It has been speculated
that lenience with Negro crime represents an effort to permit Ne-
groes to "let off steam" as long as it does not burn whites. It is the
latter whose discriminatory acts are in part responsible for the
feelings of aggression expressed in Negro crime (Dollard, 1937).
Another commonly cited illustration of selective law enforce-
ment is the socioeconomic bias of the law. This bias starts with law-
making, in that acts defined as crimes typically are the antisocial
activities of underprivileged persons, such as vagrancy and offenses
against property. Large-scale exploitation, misappropriations, and
other antisocial activities prevalent in business and industry tend to
go unpunished (Sutherland, 1949). Such activities, in fact, are fre-
quently admired as showing initiative and ambition rather than being
defined as crimes.
It has also been noted that when two people commit the same
crime, the offender from the lower social or economic group is
more likely to be arrested, convicted, and committed to prison than

his financially favored fellow offender. The police are less likely to
suspect the "respectable" citizen, the prosecutor is prone to
less
charge him, and many judges are less likely to take a serious view
of him should his case get into court.
This is not to say that crime is not more prevalent among under-
privileged people. As will be noted elsewhere in this volume, slums
and poverty do create psychological problems which result in anti-
social behavior. However, poorer people don't have the monopoly
on crime which they appear to have from an inventory of prison
populations or from the guest lists of probation departments.
The inequity in law enforcement dramatizes the importance of
studying the perceptions, attitudes, and feelings of people charged
with enforcing the law. For our present purposes it will suffice to
mention two points in the administration of criminal justice where
law enforcers do exercise decisions, and where they thereby affect
the rule of law.
Arrest 2
Police officers do not arrest every offender who is drawn to their

attention. Conversely, they sometimes arrest people without having
legal grounds. One illustration of overgenerous arrest practices is
2 In formulating the problems of arrest and prosecution I have been aided
by the Pilot Project Report on the Administration of Criminal Justice in the

United States edited by the American Bar Foundation. I am grateful to the Bar
Foundation and to Professor Frank Remington for providing access to this
material.
INTRODUCTION TO LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY • 11
the "harassing" of prostitutes, homosexuals, or gamblers. "Harass-

ment" consists of taking likely candidates into custody, and releas-
ing them after a night or two in jail. This involves no effort at
enforcing the law, since there is no intention of prosecuting the
arrested persons.
Here an instance in which the police pursue their own objec-
is
tives rather than trying to act according to legal prescriptions. Feel-

ing that prosecutors or courts do not offer them enough help in their
perceived mission, the police may simply take matters into their
own hands. The zealousness of the police in their campaign against
crime (or sin) may become responsible for some infractions of free-
dom or dignity. "Round-ups," overquick shooting, the "third de-
gree," illegal searches and seizures, wire tapping, the use of inform-
ers,and even the practice of bribery and graft are illustrations of
prevalent abuses of police power (Tappan, 1960). Less dramatic
but of similar nature are instances of impolite treatment of suspects
and demonstrated lack of sensitivity to human feelings.
As long as such practices occur, the police can never be viewed
as a piece of reliable administrative machinery. The people who
make up the police must be studied in every respect. Their selection
and training is a task to which painstaking effort must be dedicated,
and their attitudes and habits must undergo continued scrutiny. This
is especially necessary because members of the police are in constant
contact with the public. Many people have come to regard the
police as arbitrary, sadistic, or merely dishonest. A typical reaction
is the suggestion that dogs be substituted for patrolmen because
dogs are gentle and understanding. After a recent police scandal in
Chicago, patrolmen on their beats were greeted with such remarks
as "It takes only one to play cops and robbers." Such unfavorable
public reactions create serious consequences for the police, because
they reduce morale and efficiency.
Equally serious consequences result from blindly backing and
cheering the police, with no concern for the inevitable side effects
of zealous enforcement. Police infringements of law and human
rights generally have low visibility (Goldstein, 1960). They come
to public attention only as a result of public concern. The news-
paper's role is vital in promoting such concern, but the press is more
likely to praise toughness than to expose subtle abuses of the rights
of unsavory individuals. The problem of educating both the press
and the public concerning the human aspects of law enforcement
is one of pressing concern.
Charging
Two seasoned felons, Lionel La Fleur and Muggs Pierpont McGee,
meet on the grounds of the Shady Brook State Penitentiary. The
following conversation ensues:
LL: You got here?

just
MM: Yea .How long you in for?
. .
LL: One to five years. I'm going out on parole next week. How about
you?
MM: Ten to fifteen years. way to go!
Got a long
LL: (respectfully) I'll say! What
did they get you for?
MM: Me and a buddy broke into a gas station in State City one night
last November, and the cops caught us.
LL: That's strange! We
also got nabbed breaking into a gas station
at night. Why
do you figure you're in ten times as long as me?
McGee's meditations in response to this question may bring him
considerable misery. They may even strengthen his antisocial feel-
ings. And it is, no doubt, of little consolation to McGee that wide
discrepancies in sentences are very common.
It would be wrong to assume that sentencing habits of different
judges are entirely to blame for this condition. Frequently the prose-
cutor is equally or more responsible. McGee's prosecutor may have
charged him with the offense he actually committed (breaking and
entering a business building in the nighttime), which tends to carry
a high penalty. La Fleur's prosecutor might have encouraged him
to plead guilty to a less serious offense (one not presupposing forced
entry, or one specifying daytime as opposed to nighttime). Most
prosecutors accept guilty pleas to lesser offenses in a large propor-
tion of their cases.
One important reason for this practice is the sheer volume of
pressing business. A guilty plea saves time, since it permits disposal
of the case without a lengthy trial. Occasionally, a prosecutor will
be delighted to accept a plea to a reduced charge because he may
feel that he lacks the evidence to make the original charge stick.
Another reason for letting a person plead guilty is to avoid imposing
on him an excessive sentence required by law, or to permit him to
be placed on probation.
Whatever the reason, prosecutors do not simply apply the law to
the facts and rush into court, demanding a conviction. More often
than not, they will not take an offender to court at And when
all.
they do, they may do so for a variety of reasons, many of which

have nothing to do with the law. These must be studied.
THE COURTROOM
In the remainder of this section, we shall be concerned with the
problem of what happens in the courtroom, and with the human ele-
ments that have to be considered in this situation. Chapters 3 and 4
will describe what happens in a typical trial from the point of view
of the contending lawyers. It become evident that advo-
will
cates involved in the courtroom have to make innumerable assump-
tions and predictions about the perceptions, attitudes, and motives
of other people. It becomes vitally important to them, for example,
to guess what goes on in the minds of their judge or jury in the
face of every move they or their witnesses make. This, after all,
determines the verdict.
Psychological data about judges will be discussed in Chapter 6.
At this point, we need only indicate that the problem does not con-
fine itself to extreme cases of prejudice. To be sure, judges who
are professional sadists, or obviously senile, pose a very special prob-
lem, as do the numerous judges who have well-known aversions,
preferences, or concerns which lawyers try to manipulate or which
they attempt to escape. A problem is obviously also posed by judges
with special sentencing habits, such as consistently lenient or per-
ennially "tough" judges.Over and above these dramatic variations,
however, one must consider more pervasive and subtle psychological
factors,such as the effects of the judge's role. This is the problem
suggested by Lady Cicely in Shaw's Captain BrassbountTs Conver-
sion when she exclaims:
"Bless me! Your Uncle Howard one of the most harmless of men
is
much nicer than most professional people.Of course he does dreadful

things as a judge; but then if you take a man and pay him ^5000 a year
to be wicked, and praise him for it, and have policemen and courts and
laws and juries to drive him into it so that he can't help doing it, what
can you expect?" [Shaw, 1947, p. 646.]
Even more pervasive are the psychological effects of legal train-

ing, which will be discussed in the next chapter.
Next to the judge, the trial lawyer is probably most concerned
about juries, although most criminal cases are tried without them.
According to public-opinion polls, a majority of people prefer being
heard by a jury rather than by a judge alone, and they tend to
rely on juries in their "civil" disputes (the type of trial discussed
in Chapter 4) This. results in congested court calendars and in high
settlements against insurance companies. The reactions of jurors to
evidence and to the actions of lawyers become an important social
as well as practical problem. The psychology of juries will be taken
up in Chapter 5.
Another type of person in whose psychological reactions lawyers
have great interest, is the ivitness. The witness is the only access
the court has to the facts to which the law must be applied (Frank,
1949). If key witnesses are honestly or dishonestly in error, the
wisest court will reach the wrong decisions, and injustice must re-
sult. A great deal of courtroom procedure is geared to the problem
of evaluating the testimony of witnesses. Legal psychology as a for-
mal discipline started as an attempt to aid in this evaluation.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TESTIMONY

In the next chapter (pages 46-47) mention will be made of psy-
chological efforts in the area of testimony. At this point we shall
briefly deal with only one book, which more than any other repre-
sents the beginning of legal psychology in the United States. This
volume is entitled, On The Witness Stand, and was first published
in 1907. Its author was the German psychologist Hugo Munsterberg,
who had been brought to Harvard to head the Psychological Labo-
ratory there. Since Munsterberg was passionately interested in apply-
ing psychology to practical problems, his attention soon strayed from
the laboratorv and centered on the courtroom.
In court Munsterberg noted what to him seemed a very interesting
problem: despite the fact that individuals had solemnly sworn to
tell "the truth, and nothing but the truth," their version of the truth
frequently differed markedly from that of other people who had

also sworn to tell the truth. Such differences in the testimony could
occur even in simple issues such as the speed of a car, the number
of people in a room, the location and distance of a sound, and the
general dimensions of a person.
Munsterberg conducted classroom demonstrations and experi-
ments to show that trained observers with generous advance warn-
ing could not agree on matters such as the number of squares on
a board, the amount of time between two clicks, the pitch of a
sound, and the shape of an inkblot. Their testimony, taken immedi-
ately after their exposure to an object, would tend to range widely.
Munsterberg concluded that perceptual habits have to be taken into

consideration in evaluating testimony. He showed that a person
also
who flagrantly misperceived one situation was very likely to per-
form just as badly in another. The demonstration Munsterberg
used for this purpose featured two squares — one blue and one gray.
He asked his psychology class to judge which square was darker.
"The gray was objectively far lighter than the dark blue, and any one
with an unbiased mind who looked at those two squares of paper
could not have the slightest doubt that the blue was darker. Yet
about one fifth of the men wrote that the gray was darker." Having
established this, Munsterberg proceeded to the second part of his
experiment:
I stood on the platform behind a low desk and begged the men to
watch and to describe everything which I was going to do from one

given signal to another. As soon as the signal was given, I lifted with my
right hand a little revolving wheel with a color-disk and made it run and
change its color, and all the while, while I kept the little instrument at the
height of my head, I turned my eyes eagerly toward it. While this was
going on, up to the closing signal, I took with my left hand, at first, a
pencil from my vest-pocket and wrote something at the desk; then I
took my watch out and laid it on the table; then I took a silver cigarette-
box from my pocket, opened it, took a cigarette out of it, closed it with
a loud click, and returned it to my pocket, and then came the ending
signal. The results showed that eighteen of the hundred had not noticed
anything of all that I was doing with my left hand. Pencil and watch and
cigarettes simply had not existed for them. [Munsterberg, 1925, pp.
29-30.]
In comparing the results of the two demonstrations, Munsterberg

discovered that fourteen of the eighteen men who had given defi-
cient testimony in the color-disk experiment had judged the light
gray square to be darker than the dark blue square:
That coincidence was, of course, not chance. In the case of the dark-
ness experiment the mere idea of grayness gave the suggestible minds the
belief that colorless gray must be darker than any color. They evidently
did not judge at all from the optical impression, but entirely from their
conception of gray as darkness. The coincidence, therefore, proved
clearly how very quickly a little experiment such as this with a piece of
blue and gray paper, which can be performed in a few seconds, can pick
out for us those minds which are probably unfit to report whether an
action has been performed in their presence or not. Whatever they expect
to see they do see; and if the attention is turned in one direction, they
are blind and deaf and idiotic in the other. [P. 31.]
Munsterberg advocated that psychologists be permitted to test wit-
nesses and to evaluate testimony. He also pointed out that psychol-
ogy had acquired much information which could help in sorting
reliable from unreliable evidence. According to Munsterberg, "every
chapter and subchapter of sense psychology" could clear up testi-
mony problems (p. 33). This contention was amplified by such
authors as Burtt (1931). Burtt illustrated his point with facts about
sensory defects, distance perception, color vision, adaptation, acuity,
auditory space perception, tactual perception, the perception of mo-
tion, time perception, and aspects of attention and memory. He
attempted to show that in each case, facts known by psychologists
could be brought to bear on discrepancies in testimony — discredit-
ing some witnesses, supporting others, or accounting for differences
among them.
Psychologists occasionally have been used in the courtroom as
experts on testimony. One of the earliest instances occurred in Bel-
gium in 1910. The psychologist involved was Varendonck, who
was given the task of evaluating information obtained from two little
girls under suggestive questioning in a preliminary examination. To
this end, Varendonck devised a series of ingenious experiments incor-
porating questions similar to those which had been asked of the wit-
nesses. Answers were obtained from children much like the two
little girls in age and background. These answers clearly showed
that the original testimony could have resulted from the suggestive
questions. For instance, eighteen children were asked to name the
color of the beard of one of the teachers. Sixteen responded, "Black."
The teacher had never worn a beard.
In the crucial experiment,

Written answers were required from 8-year-old pupils. "When you
were standing in line in the yard, a man came up to you, didn't he? You
surely know who it was. Write his name on your paper." No man had
come, but 7 of 22 children gave a man's name. The experimenter con-
tinued, "Was it not Mr. M ?" Seventeen of the 22 answered
"yes," and in individual oral examinations gave complete descriptions of
the man's appearance and dress. [Rouke, 1957, p. 54.]
The number of psychologists testifying in the courtroom (in a

professional capacity) has not increased greatly since 1910. (Chapter
2 takes up some of the reasons for this fact.) Psychiatrists, by con-
trast, have invested increasing time and effort in the courtroom.
FORENSIC PSYCHIATRY
Chapter 7 of this volume deals with important issues related to psy-

chiatry in the courtroom. A brief word will serve to introduce the
subject.
Among on record are trials in which
the strangest kinds of cases
animals have served as defendants. Swarms of ants, locusts, and mice
have been charged and convicted. Cows and pigs have been sen-
tenced to death. One American trial of the thirties resulted in the
execution of several dogs. A Spitz was recently placed in four-year
probation in New York State. A six-month old puppy named Idaho,
also convicted in New York State, was put on probation for two
years (Duncan, 1940, p. 41).
Such and weird because we make two
cases strike us as ludicrous
"common sense" assumptions about human crime which we do not
make when dealing with acts committed by animals. The first of
these assumptions is that a person acts with awareness — that he
knows what he is doing — whereas an animal does not; the second
assumption is that we exercise free will — that we can help doing
what we do — whereas an animal cannot. These assumptions imply
that man may be held responsible for his actions, and may be taken
to account for them, whereas puppy dogs and cows cannot be
blamed for their "crimes": they must be viewed as innocent products
of their training and limitations.
Psychiatrists most frequently appear in the courtroom in cases
where the argument is raised that a human defendant falls into the
same category because of a mental disorder. In the early days this
argument exclusively concentrated on the first of the two presumed
human qualities. If a puppy was being defended under this formula
his counsel might argue:
Poor Bowser cannot be found guilty of destroying the new mahogany

on his
table top because he could not tell that if he stepped plate he would
causewhat we view as a calamity. Since he did not know that the act he
was committing would be regarded as wrong, Bowser is clearly not
responsible for his crime.
This conforms to the rule of insanity formulated for the British

House of Lords in 1843, which is still used all over the United States
(except in New Hampshire and the District of Columbia). In fifteen
states, this definition (the McNaghten Formula) is supplemented by
the "Irresistible Impulse Doctrine," which argues as follows:
Surely you can't hold Bowser responsible for defacing the table,
because he could not help doing what he did. After all, Bowser did not
choose to spill his milk. He acted on a dumb impulse.
Psychiatrists have objected to the use of these definitions of respon-

sibility because psychiatry no longer assumes that people behave
with full awareness and free will. A committee of the Group for
the Advancement of Psychiatry (1945) poses the issue as follows:
The rules place a premium on and presuppose

intellectual capacity
that behavior is actuated exclusively by reason and untrammeled choice.
On the one hand, this overemphasizes the importance of the intellect,
reason and common sense; on the other hand, it underemphasizes the
emotional pressures that energize behavior. [P. 4.]
A psychiatrist testifying under these

rules is thus "put to the ex-
ercise of relating his medical data to an unrentable requirement"
(p. 5). He must frequently testify that an obviously insane person
is "responsible" under the law, because the law ignores the role of
the unconscious and of nonrational motives in human behavior.

In response to such arguments by many psychiatrists and some
jurists, New Hampshireand the District of Columbia have discarded
the so-called AicNaghten Rule. In these jurisdictions, a psychiatrist
appearing for the defense simply testifies that the defendant is suf-
fering from a known mental disease, and that his crime resulted from
his illness. If the jury accepts the psychiatrist's statement, it exempts
the defendant from responsibility, and he becomes a medical prob-
lem instead of a correctional candidate. If, on the other hand, the
psychiatrist does not testify that the defendant is mentally ill,
the defendant can be punished.
One troublesome consequence of this new arrangement is that
our friend Bowser (unless he suffered from a bad case of rabies)
would be declared responsible and punishable for his crime. This
fact may prompt one to re-examine the concept of responsibility.
If modern pyschiatric views of human nature have shown (as in-
deed they have) that neither puppies nor people are governed by
complete awareness and free will, it should follow that neither
puppies nor people may ever be held completely "responsible" for
their actions. Certainly, psychiatrists should never attach blame, nor
should they exempt anyone from it.
A few psychiatrists have seen this point, and have taken a stand
against the use of psychiatric testimony in the courtroom. Szasz
(see Chapter 7) has most eloquently argued this position. He has
also pointed out that a logical role for psychiatrists would be to
bring psychiatric insights to bear on the legal process, rather than

to participate in the process:
Psychiatry, as a social science, will do its share of the work in this

area if it will make explicit the ethical and psychological premises on
which social acts and judgments rest, and if it will contribute to their
accurate understanding. [Szasz, 1957, p. 316.]
PSYCHOLOGY AND THE COURTROOM
Szasz (1957) has suggested that psychiatry may have been "over-
sold." This possibility presents itself in the case of psychology with
equal force. In their zeal to obtain entry into the courtroom as ex-
perts, psychologists may make promises which they no position are in
to redeem. Dean John Wigmore, one of the greatest legal minds of
the century, whose classic on evidence draws heavily on psychologi-
cal writings, arrived — after thoughtful review — at the conclusion
that
there still remains unexploited by psychometry almost the whole field
of possibilities in testimonial evidence. In spite of the Munsterberg

trumpet-blast of 1909, announcing that "the time for applied psychology
is surely near," and that "the judges can test the individual differences
of men by the methods of experimental psychology," and "with the same

(quantitative) accuracy (as in food materials) can transform their
common sense into careful measurements," the record of psychometric
achievement with testimony is still meager. [Wigmore, 1937, p. 792.]
If psychologists do enter the courtroom, they also risk falling

prey to what Wellman has called "unconscious partisanship," the
tendency to "feel complimented by the confidence that is placed
in [witnesses] by the party calling them to prove a certain state
of facts" and the desire "to prove worthy of this confidence" (cit.
Frank, 1949, p. 19).
The same factors which cause psychiatrists to lock horns in the
courtroom can create conflicts in psychological testimony. Just as
professional witnesses have sprung up in the psychiatric profession,
who with skillful precision at the drop of a fifty-dollar bill,
testify
a comparable fraternity of professional psychological witnesses could
easily arise.
The main reason for caution about psychological testimony in
the courtroom, however, lies elsewhere. As we have seen, the court-
room and the human foundations which support it are full of points
at which scientific inquiry and reform are needed. As a citizen,
the psychologist owes the law respect and allegiance. As a psycholo-
gist, he must regard law and justice as human products, and he
must view them as his subject matter. If he becomes part of the

legal process, this view is lost.
The psychologist must cooperate with people active in the legal
process by helping them to understand themselves and the human
context to which they belong. People active in the field of law are
seriously concerned with finding ways of making justice more just.
The psychologist and his colleagues can help in this enterprise by
locating psychological barriers along the way. They can possibly
also join in the task of clearing the road ahead.
References
Burtt, M. E. Legal psychology. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall,

1931.
Chamberlain, J. P. Legislative process. New York: Appleton-Century-
Crofts, 1936.
Dollard, J. Caste and class in a southern town. New Haven: Yale Univer.
Press, 1937.
Duncan, Y. A. The strangest cases on record. Chicago: Reilly & Lee, 1940.
Frank, J. If men were angels. New York: Harper, 1942.
Frank, J. Courts on trial. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton Univer. Press, 1949.
Garrison, L. K., & Hurst, W. The legal process. (Rev. ed.) Madison,
Wise: Capitol Press, 1956.
Goldberg, L. P., & Levenson, Eleanore. Lawless judges. New York: Rand
School Press, 1935.
Goldstein, J. Police discretion not to invoke the criminal process:
Low-visibility decisions in the administration of criminal justice. Yale
Law /., 1960, 69, 543-594.
Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, Committee on Psychiatry
and Law. Criminal responsibilty and psychiatric expert testimony.
Report No. 26. Topeka, Kan.: 1954.
Hartwell, S. W. A citizens' handbook of sexual abnormalities. Lansing,
Mich.: Michigan Department of Mental Health, 1950.
Herbert, A. P. Uncommon law. London: Methuen, 1948.
Levi, E. H. An introduction to legal reasoning. Chicago: Univer. of
Chicago Press, 1949.
Munsterberg, H. On the witness stand. New York: Clark, Boardman,
1925.
Parkman, H. Lobbies and pressure groups: A legislator's point of view.
Ann. Amer. Acad. pol. & soc. Sci., 1938, 195, 95-102.
Rodell, F. Woe unto you, lawyers. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
1939.
Rouke, F. L. Psychological research on problems of testimony. /. soc.

Issues, 1957, 13, 50-59.
Schriftgeiser, K. The lobbyists. Boston: Brown,

Little, 1951.
Shaw, G. B. Six plays. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1947.
Sutherland, E. H. White collar crime. New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, 1949.
Szasz, T. S. Psychiatric expert testimony — Its court meaning and social
function. Psychiat., 1957, 20, 313-316.
Tappan, T. W. Crime, justice and correction. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1960.
Weihofen, H. The urge to punish: New approaches to the problem of
mental irresponsibility for crime. New York: Farrar, Straus, and
Cudahy, 1956.
Wigmore, J. H. The science of judicial proof. Boston: Little, Brown,
1937.
Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 366, 1886.
Zeller, Belle.Lobbies and pressure groups: A

political scientist's point
of view. Ann. Amer. Acad. pol. &
soc. Sci. y 1938, 195, 79-87.
ROBERT S. REDMOUNT
Psychology
and Law
Few men capture the great fascination of lawT in all of its many
leanings. The poet W. H. Auden's 1
effort is noble, and appropriately
guides us into the question, What is law?
Law is the wisdom of the old

The impotent grandfathers shrilly scold;
The grandchildren put out a treble tongue,
Law is the senses of the young.
Law, says the priest with a priestly look,

Expounding to an unpriestly people,
Law is the words in my priestly book,
Law is my pulpit and my steeple.
Law, says the judge as he looks down his nose,

Speaking clearly and most severely,
Law is as I've toldyou before,
Law is as you know I suppose,
Law is but let me explain it once more,
Law is The Law.
Yet law-abiding scholars write;
Law is neither wrong nor right,
Law is only crimes
Punished by places and by time,
Law is the clothes men wear

Anytime, anywhere,
Law is Good morning and Good night.
Others say, Law is our Fate;
Others say, Law is our State;
Others say, others say
Law is no more
Law has gone away.
1 "Law like love" Copyright 1940 by W. H. Auden. Reprinted from The
Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden, by permission of Random House, Inc., and
of Faber & Faber Ltd.
22
PSYCHOLOGY AND LAW • 23
And always the loud angry crowd

Very angry and very loud
Law is We,
And always the soft idiot softly Me.
Different perceptions of law lead to different views as to whether

law is good or bad, effective or ineffective.
It seems there middle ground between judging law's in-
is little
fluence on society generally and judging its sharp practical effects

in particular, limited situations. For some law is "the true embodi-
ment of everything that's excellent," because it helps to preserve
culture, permits continuing and productive relations between men,
and provides ethical uplift. It is a part of psychological growth,
contributing to the development of individual as well as collective
conscience — a thesis particularly developed by the psychiatrist Ran-
yard West in his book Conscience and Society (1945).
Then there is the other view of law which emphasizes its specific
and limited practical effect. In this view, law seems unsteady in that
it can be manipulated too readily by unscrupulous influence and by
devious twisting of its processes. It is primitive and archaic too many

times, to the detriment of particular individuals whose fortunes
under law seem guided more by the history of society's prior ex-
perience than by current needs. And it serves and benefits special
and sometimes powerful interests to the detriment of the less fa-
vored groups who are unable to muster enough power or wealth
to control law's uses.
The point is that there are contradictions in law. For every propo-
sition as to its use and worth there are opposing truths. It is only by
reference to a full and systematic catalogue of specific operations
and effects of law that one can perceive it most clearly and ac-
curately.
It is the task of the social sciences then — psychology included —
to provide studies of the processes and influences of law. But, as
Auden notes, law is so vast that one ought to begin with a bit of
cartography. There is the need to consider the various operations
and effects of law, we
do so here from a psychological
and shall
standpoint. Then, to ascertain clearly some of the problems in the
relation of legal and psychological professions, we shall have to con-
sider something of the dispositions of law and psychology which
may create problems. And finally, an account of recent experiences
in relating law and psychology will help to provide historical per-
spective. These are the tasks, and this is the outline, of this chapter.
A PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW OF THE

SPHERES OF LAW
Psychologically, law may be a different experience with a differ-

ent meaning, depending upon where you grasp it. A person who
views the experience and outcome of law in an attorney's office
or in a bargaining session, will obtain a different picture of law
from that observed in a trial court. The experience of law as a
general standard may be something quite different from the ex-
perience of law as a set of procedures or as a judicial decree.
Law viewed in terms of the operations and dispositions of a prose-
cutor may be a different matter from what it is in the hands of a
Judges weave meanings and impacts of law one way,
legislator.
whereas executives, defense attorneys, and office counsel may have
quite another influence.
Then, too, the experience and impact of law is likely to be quite
different, psychologically and otherwise, depending upon whether
one is a litigant or a law student, a criminal aggressor or a victim of
sharp economic practices, a subject in court or merely an observer
outside.
And finally, the experience of law with different
is different,
psychological and other consequences, depending upon whether one
is trying to fit current law into the history and continuity of legal
decision, into the customs and institutions of contemporary society,

or into the problems and demands of new frontiers.
Following is some further, more detailed reflection on the psycho-
logical challenges in viewing the different operations of law, the
persons who operate and engineer law, the parties who are affected
by law, and the general contexts in which "living law" operates
and has influence.
The Operations of Law

Counseling. One way in which law operates is through the scarcely
noted counseling process, in which a client addresses a problem to
an attorney. When this occurs, law is personal counseling (Brown,
1950). For instance, a client may enter the counselor's sanctum with
a pressing frustration because the house a contractor has built for
him under a contract of very general specifications is not satisfac-
tory. He feels he has been defrauded. Should he sue?
In a context of mutual confidence, itself a factor determining
the success of counseling, both and counselor must determine

client!:
the limits within which the client can be satisfied and the means of
satisfying him. The counselor must assess the extent of a client's
emotional involvement and the character of efforts he is making
to reduce his own tension. Clients may evidence great anxiety be-
cause of the uncertainty of their position, or frustration, fear, and
aggressive feeling because they have been or may be deprived of
some matter of value. The counselor must also consider the strength
of a client's position in the specific terms of its legal possibilities.
He must elicit information relative to the client's financial ability
and willingness to sustain his position. He must find and gauge acts
and events, claims, and moods and attitudes that are likely to in-
fluence. First, they may be selected to influence a client's antagonist
to adjust or abandon his position. Then, they may be reconstituted
to influence an individual, perhaps a judge, or a group of individ-
uals, such as a jury (about either of whom selected characteristics
and dispositions may be known), to make a particular kind of de-
termination for the client.
Upon the judgments derived from this complicated assessment
process, the counselor must determine the kind of information and
appeal he will use to encourage or reassure the client in the counsel-
ing relationship, or to chasten and console him.
The client's role in counseling is somewhat more than passive
and receptive. His initial disposition may be confused and uncertain,
or perhaps guilty, or fearful and possibly aggressive. He may use
or expect to use the counselor to handle his more intense feelings
by having the latter either encourage or discourage them. For this,
he requires the counselor's information and judgment, which he

then tries to use as a basis for altering or sustaining his life's course,
perhaps in a number of particulars. Law as counseling is a highly
problematic event, involving uncertainties about the knowl- skill,
edge, and disposition of both client and counselor. Yet this most
critical aspect of law is buried in the sanctuary of law offices and
is cast in the image of insignificant or innocuous considerations.
Negotiation or Conciliation. Negotiation or conciliation is another

important legal process generally obscured from any intensive ob-
servation and study. The object of negotiation and conciliation is to
bring about decisions and adjustments without resort to the use of
legal power. Sometimes only the two parties are involved, through
their attorneys; at other times a third party (a mediator) makes of
the process a three-party relationship. In one case, two attor-
neys may get together and try to work out an acceptable marital
settlement for their parties in hopes of avoiding unpleasant contested
divorce litigation. In another, a judge may hold a pretrial hearing
with adversary attorneys to determine the extent to which they can
or might agree on the facts and claims relating to an accident, and
to find the elements of dispute that really are at issue.
Mostly, negotiation in the hands of lawyers leans heavily on the
exploitation of power and the manipulation of feelings of fear.
Colloquies between attorneys, advanced in behalf of their clients,
scarcely veil the impression of necessary force as the best influence.
Formal pleadings which outline the factual and legal nature of a
dispute, in anticipation of a trial, are also a kind of power jockey-
ing to expose a weak or weakened position in the opposing party,
at least as much
they are a representation of issues in conflict.
as
Pretrial conferences, involving a judge and opposing attorneys,
advance similar goals by accentuating positions of strength or weak-
ness.
Influencing, by stressing power and provoking fear, may induce
more agreeable solutions if successful, and more violent dispositions
if a failure. The full range of psychological skills and values is
seldom explored. Appeals to conciliatory types of feelings, for ex-

The processes of successful nego-
ample, bear more careful inquiry.
tiation and with or without modified force and re-
conciliation,
crimination, are scarcely well understood and only fortuitously
applied.
The Trial Process. The trial process is the dramatic aspect of law
operation that garners the greatest number of references to law.
(This is the process with which the remaining chapters in this sec-
tion deal.) It is particularly the criminal trial process, directly in-
volving relatively small numbers of people but great social interest,
that creates and strikes formidable attitudes (Goitein, 1923). Mostly
there is interest in the trial as a means of determining truth regard-
ing events and circumstances. Is the accused guilty or innocent of
charges against him? The proper measure is said to be the probity
of the evidence.
There is also an emotional investment and interest in the trial proc-
ess as such. It is by dint of this that the spectacle and the emotional
persuasiveness in the behavior of attorneys are matters of both selfish
concern and universal involvement. Trial tactics (as discussed in
Chapters 3 and 4), the modes and skills of attorneys, and their im-
pacts and personalities, become subjects for careful observation and
study. The influencing of judges and juries by different rhetorical

styles, the strategy of argument in instances of defense, or in prose-
cution, and the collation of facts and values are matters of par-
ticular fascination from this viewpoint.
For some, there is preoccupation with the vestigial characteristics
of trial, with its appeal as a form of battle. The attorneys are be-
knighted in their ancient heritage as champions of causes. Interest
focuses on the process of intellectual dueling, including the gouging
and emasculation of one by the other. It is a form of discharge for
aggressive dispositions both within and outside the trial ring.
The trial process incites feelings of respect and reverence, and
suspicion and hostility. With its symbolic trappings, in the dress
and figure of the judges, the formality of procedure, and in the
stentorian judgments it reaches, it is awesome in both its display and
its effects. Rightly, it should be a matter of the most careful psy-
chological study.
The Appellate Courts. The appellate courts are another legal op-
eration submerged in considerable ignorance of its true social and
psychological effects. Appellate courts nominally test the use of
and judgments evidenced in "inferior" courts.
legal skills, values,
These are the courts, ordered all the way from district appeals courts
to the United States Supreme Court, that receive cases "on appeal."
The "appeal" is ostensibly to challenge an application or interpre-
tation of law made in a given case by a "lower court." But these
courts, at least by implication if not more directly, have a larger
mission of providing intellectual leadership in law, monitoring so-
cial change, sensing and disposing of emotional dispositions, and
proving ethical merit. In the obscurity of their operations, hedged
by all sort of legalism, and in their superior and virtually dictatorial
authority, the acts and effects of appellate courts reflect some of
the greatest power in society.
Judgments and Decrees. The immediate effects of trial — final
orders, rulings, decrees,and judgments — are in themselves worthy
of study. Law is judgment or decree, perhaps a death sentence, or
an award of X number of dollars for damages, or an injunction pre-
venting a strike. The will of judges is a consecrated magic that in-
vokes the fullest power of "command" and "obey" (Hagerstrom,
1953). Judges' acts are imbued with moral as well as legal signif-
icance, and law is hence at its most potent in judicial determination.
The impact and importance of a judicial decision is likely to be
more involved and comprehensive than immediate reactions suggest.
28 » A LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
It may impede, divert, or encourage a person's behavior, and some-
times may do more than one of these simultaneously. It may in-
hibit, extend, or incite someone's feelings. And its impact may be
felt variously by injured parties, by transgressors, and by third par-
ties whose interests are vested in judicial outcomes by reason of
their affinity in some respect to the directly affected parties.
The most discussed field of judicial outcomes is, again, the crim-
(Andeneas, 1952; Redmount, 1959 b, c; Watson,
inal trial decision
1958). Trial judgments, notably upon conviction, are intended to
have multiple effects upon feelings and actions. They have many
peculiarly severe punitive and deprivational qualities. For the con-
victed, the pronouncement of judgment, backed by the expectation
of its execution, is intended to inhibit aggressive and destructive
feelings and to impede or eliminate criminal action. The same judg-

ment, perhaps attenuated by other edicts more carefully designed
for correction, for example, psychiatric treatment, may also aim at
diversion or encouragement into newer channels of behavior. For
the victim of the offense, judgment serves to alleviate hostile reac-
tion evoked by the offense. For people not directly involved in the
trial, judgment may afford an example to reinforce adaptational and
adjustive actions and feelings, particularly so for the person whose

dispositions lean toward antilegal behavior.
In civil cases, where severe criminal sanctions are not involved,
court decisions may have a less dramatic but more specific effect
for many. Insofar as the law acts to support or restrain those who
would exploit or develop various facets of social living, trial de-
cisions cause or regulate people's behavior. The highly specific pro-
hibitions in trial decisions backed by the power of con-
which are
stituted authority may, for example, inhibit and prevent monopolistic
practices that enable one party to own and control the sale and
distribution of a large resource or product. But, by the same token,
the decision may force the people involved to resort to the prac-
tice of some other form of economic concentration, such
through as
restrictive contractual agreements. What holds for an economic
empire is equally true for the proverbial John Doe, for whom a
court edict on his divorce petition or plea for compensation because
of injury, has the effect of both encouraging and restraining par-
ticular behaviors and feelings on his part, with consequences for
others as well.
Standards and Rules. Finally, there is the concept of law as the
standard and the rule. "Thou shalt not kill" — law relating to homo-
cide — is a fairly primitive instance. Income tax laws, amplified by-

further rules that guide interpretation, are a more complicated ex-
ample. Law and an advice. Or, if one
in this role acts as an ideal
is disposed to exploit or ignore it, it is meant as a warning. It is an
instrument of learning premised upon the impact on the person of

verbal symbols issued in the form of (authoritative) command
(Olivecrona, 1939). The assumption is that declarative law marshals
and reinforces attitudes and dispositions that cultivate the habit of
doing what one is told. Not only in itself, but also by reason of
judicial backing, it is assumed to control feelings, purposes, and ac-
tions (Ross, 1946). By reasons of these properties, supported by
sanctions, the law is valued as an instrument for defining or se-
curing order. It is also valued in confirming existing ethical
aspirations and limitations.
Configurations of Legal Operation

Counseling, bargaining, litigation, judicial decree, and legal stand-
ard may be conceived of as successive stages, though they are, in
another sense, all contiguous to one another and, in varying de-
grees, reciprocal in their influence. Legal standards, certainly, are
virtually always present, since other legal operations are taken in
contemplation of them. And such regulations in turn may bear the
mark of the effect and need stemming from certain negotiation prac-
tices, litigation procedures, and judicial outcomes. Law, in its oper-
ation, is a pattern of influences upon individuals, groups, and larger
social forces. And it is in turn a patterned result based upon
individual and social needs.
Administrative, Executive and Legislative Operations. The most
familiar references to law, and the chapters in this section, con-
template law in terms of the sphere of the courts. But it is also
important to study law-making (legislation) and law administration,
as distinguishedfrom legal adjudication (trial).
The processes of law-making of interest to the psychologist in-
clude (1) the sources and character of motivations to law-making,
(2) the process of gathering relevant information, as well as the
on the designing of laws, and (3) the influences
effect of information
and procedures whereby people's plans become reality through law-
making. Analysis of the Congress of the United States in such fashion
can make fascinating study.
The psychology of law administration would consider how legal
missions, determined by legislative standard or judicial decree, are
30 »S LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
accomplished. Agencies for the administration of particular laws
and objectives vary from tax boards to prisons — from welfare com-
missions to labor relations boards. Some agencies (prisons) are
custodial in their function. Some serve mainly to refine and com-
municate law and policy (for example, Boards of Health, Federal
Communications Commission). Still other agencies (such as Work-
men's Compensation Boards) exercise a quasi- judicial function.
Agencies of law administration can be compared in terms of how
they define their goals, how they organize to serve their purpose,
and how they influence those who submit to their jurisdiction.
Some agencies are distinctly punitive and restrictive. Others may
appear as more educational. In still others, the psychological impact
of aims and means may be mediational in character. And all are
fitted, perhaps competitively, to some hopefully harmonious view
of the executive branch of government as a marshaling of force for

the purpose of giving direction and expedition to the law.
The Law Operatives

Law poorly understood without a consideration of the people
is
associated with it. One has to consider various types of people who
become vested with certain kinds of functions, and with certain
attitudes and dispositions toward their work, toward each other, and
toward their constituents.
The Law Enforcers. The law enforcers have in common the re-
sponsibility and the psychological disposition to assert control and
to limit other people's behavior. This they do under terms of law
that are usually rigorously defined. They are the policeman and the
prosecutor, the sheriff and the prison guard. Their prime function
is to protect the remainder of society against the depredations of
violators. To some extent, they may be occupied also in preventive

functions.
As greater responsibility for control devolves on the enforcer, the
bounds of To cite the prosecuting attorney
his discretion are larger.
as an instance, he has some range of choice in whether and how
to act — in whether or not to prosecute and what charge to bring.
But, whether they have freedom of action or their function is
defined, law enforcers commonly share the activity, and perhaps
the disposition, to be punitive and restrictive. They aggress against
others in the name of the law, though they may prefer to be thought
of as playing a paternal and protective role. There is the notable
tendency among many enforcers to enforce zealously, even rigidly,
and there may be considerable intolerance for departure from strict
regulations and obedience.

The Law Expediters. The law expediters are the officers and per-
sonnel of boards and agencies, such as tax boards, labor relations
boards, and the like, whose primary function is to publicize the law,
to enlist cooperation with and to resolve problems of constituents
it,
without the burdensome use of sanctions. The law expediters also

implement standards in their decisions and advice, though to a con-
siderably lesser degree and usually with less profound effect and
significance than those which occur in the judicial framework.
Characteristic of this group is the need, and perhaps the tendency,
to seek conciliatory adjustments between private parties and govern-
ment agencies. They seek to provide information about legal stand-
ards and their operation. They seek compliance with standards with-
out starkly offending those who are involved. As a last resort, they
also assume an enforcing role and disposition.
The conciliators require sensitivity in the detection and manipu-
lation of feelings, skills, and insights for the congenial resolution of
conflict. They need a larger perspective that affords patience and
good judgment. The subtleties that make for success are so great that
there is frequent failure. The expediter then tends to move in the
direction of overly rigid behavior, akin to the enforcer in his
strongest attitude.
The Law Adjudicators. The law adjudicators comprise the highly
specific group whose and functions are well defined be-
identities
cause of their highly dramatized symbolic and practical roles. They
are judges, mostly, and also jury. In their juristic function, they mete
out the power of the law and visit it upon violators. The judges,
particularly, and to a lesser extent the jury, are agents endowed
with great measures of strength. Their psychological characteristics
are discussed elsewhere in this volume.
The Lawmakers. Legislators, in an ideal sense, are persons who
are concerned with distributing values in society, with coordinating
and furthering social enterprises, and with balancing and adjusting
social experience. In their role as designers of society, lawmakers
need large measures of enlightenment and broad perspective. Though
involved in choice, they ought to be dispassionate in order to serve
the largest number of social interests. They need to be widely sensi-
tive to the experience of others.
In practice, legislators are mostly entwined in the processes of
personal influence. They are influenced by others, in response to
32 •* LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
the latter's need for their power, for their promise of profit or bene-
fit, or for some other consideration. They also seek to influence
others, as a means of generating support and strength for them-
selves and their point of view, a point of view that may also be a
reflection of the needs and preferences of others. Legislators barter
in power under the highly principled image of high idealism and
broad creation.
The Law Manipulators. The law manipulators are usually the
attorneys in their common role of advocacy. Whether the advocacy
be in court or in the sanctum of a business office, it is their function
in behalf of their clients to exact the greatest benefits from law and
prevent or lighten the burdens exacted by law. Their job is to
construe law in the light that is most favorable to some particular
interest.They utilize law in selective fashion to satisfy selective
purposes. They must protect clients from the law, if necessary, and
by means of they can.
the law, if
The law manipulators have an adversary role to fulfill. They

require the talents of a fighter and a defender. They require an in-
genuity for exploitation, perhaps some disposition toward aggression,
a command and convincingness, whether from acting or authority,
and a disposition to feel particular sensitivities and loyalties while
being insensitive to others. They need to be "tough-skinned" but
perceptive, insistent — and yet flexible in the face of frustration.
The Law Promoter-Executives. The town selectman, the mayor,
the governor, and the like, are the advertiser-promoters of law.
Through the publicity they create and are given, they develop a
public awareness of law, and of possibilities and prospects regarding
law. Their further function is to suggest and direct courses of law.
The law promoter-executive needs to be a sensitive tuning board,
responsive to values and preferences, but at the same time a deter-
mined person with a sense of authority and responsibility.
instilled
In his highly exposed and complicated role, he must be capable of
developing various postures. Nevertheless, there must be sufficient
substance in each so that he does not appear as purely synthetic. The
need is for a highly marketable but not a shallow personality,
variously attractive but with an individual intensity and integrity.
In summary, law operatives are, and are required to be, diverse
personalities in their particular roles. Nominally, there are important
similarities in that many may share investigative and fact-finding,
decision-making, and evaluative functions. There are overlapping
activities and dispositions even among the seemingly discrete roles
we have described. But, there is sufficiently separate identity in terms

of role and personality needs to suggest highly particular and signifi-
cant associations between law operatives and law operations and
effects.
Parties Affected by Law

The law are various, and the kind and degree of impact
effects of
is scarcely known. Law may deprive people of freedom of move-
ment and even of life itself. Or deprivation may consist of decre-

ments in power, or wealth, or prestige, or the like.
Law may benefit people by providing learning, and by re-
reflecting values concerning what is proper and necessary. It may
enlarge and reassure the range of a person's actual personal free-
dom — as in civil rights matters — or his economic freedom by
permitting or encouraging particular means of exploitation.
Law, on the other hand, may do no more than seek to preserve
values concerning what is proper and necessary. It may protect a
person's rights and integrity. There may be compensation for injury,
monetary compensation, or emotional satisfaction in the harm
visited upon malefactors. There may be limitations on marauding and
exploitative behavior, so that injunctions will result if a party's
conduct unduly offensive or threatening. For example, labor
is
unions may
be prevented from carrying on secondary boycotts, and
a separated husband may be enjoined from annoying his spouse.
Any particular operation of law may have both immediate and
remote effects. These may be direct and visible, at one extreme, or
they may occur on anonymous, hypothetical parties, at the other.
Aggressors. The greatest familiarity as to the impact of law exists
in relation to apprehended aggressors. Whether they are engaged in
burglary or monopoly, the punishment for and containment of their
behavior is rather obvious. But even as to this publicized group, more
remote effects of law — changes in actions and attitudes as a result
of the operation of law — are not as well identified and catalogued.
Victims. The impact of law on victims of offenses is the subject
of some knowledge and some educated guesses (Hentig, 1948). In
some instances, as in accidental injury, there is compensation, but
this only one type of effect of the actions or inactions of law. In
is
some instances, as in the criminally violated, the law may provide an

opportunity for emotional discharge, particularly for feelings of
frustration and then hostility, when the aggressor is punished. Satis-
faction may take the form of an injunction, as a safeguard against
34 * LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
being violated in the future, or there may be no relief at all. There
may be no visible or considered impact of the law on individual
victims, and effects on their behavior may not be discerned carefully.
Litigants. The impact of law on litigants, particularly where
neither party can be defined as an aggressor or a victim, also invites
consideration (Redmount, 1959). The effects of the process wit-
nessed in the courtroom, and of its results, actual or probable, may
have a considerable impact on litigants. Their view of law, their be-
havior, and their decisions— both immediate and subsequent — may
be determined in large measure by their experiences and observations.
Behavior may be designed specifically to avoid future litigation, as
in setting up procedures or representation in business enterprise
because of knowledge of the difficulties and risks of litigation. On
the other hand, behavior may be tailored so as to draw the benefits
of litigation, and persons may learn the importance of representing
themselves in a favorable light, as in court proceedings, however the
truth of the matter.
Law Operatives. Another identifiable group for whom the impacts
of law may be critically important consists of law operatives. Their
skills and attitudes require that the law should operate with fairly
specific, predictable outcomes. For a policeman, law must have the
impact of expediting and reinforcing his use of power. For an
attorney, customary structure in handling and presenting cases, a
systematic pattern in considering evidence, and a predictable result
predicated on the procedures used are necessary to skill and com-
petence. Problems are introduced when the impacts of law are not
systematic, predictable, and identifiable for this group.
Particularly Susceptible Third Parties. The effects of law on those
nearly involved is perhaps of greatest moment (Andenaes, 1952).
Those on the threshold of behavior and consequence that invite the
spotlight of law, and those who have not yet been apprehended, may
be particularly sensitive to the impacts of law. Prospective rapists
and their victims, tax dodgers, litigious paranoiacs, and law students
all contemplate the law's operations and effects in highly specific
ways that are meaningful and frequently may critically affect their
behavior. The frustrations or reassurances, the limitations and per-
missions, afforded by law may have very dramatic significance in its
impact on the attitudes and behavior of such people.
The Anonymous General Public. The more remote impact of law,
particularly on parties not specifically identified or spotlighted, is a
more contentious and uncertain matter. Many people may be parties
for whom very general import. The prospect of their

law has only a
seeing law in a highly specific and involved manner, based upon
strong personal exposure, is remote. They may be the victims of
unfair trade practices, of corporate mismanagement, or of mal-
feasance in public office. If they are aggressors, they may be speeders
or tax manipulators, so much like a large class of persons that they
are perhaps unlikely to be specifically and individually identified or
apprehended. Yet, even here, "law" has some general meaning and
impact on behavior. Such speeders and manipulators, for instance,
are close to abiding by regulations, and are aware of and respond to
regulation.
Some Social Contexts of Legal Influence
A fuller understanding of law must recognize that current legal

operation has a direct and continuous relationship with its historical
antecedents. It would also consider that law has a large place (among
its other roles in society) in the ordering of human behavior and in
the solution of conflicts. It must take into account the fact that law
reflects social customs, values, practices and purposes. It must take
note of the fact that law helps form aspirations, insights, and trends
that are prime movers in the behavior of people and that tend to
broaden human experience.
Legal Precedents and Traditions of Legal Behavior. Understand-
ing development and change in the precedents and practices of law
is a source of responsible feeling for and interpretation of the law
(Oliphant, 1928). One can recognize in law patterns of thinking

and feeling. They are reflected in the insistence that any current
case or problem apparently can be decided by means of clear refer-
ence to and connection with principles of decision in similar prob-
lems in the past. And they are seen in the rigorous rules of procedure
and rules relating to ascertaining facts and presenting evidence —
guided by strict authority — through which a case or problem must
pass to gain the benefit of a legal decision. These are habits, at-
titudes and operations that are intended to safeguard the consistency
and continuity of law. The abandonment of experience to special
logic constitutes a mode or habit of law for permitting development
and change. Law is therefore taxed with highly intellectual and
limited interpretations of experience. The novel and the immediate
have obstacles to overcome or to infiltrate in the shape of stubborn
dispositions designed to preserve order and regularity, precedence
and familiarity. Codifications of rulings and statutes, together with
stringent definitions and procedures, create strong, built-in psycho-
logical dispositions.These need to be identified for their unique
character and their influence on human experience.
Then, too, there is the distinction between the nominal and formal
procedures to which law is dedicated for its continuing development,
and the "underground" behavior that stitches the law and reflects
other aspects of disposition under it. In the latter instance, one
perceives that dedicated habits are also attended by less obvious but
equally strong exploitative and manipulative behavior. Thus, lawyers
routinely exploit emotional propensities while using the words of
law may be served. In these instances,
in order that partisan interests
rational consistencies in law may be undermined and historical
continuities in legal decision may be severely attenuated.
Lanjo and Custom. The relation of law to social custom also helps
to define characteristics of law (Ehrlich, 1936). In some instances,
law is the enactment of custom, and safeguards the latter with its
power. In other instances, law may define, or seek to define, prac-
tices independent of custom. Custom may dictate a high degree of
individual prerogative in ownership rights, but zoning laws may
insist on the pre-eminent importance of community benefit. The
result may be interesting and complicated shifts in feeling and per-

haps in behavior where law is concerned and where individual
"rights" are involved. Law may serve to negate particular custom;
perhaps the most dramatic instance is the enactment of desegregation
policies in southern United States.
Law and Social Institutions. Law is in itself an institution and, by
its constituted power, dominates other institutions. It may augment
conscience in the commercial world, for instance, by drawing rein

on overly grasping or deceptive practices. It may encourage self-
discipline and self-critical feelings in the field of medicine, if only by
reason of the threat of malpractice suits and close court questioning
of medical findings.
On the other hand, law may prove a deterrent or a stimulant to
institutions in ways that would not be considered beneficial. Rehabil-
itation programs of the medical institution for criminal behavior
deviants may be frustrated when law insists on a punitive disposition
toward offenders. (See Chapter 13.) To some elements of religious
institutions, at least, law may appear to undermine spiritual support
given to marriage by its secular approach and lax, insensitive treat-
ment of divorce matters. From another point of view, it may encour-
age deceit and misrepresentation because of its inflexibility relating

to divorce and the need to allocate blame to one party or another
before a divorce is granted.
Law as an institution bears the mark of influence from other
institutions with which it deals. Penal units are increasingly dedicated
to rehabilitation objectives nurtured by forces outside the law.
Adjudication procedures are liberalized so as to accommodate the
needs of the commercial institution to with greater
settle disputes
dispatch and provide for more conciliatory dispositions. Formal

mediation and arbitration procedures are the result. In fact, laws,
law operations and law operatives are frequently guided or per-
suaded by the pressures and needs of other institutionalized elements
of society.
Law and Modern Problems. The
and leadership role of
creative
law in sponsoring and promoting human aspirations and social
development is not well perceived by its critics. Transnational law,
including the unique problems of the space age, creates a challenge
to evolve concepts and operations that bridge vast differences in social
values and loyalties, differences in cultural behavior, in information,
in emotional disposition, and so on (McDougal 1952; McDougal and
Lipson, 1958). Leadership in determining or establishing values, as in
the development of regional and community concepts to cope with
mutual problems (zoning, municipal redevelopment, transportation
authorities), or in the moral enterprise of desegregation, or in the
instrumentation of social welfare purpose (income or health protec-
tion), or in the preservation of individual freedom with the pressure
of social change, casts law in complex psychological functions. The
diversities, uncertainties, and rigidities of attitude and behavior on
the part of those involved provide an interesting set of relations

which law must manipulate.
FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF
LAW AND PSYCHOLOGY
The psychologist, or group of psychologists, who confronts law
in all its estate is bold indeed. Inhe does not yet exist. That
fact,
there is plenty of psychology in law, and plenty to be studied, is
plain to behold. Lawyers themselves psychology —
are students of
most conspicuously in their manipulations of actions and reactions
38 « LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
to bring about trial decisions. But psychologists as such have been
rather more timorous in their infiltration into law than into medicine
or education. The reasons are historical, political, and philosophical.
Historical Influences
Lanjo. The emergence of law

through the collection and codifi-
is
cation of authoritative decision. This is characteristic, whether one

has reference to ancient law in the Hammurabic code of Babylon or
to more recent Anglo-Saxon law emanating from the codes of
Justinian and King Edward the First, and the Yearbooks of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Law is also closely tied to logic,
in the tradition of Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas, who saw
reason as the protector of ethical values. Lord Coke (1832), a most
famous English jurist, referred with reverence to the premise that
"law is logic. It has its own special logic." Even Coke's great
antagonist, Francis Bacon, construed all law, as he did all knowledge,
as a matter of classification based largely on Aristotelian precepts of
logic. It is law attained its firmness of dedication,
in this tradition that
its limits of understanding, and the basic consistency and intract-
ability of its substantive decisions and its procedures. Continuity

became a matter of carrying on traditions in prescribed ways.
The spirit of the law became fixed. It began to go about its busi-
ness with the appearance of autonomic regularity. In the gravity of
its responsibility to society it is aloof, austere, and superior. It orders
and transcends experience, and is not mistress to mere temporal

fixations. It is THE LAW.
This is the basic fiber of law, its fundamental disposition and the
character of its tradition. There are divergencies, of course, but
these provide only some attenuation to the basic values in law.
Mostly in the past century, and then notably in the less tradition-
bound United States among "Westernized" countries, law has in-

creasingly become conscious of, and has subserved, experience and
social reality. The radical influence of the utilitarian legal and politi-
cal philosophies of Bentham (1823) and Jhering (1879) are the im-
portant forebears in what today may be called grossly a "sociological
law." The implications of Roscoe Pound's pathfinding paper, "A
Theory of Social Interests" (1921); Holmes's famous epigram "The
life of the law is experience not logic," (1881, p. 1) and his dedica-
tion of a career of juristic service and monumental legal decisions
to this proposition; Cardozo's subtle exposition (1921) and applica-
tion of legal (judicial) decision as a complex of behavior in a social
PSYCHOLOGY AND LAW •
39
world; and Brandeis's original use of legal briefs stuffed with social
and economic data (Muller v. Oregon, 1908), and his emphasis on
the association between economic policy and legal responsibility
(1956)— all these are important landmarks in law's evolutionary
trend.
Consciousness of economic, political, and broadly social result is
more than ever American law. There is greater

a characteristic of
diversification in methods than ever before and a larger
law's
sensitivity to experience. There are laws to protect people from their
own ignorance and to prevent shady exploitation. Unconscionable
sales and contracts, though technically correct, may be struck down.
There are food inspection laws, arbitration procedures, and com-
pensation boards to expedite the use and enhance the social value of
law. But the pervasive qualities of law's traditions have first call and
still make the most profound impression in the character of law.
Psychology. The emergence of psychology — modern psychology,

at least — stems predominantly from the shattering social and in-
tellectual impact of Darwin particularly, and more generally from
the traditions in philosophy of Descartes, Locke, Condillac, and
others. The soul of psychology is inquiry, not authority; its end is
understanding, not security. Inquiry into experience characterizes
the sweat of great modern forebears of psychology, such as James
and Freud. If, as it is claimed, inquiry aspires ultimately to control
human behavior, then a natural association will evolve between law
and psychology, but this appears still a long way off. At the moment,
only a reasonable predictability in behavior is the objective which
guides psychological endeavor.
Armchair inquiry into the nature of personal experience has given
way to efforts to develop more accurate interpretation by means of
controlled observation and analysis. The process of knowing in
psychology means observing from a specific point in a specific way
and making a specific finding. Definition and certainty is the result,
at least the present aim, whether the reference is to physiological
behavior, a sense of well-being, or social behavior, such as law-
abiding or law-violating attitudes and actions. Increasingly, both
clinicaland experimental investigators are becoming more concerned
with and more involved with more of the individual and more of his
milieu. Necessarily, in this connection, the concern with milieu is
becoming more systematic and more important in the complete
investigation of individual experience. This concern becomes appar-
ent, for example, in discussions of criminal behavior in this volume.
Political and Social Influences
Latv. The role and influence of law in social experience, and con-
sequently in individual behavior, is a matter of immense political
significance. Law has the last word in an exceptionally wide area of
human decision, both directly and indirectly. Of all the agencies of
human control, vested with the greatest and unsurpassable au-
it is
thority. The authority is formally constituted and may control any

human decision.
The power of law is installed in its institutions, in its decisions,
and in its agents, each according to the definition of its particular
function and limits. These identifications of law reflect a quality,
perhaps the most important quality, of its strength: formally con-
stituted power very existence and expression. The human in-

is its
strumentalities of law, in their manipulation of legal processes, are

disposed to view themselves with a consciousness of authority, of
supreme social importance, and of an intelligence based upon
centuries of accumulated human judgment. It is a traditional point of
view zealously safeguarded against the encroachment of all other
claim to dominance.
Psychology. The role of professional and scientific psychology in
personal and social experience is less formidable. Its power of in-
fluence is great and inevitable only among the severely debilitated
who must rely on the psychiatrist or psychologist for help. Increas-
ingly, however, its widening scope of application and self -promotion
results in an advisory influence in social affairs that is frequently
binding in its impact. Its opinions relating to the general range of
human behavior, particularly its emphasis on individual and growth
values, and its applications in industry, education, and medicine,
serve notice that it will be distinctly heard. Thus while law holds
the bulk of authoritative power in a wide range of social operations,
psychological infiltration frequently makes of itself a superior force.
Its political strength is without office, but its popular hold can com-
pete with the more static views of vested authority.

Characteristically lacking assigned social responsibility, psychol-
ogy can afford to be more imaginative
and personal matters.
in social
This is partly a matter of refreshing ingenuity and inquiry, and
partly a matter of being somewhat poorly informed and unburdened
by pressing demands. Psychologists are likely to be forthright and
encouraging in their view of social problems and political responsi-
bility,but also quite naive in any sphere beyond that immediately

pertaining to the individual. Thus, psychologists are likely to be
extravagant in their claims and expectations. They are impatient
where lawyers seem fixed and recalcitrant, and ambitious and in-
ventive where lawyers seem cautious.
The difference in the measure of political responsibility reflects
both legal enterprise and psychological appli-
limits or limitation in
cations. Where psychology aspires, sometimes rashly, law withholds,
sometimes grudgingly and with undue parsimony. Where psychol-
ogy is adventurous, law must frequently be unmoved and even stern.
Where law is responsible, psychology may be unperceptive, even
foolish.
Factors of Intelligence and Knowledge

Knowledge and intelligence are also matters on which law and
psychology tend to differ. Intelligence perhaps is best thought of
here as the way which one knows and the extent to which one
in
endeavors to find out. Knowledge would be the assured product of
our intelligence — evidence upon which we can rely.
Laiv. In law only the method of logic is formally recognized as a
way of guiding our knowing and experiencing. To know is a matter
of identifying fixed historical antecedents and then establishing con-
nections between some specifics of past and present by means of
logic. To construct an example, airplanes are "known" because of
their similarity as a means of transportation to horse-drawn vehicles
and railroads of the past. This is perhaps more fundamental than that
they are aspects of a technological or atomic age. Where logic does
not span gaps in experience so as to identify the new experience in a
plausible manner, "common sense" or simple fiat (command) may
be used (Fuller, 1946). The essential characteristics of "com-
mon sense" and fiat are uncertain, except that they make for
efficiency and some explanation.
A few words need to be said, too, of what constitutes the experi-
ence to which logic can be applied. As a matter of deliberate
policy, experience, in law, is required to be grounded in certainty.
Mere feelings, personal opinions, and surmise — however intense or
correct — generally count for very little. Observables and the possi-
bility of concrete observation are important. Experience that has
specific dimensions — dimensions that identify it in a social context —
is better than and more than experience that is vaguely "known" and
personal. Experience that has demonstrable effects is also more cer-
tain and therefore more than in the instance where the effects are
real
more difficult to demonstrate.
The result in law is knowledge with a high degree of familiarity
and order. As intelligence is substantially a matter of logic, the con-
nection between law's knowledge and intelligence is fairly clear. It is
further secured by the tendency to give permanence to both its
efforts and results in decisions that are absolutely binding and per-
sistent in social experience. By
such power, it seems almost to con-
struct a knowledge of its own, essentially impervious to efforts at
intelligence and knowledge that come from other sources.
By constricting experience as a matter of convenience, and particu-
larly by singling out ordinary logic as the means of identification
and analysis, law is able to establish an intelligence and knowledge,
both for its own institutional operation and for a larger society.
Psychology. The view of psychology about knowledge and in-
telligence is, in a sense, opposite. Behavioristic psychology (academic
learning theory, as an instance) and psychologies of consciousness,
such as psychoanalysis, combine in the effort to know experience
more intimately, more completely, and in more ways. The striving,
as in law, is for certainty, but certainty comes here more from ex-
ploration and less from restrictive convention. There is less concern
for the social consequence of findings, and, as a result, there are fewer
"sacred cows" and there is less need to "doctor" inquiry in order to
produce quickly an appearance of completeness and invincibility.
For instance, the social contributions of behavioristic psychology are
not impressive. More is known about learning nonsense syllables than
about adjusting in complex social organization. Yet, because of the
specificity of both inquiry and result, behavioristic psychology
breaks down experience so as to allow for insights and possibilities
that would not otherwise be observed.
Psychologies of consciousness also espouse the aims of clarity and
certainty, but their more certain emphasis is upon experience.
"Experiencing" is a matter of combining the contributions that come
to us not only from our senses, but particularly from our feeling and
thinking. The consequence is a more sensitive awareness of experi-
ence and a broader intelligence than characterizes law's approach.
Yet, at the same time, interpretations are less certain and may appear
to be radical and unusual. This is because emotion, when accounted
for in terms of logical meaning, produces its own versions of experi-
ence. These are often more significant and meaningful to the experi-
43
encing person than to the observer who is without special training

in the vicissitudes of emotional living.
Psychologies of consciousness, by the very reason of their unique
exploratory and discovering mechanisms, introduce facets of experi-
ence that are otherwise unobserved and ignored. The operation of
the "unconscious" in behavior is a case in point. The contribution is
a broader but less certain knowledge of behavior, ranging beyond
commonplace comprehension, familiar to those who share the
requisite intelligence for understanding, comforting to the experi-
encing individual, but the despair of those who rely almost wholly
upon logic and familiar historical interpretation as the means of
"knowing."
Differences in intelligence and knowledge become very apparent
in prevalent thinking about personal deviancy, such as crime and
mental illness. Historical and commonplace views draw crude and
gross impressions of the deviant related mostly to the social effects of
his experience. The outcome an emphasis on order and responsi-
is
bility. Note is taken of the extent to which order has been subverted,
and judgment emphasizes the importance of discipline and punish-

ment. Thus, the criminal is reprehensible because of his crime. Its
effect justifies his being severely hurt and deprived. He has not
followed the logical and consistent mode of social behavior.
As will be noted farther along in this volume, psychological intelli-
gence and knowledge give a different accent to deviancy. Crime and
mental illness are observed in more refined dimensions of personal
experience, so that specific antecedents as well as their effects on
experience are important, and so that personal meanings as well as
general effects may be observed. Deviancy becomes a matter of
modifiability. It is from complex circum-
seen as a cause or an effect
stances, manipulable to the degree that one can alter some of the
circumstances to produce change in experience. The emphasis is on
the objective of rehabilitation rather than punishment. The basis and
understanding is, or can be, somewhat more complete.
However, notably in other spheres of social experience, law's views
may prove the more sophisticated and intelligent. There may be
neither enough reliable investigation and knowledge in behavioristic
psychology nor enough pertinence in the multiphasic interpretation
of psychologies of consciousness, to contribute to a substantial under-
standing of complex economic and political problems, for example.
Here, history and commonly interpreted experience may provide a
better basis for achieving understanding than anything psychology

now offers. Problems of political authority, economic enterprise, and
individual welfare, juxtaposed to one another as they are in courts,
legislatures, and political administrative offices, need to rely on the
familiar intelligence and knowledge of law. The intelligence of
psychology applied to this arena commands some attention but there
is no present basis of decision regarding any unique value it may hold.
EXPERIENCES IN THE RELATIONS

OF LAW AND PSYCHOLOGY
Efforts from Law
The fruits of psychological inquiry into law are sparse, and
they are less of a tribute to the psychologist than they are to the
lawyer. Speculative inquiry into the nature of law, postulating that
it is fundamentally psychological, is the mark of a group of Scandi-
navian philosophers and jurisprudents. The intellectual patron of the
group, Hagerstrom (1953) found, in the psychological conditions of
"command," "duty," and "rights" the basis and the essence of law-
abiding behavior. Olivecrona (1939) perceived the sense and signifi-
cance of law as the taking-within-oneself by the individual of the
values and conditions declared in legal standards. It is some element
of consciousness about law and not the immediate direct effect of
measurable external pressure that creates personal response to law.
Thus, the person's response and disposition toward law is a product
of his internalized attitude rather than of external pressure upon him,
though this may not have been the case early in his experience. (One
detects in Olivecrona's formulation some simulation of the identifica-
tion process known to Freudian psychology.) Lundstedt (1955)
stressed what he regarded as the instinctual and emotional character
of law-responsive and law-violative behavior.
A Polish jurisprudent of the turn of the twentieth century,
Petrazycki (1955), reflected a unique genius in constructing a highly
personal and difficult theory of both psychology and law. He con-
ceived of law in the broadest sense, as consisting of regulations and
guides ranging in experience all the way from the rules in games
for fun to the rules in complex political government. The basic and
psychological support of law is the "impulsion," a widely shared
inclination of uncertain origin that makes people respond similarly
in situations calling for regulative behavor. The impulsion is im-
bedded in the person and, if properly sampled in relation to a variety
of problems, serves as a basis for the effectiveness of formal standards.

The trial and judicial process has come in for its share of specu-
lative psychological inquiry by notable legal scholars. Frank, whose
Freud and Piaget particularly, scored the
ideas reflect the impress of
"quest for certainty" in law and on the part of lawyers as an effort
to seek psychological security (1930). Virtually alone among
students of law, he was specifically concerned with the vagaries of
individual behavior — judge's, counsel's, litigant's, and witness's —
that contribute to uncertainty in the trial process (1949). Thurman
Arnold (1935, 1937), seldom identified for his psychological view-
point, nevertheless reflected and acknowledged this influence in
distinguishing and relating symbolic and practical operations in legal
process. He pointed out that symbols, formalities, feelings, words,
and appearances persist as a psychological necessity even after much
substance and meaning in a viewpoint or an operation have changed.
Psychology as a means of reflection upon the trial process has not
been attempted nearly as much as psychology as a means of exploita-
tion. Almost legion are the handbooks and accounts by lawyers of
psychological exploitation of the trial process in order to produce
successful partisan results. (See Chapters 3 and 4 for a detailed discus-
sion.)
The psychological denominators of facts and fact finding in the
trial process have been subjected to some systematic intellectual
inquiry as well as to partisan inquiry. A generation ago, the fertile
mind of Robert Hutchins, then Dean of the Yale Law School, saw
the possibility of bridging academic and scholarly interest in the
probity of legal "rules of evidence," with inquiry into the contribu-
tions of burgeoning psychology in "perception,"
"scientific"
"memory," "emotion," and so on. Hutchins and a psychologist,
Slesinger, combined to produce a series of law journal articles "test-
ing" rules of evidence in terms of specific psychological studies and
observations (Hutchins and Slesinger, 1928, 1929). Rules and judg-
ments in the assessment of memory, emotion, intelligence, and so on,
in testimony were tested and checked in terms of psychological
findings.
Hutchins's effort was to enlist the knowledge of psychology in aid
of law, particularly in connection with the trial process. His was an
instance in a movement among some American "legal realists" to
place law on a firmer scientific footing. Some of these legal scholars
appropriated, not the facts of psychology, but the psychological
approach in contemplating problems of law. Most notable, in this
first generation of empirical social science in law, was Underhill

Moore's abstruse effort to study the legal problem of parking be-
46 * ^
LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
havior and sanctions by means of specific experimental design
and
through the use of principles of learning theory (Moore and Calla-
han, 1943). Recently, legal scholars aided by social scientists — par-
ticularly sociologists skilled in survey methods — have embarked
upon a diversity of projects using empirical social science in the
study of behavior relating to law and legal problems. Beutel (1957),
as an exercise in what he refers to as "experimental jurisprudence,"
applied this means to study behavior and particularly deviant be-
havior connected with bank drafts. Cohen, Robson, and Bates (1958)
applied the survey method to ascertain the attitudes of parents in
relation to the control, including legal control, of children. Largest
of all and intensity of inquiry is the continuing study of
in the scope
the jury system being conducted by a research team at the University
of Chicago Law School (see pages 102-105).
Efforts from Psychology

By comparison, efforts at inquiry into law directed by psy-
chologists have been narrower in scope and, at the same time, more
concentrated. Very early in the modern history of academic psy-
chology, students of individual psychological behavior made specific
experimental inquiry into the methods of obtaining testimony in
order to discern the impact of these methods on perception, emotion,
memory, and the like. were investigating truth-
Implicitly, they
telling propensities vital to factual inquiry in courtroom operation.
Landmark efforts of this type are the studies of Wilhelm Stern
(1930), Whipple (1909), and of the legally trained investigator into
the truth process, William Marston (1924), as well as the work of
Munsterberg described in the preceding chapter. Inquiry into the
truth propensities of individuals, or more generally into the impacts
upon people of "natural" and induced stress, has continued and
enlarged in psychology. However, such inquiry has largely shifted
away from the law for a variety of reasons, one of which is probably
the inaccessibility of the courtroom for experimental purposes.
Coextensive with the development of systematic and theoretical
psychology, there also developed an interest in "applying" the grow-
ing reservoir of psychological facts and ideas to a variety of settings.
Medicine, education, and industry were beneficiaries of this "applied"
emphasis. To a lesser extent, there were also contributions to law,

notably in such treatises on legal psychology as those of Burtt
(1931), and McCarty (1929) a generation ago. Primarily, they con-
cerned behavior processes as they were understood in the psychologi-
cal currency of the time and as they presumably could be applied to
the trial process. (See reference to Hutchins and Slesinger, above.)
Currently, systematic efforts in the application of psychology to
law immense growth trends of clinical psychology and
reflect the
psychiatry, with their emphasis upon personality study, analysis of
deviancy, and psychological remedy. The consequence for law has
been a trend of most consistent application to the study of criminal
offenders and to the development of correctional processes. Efforts
are concentrated on learning more about causes, characteristics,
effects, and modifications in individuals who show antisocial propen-
sity and usually have been apprehended for notable aggressive or
sexual behavior.
Psychology's swelling concern for and with the deviant, and law's
dramatic involvemnt with the deviant (because such striking values
as individual freedom, social security, and the like are at issue) com-
bine to make personal deviancy the meeting ground of law and psy-
chology. Because of the opposing approaches and emphases cited
earlier in this chapter, the interaction predominantly hostile in
is
character. The highly dramatized arena that sparks and symbolizes

the elements of conflict is the trial court. The most specific operation
at issue is the testimony of the psychiatric and psychological expert.
Examination and argument is conducted in the context of law about
matters of deviancy that arise where criminality and mental illness are
in question. The role of the psychiatric expert and view of devi-
his
ancy, and the historical position and slight evolution of law in the
matter, have been the subject of a flood of contentious writing.
Chapter 7 deals with the substance of this controversy between
psychiatry and law.
The role of the psychologist as an expert witness in court, as dis-
tinguished from the psychiatrist, has recently been explored com-
prehensively by Louisell (1955). Since the testimony of the
psychologist is most frequently solicited on matters of behavior
deviancy and personality, the issues and struggles are similar to
those in the psychiatrist-and-law involvement. However, Louisell
also cites occasional instances where psychologists have been
called upon to assess and report on general reactions of a public
to trademarks, in infringement cases, and to certain business practices,
in monopoly suits. And, with increasing frequency, professionally
conducted surveys of various kinds are being solicited in con-

nection with a variety of legal decisions. Perhaps the most celebrated
role of the psychological expert in law, currently, is in connection
48 • "»
LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
with United States Supreme Court and lower court decisions af-
fecting racial segregation policies (Brown v. Bd. of Education, 1954;
Cahn, 1955).
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50 • "»
LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
Olivecrona, Knut H. K. Law as fact. London: Oxford Univer. Press,
1939.
Petrazycki, Lev I. Law and morality. (Babb trans.) Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard Univer. Press, 1955.
Pound, Roscoe. A theory of social interests. Papers & Proc. Amer.
sociol. Soc, 1921, 15, 16.
Redmount, Robert S. Psychological discontinuities in the litigation

process. Duke Law /., 1959, 4, 571.
Redmount, Robert S. Psychological views in jurisprudential theories.
Univer. of Penna. Law Rev., 1959, 107, 472.
Redmount, Robert S. Some basic considerations regarding penal policy.
/. crim. Law Criminol., 1959, 49, 426.
Redmount, Robert S. Perception and strategy in divorce counseling.
Conn. Bar J., 1960, 34, 249-269.
Ross, Alf. Toward a realistic jurisprudence. Copenhagen: Einar Munks-
gaard, 1946.
Stern, Wilhelm. Beitrage zur psychologie der aussage. Leipzig: J. A.
Barth, 1930.
Watson, Andrew S. A of the legal approach to crime and
critique
correction. Law and contemp. Probs, 1958, 23, 611.
West, Ranyard. Conscience and society. New York: Emerson Books,
1945.
Whipple, Guy M. The observer as reporter: A survey of the "Psychol-
ogy of testimony." Psychol. Bull., 1909, 6, 153.
JERRY S. COHEN
Trial Tactics in
Criminal Cases
Tired from a long day of work, a housewife sits on the front steps
of an apartment house in a midwestern city waiting for the evening
breeze to cool the hot, humid air. As the darkness closes around her,
a car pulls up to the curb. A man steps out of the car, walks toward
the sitting woman, and without warning grabs her and attempts to
drag her into his waiting automobile. Fortunately, a policeman in the
neighborhood hears the commotion and is able to apprehend the
attacker before he has a chance to drive away, but not before the
housewife suffers bruises, cuts, a broken nose, and a ripped dress.
Later the assailant is identified as a well-to-do businessman who can
give no reason for his actions.
From this situation both a criminal and a civil case arise. The
woman may sue her assailant in a court of law for sufficient money
to compensate herself for doctor and hospital bills, a new dress, pain
and suffering, possible humiliation, and other damages flowing from
the attack. If she successfully convinces the court or jury by a "pre-
ponderance of evidence" that this man caused the damages she
claims, a judgment in the form of a sum of money will be awarded
her. This is the primary purpose of a civil law action: to compensate
one by means of money for damages suffered because of the wrong-
ful act of another. (See Chapter 4 for a discussion of civil actions
and the precise meaning of "preponderance of evidence.") However,
a criminal case also arises from the same situation because the general
public has a primary interest in protecting itself from this type of
antisocial conduct.
This chapter will discuss tactics used in such a criminal trial. It will
do so from the point of view of the prosecutor and the defending
attorney, contrasting where possible the difference in approach to
trial problems inherent in these opposing roles.
No attempt will be made to discuss the procedure involved from

51
52 • i LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
the time of arrest to the trial itself. The chapter will deal only with
those psychological factors involved in the trial which are utilized
by the prosecutor on behalf of the state and the defense counsel
representing the accused.
For the purposes of this chapter, it will be assumed that the trial
is heard by a jury, although the defendant may waive the jury and
have his case heard by a judge if he so desires.
NATURE OF THE PROCEEDINGS

The purpose of the criminal law is to protect society. This is done
by providing for sanctions against those who break rules passed to
protect public safety. Society thus hopes to deter its citizens from en-
gaging in behavior which the state believes is harmful to the general
well-being of its citizens. However, the public has still another vital
interest at stake.
The and freedom of American citizens have always been a
liberty
matter of prime concern in our democratic process. Because of this
concern for the individual and his freedom, the prosecutor in our
criminal case must convince the court or jury "beyond a reasonable
doubt" that the defendant was the man who attempted to drag the
woman into the car with the intention of harming her. This is in
sharp contrast to the "preponderance of evidence" burden the plain-
tiff must sustain in a civil action for damages based on the same facts.
The prosecutor in a criminal case, in other words, must convince

the jurors of the defendant's guilt to a much greater degree of cer-
tainty than would be necessary in a similar civil action. As a further
protection for the liberty of the defendant, the law gives him a
"presumption of innocence" which he carries with him throughout
the trial. When the defendant appears in the courtroom the jurors
must consider him innocent, and it is the task of the prosecutor to
remove from around the shoulders of the defendant "beyond a
reasonable doubt" this mantle of innocence with which the law has
clothed him. "Presumption of innocence" and "proof beyond a
reasonable doubt" create psychological factors which favor the
defendant. However, other factors inherent in the nature of the trial
favor the prosecution.

A criminal case is prosecuted by the state on the complaint of an
individual. When the title of the case is read in the courtroom it is
TRIAL TACTICS IN CRIMINAL CASES • 53
always "The People of the State of Michigan v. John Doe." Or

"The United States of America v. John Doe." This factor is one
which the prosecutor or the district attorney will always stress. He
is on the side of the people of the state for the purpose of protecting
the public from a menace form of the defendant.

in the
A juror is also likely to believe that the state would not go to the
trouble and expense of prosecution unless it was convinced of the
defendant's guilt. This is particularly true in federal courts when an
FBI agent or a secret service agent is likely to testify for the govern-
ment. The general public represented by the jurors tends to have
explicit faith insuch testimony because of the favorable reputation
of the agencies for which these officers work.
Thus, even before the trial is under way, there are already factors
at work (inherent in the trial process) which may have an effect on
the final outcome, depending to a degree on how they are utilized by
the prosecutor and the defense counsel.
THE PROSECUTOR AND THE

DEFENSE COUNSEL
To understand the trial process itself, it is necessary to recognize

the differences of approach to the same problem by the prosecutor on
the one hand and the defense counsel on the other. Among lawyers
this phrase is often heard: "Once a prosecutor, always a prosecutor."
On the other hand, it is also widely assumed that lawyers whose
primary practice has been as defense counsel have a great deal of
difficulty inbecoming prosecutors. The basic reason is that each
approaches his duty from a different point of view, and once the
point of view has become solidified by experience it becomes diffi-
cult for the attorney to change his approach.
The job of the prosecutor is generally to construct or build a case.
A man is dead, a store is robbed, a forged check is cashed. The
prosecutor must evaluate all the facts and circumstances which can
possibly illuminate the incident. From these he must construct a plot
which precludes doubts about the innocence of the person ultimately
accused. To do this requires the ability to weave together method-
ically all the threads of evidence into a finished tapestry of guilt.
Defense counsel, on the other hand, approaches the same case
differently. He must tear down, pick apart, rip holes in the finished
54 • ^ LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
product of the prosecutor. He must have a mind that can find flaws
and hammer away at them until the foundation of the case crumbles.
The prosecutor in the case of the housewife, for instance, methodi-
cally builds his case by discovering other witnesses who may have
observed the car or its license number, or who may be able to give
a description of the driver. He evaluates testimony by the police
officer as to what he saw when he approached the scene, and any
statement made by the defendant at the police station. He utilizes
the physical evidence: the torn cloth in the woman's hand matching
that in the assailant's shirt; the human
underneath her fingernails
hairs
matching those in the attacker's head. He may produce witnesses
who can testify to similar acts committed by the defendants. He
pieces together the testimony of witness after witness, weaving a
web of guilt from which it would seem that the defendant can never
escape.
Then the defense attorney goes to work. Did any of the witnesses
actually see this man, the defendant, lay a hand on the woman? If the
answer is no, then it is merely her word against his. He checks the
general reputation and background of the woman. Did she know the
man previously? Did she in fact provoke him? Did she make over-
tures to him rather than he to her? Did she grab him in a fit of anger
instead of he grabbing her? The mind of the defense counsel thus
searches for the points that he can hammer at the jury to raise a
reasonable doubt about his client's guilt in their minds.
Even if a client admits that he has performed the act upon which
the prosecutor predicates guilt, the defense counsel still has avenues
open to him. He may build his defense on the grounds that the act
was innocent in its inception and no criminal intent was present. Or
he may attempt to convince the jurors that committed
his client has
a lesser offense (in terms of ultimate penalty possible) than the one
charged.
For Michigan case, a wife
instance, suppose that, as in a recent
shoots her husband through the head twice with his .45 Colt revolver.
She freely admits that she has shot him. But does this mean that she
is guilty of a crime? Not necessarily. She may have shot him in
self-defense or may have shot him accidentally. Her mind may have
been so deranged at the time of the shooting that she cannot be held
responsible for her act. And if none of these possibilities fits her case,
she may still be guilty of different grades of homicide, depending
upon the state of her mind. Was she in such a state of anger at the
time reduce the offense to manslaughter? Did her mind function
as to
sufficiently to form the malicious intent necessary for second-degree

murder but not for the premeditation necessary for first-degree

murder? Such are the questions her defense counsel will raise.
As a result of prosecuting many cases it is true that a prosecutor
may become somewhat calloused to the rights of the individual.
After observing the results of many may be
heinous crimes, he
tempted to give his primary concern to the protection of the public.
On the other hand, the defense counsel is more likely to think in
terms of the individual human being he defends, and whom he learns
to know His orientation leans more strongly toward the pro-
well.
tection of the rights of the individual. This is why it is sometimes
said that the defense attorney must be a humanitarian or the prose-
cutor must be calloused. These conditions, however, generally arise
as a result of experience, rather than from some inherent charac-
teristics of personalities.
Be this as it may, these. are the advocates who face each other
when the clerk bangs his gavel on the first day of trial, saying,
"Hear ye, hear ye, the circuit court for the County of Chippewa
is now in session."
SELECTING THE JURY
The defendant in a criminal case may be tried either by

elect to
a jury or by the judge. If the defendant decides that he wants a jury
trial, the process of selecting the jury is the first step in the trial of his
case. Today in many jurisdictions, the judge himself questions the

prospective jurors as to their qualifications to sit on the jury. In
such areas the function of the prosecutor and the defense counsel
in the process has been greatly curtailed. However, in the many
jurisdictions where the attorneys themselves conduct the questioning
of the prospective jurors, this procedure is still an important factor
in the ultimate outcome of a case.
When conducted by the prosecutor and defense counsel, the proc-
ess of selecting a jury known as "voir dire examination" has three
general functions: first, to select jurors most favorable to the position
of the attorney asking the questions; second, to create a favorable
atmosphere for the presentation of evidence by the same party; third,
to prepare the jurors for some of the problems that opposing counsel
feel may arise during the trial which could be detrimental to their
case.
In regard to selecting favorable jurors, many writers of textbooks
in this field emphasize the differences between nationalities and
types of employment of individual jurors. Sweeping generalities
have been made concerning the type of person most likely to convict
or to acquit. It is often said that a defendant is better off with jurors
of a southern European background because they are likely to be
more sympathetic toward the individual. On the other hand, north-
ern Europeans have been said to be less likely to shed tears over
the plight of the defendant who has broken the law. On closer
examination, such recommendations have little value in the selection
of a jury. Psychologists and sociologists have aptly demonstrated
that generalizations of this nature are far too broad to be accurate.
Factors which motivate individuals are far more complex and im-
portant than nationality or type of employment.
Other authors have spoken about the intuitive sense which an
attorney must have about potential members of the jury. It has been
said, "If you don't like the looks of a juror, chances are that he
doesn't like the looks of you." In my opinion this generalization
also is a poor guide. Most trial lawyers have had the experience of
discovering that an intuitive friend on the jury has turned out to be
his worst foe, or that a supposedly unfriendly juror has supported
his client to the end.
There is only one sound method by which a choice of jurors can
be made: a thorough knowledge of their individual backgrounds
and histories. If he is able through investigation to obtain full in-
formation on the backgrounds, likes and dislikes, habits, prejudices,
and past experiences of the candidates for his jury, the attorney is
able to choose intelligently a juror who is likely to be sympathetic
to his point of view. If he cannot obtain this information, the at-
torney is greatly handicapped by the limitations inherent in receiving
information from the prospective juror's own lips in open court.
In such cases, a large dose of luck is a necessary supplement to the
lawyer's educated guess as to whether he is faced with a favorable
juror. This does not mean, however, that there is nothing to be
gained from the voir dire examinations.
The voir dire examination is the first opportunity which the
juror has to appraise the opposing attorneys. The impressions which
the attorney creates at this point therefore become very important
to the atmosphere of either good or bad will in which he will present
his witnesses. Should the attorney decide he does not want a par-
ticular member of the jury panel to sit on the case, he must be
careful to excuse him in such a way as not to alienate other jurors
on the panel who might tend to identify themselves with their
unwanted colleague. There may develop an initial atmosphere of

unfriendlinesstoward the attorney who excuses a juror. To forestall
this many techniques have been developed by attorneys whereby
a juror is made to believe that the attorney is doing him a favor
by excusing him from the jury, when in fact the attorney simply
does not want him sitting on the case.
An example of how the unskilled dismissal of a member of a jury
panel in a criminal case can affect an entire trial occurred recently
in Detroit. It developed during the examination of the proposed
juror that shewas of the same religious faith as the defense counsel.
The prosecutor promptly excused her, leaving the impression that
her religion was the only reason why he did not want her on the
jury. Unfortunately, the girl wore steel braces on both legs as the
result of polio. Moreover, because of her warm personality, she
had become well liked by the other jury members. From the inside
of the jury box she had to stumble over the legs of five jurors in
order to get out. The remaining members of the panel were indig-
nant at the prosecutor for humiliating the girl in the courtroom.
This incident created a fertile field in which the defense attorney
could plant his testimony and other evidence.
In anticipation of some of the problems which may arise during
the trial that could be detrimental to the lawyer's position, the
prosecutor or defense attorney, by his questioning of the jury panel,
will attempt to prepare the jury for the role he hopes the jury will
play in the trial ahead. For instance, if knows that
the prosecutor
the defendant is of such a personality as may arouse the sympathy
of the jury, he may ask the panel, "Mr. X, regardless of any feeling
of sympathy you might develop for the defendant, would you, if
the facts so warrant, do your duty as a juror for the protection of

if it appears beyond
society and not hesitate to convict the defendant
reasonable doubt that he has committed the crime charged against
him by the people of this state?"
On the other hand, if the defense counsel knows that his client
has a criminal record, he may question the jurors as to whether or
not they would have any prejudices against a man who may have
been convicted previously for a mistake he made a long time ago.
He might then follow up with the question, "Will you do your
duty as jurors to decide this case on the basis only of the facts which
are presented at this trial and to consider this man innocent until
proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt regardless of any mistake
he may have made years ago?"
The jury having been chosen from the members of the jury panel,
the twelve jurors "tried and true" then take their places in the
jury box, both the prosecutor and defense counsel loudly proclaim
(so that the jurors can hear) that they are satisfied with the jury
selected, and the case proceeds to the opening statement.
THE OPENING STATEMENTS
Prosecutor
The opening statement performs three functions: it acquaints
the jury with the testimony to be presented; it may help to create
or sustain the type of atmosphere that will put the jurors in the
frame of mind to convict or acquit; and it prepares the jurors for
testimony which the prosecutor or the defense attorney knows will
occur during the trial and which might appear detrimental to their
side of the case. The prosecutor is the first to address the jury. He
generally makes a simple, direct statement of the evidence to be
presented, emphasizing at all times the seriousness of the crime
charged. He will not engage in an emotional appeal at this point
in the trial. This would generally make the jurors less alert in follow-
ing the testimony.
The statement must be kept simple, logical, and free of irrelevan-
cies: if the jurors cannot follow what opening state-
is said in the
ment, they will not be able to follow the testimony. The testimony
to be given by the witnesses who will soon take the witness stand
must be outlined so that the jurors are prepared to understand it and
put it in its proper perspective. The best prosecutors generally
attempt a matter-of-fact attitude and make no wild claims that will
not be substantiated later. At the conclusion of his opening state-
ment the prosecutor wants the jurors to be prepared to understand
the testimony and eager to hear it. At the same time he wants them
to be impressed by the seriousness of the crime and the great danger
to the public caused by the acts with which the defendant is charged.
If the prosecutor has witnesses who he suspects will be repulsive
to the jurors, he will tell the jury so during the opening statement
to prevent the jurors from being shocked or surprised when the
witnesses take the stand. In such a case the prosecutor will explain
that it is his duty to present all witnesses who have any knowledge
pertaining to the alleged crime; that in presenting these witnesses
TRIAL TACTICS IN CRIMINAL CASES •
59
he must take the good with the bad; that often in vicious crimes
the associates of the defendant who have knowledge may be no
better than the defendant himself. After all, it is this type of
witness who knows most
about the type of crime with which the
defendant is charged. If the prosecutor does this task well, the
jurors will regard him with respect and friendliness and will fully
understand why it is necessary to believe the testimony of some of
the witnesses who would otherwise have appeared to be disreputable.
Defense Counsel
At the conclusion of the prosecutor's opening statement the
defense counsel may either make his opening statement or reserve
it until such time as he is ready to present his witnesses. Generally,
the defense attorney does not choose to make an opening statement
at this time. There are many reasons for this. The most important
is that by the time the prosecutor has concluded the presentation
of his case, the defense attorney's opening statement would have
been forgotten. There may, however, be occasions when the defense
attorney may wish to make an opening statement at the commence-
ment of the trial. If he does not intend to put any witnesses on the
stand himself, this is the only chance he has to address the jury prior
to closing argument. Or, if the defense counsel feels that the prose-
cutor's opening statement has been unusually effective, he may wish
to provide an antidote to its effect at this early stage in the proceed-
ings. When alibi or temporary insanity is to be the defense, some
defense attorneys feel it advisable to make the jury aware of this
fact at the beginning of the trial. However, these occasions, where
defense counsel makes his opening statement immediately following
the prosecutor's, are exceptions to the general rule.
In his opening statement, the defense attorney — like the prosecu-
tor — will first make a simple, logical, direct statement of the defense
he will present. However, unlike the prosecutor, he may introduce
collateral matters into his statement for the purpose of obscuring
the primary issues involved. He will also minimize the seriousness
of the offense. He may, for instance, point out that the act with
which the defendant is charged could happen to anyone, including,
by inference, any member of the jury. He may point out that, if
indeed, the defendant did commit the act, he had no intention of
harming anyone. Or he may merely deny that the defendant partici-
cipated in the acts constituting the offense. Underlying the opening
statement is an attempt to develop sympathy for his client. If sue-
60 • - LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
cessful, he has further prepared the field for the planting of his
defense in the minds of the jurors.
EXAMINATION AND EVIDENCE

understand the proceedings about to take place — the question-
To
ing of witnesses and the introduction of evidence — a few comments
are necessary about the ground rules governing these proceedings.
The questioning by the prosecutor and defense counsel of their
own witnesses is "direct examination" — probably one of the most
overlooked of an attorney's skills, often taking a back seat to the
more dramatic cross-examination to follow. "Cross-examination" in
this case is the questioning of the prosecutor's witnesses by the
defense attorney. 1
A full explanation of the methods and tactics
used by attorneys in direct and cross-examination are covered thor-
oughly in the following chapter, "Trial Tactics in Civil Cases."
For the purpose of this chapter it is only necessary to note the
essential difference between the two. During direct examination
no question may be asked which leads the witness by suggesting an
answer. The usual questions in direct examination are "Please tell
us what happened"; and "Then what followed?" Yet the attorney

must so arrange and phrase these seemingly innocent questions as
to bring forth a clear, logical, lucid story from the witness while
not appearing to suggest any particular answer. He must know when
to ask questions requiring only a short answer, when to interrupt a
witness who begins to ramble or to make statements dangerous to
his position, and how to prod the memory of a witness when he
seems to have forgotten vital testimony.
In cross-examination, the questioner may ask leading questions

(questions which suggest an answer). He may
ask, for instance,
"Isn't it true that you visited Mary's Bar and Grill on the day of
the crime?" Such a question is logical in cross-examination since
the purpose of this type of examination generally is to test the
truth or accuracy of the testimony given by the witness, or to show
prejudice or bias. It is, of course, illogical on direct examination,
when the jury is entitled to hear the story of the witness in his own
words unaided by the suggestions of his attorney.
1Generally speaking, when an attorney questions his own witnesses he is

involved in direct examination, and when he questions the witnesses called
by the opposing counsel he practices cross-examination.
During the trial itself, objections at times will be made by attorneys

on the grounds that testimony is immaterial, irrelevant, incompe-
tent, hearsay, or, possibly, not responsive. Some laymen have been
unkind enough to suggest that this is merely a magical mumbo jumbo
conjured up by attorneys to obstruct the free flow of testimony
to the jury. Nothing could be further from the truth. The rules
of evidence have developed, and continue to develop, because they
have proved themselves in the crucible of experience to be well
suited to the search for truth, which is the function of the criminal
trial.
means that testimony can be given only

Materiality, for instance,
if it has some bearing on the issues to be decided. Relevancy
assures that these material facts have sufficient significance in de-
termining vital issuesof the case to make it worth while to allow
them in evidence.Competency fulfills two purposes. First, it protects
areas of public policy in which some overriding public interest out-
weighs the importance of getting all the facts pertaining to the issues
important to the trial. Thus communications between a doctor and
his patient, or a lawyer and his client, are privileged, so that neither
the doctor nor the lawyer is "competent" to testify as to these con-
versations told them in confidence; second, the rule of competency
keeps out testimony which may
not be reliable because of the defec-
tive or puerile condition of a person's mind. Thus, a witness with
intelligence on the level of a moron or an idiot, who is
or a child not
sufficiently mature to differentiate truth from falsehood, may
not
be competent to testify.
The hearsay rule simply means that if you don't hear it,
see it, smell it, or touch it yourself, you can't testify about it. This
rule again is designed to keep unreliable testimony from being
admitted into the trial. If cross-examination is the law's most effec-
tive weapon for asserting truth, this weapon is useless when examin-
ing a witness who does not have firsthand knowledge of the facts
to which he is testifying. There are many exceptions to the hearsay
rule which have developed in areas where by its nature the evidence
is so reliable that not materially affected by the fact that the
it is
person who knows about it at firsthand cannot be present to testify.

Thus, certain government records, bookkeeping entries, and the
like, do not require the person who made the entries to be present
An objection on the grounds that an answer is not responsive

means that the witness has not actually answered the question asked
him. If a witness is asked what time an incident occurred and he
answers by telling me what he had for dinner, the answer would
thus be objectionable as being "not responsive."
These, then, generally speaking, are the ground rules which guide
the conduct of the trial insofar as testimony and evidence are con-
cerned. Having mentioned them, we are now ready for the prose-
cutor to call his first witness, as our jury looks expectantly toward
the witness chair.
TRIAL
Role of the Prosecutor
In most states, the prosecutor has the duty of calling to the stand
all witnesses having knowledge of the circumstances surrounding a
crime, whether or not they are friendly to the prosecution side of
the case. This increases the chance that some of his witnesses will
be good and some will be bad, insofar as the presentation of testimony
is Some will be truthful and some will exaggerate. Some
concerned.
will make good impressions on the jurors and some will irritate the
jury by their very presence. This is the raw material with which the
prosecutor must mold this case. From these witnesses he must present
to the jury a clear story of a crime, including all its elements. It
is must not become
a cardinal rule for the prosecution that the jury
confused, which implies the need to present one's case as simply and
directly as possible.
With this basic rule in mind the prosecutor will select the order
of his witnesses much as a director stages a play. He must get the
maximum psychological impact out of the material with which he
has to work. Usually he will put one of his best witnesses on the
stand he can, because he wants to make an immediate impact
first, if
on the jury. He must have a witness who will initially make a good
impression and who will stand up under cross-examination. His very
best witness, however, will probably be saved for last, because the
jurors are most likely to remember this last witness when the case
is closed., In between, strung out in the order necessary to evolve
a logical sequence, will be the rest of the witnesses.
In addition to presenting a case through witnesses in an uncon-
fused, simple, and direct manner, the prosecutor must maintain an
attitude of seriousness, keeping humor out of the proceedings as
much as possible. Humor in a criminal case can cost the prosecution
a conviction. For example, in a murder some years ago
case tried
a police officer had followed his wife and her paramour from a
local bar to his home, where he observed them getting into his bed
together. He then proceeded to empty his service revolver into the
two bodies. He was tried for the murder of his wife — on the face
of it a vicious, cold, and calculated crime. At the trial the prose-
cutor introduced into evidence large blown-up pictures of the dead
wife, which he lined up facing the jury box so that the jurors could
not look forward without observing the gruesome scenes. Naturally
the initial impact on the jury was great. But during the prosecutor's
examination of the witness, defense counsel without a word arose
quietly to his feet, walked to the pictures and turned them about
with their backs facing the jurors. A few minutes later the surprised
prosecutor turned them back to their original position. In another
few moments the defense attorney again quietly turned the pictures
with their backs to the jury. After this procedure had been repeated
three or four times, the jurors began to smile. One could almost
see them mentally making bets as to how long it would take before
the pictures would be turned around again. Finally one of them
broke into loud laughter and the rest joined in. This was hardly an
atmosphere in which to convict a man of first-degree murder and
probably contributed toward the final verdict of not guilty by
reason of temporary insanity.
In another hearing in Michigan, the prosecutor was pounding home
his point and at the crucial moment banged his fist on the table
shouting, "Why, defense counsel's contention is nothing but minu-
tiae!" The defense attorney leaped to his feet and roared an objec-
tion to the prosecutor for using such vile and vulgar language in
the presence of the court. By the time the dictionary had been taken
from the and the jurors had been told that "minutiae" was
shelf
just another word for "small unimportant details," the spell was
broken and the jurors, defense counsel, and the judge were chuck-
ling loudly. It is difficult for laughing jurors to take seriously the
prosecution's claim that the defendant is a dangerous man who must
be found guilty for the public's protection.
Another general rule for the prosecutor not to show signs of
is
friendliness toward the defendant. In cross-examining the defendant

the prosecutor will not refer to him by name, nor associate
his first
with him during recess. Such conduct would be noticed by the
jurors. If the prosecutor feels kindly disposed toward the defendant,
why should the jurors feel otherwise? This point is well illustrated
by a recent case in which a local jury brought in a verdict of not
guilty for an unusually vicious crime, a decision which surprised
both the attorneys and the court. One of the jurors said afterward,
"Well, when I saw the prosecutor with his arm around Jim's shoulder
[Jim being the defendant] out in the corridor, I figured he must not
have done anything or the prosecutor wouldn't be chatting with
him so friendly like."
Another important task facing the prosecutor is to keep the defend-
ant and his unlawful act in the center of the trial at all times, never
allowing himself to be distracted to collateral matters. This is essen-
tial. It is the defendant who is on trial. He must be the star of the
show. He
and his crimes must be kept in the center of the stage.
The jurors must be continually aware that this defendant is being
prosecuted for doing unlawful acts. An example of how a prosecutor
accomplished this is provided by a recent California case in which two
defendants were on trial for killing the wife of one of them. After
an unusually eloquent plea by the defense counsel, both defendants
were sobbing and many of the jurors were crying sympathetically.
The prosecutor quickly rose to his feet and said, "Perhaps someone
should shed a tear for the dead wife of the defendant, who is unable
to be here today to cry for herself." The side excursion of sympathy
for the defendants by the jurors was abruptly stopped by this one
statement and the fact that a woman had been killed was once again
the center of the proceedings.
Another example occurred in a hearing in which defense counsel,
in making an objection, argued quite eloquently that the prosecutor
was trying the wrong man; that his client was "but a small potato
in the whole proceedings." The prosecutor replied without hesitat-
ing, "I agree that the defendant is a small potato, but he is the only
potato we are interested in." Again defense counsel's attempt to
direct the proceedings into a siding was halted and the trial was back
on the main track.
In presenting his case the prosecutor must maintain a demeanor
of complete fairness. Such an appearance is very important. If the
prosecutor becomes obstreperous, the alert defense counsel has a
new opening. "Persecutor Jones is at it again, trying to persecute
my poor client." The fact that the average juror expects fairness
from the prosecutor is a detriment for the prosecuting attorney who
forgets his manners when he walks into court. Today's jurors will
not tolerate the vitriolic, sharp-tongued table-pounding prosecuting
attorney made famous by the movies.
A few years ago I watched a prosecutor browbeat a thoroughly
frightened witness, a young woman who had perhaps loved too
often and not wisely. The prosecutor first pounded away at her by
bringing out vividly her unsavory background. On further cross-
examination he showed "beyond doubt" that she "could not
all
possibly" have seen the incident to which she had testified. He ham-
mered away at his point: where the girl had been standing, the
time of night, the amount of light, and other physical factors to
which she had testified would have made it "impossible" for her
to have seen the defendant at the location as she had claimed she
had done. The prosecutor became more and more vitriolic, his face
flushed, his words dripped sarcasm, and the frightened witness
cowered in her chair, her eyes darting hopelessly around the room.
At this point, when in his own mind he had completely demolished
this witness, the prosecutor stopped momentarily and looked slowly
around for dramatic effect. Into that momentary stillness was
heard the quavering, pitiful voice of the witness saying, "But Mr.
Prosecutor, if you had been standing where I was standing you
would have seen the defendant as clearly as I did." The tables were
turned. The jury smiled in relief. The bully had been beaten by the
neighborhood weakling. The prosecutor lost control of the trial,
which eventually resulted in acquittal. This case emphasizes that
courteous and impersonal treatment of witnesses by the prosecutor
is not only good manners but good trial tactics.
must give the jurors the impression that

Finally, the prosecutor
he wants them to know the entire story. In other world, he must
make no needless objections. Constant interruption of a witness's
narrative tends to arouse a feeling of hostility in the jurors. Inex-
perienced prosecutors will often make objection after objection to
testimony which has practically no effect insofar as the issues of the
case are concerned. When, after many needless objections, the inex-
perienced prosecutor begins to feel the anger of the jury at his
constant interruptions, he may feel it unwise to object to a matter
that really goes to the very heart of his case.
Although keeping out testimony or evidence is the general pur-
pose of an objection, both prosecutors and defense counsel may use
objections to achieve other purposes. For instance, when the cross-
examination of a friendly witness causes the witness to become
hesitant or flustered, the opposing attorney may make an objection
for the purpose of giving his witness a chance to compose himself.
In stating their objections some attorneys may also hint to the witness
what answer is proper. On other occasions the attorney may state
an objection of the purpose of letting the jury hear matters favorable
to his client which might be legally inadmissible in the trial. As an
illustration, in arguing to the jury, a prosecutor in a small Michigan
county actually cited as evidence a short speech he had made while
objecting to a question asked his witness. He was behaving as if the
witness had said what he had wanted him to say in the first place.
With the objection serving so many purposes during the course
of the trial, it is doubly important that the prosecutor save his objec-
tions for those instances when they will do the most good.
Role of the Defense Counsel
The primary task of defense counsel is to develop sympathy for
his client, if possible. After all the legal dust is settled, it is claimed
by experienced court personnel that they can predict what a jury
willdo by whether or not they themselves feel sorry for the defend-
ant at the conclusion of the trial.
A was held recently in which a college student at a small

trial
Michigan college was tried for having brutally beaten his roommate
to death with a stock end of a shotgun. As the prosecution unfolded
its case and the jury studied the picture of the dead boy, one could
almost feel the hatred directed at the defendant who had done this
dastardly act. The defense was temporary insanity and the defense
counsel cleverly and ably brought out the background of the de-
fendant to show what an exemplary student he had been and what
a fine upstanding young man he had always appeared to be to his
friends and family. He was dissipating the hatred and ill feeling
of the jurors in preparing to put his client on the stand. Finally,
when the boy himself and haltingly told the story of how
testified,
the voice of Satan had overpowered him and had compelled him
to do this terrible thing to his dearly beloved friend, tears came to
the eyes of many of the jurors. At this point, acquittal could be
predicted.
Defense counsel may also develop sympathy for his client by
alleging that he was a victim of circumstances. In such cases the
defense attorney will bring out through his witnesses how the web
of circumstances closed tighter and tighter around the defendant
through no fault of his own. If he can do this to the extent that the
jury begins to feel, "There, but for the grace of God, go I," his
client is on the road to acquittal.
If his client has a criminal record, the defense attorney may
try to develop the thesis that his client was the victim of unjustified
persecution by the police; that every time a crime occurred, his
client was arrested simply because he had once made a mistake;

that the case under consideration could be viewed as just another
example of how police authorities had hounded this poor, unfortu-
nate man. If the defendant has any physical deformities, or is of
low mentality or of small or grotesque statute, the defense attorney
may attempt to develop the jurors' natural sympathy for the under-
dog, the man who has never had a chance.
In addition to attempting to develop sympathy for his client,
the defense attorney will generally also try to keep the major issues
of the case as vague as possible. To try to raise a reasonable doubt
in the jurors' minds as to the guilt of the defendant, he may also
bring matters into the trial which have no real bearing on the
ultimate issues. The defense counsel may do ways. He
this in many
may focus his attack on the motives or character of the complaining
witness, in an attempt to leave the impression that it is not the
defendant that should be on but the complaining witness, who
trial,
out of spite and bias is responsible for the predicament of his unfor-
tunate client.
If policemen or other prosecuting witnesses appear interested in
convicting the defendant, defense counsel may direct his attention
to their attempts to force a conviction of his client. An example of
this occurred in a negligent homicide case in Detroit when a police
officer — in the hope of strengthening the case against the defend-
ant — stated that he had found glass from one of the headlights of
the defendant's car at the scene of the accident. Defense counsel
knew that this could not be true. Through cross-examination, he was
able to put the police officer in the position of admitting that he
had lied when he made the statement. In his final argument, defense
counsel had his collateral issue ready-made. If his client was in fact
guilty, why did the police officer have to lie in an attempt to convict
him? He completely discredited an officer of the law who was so
anxious for a conviction that he would perjure himself in a court-
room. By the time he was was no longer a question of
finished, it
his client's guilt or innocence. Rather, it was the police officer who
was on trial, and the defendant's own reckless driving was largely
forgotten by the jurors in their indignation against this officer of
the law.
In homicide cases, a favorite target of defense counsel is the party
whom the defendant is accused of killing. In a proper situation the
defense attorney will put the dead man on trial. If the deceased can
be shown to be a wife-beater, a braggart, a generally undesirable
character, he becomes the center of the trial instead of the defend-
ant. And if the jurors can be brought to the state of mind where
their feelings of hostility are turned against the dead person (instead
of against the defendant who is alleged to have killed him) an ac-
quittal is possible. Once
can be made to believe that "he had
a jury
it coming to him," the dead man's ill fortune may become the de-
fendant's good fortune. If the prosecutor himself is overzealous in

his prosecution, the defense counsel may make him the collateral
issue by pointing to obviously improper and vicious tactics. He will
accuse the prosecutor of being more interested in lengthening his
string of convictions than in seeing that justice is done in a particu-
lar case.
The defense counsel is like a boxer sparring for an opening, and

when he sees a weak spot, a collateral issue, a vital flaw, he will
seize the advantage and tenaciously develop it to the utmost.
Humor, as stated previously, is a great ally of the defense counsel.
If he can introduce humor into the trial without playing the part
of the clown, he increases his client's chance of acquittal. A good
example of this technique occurred in a negligent homicide case
where the defendant's car drove into a safety zone, striking an
elderly woman and breaking her Three days later she died
left leg.
of a blood clot in her heart. The question was whether the breaking
of her leg was the direct cause of her death. The experienced
medical examiner testified that the clot had formed in the area of
the break and had traveled inexorably to the heart and caused her
death. His testimony had obviously impressed the jurors and defense
counsel's only chance was to discredit it. Inasmuch as the medical
examiner was testifying to what actually had happened, this ap-
peared to be an impossible task. However, the medical examiner
himself gave the defense attorney the opening he needed.
Defense counsel had noticed in the autopsy report that the medical
examiner had not internally examined the right leg, although the
report indicated there were bruises on it. In desperation he asked
the type of question which attorneys are never supposed to ask
in cross-examination. "Why didn't you examine the right leg in-
ternally?" The witness could easily have told the truth — that based
on his long experience and the clear evidence uncovered in his
autopsy, further examination was not necessary. Instead, much to

defense counsel's surprise, the medical examiner launched into a
flag-waving speech about the responsibilities of his office and the
duty of the medical examiner not to mutilate the human
patriotic
body.
Defense counsel then questioned the witness as follows. "Wasn't
the top of the head sawed off?" "Yes." "Weren't the ribs sawed
first
through on both sides?" "Yes." "Wasn't the stomach slit down the
middle with a knife?" "Yes." "Weren't the vital organs pulled from
the body?" "Yes." "Then wasn't the left leg sliced open and the
arteries jerked out?" "Yes." "But the reason you didn't look into
the right leg was that you didn't want to mutilate the human
body?" "That's right." The medical examiner's testimony was
laughed out of court and the prosecutor's case went with it. The
jurors could no longer take the proceedings seriously. The tragic
death of an elderly woman was forgotten because of the ludicrous
testimony of the medical examiner.
It is also sometimes possible for defense counsel to develop the
possibility that an unknown person, instead of his client, committed
the alleged crime. If handled properly, the man who wasn't there
can often become the big factor in a criminal case. He can become
the real defendant. If the jurors reach the point where they begin
to question whether or not there might have been another party
involved instead of the defendant, the nagging voice of reasonable
doubt is once more present.
The defense of insanity raises problems of its own for defense
counsel. As pointed out above (pp. 17-18), the law historically has
held that a man is not responsible for his own acts when because of
a mental disease he is unable to differentiate whether his acts were
right or wrong (McNaghten Rule). In two jurisdictions, the rule has
been modified so that if the guilty act is the result of a mentally dis-
eased mind, a defendant is not responsible for his acts, even if he
could tell the difference between right and wrong (Durham Rule).
In other jurisdictions irresistible impulse is considered a defense for
an otherwise guilty act, provided the impulse was in fact irresistible
and was caused by mental disease. (See Chapter 7 "Criminal Respon-
sibility and Psychiatry.")
These various definitions of temporary insanity mean little when
translated into the actual drama of a trial. Usually the prosecutor will
have present a psychiatrist to testify that the defendant was not
legally insane when the crime was committed, and the defendant will
have a psychiatrist to testify that he was. Whom do the jurors
believe? If the jurors during the trial develop sympathy for the de-
70 *i LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
fendant and particularly if they develop a dislike for the party killed
in a murder case, they will seek means of acquitting the defendant.
And if the psychiatrist testifying for the defendant can reasonably
rationalize his position regarding the defendant's insanity, the de-
fendant's chance of acquittal by reason of temporary insanity is
good. Insanity is thus a favorite defense in murder cases where the
deceased "had it coming" or where the defendant has a history which
elicits sympathy. There are practically no limits to the admissibility
of evidence where insanityis the defense, since any fact is admissible
which on the mental condition of the defendant at the time the

bears
crime was committed. If, for instance, the dead wife was a phi-
landerer, all the sordid incidents of her past can be brought out to
show their deteriorating effect on the defendant's mind, if he knew
about them.
In a Michigan case tried in a small county, a mother was on trial
for first-degree murder for killing her four- week-old baby by smash-
ing it against the wall. Defense counsel was able to pick a jury
composed almost entirely of mothers, many with several children.
The prosecutor was happy to cooperate. The defense was temporary
insanity. Defense counsel was able to bring out the facts that the
defendant's husband was a habitual drunkard; that he beat his wife
regularly; that they had five children, one of whom
had had polio
and three of whom had been continually sick for a period of months;
that just prior to the alleged crime the husband had disappeared,
leaving the defendant destitute; that on the night in question three
of her other children had been crying continually and the infant had
been screaming without let-up for almost an hour. It was thus easy
to show that this defendant had come to the breaking point, that her
mind could stand no more. Since she had to stop the screaming she
lashed out, and all of her frustration and pent-up emotions emerged
in one wild moment of fury. As the trial concluded, the impact of a
heinous act had been dissipated and the defendant had become an
object of sympathy and pity. She was acquitted, not because of the
technical definitions of the legal defense of insanity; not because of
the brilliant testimony of the psychiatrist for the prosecutor or of the
psychiatrist for the defense (who had come to irrevocably different
positions from the same set of facts), but only because the jurors
could understand and sympathize with the poor woman upon whom
they were sitting in judgment.
71
FINAL ARGUMENT
Role of Prosecutor
The defense having rested its case, the prosecution having no
rebuttal testimony and therefore also resting, the attorneys proceed
to final argument. The prosecutor opens the final argument and,
following the defendant's presentation, gets the last word in re-
buttal argument.
During the course of the trial, on many oc-
the prosecutor has
casions elicited the testimony which he desired from a witness and
then has gone on to some other subject, so that the witness would
not have an opportunity to change or modify his testimony. Usually
these little nuggets of fact are overlooked by the jurors in relation
to the total significance of all the testimony. In the prosecutor's
initial closing argument, therefore, each item plucked from its is
place in the testimony and set into a crown of guilt. Suddenly facts
which seemed insignificant assume their true place and weave an
unbroken rope of evidence to convict the defendant. If the prose-
cutor does his job well, the jurors often see for the first time the full
picture of unfolding guilt as the meaning of the testimony and evi-

dence accumulated during the trial is pointed out.
While presenting these pertinent pieces of testimony and evi-
dence in a logical and sensible sequence, the prosecutor is also care-
ful to develop an atmosphere in the courtroom conducive to a finding
of guilt. Therefore, as an undertone to his argument, he weaves into
it the seriousness of the ofrense, the need to protect the public safety,
the duty of the jury not to allow sympathy to enter into its delibera-
tions, and the fact that once the jurors have performed their sworn
duty of rendering a verdict, the sentencing is the sole responsibility
of the judge.
As he does this the prosecutor is careful to avoid intemperate, in-
flammatory, and prejudicial statements. His is the voice of con-
science, clearly and coolly pointing out for all to see the guilt of the
defendant. Possibly in his rebuttal argument, the prosecutor may be
excused if for the first time in the trial he allows passion and emotion
to enter his voice. Up to this point he has appeared to act without
malice, without toward the defendant, and with only the
ill feeling
cool detachment of a man doing the duty he has been sworn to per-
form. But in rebuttal some of the revulsion he feels for the defendant
72 » LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
comes into his voice and in his final few minutes of argument he may
make an impassioned plea for the conviction of the defendant.
Role of Defense Counsel

Defense counsel with the same testimony and evidence as the
starts
prosecutor, but he must come to an opposite conclusion. From the
same facts which the prosecutor claims point irrevocably to guilt, the
defense counsel must find that the defendant should be acquitted.
He will begin as the prosecutor did by examining and explaining
the testimony and evidence.
However, he is not as interested in a clear, logical presentation of
testimony. He is more interested in raising a reasonable doubt con-
cerning his client's guilt. Therefore, he will generally not answer the
argument of the prosecutor on a point-by-point basis. He may do
any of the following, singly or in combination: emphasize as most
important those fragments of testimony or evidence that favor his
case; interpret apparently unfavorable facts in a way favorable to
the defendant; hammer at the weak link in the prosecution's case,
and attack the credibility of a principal prosecution witness. In a
murder case, if possible, he will try to discredit the deceased.
Underlying defense counsel's argument are the recurring themes
"reasonable doubt" and "presumption of innocence." These are
treated against the background of appeals for sympathy for the
defendant.
Moreover, defense counsel is notan advocate as
as dispassionate
the prosecutor may appear to be. Many defense attorneys tend to
identify themselves with their clients. Therefore, defense counsel is
pleading a cause which is his own — the freedom of an individual
against the faceless, emotionless state attempting to crush one of its
citizens. He must convey to the jurors the justice of this cause, which
generally necessitates an appeal based on both emotion and logic.
Emotion is utilized to drive home the logic of reasonable doubt.
EPILOGUE
Prosecution and defense counsel having finished their closing argu-

ments, the judge charges the jurors as to the law. The jurors retire
for their deliberations, then return to the courtroom. "What is your
verdict?" the judge intones.
Then an eternity of silence follows for both attorneys and the
73
defendant before the foreman of the jury gives the answer that will
determine whether a human being will go free or be branded for life.
CONCLUSION
In criminal trials man's most precious gift — his liberty — is at stake.

And what does this liberty depend on? Too often on the skill of
opposing counsel. Yet, to date, no better system has been devised to
test guilt or innocence than this adversary system. With all its imper-
fections, the trial has progressed a long way since the rack and the
by ordeal.
trial
However, as long as imperfections remain, our judicial system

must continue to improve in its quest for truth. Fortunately, our
courts have not been blind to new scientific techniques and ever-
increasing areas of knowledge. When the techniques receive general
acceptance by the experts in the discipline most closely related to
them, and when new fields of knowledge are substantially verified,
the law has generally proved willing to utilize such techniques and
knowledge. This done by incorporating improvements into the
is
existing framework of legal procedure and the adversary system.

One factor slowing improvement has been the sketchiness of
the contributions of the social scientists to the legal profession.
While the biochemists and been giving the
bacteriologists have
medical practitioner new tools with which to work, the social
scientists have given the lawyer little. Some pilot projects have been
initiated, particularly in the area of reliability of perception of wit-
But experiments have not progressed to the stage where they
nesses.
can be put to work in the courtroom. It is heartening that some
interest is now being shown by the social scientists in this area; how-
ever, their progress to date is disappointing.
The criminal trial is a fascinating drama which should challenge
the most creative minds among the social scientists to develop im-
proved methods and techniques to help determine the guilt or
innocence of those before the bar.
References
Appleman, John Alan. Successful jury trials: A symposium. Indianapolis:

Bobbs-Merrill, 1952.
Baer, Jules H., & Balicer, Simon. Cross-examination and summation —
Containing the principles and practice of trial procedure. York: New
Modern Law Publ., 1933.
Cornelius, Asher L. The cross-examination of witnesses: Rules, principles
and illustrations. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1929.
Cutler, A. S. Successful trial tactics. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-
Hall, 1949.
Elliott, Byron K., & Elliott, William F. The ivork of the advocate. (2d
ed.) Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1911.
Goldstein, Irving. Trial technique. Chicago: Callaghan, 1935.
Stryker, Lloyd Paul. The art of advocacy: A plea for the renaissance of
the trial lawyer. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954.
HARRY A. GAIR
Trial Tactics in
Civil Cases
As has already been indicated, the vital difference between the

trial of a criminal case and the trial of a civil case lies in the nature
of the burden of proof that is required of the proponents; the people
in the criminal case, the plaintiff in the civil case. In a criminal case
the people or the prosecution is required to prove its material
claims "beyond a reasonable doubt." The moment a jury feels that
there is doubt about a fundamental issue, the defendant
a reasonable
is entitled to the benefit of it with a subsequent acquittal.
In a civil case the burden of proof is different. The plaintiff,

literally "one who complains," i.e., one who begins a lawsuit before
a tribunal to obtain a remedy for an injury to his rights, needs to
prove his contentions not beyond a reasonable doubt but only by
a "preponderance" of the evidence. The classic explanation of pre-
ponderance of the evidence is the analogy to scales — if the evidence
advanced by the plaintiff is put on one side of the scales and the
evidence advanced by the defendant is put on the other, and if the
plaintiff's evidence in quality, not in quantity, weighs more than the
defendant's evidence, then it matters not how much the outweigh-

ing is, it can be by a feather's weight, he has sustained his burden
of proof and must prevail. The necessary corollary of the rule is
that if the plaintiff's evidence is of equal quality to that of defend-
ant — if the scales are balanced — he has not met his burden of proof
and must lose. Obviously, the same result must follow if the de-
fendant's evidence weighs more than the plaintiff's.
In other words, in a criminal case the proponent's burden is to

convince beyond a reasonable doubt. That need poses its own
peculiar brand of psychological problems and tactics to deal with
them; in a civil case the plaintiff's burden is to persuade that his
position is the one — this gives rise to a different set of
more likely
psychological problems and a different set of tactics to cope with
them.
75
The trial tactics of a plaintiffs advocate in a civil case are directed
to the task of persuading a jury that his client's position is more ten-
able, more credible, and more likely than the defendant's. The trial
tactics of the defendant's advocate are directed to persuade the jury
that his client's contentions are at least as likely as, if not more so
than, those if the plaintiff.
What tactics a civil trial lawyer utilizes, and why he utilizes them
in his efforts to persuade a jury that his client's position is the more
likely one, is the subject matter of what follows.
Although applicable to both sides of the counsel table, the matter
is being presented mainly from the point of view of the plaintiff's
attorney since his is the burden of proving the issues and he has the
greater task of persuasion.
EVALUATION OF THE CASE
Basic to the proper presentation of a case as well as to its per-

suasiveness, and basic to the dissection of the defense offered against
it and its substance or lack of it, is the acquisition of as thorough a
body of facts concerning the matter in controversy as can possibly

be obtained. That is a pedestrian pursuit, laborious and often boring.
It is boring because clients are often not able to hold to what is
relevant in their narration. They generally engage in rambling tales

replete with unnecessary tidbits. However, it is far wiser for a
lawyer to amass too much data than too little, trusting to his own
ability to discriminate and discern what is needful and persuasive.
The tactics that the lawyer pursues to gain this information from
his client depend on his evaluation of the client's temperament,
intelligence and motivations. He must understand the psychological
factors that color a client's narrative — the desire to put one's best
foot forward, the instinct to place the blame on someone else, the
reluctance to reveal something seemingly discreditable, the self-
interest, the frequent assumptions by knows what
a client that he
is important, with the attendant suppression of material which
might depress his lawyer's interest in his case. The client must be
told that no matter how harmful some past incident may appear to
him, it may not be so at all; that in any event, since the adversary
may discover all about it, only awareness can enable his lawyer to
arm against such matters. Often it is necessary to prod him into
such disclosures by relating the disastrous experiences which have
occurred because of client reticence.
TRIAL TACTICS IN CI VII, CASES • 77
It is good catharsis for the client being comforting — to

— besides
know that there is nothing so bad in one's past which, if it cannot be
excused or explained, can have its effect greatly attenuated by simple
admission if need be. It is the dragging out of the information by the
adversary that is catastrophic.
So must be learned whether the client has been in other acci-
it
dents, and how they affected him. All records reflecting his prior
health and his activities must be obtained.
In good part this applies to witnesses as well. Here additional and
other motivations must be considered — the tendency of a witness
to feel important and to become positive about matters of which he
cannot be really certain, the predilection of witnesses to become
partisan for the side that calls them, with the consequence that
"helpful" assumptions are substituted for observations.
Accordingly, witnesses' recollections must be checked against
theircomprehension of time, distance, and direction as well as their
awareness of the relation between claimed observations and indis-
putable physical facts.
Trial tactics, therefore, begin in the lawyer's office long before
he gets to the courtroom. In fact, he has to make a decision very
early as to whether he is to take his case to court at all.
SETTLEMENT TACTICS
It was long ago said by a learned judge that pain has no market
value and suffering no scale of prices. In a modern frame of refer-
ence this means that one cannot take a list of injuries, press the
appropriate buttons of a Univac machine, and come out with an
answer as to what a case should be settled for.
Settlement negotiations must take into account how the jury may
be expected to react to the particular facts of a case: the nature of
the injury, the nature of the liability, who it is that is being sued
and who it is that is suing.
For instance, there is a well-nigh universal feeling that it is not
sporting of a guest to sue his host. True, the law is no respecter of
persons, and it says that if A has negligently hurt B, B is entitled to
be compensated in full for the damages he has sustained, no matter
what the relationship between A and B. But nine chances out of
ten the jury will apply its own law — if A is nice enough to invite
B for a ride, and B sues him, well .... For a lawyer not to take into
78 "* LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
account this possible prejudice of a jury in his negotiations is to
ignore a simple psychological fact — that jurors, who are no different
from other people, do not think it right for the beneficiary to sue
the good Samaritan. In another situation A lends his car to B and B
negligently injures C. B, for some reason or other, cannot be sued,
so C sues A as the owner of the car. How angry can a jury be with
A when he did nothing more heinous than lend his car to B? Cer--
tainly the law says he is liable, but the jury will not think much of
the law and will discount the real value of the damages accordingly.
The antidote to this prejudice will be discussed later, but any lawyer
who thinks that this antidote will necessarily work, and who will
not take into consideration in his settlement negotiations the possi-
bility that it might not work, is engaging in poor trial, or pretrial,
tactics indeed.
How the jury will react to the plaintiff is also an important con-
sideration in settlement negotiations. It is a commonplace that care-
ful drivers dread motorcyclists, bicyclists,and children on skates.
It can be assumed as a certainty that the jury will have a number
of people on it who at some time or other have cursed out a bicyclist
or a child on skates or a passing motorcyclist. To insist on full
damages when such a one is injured is to ignore the well-known
mental attitudes of the everyday citizen — it is bad settlement tactics.
Another factor to be weighed in settlement negotiations is the man-
ner in which the accident happened — again the lawyer must bear
in mind how a jury would
about the particular kind of accident.
feel
If A breaks a leg while riding in a train that collides head-on with
another, the jury will undoubtedly give him full compensation — the
fault of the defendant cannot be in doubt. No railroad could ever
justify head-on collision of its trains. However, if B sustains the
same fracture while driving a car that is involved in a right-angle
collision with another car, each driver claiming the lights to have
been in his favor, of necessity the jury will feel that the chances
probably are that each was in some degree to blame. Settlement
negotiations which do not take that fact into consideration are not
good tactics.
A jury's reaction to a particular type of injury must also be con-
sidered. Disability consequent upon hysteria, shock, or neurosis may
be produced by an organic damage. But will
just as disabling as that
a jury think so? It may, and it may not. The contempt with which
the average citizen regards "psychos" — the very word bespeaks it
— suggests in many cases an award far less than the full measure of
damages sustained.
TRIAL TACTICS IN CIVIL CASES • 79
In other words, although settlement negotiations are conducted

out of court, the specter of the jury's psychological attitudes, mental
sets, and feelings hovers over the negotiations. The arrival at a fair
value for settlement requires awareness of how the jury and the
judge, in the area of judgment, regard the particular type of liability
involved in the case, or how they appraise the nature of the injury
suffered, or how they might regard the antagonists.
Since the outcome of the trial may be called a gamble, it is good
tactics to weigh the offer made in settlement against the ultimate
chances of a better recovery. The possible mental attitudes of the
jury require evaluation, and allowances must be made for those
possible attitudes. The question to be answered by the lawyer is not
whether it is worth while for him to gamble on a trial, but whether
it is worth while for the client.
JURY SELECTION
do all human beings, have many set, preconceived no-

Jurors, as
tions and major and minor biases and prejudices. They do not shed
them when the wheel turns, their names are called, and they gin-
gerly step behind the rail into the jury box. Accordingly, selection
of a jury requires that the lawyer be certain that the jury does not
have unshakable attitudes against the very heart of his case. If a
lawyer is trying the case of a victim of an aviation disaster, where
will he be if a juror who, never having been in a plane him-
he has
self, feels whoever does fly, and crashes, has assumed the risk?
that
This points up the fact that the jury must be made aware of the
precise charges which are made against the defendant. Every lawyer
knows that if there is a feature in his case which will provoke a
juror's wrath or antipathy, he does not keep it to himself as a source
of worry if he is adept in trial tactics. He finds out whether the
jurors can surmount their feeling and judge the issue objectively.
He can rely on the fact that in an American court all jurors will
understand that no one wants to come to bat with one strike or two
already called on him. Examples of such cases are legion. Boys on
skates, bicyclists, motorcyclists, a guest in an automobile suing his
host for negligence, as I have said earlier, are not usually benevo-
lently viewed by jurors. Each juror must be asked to agree that he
will follow the law given him by the judge, despite his own view of
what the law should be. The challenge to a juror's ability to be
fair usually gets a responsive reception.
Has the juror ever been involved in a similar case with a result
adverse to the lawyer's present position? Would the nature of his
work prejudice his judgment?
What a man does every day, with whom
how he makes his living,
he associates necessarily condition his outlook. Policemen become
inured to complaints, bank employees become hardened to requests
for money, employees of utility, transportation, and realty compa-
nies become calloused to claims of fault, to grievances of the con-
sumers. Jurors with these attitudes carry them into the jury box.
Therefore, when a plaintiff's attorney selects a jury he must bear
this carry-over in mind and bring it out by questioning, and if the
carry-over is denied he may use a peremptory challenge to rid
himself of the ex-policeman, the utility company employee, and any
others whose daily work has inured them to pain, complaint, and
grievance.
On the other hand, salesmen, people in the entertainment world,
artists, people who frequently do more than just lend an ear to
hard-luck stories or to a request for help, who are not impervious
to the challenge of righting a wrong, also carry their attitudes into
the jury book. Their presence on a jury is the defendant's worry.
In other words, at all times the lawyer must keep in mind the par-
ticular facts of his case in all its aspects — injury, liability, who the
parties are — when he is selecting a jury. He mind the
must keep in
nationality of his client, of his witnesses, of the defendant, lest any
facet in the background of the juror, or of the witness, or of the
party, may affect a juror's appraisal of the case, the client, and the
issues.
Then there are certain intangibles that lawyer has to consider

a
when selecting a jury. Without analyzing the whys and wherefores,
or making psychological excavations into the subconscious, every-
one is familiar with the fact that he can dislike a person, a total
stranger, on sight. We may remember the lines, "I do not love thee,
Doctor Fell, the reason why I cannot tell, but ... I do not love thee,
Doctor Fell."
One thing a lawyer tends to assume, in selecting a jury, is that if
he does not like the juror's looks, the chances are that the juror may
not like his — he will frequently let such a juror go.
As pointed out in Chapter 3, there are also psychological factors
to be considered in how to let a juror go. The feeling of kinship
among the members of a group, with a concomitant resentment
toward a real or fancied slur against some fellow member, is a well-
known phenomenon. Westerners do not like Easterners to criticize
TRIAL TACTICS IN CIVIL CASES • SI
a Westerner. New Yorkers take a dim view of Chicagoans deriding

other New Yorkers. This feeling of kinship, of loyalty to a particu-
lar group that a man may be associated with, no matter how tem-
porary that association may be, is often present in a jury panel.
When, therefore, a lawyer excuses a juror, he does so with tact, with
graciousness, almost as if he were saying, "You would do the same
if you were in my position"; otherwise the next juror called, who
might have had lunch with the excused juror, or agreed with his
politics in a casual discussion in the hall, may feel a vicarious slight.
Peremptory challenges are limited in number. These are the chal-
lenges which can be made arbitrarily, as distinguished from a chal-
lenge for cause, where the juror has acknowledged something in his
background that would make him unfair. The lawyer must keep in
mind how many challenges he has used, for when there is one chal-
lenge left the lawyer's views of who is a bad juror must be restricted.
The use of the last challenge may result in the calling of a juror
much worse than the one just excused. A lawyer uses his last chal-
lenge only if he feels that whoever is called cannot possibly be as
bad as the one he has just bidden to depart.
In other words, the psychological problems of selecting a jury
revolve about attitudes, prejudices, biases, and mental sets that color
the processes of decision, not so much as to how a thing proved
is
(testimony, exhibits, summations), but more as to what the proof

will be and who the people involved are. The selection of a jury,
therefore, involves a consideration not so much of the reasoning
powers of the jury but of its attitudes toward the kind of case it will
have to decide, and what will be necessary to produce conviction.
OPENING STATEMENT TO THE JURY

The them is a
capacity of jurors to be interested in a case before
noteworthy thing. During the war, when terrible events were taking
place, it was amazing to see how jurors could narrow their field of
interest, shut out the world outside, and focus on the case on trial.
The lawyer startswith the great advantage of a listening
off
audience. It is his task to retain that attention. This he does not by
purple oratory, for exaggeration will bring the attorney nothing but
grief if his proof fails to measure up to what he has promised. For
a lawyer to make a claim in his opening statement that he will not
be able to prove, or which the judge might eliminate by a ruling,
may prove catastrophic to his case.
The objective of the opening statement of the plaintiff's counsel
is to challenge the jury's sense of injustice. He wants to evoke not
only a sympathetic reaction of outrage, resentment, or anger because
something has occurred which should not have occurred, but a feel-
ing that something should be done about it. This is accomplished by
an attorney's telling a jury that what befell his client was due to
the wrongful actions of the defendant and telling it to the jury with
such organization of detail as to make the point stark and clear.
Where the case for either side rests on scientific evidence the
opening statement must be used to make the scientific aspects of
the case comprehensible to the jury. The jury will then not be
plunged into the expert's exposition without preparation and un-
derstanding.
going to be placed on an inarticulate witness the jury
If reliance is
must be prepared for him. The jury will doubtless agree to the
suggestion that to find out what a witness knows is more important
than how beautifully he can talk about it. The lawyer in his opening
statement tells the jury what his inarticulate witness is going to say
so that the jury, when they hear the witness, can discount his inco-
herence. In this way the jury can be conditioned to the proposition
that if a witness is telling the truth his faults of expression are rela-
tively unimportant.
ORDER OF PROOF
To rouse a jury's sense of injustice effectively and to evoke its
desire to remedy what has happened means more than an indiscrimi-

nate presentation of the facts. The sooner the jury appreciates that
a wrong has been done, the stronger will be its desire to repair its
consequences. Few plays survive a first act that does not quickly
point up the conflict to be met in the play. The reception of evi-
dence is most sympathetic if it is heard after the plaintiff's right to
recover has been shown. A proper order of proof requires that,
apart from preliminary testimony as to maps, models, and so on,
necessary for the development of the proof, the first witness be the
one who fastens the liability on the defendant. If the plaintiff himself
cannot do so, he should not be the first witness. Under such circum-
stances, the plaintiff would be practically confined to narrating his
injuries at a time not most beneficial to him. To
with a illustrate
case: The plaintiff was a grocer's helper. While he was delivering an

order via the dumb-waiter, it fell and fractured his skull. He had
never been on the premises before. The case turned on a defect in

the dumb-waiter machinery, about which the plaintiff could offer
no evidence at all.
Such a case only marks time if put on first. But if
the plaintiff is
the first witness tells of frayed ropes or of broken bolts in the ma-
chinery, the jury will be eager to get at the wrongdoer, and the
plaintiff's testimony is most sympathetically awaited. Otherwise, the
intelligent members of the jury will be listening to the testimony

with divided minds, since they are still in doubt as to whether the
defendant is liable to the plaintiff. The picture is one of "Too bad,
but whose fault was it?"
In another example, an action recently tried involved an airplane
wreck, with no survivors. The theory of the action was that the
designer of the plane had installed a faulty fire-extinguisher system,
based on CO2 as the extinguishing agent; that in the course of flight,
because of a threatened fire, the extinguishers were discharged and
their fumes entered the cockpit and disabled the crew. Illustrating
what has been said about the order of proof, long before any evi-
dence was offered as to what had happened on the wrecked plane
the jury had already been shown the dangers of CO2 in this kind
of extinguisher system.
Ithad been proved that on test flights of this type of plane, fumes
of CO2 had seeped into the cockpit when the fire extinguishers had
been discharged, and had so affected the members of the crew that
they lost control of the plane. When the proof introduced at the
reached the plane on which the deceased was a passenger, the
trial
hand of doom hovered over the plane as it was taxiing down the
runway for what was to be its final take-off.
Airplane cases frequently pose a dilemma to the lawyer because
they know that juries need simple, stark, clearly defined issues.
In airplane cases it is very frequently difficult to make a direct
proof of negligence. The plane is destroyed, its occupants are killed,
there is no one to relate what it was that had happened aboard. The
law, recognizing the difficulty of proof in such a case and in some
similar situations, has evolved what is called the doctrine of res ipsa
loquitur, a Latin phrase meaning "the thing speaks for itself." This
rule says that where an accident occurs which would not occur in
the ordinary course of events had due care been exercised, the jury
may from the very fact of the accident itself. The
infer negligence
defendant then comes forward with evidence which offers some
explanation for the accident that exonerates him. The trouble with
relying on the res ipsa loquitur doctrine is that many jurors do not
understand its implications. They still want to know what act is
claimed to have been negligent, and no one has told them. It is an
especially weak reed to rely on when the defendant comes forward
with a plausible explanation of the accident. A defendant offering
a vivid explanation of an accident, as against a passive description
of it, may cause the contest to fail by inanition. There is no spark,
no clash of issues to rouse the jury. It is not for nothing that statistics
disclose that when airplane cases have been tried on the res ipsa lo-
quitur theory, 80 percent have resulted in a verdict for the defendant.
Most lawyers rarely have more than two fact witnesses, and do
not have to worry about having any burden of riches in that respect.
The lawyer knows, however, that every witness put on the stand
is a potential hazard because he is subject to collapse on cross-exam-
ination. The danger always threatens that one witness may cancel
out some important testimony of another, and the admonition given
in every field of endeavor to "quit when ahead" applies equally in
the calling of witnesses. By the same token, making proof of matters
other than the issue that the lawyer is interested in is only to invite
trouble, of which there is no lack in any event.
It is a psychological fact that it is the first witness who establishes
liability that will draw the heaviest fire of cross-examination.
Good tactics recognizes that, and the first witness on liability
should be the one best capable of withstanding cross-examination.
DIRECT EXAMINATION
Most lawyers, while eager to absorb the principles of cross-exam-

ination from masters of the art, feel that they have nothing to learn
about direct examination. When they are battered in court by ob-
jections sustained as to the relevancy or materiality or competency
or form of their questions, all it proves to them is that they are
plagued by an overtechnical lawyer, possibly abetted by a judicial
accomplice. In many cases such ineptness results in failure to get
all the facts before the jury; moreover, it distracts the jury's atten-
tion and concentration so necessary to the success of the plaintiff's
case.
A
proper direct examination of a witness in court requires direct
questioning of the witness before trial, out of court. Otherwise, the
witness may not understand the meaning of the questions. Where
the witness has been accustomed to answer leading questions in

preparation for trial, he may not get the point of the properly-
framed direct question.
A classical example occurs where a witness in court is asked
whether he saw defendant's car prior to the accident. The witness
simply doesn't know what "prior" means. When the lawyer tries
again, by asking him if he didn't see it before the accident, he will
find that his witness thinks "before" means the day before yesterday.
He does not consider the matter of seconds during which he saw
the car as being "before," so back comes the answer, "No." All
further efforts to straighten out the witness are then met by strident
objections against repetition. Only too often a well-meaning judge
puts a quietus on the whole business by turning to the witness and
saying:
Q: You did not see the car UNTIL the accident happened?
A: Witness (gratefully): That's right.
Counsel should be certain to warn his medical witness that effec-

tive presentation of his testimony requires that the doctor remember
that he is trying to persuade a jury.
He cannot hide behind a scientific barricade on the assumption
thatall he is required to do is to give what he calls the facts. Facts
they should be, but couched so that those who must judge them can
understand them. Some doctors do not seem to recognize the differ-
ence between a clinic and a court, and will use terms which are
entirely incomprehensible and meaningless to the jury. They must
be taught that if technical phrases are to be used they should come
after the nature of the injury has been conveyed to the jury and
not before.
The jury is disturbed by such lack of consideration, which is a
costly psychological error. It does not advance the plaintiff's case
at all for his medical witness ponderously to inform the jurors that
plaintiff is suffering from a traumatic exacerbation of a spondylosis
into a third-degree spondylolisthesis at the level of L5 and Si and
then trying to get an English translation, when the intelligence of
the jury would have and responded to testimony
instantly grasped
that the plaintiff is suffering from a forward dislocation of the last
lumbar vertebra onto the bone below, which has so disturbed and
distorted the normal relationship of the vital functioning parts as to
inflict pain and disability. The doctor can then let the jury in on
the meaning of the medical diagnosis by explaining that the term

86 • "
LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
"spondylo" means vertebra and "listhesis" means slipping forward;
hence this type of dislocation gets the name "spondylolisthesis." The
jury will be informed on the two levels of lay and medical under-
standing.
How courtroom has no relation to how a
a witness talks in the
witness talks in the outside world. In the outside world he says what
is on his mind, he is not inhibited from giving opinions, advancing
conclusions, using adjectives, or digressing when the spirit moves

him.
In the courtroom narrationbroken up by questions and circum-
is
scribed by objections to conclusions, operations of the mind, as-

sumptions, hearsay, to name a few of the restrictions on what a wit-
ness may talk about. To take a witness unfamiliar with courtroom
procedures, with his own special style of communication and with-
out previous preparation to learn to talk a new language — for that
is what the question-and-answer form is — is not only bad tactics;
it is bad psychology. No one likes to be thrust into an unfamiliar
milieu, particularly in public where a failure induces not only a
feeling of rejection, but, what is worse, a feeling of being made to
sound ridiculous.
It is, therefore, the function of the lawyer to know as much about
his witness in advance as possible, lest the witness be subjected to
this psychological trauma of having every statement he makes ob-
jected to as a conclusion, or as an operation of his mind, or as some-
thing else which plainly suggests that he doesn't know how to
express himself properly.
As noted above, a proper examination out of court is necessary
so that the witness may understand what the lawyer is getting at.
It is alsoneeded so that the lawyer may learn what the witness is

trying to say. This requires a knowledge by the lawyer of the
idiosyncrasies of his witnesses. Some witnesses must be asked for
the information that they can give in some definite and precise way;
otherwise they do not yield it. Merely because a lawyer has inter-
viewed even trained intelligences, such as actuaries, does not ensure
that their testimony will sound as persuasive in court as it did in the
informal give-and-take of an office conference. Asking such a wit-
ness the precise questions which will have to be put to him in court
isno remedy; a formula that enables the witness to give the lawyer
the essential facts must be found.
Some witnesses start to answer before the question is finished. A
series of such answers to questions, hanging in the air — besides the
effects they have on the lawyer's poise — will seem to a jury a lesson
too well learned. Frequently, a story has in fact been memorized.
The classical exposure of this type of recollection is to be found in
the cross-examination by Max D. Steuer, one of the great trial law-
yers of all time, in the Triangle Waist Company fire case. In that
case a fire had occurred in a factory building with the result that
many working girls were killed in attempting to escape. The tenants
were charged by the District Attorney's office with responsibility
for the catastrophe.
Itwas necessary for the prosecution to prove that one of the doors
was locked, that this precluded the escape of the occupants and
thereby caused the tragedy. The last witness called by the prosecu-
tion was asked to tell her story, and she gave a long, graphic de-
scription of how, when the fire was seen, she tried to get out, how
other people were trying to get out, how the door was closed and
could not be opened, how one of the girls had caught fire, how the
flames spread, and many other details.
When Mr. Steuer cross-examined he asked her a number of ques-

tions which avoided the basic issue, so that she had the opportunity
to forget about the main story. He then asked her to tell the jury
what happened. She repeated her story practically word for word,
comma for comma. The imagery was the same, the expressions were
the same, the chronology was the same. Again Mr. Steuer drew her
away from the crucial element of the case until the passage of time
should have dulled the recollection and the words she had just said.
When sufficient time had passed in other questioning, he again asked
her what happened, and once more came the same story, word for
word, image for image, point by point. After she had repeated the
story a third time Mr. Steuer did not question her any more. Noth-
ing she said was contradicted, nor was the witness's character im-
pugned in any way, but the value of her testimony was destroyed:
obviously what she was saying was not a true recollection of the
facts but a memorized and touched-up version of what she recalled.
Some witnesses ramble and wander away from the question. The
lawyer has a clear duty to warn the witness about embarrasing
himself and others by these mannerisms.
Since the witness must do the narrating, counsel must determine
how fitted the witness is by intelligence and articulateness to do it.
To the extent that the witness must narrate a sequence of events,
if what he says sounds stilted and studied, or rambling and inco-
herent, it is far wiser to get his testimony by a series of questions

addressed to the various phases of his observations. If the questions
are not obnoxious as leading, nor asking for conclusions, they and
the answers will constitute the narrative.
BAD PRACTICES IN EXAMINING

WITNESSES
Good, courtroom psychology differs sharply from court-

practical
room practices associated in the minds of many people with the
questioning of witnesses, and actually practiced by some lawyers.
For instance, the persuasiveness of a narrative can be spoiled by
the habit of some counsel of repeating the answers of the witness.
Associated with this is the tendency to polish and embellish a good
answer, by restating it, as one twirls a good diamond to get dif-
ferent gleams of light from it. A witness is not so dependable. The
witness may not answer as well or as convincingly the second time,
and objections by counsel as to answer being repetitious, and
possibly some caustic comment by the Court as to what it thinks
of repetition — all this will mar the effect on the jury of a wit-
ness's answer.
Nor is it a good idea to try to make an answer more convincing
by asking the witness in a raised, challenging voice, "Are you sure
about that?" Nothing is gained. The jury may think that the lawyer
himself doesn't believe it; the witness may feel that he has perhaps
made an error.
sometimes happens for one reason or another that the witness
It
does not get the point of the question and simply does not know
what to answer. A good lawyer does not press him. The witness will
become disturbed, lose confidence, feel that he is failing in what is
expected of him, and may decide what is wanted in the strangest
way.
A good lawyer also knows that he should not ask leading ques-
tions. The other side does not like it. The judge frowns on it and,
in fact, the jury would not even if no one objected. Any
like it
intelligent juror can see that it is the lawyer who is chanting the
prayer and the witness giving out with the Amen. Hence, a proper
presentation of a case avoids leading questions on any material mat-
ter save in certain exceptional cases.
SETTING THE STAGE FOR

CROSS-EXAMINATION
Carelessness often results because of failure of counsel to warn

his witness of some catch questions which may be asked of him. The
typical one whether the witness has discussed the facts of the case
is
prior to coming to court. Many witnesses hearing this question for

the first time in court, asked in a tone suggesting the commission of
a high misdemeanor, feel that they are being charged with perjury
and deny having had any communication with counsel. They should
have been advised of the procedures customary in a forum in which
they are strangers. Similarly, the tendency of a witness to say that
an event took a minute or two to occur, when it actually occurred
in a matter of seconds, should be corrected so that the witness will
be more accurate in his testimony. It is unfair to have a witness, who
meant a second and said a minute, harried by a remorseless cross-
examination.
All lawyers tend to overanxiety about the weaknesses in their
cases which they hope their adversary knows nothing about; yet
they are afraid of being too optimistic about such a possible ignor-
ance. It is good psychological practice for the plaintiff's counsel to
make the disclosure rather than to have a cross-examination uncover
it. Such a disclosure takes the sting out of any cross-examination on
the issue. When something dragged out in cross-examination the
is
jury may feel that it must have been something wrong or repre-
hensible and so was concealed.
The client may
have had a previous accident which, however, did
not involve the injuries in suit. The lawyer weighs the type of acci-
dent it was, the apparent if not real similarity of injury, or its real
relevance, and brings it out on direct examination in the manner best
calculated to reduce import or significance on the particular issue
its
being litigated. If the lawyer has any lurking doubts about the effect
of a forced revelation he does not wait for the development of sus-
picion and doubt raised by defendant's questions — he brings it out
himself. He casually and briefly, by his direct questioning, brings
out the dissimilarity between the injuries without making it appear
that there is a vexing problem. A poker face can be just as important
in a trial of a lawsuit as it is in poker. The rule of revelation is fol-
lowed any matter which counsel feels would give the adversary
in
the opportunity to cloud the atmosphere of the trial. A first impres-
90 • "
LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
sion can be so very powerful, that great effort is necessary to eradi-
cate it.Sometimes redirect examination, when such an attempt can
first be made, may be too late.
DEMONSTRATIVE EVIDENCE
In recent years there has been a widespread practice to dramatize

jury trials in personal injury actions. All types of devices have been
employed — from dropping artificial legs in the laps of jurors to
using lurid moving pictures of brain surgery. The simplest device
used is the blackboard, where the economic loss is computed.
The theory behind demonstrative evidence is that one picture or
one model is worth a thousand words. When limited by the dic-
tates of good taste and objectivity, demonstrative evidence can help
to make a medical claim clear to the jury. If too lifelike, however, or
too dramatic, there may be a revulsion — jurors do not like to be
shocked any more than does anyone else.
Other types of demonstrative evidence are demonstrations and
tests made in court. Here the lawyer must have great regard for
what is known in the engineering profession as "Murphy's Law,"
which states that if anything can go wrong it will.
From a jury's standpoint the ridicule engendered by a failing
experiment or demonstration is disastrous to the side presenting it.
The psychological bases of a universal subject of laughter, a man
slipping banana peel, are strongest when it is an expert that slips.
on a
Ridicule is anathema to a position urged in court, and any lawyer
who refuses to be restrained by Murphy's Law is flirting with grave
trouble.
In a case recently tried, the plaintiff's claim was that a ladder had
been manufactured by the defendant with inadequate materials and
improper design, that as a result it collapsed on anticipated use. The
defendant had a whole host of experts to testify to the excellence of
the design, the superior quality of the material, and the thoroughness
with which the tests and inspections were made before the ladder was
distributed for sale to the public. All the experts were estimable
gentlemen, highly qualified, and very articulate. To demonstrate how
right they were, the defense obtained the Court's permission to test
out a similar ladder outside the courthouse. The ladder was placed up
against the wall of the building, and mechanics were sent up the
ladder to show that it could carry weight far in excess of that exerted
TRIAL TACTICS IN CIVIL CASES •
91
by the plaintiff when the accident happened. The intent was to

demonstrate that the ladder broke not because of any deficiency in it
but because the plaintiff had misused it. Unfortunately, the defense
had not had the foresight to judge the effect of the rather soft soil
on which the ladder rested during the experiment. Long before the
loads on it had reached the amount that plaintiff had testified to, the
ladder began to buckle ominously and the experiment ended
ignominiously.
CROSS-EXAMINATION
What is it that the cross-examination seeks? Generally speaking,

there are two prove "recollection" of events from "recon-
things: to
struction"; and to test motivation and interest. The cross-examiner
seeks a lever with which to pry apart the opposed testimony. He
centers upon the tendency of witnesses to be favorable to the side
which calls them and to suppress what is helpful to the other side.
Since the jury will decide on what it considers the probabilities of the
case, as well as the fitness of things, the aim of cross-examination is to
downgrade the story or the storyteller. The art of "cross-examina-
tion" is prostituted by "examining crossly." If it is offensive to the
jury, it makes no difference how successful it is.
There usually is a demolition plan in the mind of the cross-
examiner: Does the witness know too much? How did he have the
time to observe all of it? When and how was it all pieced together
and with whose help? A lawyer must feel his way. The aphorism that
a lawyer must know what answer he is going to get before he puts
his question does not always hold. There are situations where counsel
must cross-examine because the witness's testimony has seriously
damaged his case. The questioning is aimed at mitigating the force of
the testimony, not by asking for its very rare
repetition, except in
instances where it seems to be a carefully rehearsed story committed
to memory. Where the lawyer knows who the witness will be, the
cross-examination must be carefully prepared with an appreciation of
the psychological moment to stop. In a famous trial in which a
woman was charged with her stepmother's murder, the prosecution
called the housekeeper, whose testimony showed that the defendant
was the only one who had been in the house and therefore had the
sole opportunity to commit it. It was vital for the defense to show a
family atmosphere making murder an incredible supposition. The
housekeeper was of fine character, bright and intelligent. She had to
"*
be questioned and her answers could not be forecast. How the
defense lawyer formulated each question to demonstrate a peaceful
household, but poised to drop the subject if any answer betrayed
his hopes, was a masterpiece of psychological preparation. He had
one hard fact on which to commence his cross-examination: the maid
had been employed in the family for three years. Listen to his
questioning:
Q: "Did you have any trouble there?" If she said "Yes," the cross-
examiner could retort without fear of contradiction, "But you did stay
there for three years," and then, accepting the answer as a warning, go
to some other topic, as if he had scored a point. But she said, "No, sir."
He went on to exploit this gain with the next suggestive question.
Q: "A pleasant place to live?" If he got a 'Yes," it would certainly
suggest that things were not only all right for the maid, but with the
household too. If she said "No," he still had his retreat open and he could
say, "But you stayed there three years and you never had any trouble."
But the first "Yes" she had given suggested another "Yes" to the ques-
tion which seemed so similar, and that was her reply. came the Now
most delicate point in the defense. It was the danger spot. Note the art-
less way in which the question was phrased.
Q: "You never saw anything out of the way?" What could she say?
A respectable, religious girl like the housekeeper does not describe places
as "pleasant"where "out of the way" things occur, as the lawyer would
be quick to remind her if her answer were disappointing. She said, "No,
sir," and a gem in the cross-examiner's art was on the table. Certainly
he could never, without careful preparation, have risked asking the wit-
ness if she had ever observed quarreling between the daughter and the
stepmother. (Lustgarten, 1950)
The lawyer must know enough to stop while he is ahead, to let

well enough alone. The cross-examiner must constantly sniff the
atmosphere for signs of danger. It may be a paradox, but he is at
once inwardly apprehensive and outwardly confident. He never
cross-examines just to hear once more some evidence which delighted
him, either on the witness's direct or on his cross-examination. He
may not hear it again. Only too often the witness may rephrase his
answer so as to rob it of its original effect. He may guilelessly and
with the jury's sympathy explain away his answer.
THE FINAL ARGUMENT

One often hears the statement that the case was won on summation.
Although not strictly true, this is a concise way of pointing out that
it is not enough to hear the testimony and listen to the evidence. The
material in many cases is in the record to justify the verdict, but the
facts must be selected and woven into a convincing pattern.
We have advanced a long way in jury persuasion in the past fifty
years. The old hell fire and brimstone won't do. True enough, the
average juror does not go through laborious mental processes to form
his usual judgments. This, however, is by no means to say that he
does not conform even in a simple way to what he conceives to be
some logical process in his thinking.
No adult admits even to himself that his opinions and judgments
are childish, immature, prejudiced, and baseless. However poorly
supported his premises are, however blind his interpretation of the
facts he deals with, he in some way vests them with what he con-
ceives to be a logical validity. For these reasons, to use the logical
method frankly and avowedly with a jury is in most cases to disarm
the jurors from their suspicions, always alive, that the speaker or
advocate is trying to get the ball past them.
To be logical is not the same thing as to be dry as dust or boring.
Logical thought can be conveyed in the language of moving elo-
quence, and the tones of sincerest advocacy are not inconsistent with
fiery zeal. more often than not true that a jury will be
It is far
brought to conviction by a logical approach to its intelligence rather

than by any other method. No one likes to be thought unintelligent
or so gullible that the wool can be pulled over his eyes by glib and
meaningless talk.
The summation must be guided by what one knows the Court is

going to charge the jury. The Court must charge the preponderance
of evidence rule. Long before that, the plaintiff's counsel should have
carefully explained to the jurors what itmeans and have proved to
them that he has established his case far beyond even preponderance
of evidence. If the jurors have not been told about the preponderance
of evidence rule during the summation and hear it for the first time
from the Court in its charge, they frequently misunderstand it. Many
judges do not deal with the subject any further than to say that the
plaintiff is entitled to recover if the preponderance of evidence is in
his favor. Only too often the jurors interpret such a charge as mean-
ing that if they have any doubts about the facts they must find
against the plaintiff.
Some jurors, while sitting in a criminal case, may have heard the
Court's charge on the reasonable doubt rule. The lawyer in a civil
case must emphasize to his jury that the law in its wisdom puts no
94 • i LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
such burden on any plaintiff in a civil case. It should be pointed out
to the jurors that the law recognizes the impossibility and injustice
of requiring one to prove his case beyond a doubt; that all of us daily
decide on actions and conduct, by weighing the pros and cons — the
doubts — one way or the other. Shall I take this job — or buy this
house — or take this partner? No course of action is so illuminated, so
clear, that there is never any doubt. We make up our minds on the
whole and on the weight of the arguments.
issue
Counsel must always remember that after all the speeches are over,
the "dread" charge on contributory negligence must be given. De-
pending on the jurisdiction, the law holds that an injured person may
not prevail in whole or in part if his injury is contributed to by his
own fault or omission to take care. This is known as the doctrine of
contributory negligence. When the judge charges that doctrine,
particularly in a jurisdiction where the slightest degree of con-
tributory negligence bars recovery, no matter how negligent the
defendant may have been, it never sounds good to the plaintiff. Many
jurors — especially women — search meticulously and minutely for
evidence of contributory negligence. Counsel should demonstrate on
summation that there was none.
He makes clear to the jury that everyone could do something
better the second time if he had the God-given power of hindsight,
that hindsight has 20/20 vision. People injured in the course of their
daily activities should be judged from the point of view of one going
about normal business — and not from the scientific and detached
his
observation of the jury box — removed from all the other activities
heightening and distorting the atmosphere and surroundings in which
the accident happened. One does not go up and down the stairs of
his home or walk on the streets with his attention as alert as it would
be if he were rowing a boat in shark-infested waters.
Nor is he called on to be an animated guide in the tenement house
he lives in — and to ever and always remember that on the second
step of the first section of the stairway leading to the first floor the
step is on the wall side, and that on the banister side near the
loose
second step from the top on the final section leading to the top floor
there is a scooped-out spot on the step where he could easily turn an
ankle.
Counsel does not try to answer every point raised by the other
side. In the first place, it makes for a wholly defensive attitude and
disrupts the proper presentation of his own case. The jury is cer-
tainly not keeping score of every point to see whether it is properly
answered or not. In many cases a summation can forcefully be made

for either side on the proof advanced by that side without taking up
the adversary's proof at all. This fact is mentioned, not because it is
recommended as the summation of choice, but because it illustrates
that it is not essential that a summation segregate each point made
by the adversary in order to answer it fully.
In actual practice a very strong argument may be raised by one
side to which there is really no adequate reply. Rather than spend a
lot of time assailing a strong position with insufficient ammunition, it
would be wiser to ignore it and rely entirely on the strength of one's
own case. It is the over-all picture of the case that must be shown to
be important and controlling and not any one particular part of it.
A lawsuit is not a disinterested investigation but a bitter duel
between adversaries. However, zeal is no cloak for offensiveness. No
argument was ever made more persuasive by vituperation or other
coarse ad hominem approach. No one should forget that the trial is
being conducted in a forum of law before a jury intent on justice.
On this note the case may well be left to the jury.
Reference
Lustgarten, E. M. Verdict in dispute. New York: Charles Scribner Sons,

1950.
CHARLES WINICK
The Psychology
of Juries
Approximately one million Americans are called for jury duty-

each year. They are participating in a procedure which has been
described by Blackstone as "the glory of the English law," and which
distinguishes both English and American trials. Beginning in ninth-
century France, the jury was originally a group of men compelled by
the king to take an oath. The Normans brought it to England, where
the jury was a body of men used in an inquisition or inquest and not
part of the administration of justice. The oath was a guarantor of
veracity, and only the king could compel the taking of the oath.
The beginning of the modern use of juries was an order by Henry II,
by the Grand Assize, that a litigant in a dispute about title to land
could summon a royal jury. The men on the jury were called because
they knew the facts in the disputed case, and were rejected if they
did not. A litigant won when he got twelve oaths. This was the
origin of the trial, of the requirement of unanimity, and of the use of
twelve jurors. Twelve jurors are needed because of the traditional
English abhorrence of the decimal system and because of the English
preference for twelve, as in the twelve pennies in a shilling.
In 1215, Pope Innocent II effectively prohibited trial by ordeal —

the previous procedure — by forbidding ecclesiastics to participate in
ordeals. In his 1166 Assize of Clarendon, Henry II what we
started
know today as the grand jury and the bill of indictment, by re-
quiring a jury to report any of its members suspected of committing
certain crimes. For some time after the jury supplanted the ordeal as
a method of trial, the jurors who brought the indictment were also
the persons who tried the case. In 1352, Edward II ruled that no
indictor should also try a case. The jury gradually changed from a
group deciding a case on the basis of its pretrial knowledge to a
group which got information from outside. This information was
initially given haphazardly, privately to one or two jurors, or pub-
licly in response to a general invitation. Gradually, procedures for

96
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JURIES • 97
admission of evidence developed, until today a person with prior

knowledge of the facts of a case probably would not be permitted to
serve as a juror.
The judge and the jury were never formally created as separate
institutions. The jury derived its powers from the judge's willingness
to accept its verdict. In theory, the jury is still an instrument used by
judges to reach a decision. The jury's verdict has no legal effect
until the judge's judgment is entered.
Ever since the jury system began to flourish in America, after
complaints by colonists that the king was depriving them of trial by
jury, there has been a considerable debate over its relative merit.
There is no clear statement in the law of the kind of cases for which
juries are and are not suited. Opponents of the jury system have
pointed out that the two countries which gave rise to the jury,
France and England, have been using it less and less. Hardly a year
goes by without a national magazine publishing a strong attack on
our jury system, or a distinguished jurist praising it. Every attack on
juries seems to elicit an equally vigorous defense.
Although there have been considerable changes in civil and crimi-
nal codes, there have been practically no changes in the jury system.
Its many alleged imperfections have been discussed, but such discus-
sion seems to have had little effect on jury procedure, possibly

because of the power of custom or possibly because of the lack of
any effective alternate procedure. Attempts to change the jury
system have been attacked in some quarters as attempts to upset the
system of checks and balances which judge and jury present to each
other.
The subject has occasioned novels (Postgate, 1940), first-person
accounts (Sutliffe, 1925), best sellers by judges (Bok, 1941), and
motion pictures like the 1959 success "Twelve Angry Men," in addi-
tion to extensive scholarly discussion (Busch, 1949; Williams, 1955),
especially since the growth of the "legal realist" movement of the
last half century (Green, 1930; Arnold, 1935; Frank, 1949). The
"legal realists" have called attention to what actually happens in the
courts, in contrast to the theory of what happens (see Chapter 2).
HOW THE JURY SYSTEM WORKS
What is the jury system and why has it attracted such extravagant
praise and blame? Trial by jury is an integral part of the federal
98 • , LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
court system (Judicial Conference, 1942). The state legislatures
have established their own procedures for juries on the local level.
On federal and is covered by the equal
local levels, jury selection
protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which entitles all
litigants to have prospective jurors selected from a cross section of
the community. This does not mean that a Negro litigant, for exam-
ple, must have a Negro on a jury which is trying his case, but it does
mean that the panel of prospective jurors should include Negroes.
Uniform qualifications for federal jury duty are prescribed by law
(United States Code, 1952). Jurors in state and local jurisdictions are
usually selected by commissioners specifically charged by law with
this responsibility. Among the criteria used for selection of jurors
are age; citizenship; lack of a criminal record; ability to read, speak,
and understand English; taxpayer status; good health; mental
capacity; and a fair education (Note, 1956). Some states, such as
Nebraska, Tennessee, and Virginia, have relatively many specific
requirements. Other states, such as Massachusetts, Ohio, and Dela-
ware, permit jurors to be selected on the basis of their possession of
relatively few of the many possible requirements for jury service.
The core of most of the lists of citizens from which jurors are
often chosen is the roster of registered voters in the community. It
thus usually excludes persons under twenty-one. Most jurisdictions
require prospective jurors to execute a questionnaire which may
include their attitudes toward various kinds of punishment. Many
occupational groups, such as teachers and lawyers and other profes-
sionals, are often exempt from jury duty. Other prospective jurors
may be sick, or have business out of town, or be otherwise unable to
be present at the specific time that they are called. Groups that are
underrepresented in juries include those with very low income and
the poorly educated. Exemptions and excuses usually eliminate from
60 to 80 percent of the persons on the original list of prospective
jurors.
The juror may be which only private
called either in a civil case, in
rights are involved, or in a criminal matter. Trial by jury is required
by federal and state constitutions in most criminal and many civil
cases. The defendant in a criminal case may waive a jury and be tried
by judge alone, and both parties in a civil suit may give such waivers.
It is thus the consent of litigants which keeps the jury system in use.
The lawyer for either side is permitted to determine whether a juror
has any attitudes which might prejudice a fair trial for his client, in
a pretrial or voir dire examination of jurors. The lawyer has a much
greater opportunity to screen jurors in a state or local court than in
a federal Court, where the Court is be more active in select-
likely to
ing the jury than it is in a state or local court. The judge conducts the
pretrial examination of prospective jurors in ten states, the lawyer
does in eleven states, and both do in the other states. If the prelimi-
nary interview indicates a specific reason for believing that a pro-
spective juror will be prejudiced, his presence on the jury may be
challenged by a lawyer for either side. Each lawyer is permitted an
unlimited number of such challenges "for cause." Each lawyer is
also permitted a fixed number of peremptory challenges, which
permit him to disqualify a prospective juror without giving a specific
reason for doing so. Lawyers typically engage in many more per-
emptory challenges than challenges "for cause."
The jury of twelve men and/or women thus consists of jurors who
have been "qualified" by the lawyers so that they can come to a fair
and impartial verdict. The life of a jury is usually two or three
weeks, or until the completion of the case for which it has been
assembled and at the conclusion of which it is dissolved.
The jurors elect their own foreman, who presides over their de-
liberations. Once the trial has begun, the individual jurors are for-
bidden to interrogate witnesses, because their questions may be
improper or antagonistic. Most jurisdictions forbid jurors' taking of
notes, because jurors differ in their note-taking ability and the juror
of superior note-taking ability may have an unfair advantage over his
colleagues. When all the testimony is completed, the judge's instruc-
tions to the jury include a detailed explanation of the law which is
relevant (Plucknett, 1929). First formulated in 1585 in Coke's famous

phrase, the Court's function is to determine which laws are necessary
for the jury to know about, and it is the Court's role to advise the
jury what the law is. The jury's function is to apply the law to the
specific evidence and facts in the case and to determine what the
facts are.
The theory of the jury holds that it does its job best in an
atmosphere of secrecy, and only jury members be present at its may
deliberations. Almost all jurisdictions require the jury to return a
unanimous verdict. A mistrial is declared and the case retried if there
is a hung jury which cannot reach unanimity. In those few civil
cases in which unanimity is not required, a majority of nine or ten is
required.
No juror can be forced or threatened to sign any verdict, and no
one has the right to influence his judgment or decision. There are
some jurisdictions in which the jury fixes the penalty in a criminal
case; in others, the judge fixes the penalty after the jury has given its
verdict. In a civil action involving a suit for a fixed sum, the jury
decides how much money will be awarded.
RESEARCH ON JURIES
Probably the first serious research on the jury system was con-
ducted in 1924 by lawyer-psychologist William M. Marston (1924).
He executed several well-designed studies which used simulated
juries, and most subsequent jury research has also been based on
simulated juries. He concluded that one trained individual is a better
fact finder than either a female or a male jury, in terms of the judge
versus jury problem, and that female were better than male jurors.
The individual juror's previous professional training and experience
were related, Marston found, to his skill at fact finding. Marston
reported that written evidence was superior to oral evidence, and
that the self-confidence of a witness might be more effective on a
jury than the logic or psychological soundness of other testimony.
In Marston's simulated juries, female jurors used more care in con-
sidering testimony than did male jurors. Direct examination proved
to be amore complete and accurate method of presenting testimony
than cross-examination. Marston recommended that the results of
his study be used to improve the current jury system rather than to
emphasize its futility.
two law professors made the first empirical study of what

In 1935,
happens in a jury room (Hunter, 1935). After a trial they questioned
jurors on various phases of the litigation on which they had rendered
a verdict. They concluded that the typical juror does not understand
the rules of law involved in a lawsuit and does not apply them to the
relevant issues. Two federal judges, some twelve years later, pub-
lished the results of a questionnairethey had sent to 375 jurors on
federal and state courts in three midwest states (Hervey, 1947). Of
the 185 jurors who answered, 73 said that they had not understood
the judge's instructions.
The value of a discussion among the members of a jury has been
documented by two experiments (Dashiell, 1935). An incident
occurred in front of a college class, two members of which reported
it Each juror wrote out his individual version of the
to 7 jurors.
story and then each jury reported on a version on which all the
jurors agreed. The two original witnesses reported 62 and 55 per-

with 5 and 8 errors. The individual jurors re-
cepts, respectively,
ported 44 percepts and averaged 10 errors. After discussion, each
jury agreed on an average of 32 items, but averaged only 4 errors.
In a related experiment, a number of individuals saw a short film
and reported its contents to 24 juries, each of which had from 12 to
15 members. Each jury member wrote his own narrative and an-
swered the standard questionnaire; each of the juries then reached a
group decision on the same material. In each of the juries, the in-
dividual jurors did worse than did the individual witnesses. In all 24
juries, however, jurors did better as a group than they did individu-
ally. A typical witness scored 65, an individual juror 32, but the
juries reported a group consensus of 50.

Psychologists have studied not only the effects of discussion but
also the effect of having the last word in a trial. They have explored
the hypothesis that the opinions of a jury vary in the course of a trial
(Weld and Roff, 1938). The evidence in a famous bigamy case was
read to a group of listeners, who rated the defendant's guilt or in-
nocence after each installment, using a scale of 1 for certainty of
innocence to 9 for certainty of guilt. At the beginning of the
presentation, the subjects felt strongly that the defendant was guilty
and felt so even more strongly after the prosecution presented its
case. They were less certain as the defense progressed. When the
prosecution spoke again, they again began thinking in terms of guilt.
After the next and last defense presentation, the subjects again began
thinking in terms of innocence and the average final evaluation was
2, or innocent. In the next version of the experiment, all the defense
material was presented first, followed by all the prosecution material
— and the subjects voted 4.4. When all the prosecution material was
presented first and followed by all the defense material, the voting
was again 2. The experimenters conclude that the usual order of
presentation,with the defense coming last, is favorable to the
defense. They noted that some were heavily influenced by new
evidence.
One study of how a jury's verdict was reached was conducted by
two psychologists with a mock
(Weld and Danzig, 1940). They
trial
found that the first witness for a side was usually the most effective,
and that the prestige of the opposing counsel was quite influential
in influencing juror judgment. Only 1 of 41 jurors changed his mind
about a case in the jury room.
More recent attempts to conduct similar experiments have cast
102 •-! LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
some doubts on the extent to which the side of a two-sided issue that
is presented first necessarily has the advantage (Hovland, 1953,
1957). However, these recent studies are based on classroom experi-
ments, in contrast to the earlier studies which simulate courtroom
situations, in which the two sides are clearly labeled as opposing
each other.
Another empirical study was conducted with juries sitting in mock
trials at the Yale Law School (Hoffman and Bradley, 1952). The
Yale researchers concluded, on the basis of their experiments, that

juries seem to try the lawyer rather than the litigant whom he repre-
sents. Juries seem to ignore a judge's instructions to disregard a
statement previously made. Once the statement has been made it has
been perceived, and instructions not to consider it have little effect.
The researchers also found that the mere fact of someone's being
indicted and brought to trial tend to make him suspect, in spite of
the presumption of innocence in our court system. They also found
jurors very reluctant to emerge from their deliberations saying that
it had not been possible to reach a verdict. Confirming earlier re-
search, it was found that juries tend to disregard the rules of law and
that the recollection of great masses of testimony was extremely
difficult. They concluded that juries need more orientation than they
now receive.
The most elaborate empirical research undertaken on juries has
been under way since 1953 at the University of Chicago Law School,
where a team of social scientists and lawyers has been engaged in
studies of the behavior of experimental juries as well as of activities
of actual juries. A series of studies has examined various phases of
status and role in their expression in the jury room. One study of
127 jurors in a mock trial of an automobile negligence case com-
pared the relative activity of men and women in the jury room
(Strodtbeck and Mann, 1956). Its examination of twelve different
groups of jurors suggested that men jurors initiate relatively long
periods of activity directed toward the solution of the jury's task.
Women tended more to react to the contributions of others. This
difference is probably a reflection of the role differences between
the sexes in our culture.
Another study with mock juries examined the manner in which
the status of the jurors in a number of mock trials affected their work
as jurors (Strodtbeck, James, and Hawkins, 1957). In over half the
cases studied, was nominated by one member and
the foreman
quickly accepted by the others. In all the cases, the foreman was
selected quickly. When the mock jurors had completed their deliber-
ations they were asked what kind of person they would like to have
on a jury trying a member of their family. All the different occupa-
tional groups except laborers would prefer to have a member of
their family tried by a jury which consisted largely of proprietors.
Laborers preferred skilled workers on the jury trying a member of
their family, with proprietors in second place. All groups except
laborers placed laborers in last place as potential jurors for members
of their family. The on the mock jury caused
face-to-face experience
the lower-status groups to be evaluated more highly. In general,
jurors of higher status participate more than jurors of lower status,
have more influence on other jurors, derive more satisfaction from
their service, and are perceived as being more competent by other
jurors. Jurors can size up the status of other members of their panel
by obvious cues such as dress, speech, and references to previous
experience.
Another Chicago study continued the examination of the effect of
status of jurors (James, 1959b). A recorded criminal trial was pre-
sented to panels which totaled 204 jurors. In electing a foreman, the
jurors usually selected someone of relatively high status. Male jurors
and those with a college education participated most actively in
group discussion. The jurors in this study spent about 50 percent of
their time exchanging experiences and opinions, 25 percent of the
time on procedure, 15 percent reviewing facts, and 8 percent on
court instructions. The more educated jurors interpreted the court's
instructionsmore accurately and more effectively, and facilitated
group discussion more than did the more poorly educated jurors.
The jurors' education did not seem to be a factor in whether they
concurred in the majority decision, were pressured into going along
with the majority, or had any tendency to be dissidents. All the
jurors showed concern for doing their job, and there was no evi-
real
dence that one or two "strong men" had undue influence on other
members of their panel. Jurors evaluated the participation of others
without regard for their educational background, although jurors
with only a grade school education spoke significantly less accurately
and more disruptively than others.
An attempt was made, in another Chicago study, to evaluate jurors'
assessment of criminal responsibility in a trial (James, 1959b). The
same recorded criminal trial was played to twenty juries. Half the
juries were instructed in terms of the McNaghten Rule, which in-
volves the defendant's ability to distinguish right from wrong. The
other half were instructed in terms of the Durham Rule, which in-
volves the question of whether the crime was the product of mental
illness. A thorough discussion of these concepts can be found in the
Chapter 7, "Criminal Responsibility and Psychiatry." Both sets of

instructions were given serious consideration by the two groups of
juries.
One study involved interviewing a larger number of jurors after

they had served in an actual case (Kalven, 1957). In 71 percent of the
cases, there was no unanimity on the first ballot. In 36 percent of the
cases the split was at least 8 to 4. In 90 percent of the cases where the
majority voted guilty on the first ballot, the verdict was guilty. In 97
percent of the cases where the majority voted not guilty on the first
ballot, the verdict was not guilty. Hung juries which could not reach
a verdict occurred only when the initial balloting showed a sub-
stantial minority. Since hung juries did not occur frequently, the
perennial fear that one "strong man" could lead to a hung jury was
not confirmed. A hung jury seems to reflect the closeness of the case
and of a juror's feeling that his minority view can get several other
supporters.
One survey addressed itself to the question of whether jury service
provides an important point of contact with the court system. It
found that 6 percent of the general population had jury service

during their lifetime and that 3 percent had their only direct contact
with the court as a result of jury service (Kalven, 1957). Some 55
percent ot the public, however, had been in court in some capacity,
including 23 percent who had been a party to litigation, and 21
percent who were witnesses. Fifty-five percent of the public had
known someone who had been a juror.
The same study provided some data on the impact of jury service.
Of those who did not serve, 36 percent would like to serve, 48
percent would not like to serve, and 16 percent were undecided. Of
those who had served in the previous year, 94 percent said they
would like to serve again, and only 3 percent said they would dislike
it, with 3 percent willing to serve again as a duty. In the Chicago
survey the great majority of the jurors who actually did serve in a
case, and did not suffer economic hardships from serving, said that
they would like to serve again.
Economic hardship and being called but not serving on an actual
jury decreased enthusiasm for jury duty. Some citizens may dislike
jury duty because they are uneasy about judging others and uneasy
in a new experience. Actually serving on a jury tends to make jurors
TBE PSYCHOLOGY OF JURIES • 105
more enthusiastic about its use in criminal cases and less so in civil
cases.
The focus of one study was the extent to which ten different
experimental juries would make awards for damages (Kalven, 1958).
This problem is important because of the widely held belief that the
amount of damages which is "right" for personal injuries is "Law
written by the jury," rather than by statute. The specific case which
was presented to the experimental juries had actually been settled, in
a real situation, for $42,000. The average award made by the ten
experimental juries was $41,000. The range was from $17,500 to
$60,000. This experiment suggests that a particular jury may make
an award which may appear to be relatively high or relatively low,
but that in the long run such awards tend to approximate an average.
Another phase of the Chicago study has examined regional varia-
tions in civil suit awards by juries (Kalven, 1957). San Francisco
juries, for example, give higher awards than do Los Angeles juries,
and Brooklyn more than Queens juries in New York both City — in
cases the margin is 20 percent. One phase of the Chicago research
involved polling federal and state judges on how they would have
decided a number of jury cases. Judge and jury agreed in 41 percenr
of the cases; the judge favored the defendant more than did the jury
in 33 percent of the cases; and he favored the plaintiff more than the
jury did in 25 percent of the cases — contradicting the usual view that
the jury favors the defendant.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE JURY

For a case to get into a court at all, it is a reasonable presumption
that both sides have something to say which, from their points of
view, should lead the jury to a verdict in their favor. What will lead
the jury to a verdict one way or the other will be a reflection of the
motivation of the jurors, and their perception of the evidence in
terms of how the jurors relate to the lawyers, litigants, judge, and
the other members of the jury. It would be difficult to find a subject
which lends itself more directly to psychological analysis than the
motivation, memory, perception, and interrelationships of jurors.
Lawyers have long been aware of the importance of the psycho-
logical dimension in jurors' behavior, on a kind of anecdotal or im-
pressionistic basis. They have sought areas within the prospective
juror's personality which could be exploited by building bias into
106 •'>. LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
the make-up of the jury, arousing its feelings, and influencing the
terms of its decision (Goldstein, 1935; Nizer, 1946-47; Cutler, 1949;
Belli, 1956). Chaptersand 4 of this volume deal with some of the
3
assumptions lawyers make about juries. There is no way of knowing

whether the observations of lawyers are generalizable without con-
ducting more special psychological research than has been available
to date. In some instances, the assumptions of lawyers are valid if
viewed in the light of discoveries made by psychoanalysis. Juries, for

instance, can clearly be induced to "identify" with the lawyer's
client (Belli, 1956).
Another psychoanalytic mechanism which may be helpful in un-
derstanding what jurors do is "projection." In evaluating the extent
to which psychological factors enter into the work of the jury, the
traditional lawyers' adage that aged and infirm jurors make the
defendant pay for their ills as well as for those of the plaintiff is
relevant. It may be difficult for jurors to avoid putting themselves
into their observations of what the merits and demerits of each liti-
gant's case might be, projecting some of their own needs onto
litigants. Some may not project their needs directly onto a
jurors
litigant but may engage in the related mechanism of "displacement."
Their behavior as jurors is an expression of feelings which they did
not express in other situations, such as at work or in the home. They
might not be able to express their feelings about an employer directly
to the employer, but they might transfer such feelings into a court-
room situation in which an employer is a litigant.
Another dimension of behavior to which psychoanalysts have
addressed themselves, and which is relevant to the work of the jury,
is the enormous range of thoughts and feelings which people experi-
ence (Freud, 1915), even when they are concentrating on something.

The attention of a juror may wander, either when he is listening to
testimony or when he is deliberating with his colleagues in the jury
room. Psychoanalytic findings would suggest that the fantasies of a
juror might be stimulated by persons connected with the trial who
remind him of someone who had been emotionally significant to him
in the past.
Our understanding of the psychology of the jury can also be im-
proved by considering the findings of psychological research on how
people form impressions of other people, because the juror's evalua-
tion of the case is essentially his evaluation of the people who are
involved in it. For instance, a number of studies have documented the
extent to which people tend to value traits which resemble their own
traits (Fensterheim and Tresselt, 1953).
One summary of many psychological researches on what enables

people to judge others accurately, which is surely relevant to the
work of the juror, concluded that fellow feeling, the ability to use
information, detachment, social adjustment, intelligence, and a global
approach to people are likely to be found in persons who can judge
others accurately (Bruner and Taguiri, 1954). How the individual
judges other people is likely to affect his impression of how others
should behave, and what is "reasonable" for them. In a negligence
case, the whole issue may hinge upon whether a litigant behaved in a
"reasonable" or "prudent" manner (James, 1951). The juror's evalua-
tion of this is likely to involve his self-concept, how
he perceives
other people, and his expectations of the behavior of people at
different age levels who possess different physical and emotional
characteristics. Many studies in perception have documented how
complex the processes are by which the perceiver selects from the
evidence of his senses that which is uniquely meaningful to him.
What he selects is a reflection of his needs, aspirations, life situation,
prejudices, previous experience,and many other factors. It is logical
to expect that Juror X will perceive the world very much as he did
when he was Mr. X, and he will not overnight become a judicious
evaluator of evidence merely because he is sworn in.
Many of the studies in the psychology of memory are relevant to
an understanding of the work of the jury (Bartlett, 1932). The jury's
examination of evidence is based on its ability to recall what is
presented to it. It is reasonable to assume, for example, that jurors
will tend to recall emotional and dramatic incidents more clearly
than they will recall less startling evidence.
Studies in "set" (expectations based on past experience or needs)
performance of their jobs (Piaget, 1937).
also are relevant to jurors'
Cartoons have made us familiar with how the set of jurors can change
when a pretty girl trips to the witness stand. The set of jurors may
change less dramatically when other witnesses go to the witness
stand, but it is certainly subject to change. A special kind of set is
that of a juror prejudiced for or against a particular kind of witness
or litigant. How important this may be can be seen in the derivation
of the word "prejudice" from the Latin for prejudgment. Prejudiced
jurors may not wish to admit that they are prejudiced when being
qualified in routine pretrial examination. Their prejudice may assert
itself during the trial, even though jurors are required to consider the
evidence without regard for race, creed, or color. The psychology

of prejudice is thus a central source of clues to how a jury functions
(Allport, 1954).
108 V LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
A major source of data to enhance our understanding of the
psychology of the jury is the considerable experimentation on small
groups during the last two decades (Cartwright and Zander, 1953).
The findings of these researchers into group dynamics may be almost
directly applicable to the jury's task, because the typical small group
studied by group-dynamics researchers consists of persons who
have not previously met and who are assembled for the purpose of
solving a specific problem, much as a jury is.
Many findings of such research may

be relevant to the jury. For
example, a study of groups in problem-solving situations has reported
that such groups tend to move through time from a relative emphasis
on problems of getting used to the situation to problems of evalua-
tion, and subsequently to problems of what to do about these evalua-
tions (Bales and Strodtbeck, 1951). It is possible that juries go
through the same steps in addressing themselves to their task. Other
research suggests that group members who talk a lot are regarded
by their fellow group members as functioning more effectively than
those who are quiet, even when the group accepts the solution of the
latter (Riecken, 1958).
Another kind of psychological research that may sharpen our
understanding of jury functioning is the examination of the kinds of
people who can most easily be persuaded. Recent research has
demonstrated that there are certain kinds of people who have a
general susceptibility to persuasion and social influence (Janis, 1954).
These persons are likely to have high social inadequacy, high "in-
hibition" of aggression, and feelings of depression. By contrast,
persons who are resistant to persuasion are likely to manifest persist-
ent aggressiveness, social withdrawal, and acute neurotic symptoms.
Apart from these predisposing personality characteristics, there is
considerable evidence to support the proposition that people are

likely tobe more receptive to the suggestions and views of certain
persons than to those of others. Jurors would presumably tend to
carry into the jury room preferential views toward high-status
persons. A reflection of this presumed greater wisdom which high-
status persons possess could be seen when the armed forces, after
World War II, revised their court-martial procedures so as to give
enlisted men the right to have other enlisted men on their trial
boards. Most enlisted men still preferred to be tried by officers.
One experiment in the realistic setting of a conference confirmed
members of low status behave toward
the hypothesis that group
group members of high status in a way which will reduce their
uneasiness with the highs (Hurwitz, 1953). The low-status persons

tended to participate relatively little in group
This finding
discussion.
suggests the possibility that low-status jurors would tend to be less
active than those of higher status, which is being confirmed in the
Chicago jury studies.
The enormous power of group pressure in modifying a
possibly
minority view is illustrated in one experiment in which members of
an experimental group were instructed to lie about their impression
of the length of a line (Asch, 1952). One subject in each group was
not aware that the other persons were lying, and thus was faced with
a situation in which the group unanimously contradicted the evi-
dence of his senses. About one third of the subjects made errors in
the same direction as did the majority. In a jury situation, this experi-
ment suggests the possibility that a minority view might be swayed
by the pressure of the majority. The possible importance of minority
views in a group situation has been demonstrated in other studies
in which the opinions of persons with minority views upgraded the
group's solution of a problem (Maier and Solem, 1952; Kadis and
Winick, 1960).
It would thus seem that many kinds of psychological research on
individuals and groups can be applied to the study of the jury. Since
so many central areas of psychology are relevant to what jurors do,
much psychological data from many different sources may be con-
structively used in helping us to understand how the jury works.
Such data can assist knowledge of the jury into
us in translating our
practice. Collecting data on practice can in turn add to our knowl-
edge of individual and group psychology. Since there is good reason
to believe that our knowledge of the psychology of the jury will
tend to improve its functioning, both psychology and the jury
system would benefit from their collaboration.
CONTROVERSY OVER THE JURY SYSTEM
Ranging from the suggestion that be abolished and that

juries
cases be tried by a judge, to modifications in jury procedure, the
debate over the merits of the jury system has assumed much mo-
mentum. The jury has been said to be the epitome of the democratic
process, with citizens gathering to evaluate the merits of the con-
tention of another citizen. Others have claimed that the jury is the
antithesis of democracy because it is responsible to no one, is com-
110 ^ LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
pletelyanonymous, and is not required to give any grounds for
whatever verdict it reaches, in contrast to the judge, who gives the
reasons for his decision.
The traditional defense of the jury system emphasizes that juries
are especially qualified to perform their critical function of fact
finding (Bell, 1940). It emphasized that the mode of selection of
is
jurors and their representativeness, disinterested approach, and

open-minded discussion contribute to jurors being able to weigh
the possibilities and to reach a sound decision in a case. Critics have
pointed out that lawyers usually use peremptory challenges in order
to disqualify potential jurors who have any special knowledge of
the subject matter of the litigation. They also note that the best-
qualified potential jurors in the community either are exempt from
serving or are likely to avoid jury duty because of the considerable
economic loss it may represent to them. Professor George Braden
has observed that the practice of judges in "directing a verdict" in
cases in which there is so much evidence on one side that no reason-
able man could fail to decide for it, suggests that courts themselves
do not regard juries as especially competent arbiters of debatable
factual matters. Whether controverted factual issues are best re-
solved by discussion among citizens who have no specific experience
in handling disputes has also been questioned by various critics.
One of the most frequently heard arguments for the jury system
is that the jury is a kind of legislature which wisely corrects the
law by applying extralegal considerations and popular attitudes to

the issue under consideration (Wyzanski, 1952). This has been
further expressed as the jury's refusal to apply a particular law if
it believes the law to be unjust. Opponents of the jury system believe
that it is curious that we should support a jury's nullification of the

work of elected legislators, and they believe that such a viewpoint
assumes a degree of sophistication which the average jury does not
possess. Since the deliberations of the jury are secret, there is no
way of knowing whether the jury nullifies the law on the basis of
serious consideration or on the basis of caprice. Juries' prudence
may not necessarily be superior to jurisprudence, and it is difficult
for some critics of juries to understand how, in the same 1946 report,
the American Bar Association could say that the jury must "let the
law prevail," as well as that "the jury often stands as a bulwark"
between an individual and an unreasonable law.
Another point at issue between friends and critics of the jury
system is whether jury service is an educational experience which
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JURIES • til
provides participation in a democratic activity and helps to create

confidence in government and law (Curtis, 1952). Critics aver that
this experience usually lasts for only two weeks, and that the edu-
cation of the jury occurs at the expense of the litigants. They feel
that jury duty may lead to cynicism about the workings of the
courts, and that the confidence of the public in the democratic
processes by which juries work has been undermined by juries'
acquitting notorious criminals who were obviously guilty, or con-
victing the innocent (Borchard, 1932). The reluctance of many
citizens to serve on juries is cited by critics as the best evidence that
many citizens are actually not interested in the educational experi-
ence of jury duty and will avoid it whenever it is possible to do so.
Another point at issue is whether the jury represents one way of

counteracting bias and corruption of judges (Haynes, 1944). Critics
point out that we
have avoided giving sentencing powers to juries
because of fear that they would abuse such powers. They also feel
that the judge in criminal cases, even if there is a jury, can still
express his bias or corruption in his sentence.
Juries have traditionally been said to be more reliable in criminal
than in civil proceedings because they are sensitive to the special
circumstances of the alleged crime. Opponents of the jury system
believe that alleged criminals who are members of certain minority
groups may not experience this benevolence of the jury. They also
note that the public needs protection against "groundless acquittals."
Proponents of the jury have praised the procedure whereby the
judge gives instructions on the relevant law to the jury, and the
jury interprets those instructions and applies them to the facts at
hand (De Sloovere, 1933). Critics of juries feel that it is almost
impossible for the judge to present the law in a way which is under-
standable to the untrained mind (Farley, 1932). They also complain
that the judge sometimes mixes questions of law and fact in his
instructions to the jury and that the instructions may not be useful,
even if they are intelligible. Other critics have observed that many
issues of fact have legal status, and any attempt to distinguish law
from fact is unreal. Some students of juries have complained that
it is naive to have the jury listen to all the evidence before the judge
explains the relevant law, because it then must try to recall the evi-
dence retrospectively in terms of the judge's explanation. Other
critics feel thatsome lawyers may request a great many kinds of
instructions from the judge, not to help the jury in its deliberations
but so that when the case is appealed they can claim that some of
the instructions were ignored. Even if a jury has not followed the
judge's instructions, in many criminal cases the judge is required to
follow the jury's verdict.
system have maintained that there are cases in
Critics of the jury
which the jury does not apply the judge's instructions and instead
does what it would like to do, without heeding the law. Other
proponents of juries have denied that juries can avoid following
the judge's instructions. One famous handwriting expert, who testi-
fied in cases all over America for over three decades, had so little
confidence in juries that he recommended that a difficult case not

be given to a jury relatively late in the day (Osborn, 1937). He felt
that the jurors would be likely to be so interested in getting home

that they might render a hasty decision.
One noted trial lawyer has summarized the reactions of many
lawyers to the jury system as practiced today by saying that the
jury is right in 99 percent of the cases, even though it may be right
for the wrong reasons. The typical jury in this view forms a judg-
ment and then rationalizes that judgment. Some critics have objected
that to find reasons for confirming a decision which has already
been arrived at is a kind of exaltation of irrationality, and that to say
that a jury is right for the wrong reasons is essentially illogical.
There is no way of knowing just how and why juries reach a
verdict.
It has been alleged that some juries reach their verdicts in a
capricious way, like flipping coins or rendering a quotient verdict, in
which the award favored by each juror is averaged arithmetically
(Skidmore, 1948). If the judge learns that a verdict was reached in
such a way, he is likely to reject the jury's verdict. In most jurisdic-
tions nothing is done about such a verdict if the irregular manner in
which it was reached is disclosed after the jury has been discharged.
Lawyers often demonstrate their true feelings about juries, accord-
ing to critics, when they have occasion to represent a client in a
relatively complex matter, such as an antitrust action. They seldom
ask for a jury in such a case because they generally do not have con-
fidence in a jury's ability to grasp complex ideas in a rational man-
ner. Standard textbooks on trial procedure by experienced lawyers
seldom encourage beginning lawyers to select impartial jurors. In-
stead, they generally encourage them to select jurors who will be
responsive to emotional appeals (Turney, 1924; Keeton, 1954).
The debate about juries has thus been vigorous and continual, with
equally eminent lawyers and judges on both sides of the argument.
Some of these debates have given rise to specific suggestions for

reform.
SUGGESTED REFORMS IN JURY PROCEDURE
Many reforms have been suggested to keep jury practice abreast

of knowledge and experience. One reform which has been urged
would begin with the selection of the jury itself (Note, 1956). The
proponents of reform in selection have stated that the traits desired
in effective jurors are relatively easy to measure objectively. These
traits would include physical integrity, a fund of general information
and of information on legal institutions, personal stability, reasonable
critical judgment, and reasonable attitudes. At the present times, Los
Angeles County is perhaps the only jurisdiction to use standardized
tests of intelligence, memory, and perception in jury selection. Some
students of juries have recommended that such valid psychological
tests to screen jurors might be used to serve a number of purposes.
The use of standardized tests might mean that less time would be
spent in voir dire examinations, and thus decrease court calendar con-
gestion. Another benefit which has been foreseen is that attorneys
would tend to stress rational rather than emotional appeals. If liti-
gants knew that jurors were relatively tough-minded, flimsy cases

should be less likely to get to court. The exclusionary rules of
evidence which limit the evidence that can be presented in court
could be liberalized if relatively alert jurors could be assumed.
It is urged that the prestige of the jury system and of jury duty
would increase if jurors were more carefully.
selected
The kind of objective psychological tests recommended for jury
selection have proved their usefulness in screening personnel in the
armed forces and in industry. No new legislation is required to use
such tests, it is said, and a ruling by a commissioner of jurors or
courts is all that would be required. Although one decision held
that a procedure which screened out many prospective jurors would
violate the constitutional requirement of trial by a "cross section of
the community" (Glasser, 1942), later decisions have approved the
setting of high qualifications for jurors (Fay, 1947). The courts
have held that the constitution guarantees the jury mode of trial
but not its specific features or procedures (Robinson, 1950).
Some reformers of the jury system have felt that even more
widespread use of the screening procedures may fall short of the
mark. These reformers recommend that there should be regular use
of jurors who are specialists in the matter under consideration, who
would be able to consider relatively technical or complex matters
in a presumably more efficient way than would ordinary juries.
These reformers believe that it is foolish to exclude from a jury
the very people who know most about a particular problem or area.
A related recommendation is the greater use of the special or "blue
ribbon" jury, in order to get more jurors from the upper socio-
economic brackets than normally serve (Baker, 1950).
In addition to more precise procedures for selecting jurors, there
has been considerable discussion about the desirability of training
citizens in the procedures and mechanics of courts and juries, so
that they would have a background of knowledge before being
called as jurors. A number of judges have urged that adult educa-
tion groups as well as students in public schools receive formal,
scheduled instruction in the nature of jury activity as well as fact
finding in the context of jury activity. It has been recommended
that successful completion of such a course be a prerequisite to any
jury duty. One procedure for improving the performance of juries,
which has been used in a number of jurisdictions, is the orientation
booklet that describes the workings of the court and jury (Miner,
1946). Some judges give orientation talks to groups of prospective
jurors. Because of the lack of any controlled experiments there is
no way of knowing how effective these orientation procedures have

been. It is certainly possible that the citizenry's increasing awareness
of and interest in jury functioning may lead to the dissemination of
more accurate information about juries and to more effective juror
performance.
Another focus of discussion for improving juries has been the
possible effects of newspaper dissemination of information which
may interfere with a fair trial. Such information may affect the
prospective juror's ability to be objective, especially in criminal
trials. been urged that there be stricter enforcement of the
It has
contempt of court laws against newspapers that publish incorrect

statements of fact or express biased opinions that can hinder a fair
trial in a case to be tried by a jury (Goodhart, 1935). Contrary to
popular American law is similar to the British law on this

belief, the
subject. English practice goes back to 1742, when Lord Hardwicke

sent a publisher to jail for printing a libel against a witness in a
pending case. In 1924, the editor of the London Evening Standard
was fined a thousand pounds and costs for publishing the reports
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JURIES 115
of special investigators sent by the newspaper to interview some

witnesses in connection with a famous crime. These procedures en-
sure that there will be no "newspaper conviction or acquittal."
However, even though they have the power to do so, few American
judges have had the hardihood to punish the press.
The admissibility of psychiatric concepts of personality for wit-
nesses for both plaintiffs and defendants has been urged as a neces-
sary reform. It has been suggested that jurors may be helped by
having expert testimony about a witness, because jurors may not
perceive a mentally abnormal witness to be abnormal (Comment,
1950). Thus, in the second trial of Alger Hiss, Dr. Carl Binger
testified for the defense that prosecution witness Whittaker Cham-
bers was a psychopath who might make "false accusations." If the
psychiatrist has an opportunity to conduct a clinical examination of
a witness, this would clearly be preferable to his reporting on ob-
servations. Under present laws, however, a witness's privacy is
jeopardized by his submitting to such an examination.
Another suggestion for improving the performance of juries
would encourage the judge to call in a variety of experts to render
expert testimony (Beuscher, 1941). This would give the judge more
latitude than he currently has. It is now possible for the judge, in
certain circumstances, to refer complex testimony to an expert, who
may report on the testimony to the jury, which may or may not
accept his report. If the judge is encouraged to call on expert testi-
mony, it is urged, the quality of testimony would improve.
A procedure suggested for improving the ability of juries to
evaluate evidence is to give judges the right to comment on the evi-
dence, although this would obviously contradict the traditional role
of the judge. One made is the wider use by judges of
suggestion
cautionary instructions to the jury, in which the judge makes sug-
gestive comments on testimony that may have occasioned an emo-
tional ferment in the jurors. The purpose of the judge's doing this
would be to bring into the open some of the emotional factors that
may be influencing the jurors.
The wisdom of excluding some of the kinds of evidence which
are not permitted under current procedures has been questioned
(Morgan, 1936) by some legal scholars, who have suggested that
such evidence may help juries. Others have questioned the desir-
ability of forbidding jurors to take notes during a trial (Comment,
1948).
A number of suggestions for improving the performance of juries
focus on the procedure by which verdicts are reached. It has been
urged by one judge that there be a stenographic record of jury
deliberations so that the judge can scrutinize the record in order to
determine how the verdict was reached (Galston, 1943). If it were
reached by improper means, he could set the verdict aside. Polling
the jury on the method by which it reached its verdict is another
procedure which has been urged in order to make the jury system
work better. It has been suggested that such polling would make
jurors more likely to behave in a responsible way. A related proce-
dure which has been recommended is the interrogatory, a written
statement by the jury about specific questions on specific facts,
which is provided by the jury along with a verdict. The interro-
gatory permits the judge to obtain an insight into the jurors' reasons
for the verdict they render.
Some proponents of jury reform have recommended the greater
use of the special rather than the general verdict (Sunderland, 1919).
The general verdict is an either/ or decision, and is thus either all
right or all wrong. The special verdict requires the jury to deter-
mine specific issues of fact raised at the trial. It thus maximizes the
separation of the three dimensions of the law, the facts, and the
application of the law to the facts. It enables errors to be localized
and may improve the jury's morale by its abandonment of secrecy.
The trial judge applies the appropriate law to the facts which are
established by the special verdict, and thus the jury is less able
to tell which side will benefit from its finding and is thus less likely
to be swayed by nonrational considerations. The special verdict
would require greater singleness of allegation and greater precision
of presentation. The and the interrogatory have been
special verdict
authorized for the federal courts and in some states, but judges
have made little use of either procedure, in spite of what their
advocates believe to be direct relevance to many civil actions.
The size of the jury itself has been questioned. It has been said
that twelve jurors are too many, and that six to nine jurors would
do just as effective a job and save money and time (Clark, 1934).
There has been relatively little experience reported with juries of
less than twelve. The widespread requirement for unanimity of
decision has also been called into question by some students, who
believe that unanimity imposes an unreal requirement that may
influence some jurors to abandon their convictions because of the
great pressure on them to reach a verdict.
Another suggested reform has attempted to combine the positive
qualities of the group decision with the experience and wisdom of

the judge by having several judges deciding each case instead of
a jury. This would temper the possibility of a judge's being capri-
cious or arbitrary and at the same time ensure that the litigant's
case would be discussed by several people.
The on how to improve juries suggests
variety of suggestions
that these recommendations have been based less on data than on
speculation. Further research of the kind we have reviewed in this
chapter may help decide the relative merit of various suggestions
to improve juries.
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CHARLES WINICK, ISRAEL GERVER,
and ABRAHAM BLUMBERG
The Psychology
of Judges
De Tocqueville wrote over a century ago that in America most

major, as well as minor, problems ultimately find their way into the
courts (De Tocqueville, 1945). For example, inone year 1,330,000
people used the courts in the states of New York and California
alone (Blaustein and Porter, 1954). Of the 7,903 judges officially
reported in the courts of America, 621 are on the federal bench,
5,041 are state or county judges, and 2,241 sit in city courts (Bureau,
1958). Many other thousands of judges serve in police courts or as
justices of the peace, although many of them may have other occu-
pations. Perhaps as many as 5 percent of the country's approximately
250,000 lawyers are thus serving as judges at any one time.
The judge represents one of the few occupations which enjoys
extremely high status in practically all modern cultures. The excep-
tionally high status of judges and their removal from ordinary inter-
personal contact is underscored by their robes of office, the judges*
sitting above the general room level, and the rather absolute power
of judges in their courtrooms. Great respect is generally shown for
the office, which is usually designated by very honorific titles. Judges
indicate awareness of the reification and depersonalization of their
offices by referring to themselves as "the Court" or "the Bench."
Many if not most lawyers see judgeship as a proper climax to a
career in the law.
The image of the judiciary is Old Testament
thus, at least since
days, of a group of aloof holders of great power. In some ways they
are analogous to revered theologians who interpret Scripture, and
they have been instrumental in developing the law into a kind of
secular theology. Just as the meaning of Scripture is continually
being modified by commentators, the meaning of the law is con-
tinually being modified by other judges (see Chapter 2).
121
122 •''
LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
The enormous prestige of the judge in America is exemplified in
two situations involving judges which have resulted in much popular
and other reaction. The discussion over the mysterious disappear-
ance in 1930 of New York's Justice Crater continues to this day
because it is would disappear voluntarily.
inconceivable that a judge
When Federal Judge Manton — an exponent of Natural Law — was
found guilty in 1939 of accepting bribes, the expectations of his
high office were stridently violated, and the case occasioned much
comment. A federal judge, in contrast to more ordinary mortals, was
assumed to be immune from such temptation.
The great importance of the work of judges makes it curious
that there is relatively little agreement on the qualities of a good
judge or on how judges reach their decisions. This lack of agree-
ment, however, helps to explain why the judiciary is the only pro-
fession in our society for which there is no specific training or
preparation. Inasmuch as the great majority of our judges are elected
and not appointed, it is the voters of America who are regularly
called upon to evaluate the background of candidates for the bench.
THE JUDGE'S JOB
Although there is not complete agreement on the exact qualities

of a good judge, Hobbes's discussion has been the basis for most
later commentators: "The things that make a good judge are, . . .
first, a right understanding of that principal law of nature called
equity, which depends ... on the goodness of a man's own natural

reason, and meditation. .Secondly, contempt of unnecessary riches
. .
and preferments. Thirdly, to be able in judgment to divest himself of

all fear, anger, hatred, love and compassion. Fourthly and lastly,
patience to hear, diligent attention in hearing, and memory to retain,

digest and apply what he has heard" (Hobbes, 1950).
These qualities are relevant to the work of the judge. The judge
is the umpire in the courtroom warfare known as the trial. The trial
judge has a role in jury selection and in the admission of evidence;

by his rulings on specific applications of law, he is contributing
toward the record of the trial that will be necessary in any appeal
which may be taken. The judge's subpoena powers enable him to
compel the production of records and the appearance and testimony
of witnesses. The judge maintains order and discipline and exerts
extraordinary control over the conduct of attorneys and other
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JUDGES • 123
participants in a trial. The judge's power to set aside verdicts, to

direct verdicts, to rule on the various motions of counsel, and to
effect settlements enables him to dominate the course of litigation.
The judge has a major role in connection with the historic doctrine
of judicial review, by which the judge can declare legislative acts
unconstitutional (Marbury, 1803). The judge's sentencing power
in criminal cases enables him to reinforce the values of society and
the distinction between the transgressor and the society which
exercises the sentencing power. Ross has stressed that "punishment
must not appear as natural brute violence, but as the act of God
or of Justice. It must firmly ally itself with the religious and moral
ideas of the time, and avoid the appearance of being a blow dealt
by a victor to his prostrate foe" (Ross, 1926).
In spite of the enormous importance of the judge's sentencing
power in criminal cases, the bulk of the work of the courts is
devoted to and to the resolution of disputes affecting

civil cases
property. In the prestige hierarchy of judges and lawyers, those

engaged in the criminal courts are generally on lower levels of
prestige, however important their work is. The civil courts oversee
the orderly transfer of wealth in our society by their appointment
of receivers, executors, administrators, trustees, guardians, and other
caretakers of property.
THE MAKING OF JUDICIAL DECISIONS

One of the central activities of the judge is making decisions. The
decision has both a public or manifest and a private or latent aspect.
The what the judge communicates publicly,
public aspect consists of
either orally in the courtroom or in a written opinion. An opinion
is a statement by a judge in which he explains why he decided as
he did. He states the facts as he sees them and the legal rules he
applied. Any such public communication of a decision is likely to
be made by the judge in accordance with the well-established prin-
ciple of social psychology that communicator's message is modified
a
by his perception of his audience (Pool and Shulman, 1959). 1
1 The judge's opinion generally has two parts — the "holding" and the "dic-
tum." The "holding" consists of judicial observations necessary to the decision

of the case. The "dictum" consists of comments not necessary to the actual
decision. The opinion is an intellectual rationale which is buttressed by a hier-
archy of legal precedents, usage, and case law synthesis, which lead up to the
"holding" or ratio decidendi.
124 • "
LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
Different judges may
be talking to different audiences in their
decisions and opinions. Some judges seem to be talking to the gen-
eral public in comments associated with decisions in the sentencing
of criminal offenders. These comments may be reflections of the
judge's belief in the power of his observations to deter future crimi-
nals, a desire to maintain a particular reputation, a wish to cater to
public pressures, or a desire to keep his name before the voters for
purposes of re-election or election to other office. Those judges
who seem be communicating with their colleagues may be
to
demonstrating, for several reasons, their awareness of the human
condition, or their flair for fine reasoning, apt citations, or legal
scholarship. These reasons may include the edification of other
lawyers in the courtroom or they may include unseen audiences
or "hidden perceivers" — posterity, other judges, other colleagues
who may be instrumental in helping the judge in his career, and
so on. Or the judge may be giving his opinion in order to avert
posible higher judicial reversals or to obtain agreement and support
for his opinion at peer levels and from superiors. The specific
audience to which the judge is addressing himself is seldom explicitly
stated in his decision and can only be inferred on the basis of the
context and circumstances of the decision.
SOME CONTEXTUAL PRESSURES ON

JUDICIAL DECISIONS
The specific context and level of jurisdiction of a court may be

related to the kind of decision which its judges typically make. The
higher the level of a court, the more scrupulous is the care likely
to be shown to procedural matters and the greater the concern for
all and protocol. The area of responsibility of a court
legal rights
may be relevant to how its judges perceive their cases. A lower
court, such as a magistrate's court in a large city, can, and almost
invariably does, pass a case along to another court if there is any
indication that the case is problematical, thus postponing its role
in the entire decision-making process. A traffic court or a justice
of the peace in a smaller community may dispense rough and ready
justice which often violates the rights of defendants, but this may
seldom be discovered because such cases are only rarely appealed
to a higher court. Such a judge is likely to be relatively freewheeling
in his decisions.
In addition to this dimension of the level of the court at which

the judge presides, there is the important dimension of whether a
court has original or appellate jurisdiction. The judge who sits
in the court of original jurisdiction, in his role as trial judge, arbiter,

sentencer, or awarder, is likely to become involved in the legal,
interpersonal, and emotional dynamics of the small group in the
courtroom of which the judge is the hub. Even though they are
together for a short time, the members of the courtroom group
interrelate with each other. The judge in the court of original
jurisdiction not only is reacting to witnesses and lawyers, but may
also be aware of the shadow of an appellate court passing on any
actions or decisions of his which are dubious. He must thus main-
tain professional impassivity in the courtroom and make his decision
with the possibility that the "hidden perceivers" may engage in an
appellate review and possibly rebuke him, either because of his ap-
plication of a specific rule of law to specific facts or because of the
facts he has selected as important in a given case or because he has
behaved arbitrarily and unreasonably.
The appellate judge is more removed from the original dispute or
offense and is therefore relatively unconcerned with the actual inter-
personal dynamics in the case. He studies not only the case record
on appeal but also what the judge did with the whether the case and
original judge behaved with propriety and in accordance with the
law. The great majority of cases, however, are not appealed beyond
the trial judge's decision; hence the trial judge is a very important
figure. In spite of this, the great judges of American tradition are
almost always found in appellate courts rather than in courts of
original jurisdiction.
Another component of the context within which judical decisions
are made is the pressure upon the judge to reduce a sentence, in
response to a request by the prosecuting attorney that he do so in
return for a defendant's pleading guilty to a lesser charge. The
prosecuting attorney can enter upon discussions with a defendant
to plead guilty to a lesser charge only if he has support from the
judge. The judge is usually satisfied to do so so long as he regards
the sentence for the lesser offense to be adequate punishment (Ohlin
and Remington, 1958). The prosecutor initiates such a request in
order to avoid overcrowding of trial calendars and long delays. The
defendant is usually told that no promises about a lesser sentence
can be made to him in response to his plea of guilty, but he is inform-
ally advised that it is likely that he will get special consideration.
Another variable related to the social structure of the court is
the role of the judge's law clerk or legal secretary. He is usually a

lawyer, and either may
have political connections or may have
graduated from a law school with distinction. Some members of
the Supreme Court have been attacked for giving too much respon-
sibility to theirlaw clerks, who are usually recent honor graduates
from the national law schools. Whether or not these attacks are
justified, they have served to focus attention on the exact role of
the law clerk, which may range from legal errand boy and citation
searcher through being a sounding board for the judge and actually
participating in making decisions in important cases. There is reason
to believe that these anonymous law clerks may be important con-
tributors to some decisions. One former law secretary to Justice
Holmes has discussed the clerks' influence on the Supreme Court
(Konefsky, 1956).
Political pressures may be among the larger social factors con-
also
tributing to the context of the judge's decision. There may be some
pressures, visible or invisible,on the judge for reasons of partisan
politics or business. Even though there may be no pressures on
specific cases, the judge may not wish to offend those who have
contributed to his past, or may control his future when he comes
up for reappointment or renomination. Only federal judges and
some trial and higher appellate state justices are appointed for life
and are thus presumably above political pressures; yet even they
may be interested in promotion. Inasmuch as most judgeships are
often likely to be political rewards, there is likely to be an assump-
tion of repayment by the judge for the reward, although such as-
sumptions are apt to be tacit on both sides. Appropriate repayment
may be in the form of judical sympathy for the interests of the
sponsors or former associates of the judge when litigation involving
such interests comes before him. Probate court judges in ten states
are permitted to practice law, and it is easy to see how the pressures
of the private practice of such judges might affect their judical
functioning.
In order to help judges cope with this kind of difficult contextual
through the American Bar Association,
situation, the legal profession,
has promulgated its own Canons of Judicial Ethics (Cheatham, 1955).
These moral guidelines to judical conduct are based on sources like
the Magna Charta (XLV), the Bible (Deuteronomy 16), and Francis
Bacon's essay on judicature. The canons range from precepts on the
virtues of promptness to the evils of ex parte communication (com-
munication from one without an equal opportunity being

litigant
afforded the other). The twenty-eighth canon almost spells out the
necessity for a judge to avoid political party responsibilities. It flatly
prohibits partisan political activity by the judge and urges him to be
content with his judicial position rather than use it as a lever to run
for another office. Conforming to this canon or avoiding it can both
cause problems for the judge and be reflected in his decisions. The
thirtieth canon, on how to handle candidacy for office, is also likely
to lead to conflict between individual pressures and the normative
imperative.
There is some question about the extent to which judges are
guided by the Canons of Judicial Ethics, but the relationship between
the formal ethic and actual practice is a fascinating one for the
psychologist to observe. First-person and other accounts by judges
generally make it clear that the relationship is also one which is of
concern to judges (Botein, 1952; Ulman, 1933; Lummus, 1937). It
is difficult to tell whether judges' conduct is ever evaluated dispas-
sionately by others in terms of how judges face these conflict situa-

tions. The fact that in the last thirty years not one judge has been
removed from office by impeachment, which is the appropriate pro-
cedure for removal from judical office, suggests that either judges'
handling of these conflicts is impeccable, or there is a feeling that
judges' behavior is above reproach and their handling of conflicts of
interest is best left unscrutinized.
SOME PERSONAL VARIABLES IN

THE JUDGE'S CAREER
A number of personal characteristics of judges may be presumed
to enter into the process whereby they make The age of
decisions.
the judge as well as the age of the litigant before him may be rele-
vant. Observers in criminal courts have noted, for example, that
younger offenders are likely to get more lenient treatment from
some judges than are older offenders.
A career on the bench has its own life cycle, and a judge who has
just assumed his robe of office may perceive his duties and responsi-
bilities quite differently from the way an older judge perceives his.
In contrast to an older judge, the younger man may be very eager

tomake his mark. It has been noted that many judges tend to become
more cautious with age. Other judges tend to become more conn-
dent and less grow older. The older
susceptible to pressures as they
judges, as do ordinary citizens, may become more conservative and
tradition-oriented and less experimental. With the experience of
years on the bench, some judges tend to be more reserved than they
originally were behind a decision.
in giving the specific rationale
Aging is doubtless a factor in aberrant behavior of judges, and is
particularly important because judges are generally named to the
bench fairly late in life. There
sometimes a conflict between the
is
relative youth of judges' law clerks and the relative age of the judges
themselves.
Ethnic, nationality, religious, and race factors may help or hinder
a judge in being appointed or elected or promoted. In American
political life, judgeships are often regarded as offices which should
be allocated on the basis of these factors. Certain judgeships often
seem to be especially available for persons of specific backgrounds
that seem to be underrepresented on the bench, especially at election
time. Political leaders often make a tacit assumption that the bench's
ethnic composition, writ large, should be the same as the electorate's.
These background factors may also be very relevant to the judge's
judicial behavior. It is likely, for example, that a judge from a minor-
ity group might be very harsh on litigants of the dominant ethnic
group, perhaps as one means of demonstrating some of his feelings
about the dominant group. Another judge from such a group might
be "soft" on litigants of the dominant ethnic group as one way of
expressing his identification with the regnant group. But to avoid
any imputation of favoritism a judge from the minority group might
be especially harsh with a litigant from the same group.
Still another judge from the same minority group might be an
exceptionally hard worker in order to demonstrate that he made his

way to the bench on the basis of merit alone. In all these cases, the
specific background of the judge would be directly related to his
judicial behavior.
The number of women judges is increasing, especially in courts
concerned with family matters and children. There is some reason to
believe that a woman who becomes a judge is likely to be a relatively
superior person, because of the general prejudice against women
lawyers and judges. Some women judges may overreact to this stero-
type and be exceptionally rigorous in their decisions, as if to demon-
strate that cliches about women's emotionalism are false.
The marital status of the judge may enter into his decisions, especi-
ally in matters involving paternity actions, family difficulties, separa-
tion or divorce, neglected children, or juvenile delinquency. The

divorced judge's attitude toward a divorce action may be quite dif-
ferent from that of a bachelor judge. In one jurisdiction, lawyers
representing the husband in marital action are delighted when a par-
ticular judge is assigned to the case because the judge's difficulties
with his own wife — which are known to the lawyers — often make
him especially sympathetic to the husband's side of the story.
Whether the judge has any children himself may enter into his de-
cisions involving children, ranging from oversentimentality to avoid-
ance (the judge might say that his "hands are tied by the law"), to
extreme vigor in punishing either parents or children for violations
of the law.
The socioeconomic status from which came may be rele-
the judge
vant to his decisions, depending on the extent to which he has in-
ternalized the biases of his particular group. Thus a judge whose
father was a sucessful attorney or a member of any other elite oc-
cupation is often likely to have adopted the conservative point of
view of his father's occupational group. A judge whose father was
a small retail storekeeper, or had some other equally marginal status,
may have resented his background and have sought the elite status
of a judge and so be ultraconservative. One judge who is the son of
a conservative father may be relatively radical, whereas a judge who
is the son of radical may be relatively conservative on the bench,
although both men are reacting to their fathers' backgrounds. This
kind of inconsistency between social classbackground and judicial
attainment may have resulted in some unusual decisions and opinions.
The law school which the judge attended may have a considerable
effect on his decisions. It is curious that the typical judge is more
likely not to have attended law school than is the typical lawyer, and
of those judges who did go to law school, there are proportionately
more among graduates of unapproved law schools than among grad-
uates of approved law schools (Blaustein and Porter, 1954). The
bench clearly is not getting the lawyers with the best training, al-
though this situation may be changing for the better.
The kind of legal practice in which the judge engaged before his
appointment undoubtedly has some relationship to the type of deci-
sions he gives. A judge who has been a corporation lawyer is likely
to see things diflerently from the way a judge who has been a crim-
inal lawyer sees them. Individual differences are important because
a judge who was a criminal lawyer, as in one case, may become an
extremely harsh and tough-minded judge when dealing with the
130 •"»
LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
kind of criminals he used to defend, whether because he is reacting
against his past or because he believes in severe punishment or be-
cause of other reasons. Another judge who waslawyer a criminal
may be relatively lenient toward his former clients because he does
not believe in severe sentences, as one means of identification with
his past, or because of other reasons.
A judge who lawyer represented insurance companies in neg-
as a
ligence actions, and a judge who used to represent people suing
insurance compainies are likely to approach a negligence case with
different kinds of prebench points of view, which may or may not
enter their work as judges. If the financial status of a litigant or
lawyer is unusual, whether the judge is relatively wealthy or just
struggling along on his salary may enter into his attitudes toward
such litigants or their lawyers.
Previous political activity is also often a factor in the context with-
in which the judge will make his decision. A number of similar di-
mensions of the judge's career lines can be distinguished. They seem
to suggest a typology of at least three different kinds of judge. The
existence of such types has possible importance because it is likely
that each of the different kinds of judge perceives the bench dif-
ferently and has different motivations for it, and thus may behave
differently as a judge.
What can be called the Lower Level of judicial career develop-
ment is the course followed by perhaps the great majority of lawyers
who become judges. Such a person has usually attended a low-level
law school and has joined a political club as well as a variety of
fraternal, benevolent, and religious organizations. This kind of
lawyer will generally take all kinds of cases, perhaps even including
some at the suggestion of political leaders. After years of faithful
service to his party, such a lawyer will be given a vacancy on the
bench. This kind of "ideal type" pattern is likely to be found in
many courts of first instance and appearance, such as justices of the
peace, traffic courts, and magistrates.
A Middle Level career pattern would typically include graduation
from a law school which is accredited but above the level of the
"factory" and below the level of the national law schools. Such a
lawyer is likely to have a moderately successful and discriminating
practice, more dignified than "ambulance chasing," but he is not with
a first-rate law firm. He is likely to exhibit political leadership sub-
stantially above the routine service of the Lower Level judge, and to
get a Higher Level judgeship.
The Upper Level judge is likely to have come from an elite family,
to have been graduated from a national law school, and to have
been a member of a well-regarded law firm (Miller, 1951; Mills,
1951). He is also likely to have held relatively important political
office and to have demonstrated exceptional ability before getting a
relatively High-Level judgeship.
There are, of course, many judges who do not fit into these "ideal
types." No typology can adequately capture the range of judicial
career patterns. Some lawyers may get to the bench because they
are special friends of an unusually well-placed politician. Some
lawyers may be wealthy enough to be able to give a large sum to
their political party and, all other factors being equal, such a lawyer
is more likely to get to the bench than an equally qualified lawyer
who has not given any money to the party in power. Two scholars
recently reported that it was "rumored" that the "going rate" for
judgeships in New York City was the equivalent of two years' salary
for the office (Sayre and Kaufman, 1960). Some lawyers may be
singled out for the judiciary merely because of their brilliance and
knowledge. Some law school professors who have not practiced may
be tapped for the bench, but this is relatively infrequent.
There is some reason to speculate on the way in which the
judge's career pattern is related to the kind of decision he makes.
Of special interest are atypical cases, where a lawyer with one
kind of background gets a judgeship that is not one it would be
logical to expect him to get. Deviant behavior on the part of judges,
like intemperate language or actual crime, as in the case of a recently
convicted former Westchester County Surrogate, seems to occur
mainly in judges whose position on the bench does not flow nat-
urally from their previous careers. As we would expect from
forms of deviant behavior, the dis-
studies into the causes of other
sonance between the individual's life style and the demand of his
role, may lead to problems (Zajonc, 1952).
DIFFERING VIEWS ON THE BASIS

FOR JUDICIAL DECISIONS
Some four thousand years ago, when the Code of Hammurabi

was promulgated, it was believed that judges' decisions and the law
came directly from the gods. By the time of Holmes's pioneering
studies in the late nineteenth century, it was becoming clear that
law was the result of human experience. Up to the early twentieth
century, writers on jurisprudence had generally held that judges
were able to keep Soon
their personalities out of their decisions.
after the turn of the century, some students of the courts who were
less "tough-minded" than the legal realist school (which held that
the law was the decision of judges in particular cases— in contrast

to the traditionalist view that the law consists of general rules) were
developing the thesis that law is a form of social control. Some of
the great exponents of what has been called sociological jurispru-
dence noted that even distinguished Supreme Court judges like
Marshall and Taney differed in their interpretation of the Constitu-
tion, and that such differences are partially attributable to the
different social, economic, and political backgrounds of the judges
(Pound, 1923). These scholars were not suggesting that judges
were making decisions on the basis of their economic backgrounds.
They were suggesting that the judge's professional education and
experience were influential in his decision.
The anthropological approach to judges' decisions has been fol-
lowed by some writers. Llewellyn has pointed out that there is a
procedure for getting rid of precedents which are troublesome and
another procedure for using precedents that seem helpful. The same
doctrine may be used for a specific purpose as well as for its exact
opposite (Llewellyn, 1951). He has suggested that the main func-
tion of the courts is not to resolve disputes but to establish "working
rules" for society (Llewellyn, 1925). He has urged the study of
what judges and courts actually do, and Dean Roscoe Pound has
added his great prestige to encouraging the application of the social
sciences to the study of what the courts are doing (1938).
Other writers have said that it was less important to study the
courts than to study the judges, in terms of what can be called the
latent or private aspects of their decisions. As long ago as the
sixteenth century, Montaigne commented that the judge's mood and
humor varied from day to day and were often reflected in his
decisions. Legal scholars have occasionally mocked the importance
of such nonrational aspects in a decision and referred to them as
"gastronomical jurisprudence," or an explanation of a judge's deci-
sion in terms of factors like gastronomical ailments. Such factors
doubtless do enter into many judges' decisions, but they are hardly
likely to be explicitly stated in the formal decision.
Candid statements about the way in which the judge's personality
enters into his decisions have been made by some of America's
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JUDGES •
133
leading judges. One of the great American judges, who was an

outstanding figure in the development of law in New York State,
Chancellor James Kent, said well over a century ago, in explaining
how he reached a decision: "I might once in a while be embarrassed
by a technical rule, but I almost always found principles suited to
my view of the case . .
." (Frank, 1930). Even the famous legal
philosopher, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who is perhaps the
classical exponent of the modern approach to law, has said that
"a decision is the unconscious result of instinctive prejudices and

inarticulate connections," and "even the prejudices which judges
share with their fellow men have a good deal more to do than the
syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be gov-
erned" (Holmes, 1881). Justice Cardozo stated that forces which
judges "do not recognize and cannot name have been tugging at
them and the result is an outlook on life
. . .
." (Cardozo, 1921). . .
One federal judge, after years of service, concluded that he

reached his decisions by hunch or feeling: "I . . . give my imagina-
tion play, and brooding . . . wait for the feeling, the hunch — that
intuitive flash of understanding (Hutcheson, 1929). Writing a
. .
."
few years later, a distinguished judge said that a judge reaches his
decision "by a 'hunch' as to what is fair and just or wise or expedient
. . . the personality of the judge and the judicial hunch are not
and cannot be described in terms of legal rules and principles"
(Frank, 1932). Frank has pointed out that the "sentence" which
the judge pronounces comes from the Latin verb sentire, which
means "to feel," and that the judge experiences his decision on an
emotional level. In a decision, he wrote that "much harm is done by
the myth that merely by putting on a black robe, and taking the
oath of office as a judge, a man ceases to be human ... If the judge
did not form judgments of the actors in those courthouse dramas
called he could never render decisions" (Frank, 1946).
trials,
The English jurist Lord Macmillan also underscored that "the

judge's mind remains a human instrument working as do other
minds" (Macmillan, 1937).
A Supreme Court justice frankly stated: "I know that in this
great mass of opinions by men of different temperaments and
qualifications and viewpoints, writing and under at different times
varying local influences, some printed judicial word may be found
to support almost any plausible proposition" (Jackson, 1944). This
suggests that the judge first reaches his decision and then may look
for a precedent to document his "decision," in contrast to the usual
view that the precedent search precedes the decision. Just how much
of an opportunity a judge has to find the "judicial word" with
which he is comfortable can be seen in Justice Stone's estimate that
a good law library, as of 1923, would have about 18,500 volumes of
reports and 5,500 volumes of statutes, with 350 new volumes of
reports and 250 new volumes of statutes each year (Stone, 1924).
He estimated that a good law
around a.d. 2023 would have
library
1,850,000 volumes of reports and 550,000 volumes of statutes. Judges
have pointed out that the judge is a human being and does not
"clink out" decisions as a computer does (Tate, 1958), but is prac-
ticing an art (Yankwich, 1957).
A number of judges have thus stated quite frankly that instead
of following a formal logical scheme, they reach their decisions by
a kind of intuitive Gestalt impression of the case and its issues. If
there are many judges who do reach their decisions in this way, it
is important to know this as well as to know how many judges
do so. Its implications for juridical science are central: it is like

the difference between explaining a particular learning phenomenon
in Gestalt principles in contrast to the traditional theory that judges
reach their decisions by a logical process akin to learning theory.
Among the possible implications for the student of the bench is that
the precedents and legal reasoning cited by the judge may not ac-
tually be the private rationale for some decisions.
One authority who conducted psychological studies of judicial
decisions said flatly that every judicial opinion "amounts to a con-
fession" by the judge (Schroeder, 1918). He presented a hypothetical
case in which the judge's decision was a direct reflection of "fearful
phantasies from his own past," instead of a wise adjudication. A
pioneering student of personal factors in judges' decisions examined
the way in which different New York magistrates, in 1916, were
handling the same offense (Haines, 1923). He found that the propor-
tion of cases dismissed ranged from 6.7 percent for one magistrate
to 73.7 percent for another. One magistrate discharged 18 percent of
his disorderly conduct cases and another discharged 54 percent.
Haines reasoned that personality factors in each judge were probably
responsible for the huge spread between the sentencing behavior
of one judge and another. The fate of a litigant who appeared in
this court was thus clearly a function of the judge before whom he
was fortunate or unfortunate enough to appear. Another empirical
investigation of court behavior found "criminal courts in Chicago
today . twisting the law and inventing fictions to attain results
. .
they regard as just" (Hall, 1935). Other studies have suggested

the possibility that some judges have favorite numbers which they
use in establishing sentences (Burtt, 1931; Gaudet et aL, 1934).
Legal scholars have discussed the personal and even idiosyncratic
components in the work of the bench. Dean Roscoe Pound has
praised Bergsonian intuition in a judge as a desirable quality (Pound,
1925). One noted student of the logic of law admitted that "un-
mistakable directions, irresistible implications, are few" for the judge
(Radin, 1925). One member of what can be called the realistic
school of judicial interpretation said that the behavior of judges
exhibits a "predictable uniformity" because human values of judges
suggested the kinds of decisions they would render (Cohen, 1935).
A related viewpoint is that many judicial decisions are essentially
fictions because "many of the most beautifully intricate and subtle
of legal theories are merely a form of legal rationalization or fiction.
. . . Theories are now means of jusifying
recognized as often a
decisions rather than as reasons for making them" (Bohlen, 1935).
Another scholar presented the view that judges engage in a kind
of mental gymnastics or "jurisprudential fictions," which they use
in order to justify and rationalize their decisions (Fuller, 1931), and
he established a typology of legal fictions. One scholar has frankly
stated that judges seldom give the "real motives and reasons" behind
their decisions (Rohrlich, 1931), although he believes it is best that
the public not know of these "real" motivating factors.
Even though experienced jurists and scholars have repeatedly em-
phasized the personal factors which are related to the judge's deci-
sion, the more formal point of view toward judicial decisions has
also been a continuing tradition (Radin, 1925; Dewey, 1924). Some
legal scholars have suggested the possibility that law can some day
be made almost as precise as geometry (Cairns, 1941). Justice Frank-
furter has repeatedly urged that the message of the statutes is clear
and that judges should do as the statutes suggest (Frankfurter,
1947). He has urged that a judge "move within the framework
of relevant legal rules and the covenanted modes of thought for
ascertaining them. This is achieved through training, profes-
. . .
sional habits, self-discipline and that fortunate alchemy by which

men are loyal to the obligation with which they are entrusted. ." . .
(Frankfurter, 1952).
Justice Frankfurter has urged that, in the absence of obvious
constitutional defects, courts be loath to overturn legislative judg-
ments as embodied in statutes. He has also indicated in the strongest
136 •
LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
terms that judges desist from substituting their proclivities, tastes,
and notions of justice or goodness for that of the people as they
have expressed themselves through their legislatures.
Another point of view on the judge's function sees the decision
as an instrument of social control in the hands of a completely-
rational judge (Michael and Adler, 1933). Justice Douglas is rep-
resentative ofwhat can be called a social control or libertarian view
on the current Supreme Court, and has clearly stated his belief that
the judge is not an impersonal arbiter (Douglas, 1959; Schwartz,
1957). The widely discussed differences between the "liberal" and
"conservative" (Larson, 1955) members of the Supreme Court have
made it on this highest level, judges may perceive
clear that even
their function differently, and that a study of the personal and social
backgrounds of the men on the Court would be as realistic an
approach to their decisions as the more usual legal approach (Carr,
1942; Lerner, 1957).
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE JUDGE

The frequent references by legal scholars to the "personality" of
the judge are almost never carried into an extended discussion of the
subject. If we define "personality" as everything about a person
which has relevance to his relations with other people, then it is
obvious that many different dimensions of the personal and social

background of the judge are relevant. His possible interest in
dominance, his needs, his self concept, his ways of achieving security,
and his use of unconscious defense mechanisms like projection,
rationalization, sublimation, repression, and suppression may all be
important.
The behavior of the judge represents a kind of natural con-
vergence between the area of "decision theory" and the area of "role
theory" in social psychology. The judge is a person who must make
a decision, but under circumstances in which his role as a judge is
a reflection of his other and previous roles and of his several group
memberships. Any kind of multiple group identification creates
problems for the individual (Hartley, 1951). Different judges may
have different reference groups (groups with which they identify
and which provide standards for decisions). These groups may in-
clude the great leaders of the judiciary like Holmes, their colleagues
on higher courts, the common man seeking justice, the impersonal
majesty of justice, the established power structure of society, an ideal
of social amelioration, the lawyers who appear before them, and

many others. Conflict between the judge's reference groups may be
reflected in his decisions.
The power over other persons which judges wield has been a
source of concern to many students of the bench. Some may glory
in the power, some may dislike it, and others may be ambivalent
about it. It is possible that the power and dominance of the judge's
role attracts persons who have an authoritarian inclination. Psycho-
logical research has extensively documented that the authoritarian
persons are likely to see things in an either-or fashion, rather than
in the balanced and democratic manner which is traditionally asso-
ciated with the judicial temperament (Adorno, 1950). The process
of socialization in office may temper the power strivings of judges.
There are courtroom observers who have suggested the perhaps
overenthusiastic generalization that some judges are basically inse-
cure people who seek security in the ritualized power embodied
in the judicial robe. Other observers have called attention to the
latent psychological functions which may be served for some judges
by sentencing.
Since our courts are based on the adversary system, in which
points of difference and conflict are explicitly the foci of courtroom
discussion, it is possible that there is some self-selection of lawyers
who seek the bench because of their interest in this kind of expres-
sion of disagreement. Many years ago, in his famous novel Bleak
House, Charles Dickens expressed the view that there is a specific
kind of judge who enjoys the battle of the courts. If Dickens's vision
were found to apply to any considerable proportion of the Amer-
ican judiciary, this would certainly be relevant to the study of the
psychology of the judge.
The courtroom may provide an outlet for the kind of exhibi-
tionism which has traditionally characterized actors and other near
exhibitionists. The judge has a captive audience, in contrast to the
actorwhose audience may walk out on him at any time, or not
even buy a ticket to the theatre. No matter how egocentric the
judge's behavior becomes, the lawyers for either side are hardly
likely to complain about As is true of most professionals, but
it.
perhaps especially because his name is affixed to his opinions, the

ego of the judge is likely to be deeply involved in his work.
Judges' perception may be very important because their alertness
in a trial is of critical importance to both sides. The psychology
of perception is as applicable to a judge as to any other person
(Bruner and Tagiuri, 1954). One outstanding example of idiosyn-
cratic perception of judges occurred not long ago when a federal
trial judge revealed, after years on the bench, that he always assumed
that any witness who rubbed his hands while testifying was a liar
(Frank, 1949). It is only possible to speculate on the number of
unfair decisions which such a judge gave.
The well-established difficulties of memory and cognition which
plague witnesses are likely to be multiplied in the case of a judge,
who is a witness of the witnesses, and thus perceives at two removes
from the reality of the circumstances which gave rise to a trial. One
noted student of the law has reported that his task as a young lawyer
was to drop books on the floor when a judge began getting drowsy
(Gross, 1947).
PREDICTING DECISIONS
Professor Oliphant of Columbia Law School was not the first

who believed that judicial decisions could be predicted by studying
the stimuli, or facts,which were presented to the judge. Oliphant
first presented his views in 1928. A well-known mathematician, at
about the same time, was exploring the possibility of establishing

a science of prediction of judges' decisions (Keyser, 1929). More
recently a lawyer and a political scientist have suggested the feasibil-
ity of a science of judicial prediction, even though they recognize
the role of personality factors of judges and others connected with
the trial (Lasswell and McDougal, 1943). One scholar has called
for appropriate statistical and probability techniques to summarize
how individual judges behave in different kinds of cases (Loevinger,
1949).
One study identified several areas of judicial action to which
quantitative methods have been applied with meaningful results
(Schubert, 1958). Another study has attempted to quantify any rule
of law that makes a decision dependent on combinations of specified
controlling circumstances (Kort, 1960). These promising starts have
made the possibility of a science of prediction of judicial decision
much more realizable.
SUGGESTED CHANGES
Many recommendations have been made for improving the quality

of the work of judges. Such recommendations are usually made very
cautiously because of the established tradition of being very reluc-

tant to criticize the judiciary, even inferentially. One such recom-
mendation is that trial judges make written findings of fact (Note,
1948). This might help in the review of a case, define the scope of
the decision, increase public confidence in the courts, and reassure
the litigants that their case had been carefully considered by the
judge. Findings of fact will, it has been suggested, act as a partial
check on the judge's subjectivity.
A number of students of the courts, including the Survey of the
Legal Profession of the Amercian Bar Association, have recom-
mended that courts use more of the method of relatively in-
formal conferences of all the parties in chambers with the judge
(Blaustein and Porter, 1954). It is interesting that judges have often
met the recommendation that they seek consonances rather than
arbitrate among dissonances with less than marked enthusiasm, a
fact which suggests that there are judges who enjoy the combat of
the courtroom.
Another suggestion made by an imaginative lawyer and judge
urged that prospective judges undergo some kind of psychoanalytic
treatment (Frank, 1949), as one way of recognizing the great power
of the judge's "personal equation." Such self-exploration, he felt,
should be of great help in reducing judicial bias and prejudice.

Ideally,such treatment would be repeated throughout the judge's
career on the bench. The same student has questioned the whole
system of precedent-following by judges, saying that it has roots
in emotional immaturity and a need for certainty. Good judges
"will not talk of 'rules' and 'principles' as finalities while uncon-
sciously using them as soporifics to allay the pains of uncertainty"
(Frank, 1930).
Federal Judge Julian Mack refused to wear a robe when presid-
ing at a and often conducted trials in his chambers, sitting
trial,
on the same level with the witnesses and lawyers. Others have rec-
ommended that judges not wear robes, pointing out that Thomas
Jefferson was opposed to any distinctive costume for federal judges.
Robes have priestly connotations which many observers believe to
be irrelevant to modern life, and which may help lead to stilted and
awkward testimony. Other students of the courts have suggested
that, as part of becoming more informal, courts abandon the com-
plicated language which they currently use in decisions and speak
more plainly, so that they can be both understood and criticized
more directly. As long ago as 1898, Justice Brewer suggested the
possible value of being critical of the Supreme Court, noting that
"the life and character of its Justices should be the objects of
constant watchfulness by all." The robe is a symbol of the judge's
sealing himself off from criticism.
One suggestion for improving judicial decisions which has been
made by a number of legal studeats is to incorporate more behavioral
science into court findings, and possibly train judges in the nature
of behavioral science. Critics have observed that classical sources,
like Wigmore on Evidence (Wigmore, 1940), do not appear to take
any cognizance of what modern behavior science says on subjects
like perception and consciousness. Judges daily deal with subjects
on which the behavioral sciences have collected much data, and they
almost never refer to such data. The 1954 Supreme Court deseg-
regation decision was a major decision that did draw on such
materials (Brown, 1954). In another series of decisions the Court
has stated that a jury must be representative of the community from
which it is drawn if it is to be impartial, thus recognizing dimensions
similar to those used in selecting a sample by survey technicians
(Robinson, 1950). Such use of behavioral science is rare.
Despite some of the statements made about the wisdom of inte-
grating social science findings with legal materials in the desegrega-
tion decision, such materials were used in the courts over a half
century ago. In an epoch-making brief (Muller, 1908), Brandeis
successfully urged that economic and social data were as relevant
in a case involving the constitutionality of a law limiting the work-
ing hours of women as the legal principles. Ever since, the Brandeis
Brief has been the designation for a brief which includes nonlegal
material of probative value to the propositions being urged upon
a court. Since such procedures are established, their relative nonuse
by judges leads to speculations on the reasons for their nonuse.
One such reason is that judges may be afraid of being considered
"unlawyerlike" and possible overruled. Another reason is the nature
of law school training and the history and development of legal
institutions including the common law. The writings of legal philos-
ophers and judges, beginning with Henry De Bracton in the
thirteenth century, express an overt or covert yearning for predict-
ability and certainty. As Redmount points out in Chapter 2 of this
volume, the law often appears to be a closed system of great order-
liness that manifests a grand design which rules the legal relations
of men. Judges trained in such a system and accustomed to the
doctrine of stare decisis, or the following of precedent, may under-
standably be reluctant to use social science materials which are

seldom as precise and definitive as statements in the law. The long
struggle between lawyers and psychiatrists is a good example of
the "legal ethnocentrism" which has characterized judges' attitudes
toward the materials of behavioral science. Judge Bazelon's recent
decision in the Durham case, which is discussed in detail in Chapter
7, "Criminal Responsibility and Psychiatry," represents a sign
of some rapprochement between the bench and modern knowl-
edge of mental hygiene. The increase of such rapprochement will
be the best counter to the fears of some judges that their status
and power will diminish if they take advantage of cognate materials
from other fields.
Suggestions for improving the functioning of the courts have

included modification of the procedures whereby judges are selected.
All federal judges are appointed for but judges are elected in
life,
about three fourths of the states, for terms ranging from 2 years in
Vermont to 21 in Pennsylvania (Institute, 1956). It has been alleged
that the electorate is not competent to appraise the qualifications of
a given candidate for judicial office, and the appointive system has
been attacked because of the element of political patronage. The
American Bar Association has favored a plan (the Missouri Plan)
whereby a state governor would select a candidate from a panel of
names submitted by a nonpartisian judicial nominating commission,
and the candidate would then be confirmed by the electorate at the
next general election. The California Plan calls for appointment by
the governor and confirmation by the majority of an ex officio
commission as well as subsequent confirmation by the electorate.
Another plan would have local bar associations nominate candidates
who would be recommended to the political parties
The more actively the work of the courts is discussed, the more
likely is it that we shall begin to bring theory and practice together
in the optimum and functioning of judges. It is to be hoped
selection
the introduction of the concepts of psychology and other social
sciences into the discussion of the work of the bench will lead to
ever-improving methods for the administration of justice in the
courts — a goal which all believers in the democratic process can
only endorse.
It is necessary to realize that progress in improving court proce-
dures is likely to be relatively slow. Almost twenty years after the

American Bar Association, in the late 1930's, had adopted minimum
practical standard of judicial administration, complete conformity
to these standards had not been achieved in even a single state, with
the possible exception of Alaska. The enormous importance of the
judiciary in the lives of men makes it urgent that continuing effort,
from all relevant disciplines be continued with the patient cooper-
ation of all who are interested in improving the work of the courts.
The judge, after all, is a key link between the individual and the
agencies of social control.
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THOMAS S. SZASZ
Criminal Responsibility
and Psychiatry
In many trials, including famous murder cases with which the
reader will undoubtedly be familiar, the defense has revolved around
the proposition that, although the defendant may have committed
the acts with which he was charged, he was nevertheless innocent.
This defense tactic rests on the premise that a harmful act is con-
sidered a criminal offense only if it is perpetrated knowingly and
willfully — that
with "criminal intent." It is held that if a man is
is,
"insane" or "mentally ill" he may not be responsible for his actions.

Hence an accused who successfully pleads insanity may be acquitted
with the verdict "not guilty by reason of insanity." Such a defense
involves psychiatrists testifying for one or both sides. In the present
chapter, our task will be to examine critically the problem of
so-called criminal responsibility, and especially its relationship to
psychiatry.
WHAT IS CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY?
A vast criminological, legal, and psychiatric literature is devoted

to expositions of understood by the term "criminal responsi-
what is
bility." Thus the impression is created that this concept has a clear-
cut and generally accepted meaning. After its constant use over a
period of half a century or more, many contemporary students of
crime, as well as the laity, have come to assume that criminal respon-
sibility is indeed a workable concept. All that is needed is the psychi-
atrist who will ascertain whether an offender does or does not possess
the trait of criminal responsibility.
But criminal responsibility is neither an object nor a phenomenon
found in nature, such as, say, the Grand Canyon or a rainbow. This
may seem rather like stating the obvious, and, in a way, it is. Since
146
CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY AND PSYCHIATRY • 147
there is a persistent effort, however, to find "objective criteria" for

criminal responsibility as though it were an object, it is necessary to
emphasize that it is nothing of the sort. Also, criminal responsibility
is neither a disease nor a disability. The conceptnot synonymous
is
with, nor can it be derived from, the concepts of physical or mental

Pneumonia, hypertension, paresis, schizophrenia, neurosis are
illness.
terms designating such diseases, yet none provides a definite clue to

the "criminal responsibility" of its bearer.
Despite this, it is possible to give an approximate answer to the
question, What is criminal responsibility? We could say that it is
"punishability," meaning by this society's right to enforce certain

negative sanctions against the offender. It is clear, then, that the
concept of criminal responsibility refers to a complex notion con-

cerning the relationship between offender and society. Accordingly,
it is a mistake to think that criminal responsibility is a quality resid-
ing in just one of the parties involved (the offender), and that it is
merely a task for accurate observation to detect the presence or
absence of this "factor."
Types of Responsibility
It is also necessary to note, by way of preliminary clarification,
that the simple term "responsibility" (or "responsible") is used in
everyday language in three different ways. First, in the descriptive
mode, as when we assert that "the avalanche at X was responsible
for the death of three skiers." This is a statement of what happened.
It contains no evaluation of the ethical quality of the event, nor any
suggestion of what should be done. In contrast to this, we may use

the word "responsible" in the prescriptive mode, referring not so
much to what happened but rather to what should be done. When
used in this way, "responsible" means "bad" (or less often "good")
and carries with it the command to change the situation, or to pre-
vent (or encourage) its recurrence. For example, if we say that
cigarette smoking is responsible for a higher than average incidence
of lung cancer, implied is the suggestion that cigarette smokers should
give up this habit. It is important to emphasize that this command is
only implied, for it hinges on another tacit premise, namely that
smokers value or should value longevity more than the pleasure
derived from smoking.
The concept of responsibility (whether as adjective or noun)
commonly is used in still another sense. This usage has been called
ascriptive, to designate the ethical quality ascribed to the act (of a
particular person) by the observer (Stoljar, 1959). Ascriptive respon-
sibility is often mistaken for descriptive responsibility. This con-
fusion runs through and vitiates a great deal of what has been written
on the problem of criminal responsibility. The specialized languages
of jurisprudence and psychiatry use all three types of responsibility,
usually without making explicit the necessary distinctions among
them. A brief illustration may clarify the subject.
Let us take the statement, "John killed James." In the descriptive
mode, this simply means that either we are truthful or we are lying
(excluding the possibility of making a mistake, to simplify the
matter). Evaluation of the correctness of this statement requires the
listener to verify or falsify it. Accordingly, if it is asserted that
"John killed James," we can respond in one of three ways: Yes, no,
and I don't know.
Criminology and law do not, however, deal with physical facts
as such. That is a subject for physics, chemistry, biology, and so
forth. Criminology and law deal with social relations, with ethics, or,
most generally, with rule-following behavior. District attorneys are
not interested in death as a biochemical phenomenon; they are in-
terested in death only insofar as it presents a specific psychosocial
and ethical problem.
The question thus becomes, "How did John kill James?" and "Is
John guilty or innocent?" In regard to the first question, further
fact finding and often motive finding becomes necessary. Did John
kill James in cold blood to rob him? Or did James throw himself in
front of John's truck? Or did John "kill" James by failing to save him
from drowning, James jumped in the river to commit suicide?
after
And so forth. The point is that special psychological, social, and
legal inquiry is often required to establish precisely under what
circumstances John killed James. Under some circumstances this is
not a matter for the law at all — for example, if John was a soldier
and James was the enemy. Under others, it is unquestionably neces-
sary that John be prosecuted. And under still other circumstances —
for example, when the distinction between suicide and homicide is
unclear — it may be a matter of choice for the legal authorities
whether they take action or not. The issue of responsibility as guilt
arises only in a legal context. (It may also arise in a religious setting.
This, however, is basically similar to the legal situation and is, in
fact, its prototype.) Hence, if we are asked whether John did in fact
kill James, our answer will depend, in part, on whether we are asked
in the capacity of naturalistic observer or jury.

Responsibility for a bit of action may be ascribed, or attributed,

to someone "truly" or meaning that in the first instance
"falsely,"
the person is descriptively responsible, whereas in the second he is
not. Furthermore, each of these ascriptions may
be publicly (that
is, by a jury) verified or Hence, for each charge of "respon-
falsified.
sibility," there are four alternative possibilities. The following illus-

trative example will show more clearly what each of these alterna-
tives is.
The charge John Doe killed James Smith, in Columbus,

is that
Ohio, on January 30, 1957. Is John Doe responsible (or "criminally
responsible") for James Smith's death? The four basic outcomes of
such a criminal prosecution and the defense against it are as follows.
First, John Doe's responsiblity for the act may be both descriptively
and ascriptively true. This is the case of the apprehended and suc-
cessfully prosecuted criminal. Second, Doe may have committed the
act, but to ascribe responsibility to him might have been false (that
is, judged false by those empowered to verify the matter). This is
the case in accidental homicide. Third, the description of John Doe's

might have been false (that is, he may, in fact, have
responsibility
been nowhere near Columbus, Ohio, on that date), but the ascription
of responsibility to him could, nevertheless, be made to "stick."
This is the successful "frame-up" or the conviction of an innocent
man as scapegoat. The Dreyfus example (Paleologue,
case is a classic
1957). Fourth, and last, Doe's responsibility for killing Smith may
turn out to be false both descriptively and ascriptively. This is the
unsuccessful frame-up, or the case of the innocent man's finding
justice in the courtroom. A summary of these four contingencies is
presented in Table 1.
Table 1
Classification of Acts According to Types of Responsibility
I II III IV
Descriptive Responsibility True True False False
Ascriptive Responsibility True False True False
I = The apprehended and successfully prosecuted criminal

II = The accident
III = The successful frame-up, or conviction of the innocent person (the
scapegoat)
IV = The unsuccessful frame-up, or acquittal of the innocent person
So far nothing has been said about the psychiatric aspects of the
problem of criminal responsibility. This was intentional, because a
logical clarification of the subject is necessary before psychiatric
complications, so to speak, can meaningfully be introduced into the
picture. We are now ready to consider still another type of so-called
irresponsibility for crime. First we shall be concerned only with the
logical status of this concept. Later we shall examine its history and
present status.
Irresponsibility Due to Insanity
Typically, the defense of insanity is raised only in those criminal

cases in which the descriptive responsibility of the offender for the
alleged antisocial act is accepted as true. That is to say, in such a case
there isno doubt in anyone's mind that John Doe did commit the
illegal act with which he is charged (killing James Smith). Logically,
then, the argument falls in Group II, Table 1. These are the cases
characterized by true descriptive responsibility, and supposedly false
ascriptive responsibility. The American verdict "Not guilty by rea-
son of insanity" states precisely this. It could be rendered in the
form: "John Doe is not guilty (ascriptively) of killing James Smith
(although he did cause his death) because of X." X may here stand
for any number of things, but most typically for one of these three:
accident, self-defense, insanity (Hart, 1958). Irresponsibility for a
harmful act by reason of insanity is thus entirely similar logically to
irresponsibility for such an act because it happened accidentally or
in self-defense. The notion of insanity has simply been added to
other excusing conditions, exculpating, as it were, the commission of
otherwise criminal acts. We shall return to this later.
The handling of the insanity plea in English law is somewhat
different. There, in a comparable situation, the verdict is, "Guilty,
but insane." As a practical matter, both maneuvers leave much to be
desired. American lawyers have advocated adopting the English
tactic, while some British jurists have expressed preference for the
American version (Weihofen, 1933). The logical analysis presented
is helpful in this connection, for it shows that the British way of
looking at the "insane criminal" tends to place his behavior in

Group whereas the American viewpoint places it in Group II.
I,
In both cases, the focus is on ascriptive responsibility. The main

difference between the two positions is that the American verdict
obscures the factual (descriptive) issue more than does the English
version. The former simultaneously denies and reasserts the anti-
social character of some accom-

aspects of "insane" behavior. This is
plished, first, by asserting that the offender is "not guilty (by reason
of insanity)." This renders the act akin to accidents and noncriminal
behavior. The offender's subsequent commitment, however, belies
this assertion, and recodifies the behavior
grounds for his involun-as
tary detention (now called "hospitalization" rather than "imprison-
ment") (Hall and Glueck, 1958, pp. 313-14).
HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS

OF CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY
The idea that some people are "insane" (or "psychotic") and
hence irresponsible for their actions has been held only in some
cultures and only during certain periods. According to this notion,
which is very popular in contemporary America, there are basically
two types of human conduct. One is so-called ordinary, rational
human behavior. The other is so-called irrational behavior. In the
latter mode of conduct, men allegedly do not (fully) understand
their own actions and are governed by powerful impulses rather than
by reason. The shortcomings of this dualistic concept of behavior
are well known and will not be discussed here. Let us note only
that if behavior is classified as either rational or irrational, the
observer is involved in ethically judging rather than in merely
describing his observations.
The Concept of Madness in Ancient Greece

While the general concept of "insanity" or "madness" can be
traced to antiquity, there is no clear evidence that it was an excuse
for criminal behavior either in ancient Greek or in Roman law. The
Greeks, as a matter of fact, were fascinated with the notion that
man is not the active creator of his own destiny, but rather that
he is, as it were, lived by fate. (This view was rekindled by Freud's
early concepts of Id psychology.) In the view of the great Greek
tragedies, man is (Dodds, 1957).
essentially helpless vis-a-vis fate
Such a concept of human behavior makes all men slightly mad. The
Sophoclean plays, and particularly their central themes (which be-
came psychoanalytic "complexes"), thus served as admirable models
for the elucidation of mental illness, conceived as not consciously
willed action. This view of human conduct lends itself poorly or
not at all to classifying certain antisocial actions as nonpunishable
because of madness: first, because all behavior is regarded as basically
of this type, and second, because man is held responsible (in some
sense) even for the involuntary, fate-willed actions that he com-
mits. This, at least, is the message of Oedipus's tragedy. Freud ex-
plicitly reasserted this principle when he said that man is "respon-
sible" for his dreams and for his unconscious wishes. (In this context,
however, "responsible" is used only descriptively; that is, the
sources, or causes, of our dreams lie within us and we cannot
attribute them to the machinations of others. This kind of respon-
sibility should not be confused with moral or legal responsibility.)
Accordingly, it is not surprising that in ancient Greece, madness
was not regarded This cannot
as a defense against criminal charges.
be attributed to the absence of the notion of "mental incompetence"
in classical Greek thought, for this was an accepted charge in cases
of civil litigation. It is alleged, for example, that this charge was
brought against Sophocles himself by his son Iophon (Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 1947). Yet, apparently no one suggested that Socrates's
"treasonous" teachings were due to madness, and that, therefore, he
should be treated as a harmless lunatic. cannot assume that it We
would have even occurred to anyone at that time to "explain"
Socrates's behavior in this way. Roman law, too, does not deal with
the issue of insanity.
From McNaghten to Durham

According to Glueck (1925), the real beginning of the legal
treatment of mental unsoundness can be traced to early English law.
Insanity was officially admitted to law as an "excuse" for criminal
action during the reign of Edward I (1272-1307). The details of
the subsequent history of this subject, until the trial of McNaghten,
need not concern us here.
The most famous and important forensic-psychiatric case in the
annals of Anglo-American law is undoubtedly that of McNaghten
(1843). The facts were that in 1843, Daniel McNaghten shot and
killed Drummond, private secretary to Sir Robert Peel, believing
him to be Peel. The defense was insanity. Medical evidence was
introduced showing that McNaghten was "laboring under an insane
hounded by enemies, among them Peel. The jury
delusion" of being
found him "Not guilty, on the ground of insanity" (Weihofen,
1933, p. 25).
Following this verdict, the question of unsoundness of mind as
an excuse for crime was made a subject of debate in the House of
Lords. The judges of England were asked to present their views on

the criteria for such an acquittal. The most important part of the
judges' answers was the following:
The jury ought to be told in all cases that ... to establish a defense
on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of
committing the party accused was labouring under such a defect
act, the
of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and
quality of the act he was doing, or if he did know it, that he did not
know he was doing what was wrong. [Weihofen, 1933, p. 28.]
It is clear that in saying this the judges had an entirely reasonable
idea in mind — namely, that the purpose of the criminal law is, or
should be, to "punish" so-called willfully committed wrongdoings.
An act that results in someone cannot be judged simply by
harm to
looking at what happened. We must also evaluate how it happened.
Consider two hypothetical cases. In the first, a man has an epileptic
seizure while driving his car; as a result, he loses control of the
vehicle, and runs down and kills another man. In the second, a man
loses a considerable sum of money in a card game that, he believes,
was crooked; he waits for the winner, and, when the latter crosses
the street, runs over him and kills him. In the first case, the man
"did not know the nature or quality of the act he was doing"; in
the second, he did. The idea underlying the McNaghten Rule was
that there may be many conditions of the type illustrated by the case
of the "epileptic accident," and that these should be distinguished
from deliberate acts of mischief. It is difficult to see how anyone
could quarrel with this intention. The actual implementation of
this rule, however — and means used to assess whether
especially the
an offender knew what he was doing, and whether he knew that
it was wrong — resulted in vast difficulties. Most of the difficulties
derive from the fact that so-called mental illnesses were conceived
as basically similar to neurological defects. Hence the belief that
"mental illness" causes a lack of appreciation of what one does.
This unrealistic emphasis on reason in mental disease, as well as
other principles of the McNaghten Rule, has often been vigorously
and heatedly debated. We shall not enter into this discussion —
which, particularly when it is concerned with the finer points of
distinction between degrees of "mental disease," is reminiscent of
scholastic debates about theological doctrines. We shall instead in-
dicate the principal issues to be kept in mind in studying this subject.
1. McNaghten's Case codified (as law) the notion that certain
acts are the results of "mental illness." Moreover, such illness was
conceived as being essentially similar to bodily disease. No distinction
was made between organic brain defects (for example, congenital
idiocy), acute intoxications, deliria (that is, drunkenness), and idea-
tionally motivated actions (political crimes). This global and undif-
ferentiated conception of mental illness has been accepted even by
most of the critics of the McNaghten Rule.
2. The was left unclarified.
postacquittal fate of the defendant
Tacitly, however, it was accepted practice in McNaghten's day, as it
still is in many parts of the world, that at least some patients who are
said to be mentally ill may be treated as though they were criminals;

that is, they may be forcibly restrained and involuntarily segregated
from society ("hospitalized"), sometimes for life (Szasz, 1957).
3. The socioeconomic, political, and ethical implications of
deviant behavior were obscured in favor of its so-called medical
causes. This, too, has remained a significant issue to our day, even in
the modifications of the McNaghten Rule.
Much has been made of the psychiatric dissatisfactions with so-
called tests of insanity, such as are implicit in McNaghten's Rule. In
this connection, Isaac Ray's argument against these tests is usually
approvingly quoted, to show that "enlightened" psychiatric knowl-

edge militates against the use of such tests (Overholser, 1959). Isaac
Ray's views had a profound impact on American psychiatry, espe-
cially on forensic psychiatry, and hence deserve careful study. For
our present purposes, it should suffice to recall that he was strongly
opposed to reforms advocating nonrestraint in treating mental
patients! In general, he was more interested in the so-called legal
applications of psychiatry than in psychiatry as a science. He was
frequently sought as an expert in criminal cases. Ray's forensic-
psychiatric views found expression in the New
Hampshire Rule. In
two celebrated decisions, handed down by the Supreme Court of
New Hampshire in 1869 and 1871, the relation between "mental
disease" and "criminal responsibility" was defined as a problem of
weighing evidence to be decided by the jury. In the Jones Case
(State v. Jones, 1871), the court expressed itself as follows:
Enough has already been said as to the use of symptoms, phases, or

manifestations of mental disease as legal tests of capacity to entertain
a criminal intent. They are all clearly matters of evidence to be weighed
by the jury upon the question whether the act was the offspring of
insanity. If it was, a criminal intent did not produce it. If it was not, a
criminal intent did produce it and it was crime.
Under this rule it suffices for a psychiatrist to testify that the

defendant is classifiable under a particular category of mental illness,
by virtue of having certain standard symptoms. Further, the psychia-

trist must testify that the crime was caused by this condition of the
defendant. Now, must be admitted that this does sound better than
it
McNaghten's Rule. But the improvement is deceptive. The change,

in fact, may be an ethical retrogression. This rule retains many of the
difficulties of its predecessors; it, too, treats some kinds of deviant
behavior as "illness" and is silent on the disposition of the acquitted

"criminal patient." Perhaps the most deceptive but most significant
feature of the New Hampshire Rule is the positive valuation it places
on the absence of a predetermined test of insanity. It is only logical
that those who have claimed that mental illness is basically no differ-
ent from physical illness should be required to "put up or shut up."
Ordinary diseases, such as syphilis, lobar pneumonia, epilepsy, and so
forth, may all be defined in such a way that publicly demonstrable
testscan be used to establish their presence or absence. For legal and
ethical purposes, moreover, it is more important that there be such
tests than that they be very accurate. For without the tests, expert
opinion ceases to be scientific (in the instrumental sense of this
word), and instead becomes oracular. I would argue, therefore, that
it is decidedly not enough for a psychiatrist to testify concerning his
"diagnosis" of a case, and perhaps also how, in his opinion, the de-
fendant was "not responsible" for his acts because of "mental illness."
Unless he also explains how he arrived at this conclusion — which in

essence means making the tests used explicit -r- his testimony runs
counter to the ethic of a rational, democratic jurisprudence. For in
the absence of such publicly verifiable criteria of rendering judg-
ment, psychiatric expert testimony will be accepted or rejected not
on the merit of the scientific argument presented but rather on
whether the psychiatrist, as an authoritative person, is accepted or
rejected. (See Chapter 3.) But it is the expert testimony not the
expert (person) that should concern the jury! This is the situation
when other technical experts, for example, a toxicologist or a path-
ologist, testify. I submit that the very fact that the high public repu-
tation of such men as Isaac Ray (and others who followed him) was
necessary to bring about the progressive "psychiatrization" of the
law should make us wary of their claims. If their claims had been
scientifically sound and verifiable, men of lesser repute could have
established them equally well. Beginning with the New Hampshire
Rule and culminating in the Durham Decision (see page 157), the
oracular pronouncements of eminent psychiatrists have taken the
place of publicly verifiable facts (and of scientifically acceptable
The change from McNaghten to New Hampshire and
theories).
Durham is thus a move away from a Rule of Law toward a Rule
of Men.
At this point, before proceeding to a discussion of the Durham
Rule, it is necessary to mention the so-called "irresistible impulse"
test, which exempts from responsibility acts committed as a result
of irresistible impulse. The moral basis of this test rests on the funda-
mental proposition that "freedom of the will" is essential to criminal
responsibility. Those who have advocated this test have assumed,
further, that there exist human which men
conditions or situations in
are irresistibly driven to act in certain ways. Such "irresistibly" com-
mitted actions are then placed in the same category as accidents.
Neither is purposefully planned and executed. The foregoing state-
ments must not be regarded as descriptions of facts concerning ob-
servable human behavior. On the contrary, in the case of the notion
of irresistible impulse — as in so much of forensic psychiatry —
theories of human behavior and prescriptions of conduct are pre-
sented as if they were empirical observations. We need not be con-
cerned here with a criticism of this principle. It should suffice to
note that the idea of an act committed as a result of an irresistible
impulse presupposes that action is impulse-motivated, and that some

impulses can be resisted whereas others cannot. "Sanity" is then con-
ceived as the ability to These statements
resist (antisocial) impulses.
have, of course, only the remotest sort of connection with psycho-

social facts.
Rather than consider this concept further, it will be more perti-
nent for us to note the historical context in which this test arose and
the reasons given in support of it. The irresistible impulse doctrine
is of American origin and dates from 1834 (Weihofen, 1933, p. 46).
It was adopted in several states and received its strongest support in a
decision handed down in Alabama in 1886. There is a vast literature

concerning these decisions and the irresistible impulse doctrine
generally, most of it dealing with the test's advantages over the
McNaghten formula (which it usually "supplements"). The main
point, as I see it, is that to many persons the McNaghten Rule implied
a principally cognitive or intellectual definition of "insanity." Ac-
cordingly, there has been a constant agitation, mostly on the part of
psychiatrists, for the recognition of the so-called emotional aspects
of "mental illness." The irresistible impulse test is probably best
viewed an early expression of opposition to the McNaghten
as
formula, on the basis of the latter's alleged overemphasis on the role
of reason in personality functioning. The Durham Rule is a logical

sequel to the irresistible impulse test. It reveals a persistent pre-
occupation with the question of which part of the personality is
"sick," and with a refutation of the significance of the rational in

human behavior.
The Durham Rule (1954) was handed down in a decision of the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1954.
Its most significant assertion is that "an accused is not criminally
responsible if his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or

mental defect." Evidently, this is simply a semantic modernization of
the New Hampshire Rule.
This decision has been widely hailed by both jurists and psychia-
trists. It is said to represent a great scientific advance in criminal
jurisprudence. A few legal scholars (notably, Hall, 1956), and an

even smaller number of psychiatrists (Szasz, 1958b) have expressed
criticism of the decision and its implications.
Clearly, the Durham Decision represents the final culmination of
what could aptly be called the "psychiatrization" of some aspect of
the criminal law. It an attempt to transform the preconceived no-
is
tion that there are two modes of existence — one sane, the other insane
— into legal "reality." Since this rule has had a powerful impact on
contemporary American jurisprudence, its psychiatric, legal, and
ethical aspects will be examined in detail.
THE DURHAM RULE AND ITS

IMPLICATIONS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS
According to the jurists who formulated the Durham Decision, it

was based on the general ethical principle that "our collective con-
science does not allow punishment where it cannot impose blame."
This seems like an idea that is at once self-evident and wholly com-
mendable. In fact, it is neither.
In its naked form, the above-quoted assertion lays claim to a
general principle as a regulatory force in social behavior. Obviously,
such a statement cannot be regarded as a description of a natural
law. It is, rather, a prescription about the principles that ought to
govern social living (in the society intended by the speaker). As I
pointed out some time ago (Szasz, 1956), a logical corollary of the
rule "No punishment without blameworthiness" is that there should
likewise be "No reward without praise worthiness." The fact is, of
course, that our society isnot constructed along these lines at all.
Indeed, to reform it in accordance with these principles would turn
it into a type of human organization quite unknown to us and one
that is hardly imaginable.
Another source of difficulty is encountered when we consider that
ignorance of the law is no excuse in the eye of the Anglo-American
(as well as the Roman) philosophy of law. How can a person igno-
rant of the law be held responsible for breaking it? How can he be
blamed for committing an act that he did not know was prohibited?
The answer is, of course, that the well-being of a democratic social
order depends upon every adult person's knowing what he can do
and what he cannot. Legal responsibility is thus an expectation. It is
an expectation, first, that people will learn the laws of the land in
which they live, and, second, that they will try to adhere to them.
Thus, should they break the law, we will be entitled to consider
them blameworthy.
If we apply this reasoning to offenders who are alleged to be
mentally ill, we shall come to similar conclusions. That is, if such
persons are "ill" in some sense resembling a state of bodily illness,
this shall not excuse them from adherence to the law.
on the other If,
hand, "mental illness" is a phenomenon in some ways similar to

ignorance (which, indeed, it is), then this state — and its correction
— shall also ascriptively be regarded as falling within the primary
responsibility of the adult citizen. Thus, from a purely logical point
of view, there are no good grounds for the rule that there should be
two types of laws, one for the mentally healthy and another for the
mentally sick. 1
MENTAL ILLNESS AS AN
EXCUSING CONDITION
The discussion so far has presupposed two conditions which must

now be further analyzed: the notion of mental illness, and the judicial
status of such illness as a so-called excusing condition. We shall
examine each of these separately.
The Nature of "Mental Illness"
I began this discussion by stating that "criminal responsibility" and

"psychiatry" are ambiguous terms. We are now ready to identify
The psychiatric aspects of this problem were analyzed in detail in several

1
previous publications (Szasz, 1956, 1958b, 1958c), to which the interested reader
is referred.
and briefly illustrate some of the problems attending the concept of

psychiatry.
The scope and subject matter of psychiatry are ill defined. To
some, psychiatry means the study of diseases of the brain; to others,
the study of diseases of the mind; and to still others, the study of
behavior, diseased or otherwise. Nor is there agreement on the
scientific and technical methods that characterize this branch of
knowledge. Some rely on physicochemical methods; others on
psychosocial methods. Accordingly, the terms "psychiatry" and
"psychiatrist," as employed in contemporary America, may be used
to identify a variety of scientific disciplines and their practitioners.
It is generally assumed that so-called mental illnesses exist. It is
further assumed that the phenomena so designated belong in the same

logical class as bodily illnesses. In the legal thought of the past
century, moreover, these assumptions have been treated as though
they were simple, well-established, empirical observations or so-
called facts. Probably the first, and undoubtedly one of the most
effective proponent of this "common-sense" view of psychiatric
illnesswas Isaac Ray. Under his guidance and influence, the New
Hampshire court, in State v. Pike (1869), asserted that "all symptoms
and all tests of mental disease were purely matters of fact to be
determined by the jury." The concept "mental disease" was here
defined, by legislative fiat, as fact, rather than as interpretation (based
on facts) or as theory (designed to explain facts).
Critical inspection of the phenomena called mental illnesses and the
actual operations of psychiatrists reveal that the term "mental illness"
designates a concept quite unlike that suggested by the above-
mentioned definition. To put the matter succinctly, I believe we
would be justified in asserting that there is no such thing as a mental
illness. In other words, the alleged existence of such illnesses, as
naturally occurring phenomena, similar to, say, fractures and cancers,
is a myth. Mental illness is a metaphorical expression, referring to
disturbances or deviations in social behavior. The basis for this view
of so-called psychiatric illnesses was presented elsewhere (Szasz,
1959a, 1960b) and cannot be detailed here. Suffice it so say that a
clarification of this conception has far-reaching practical implica-
tions. I shall mention only two of these, which are pertinent to our
present concern.
1. There is a distinction between
happening and as action
illness as
(Peters, 1958). Bodily illness — for
example, developing a brain
tumor — falls in the logical happening class. Having such a disease
is not the result of a (willed) action, but is rather in the nature
of a passively incurred occurrence. The disease-conception of mental
illness places certain behavioral acts in the category of such passively
incurred occurrences. In this view, for example, a so-called paranoid
schizophrenic person's shooting his "persecutor" would be regarded
as a happening. The view here proposed, on the other hand, treats
the crime as an action. (This is not to say that it is an action in every
way similar to, or identical with, all other types of action. But it is an
action, nonetheless.) It is clear that this consideration has a profound

bearing on mental illness as an excusing condition. This will be
discussed presently.
2. According to traditional definition, psychiatry is the study and
treatment of mental illnesses. A more accurate and serviceable defini-
tion would be to regard psychiatry as one of the sciences (both pure
and applied) dealing with human (social) behavior. As such, psy-
chiatry would be principally a social science, rather than a medical
science. Its sister sciences would be anthropology, ethics, psychol-
ogy, and sociology. Medicine in general and neurology in particular
are the sciences concerned with man's physical or bodily behavior,
rather than with his social behavior. The problem of "sanity" thus
ceases to be a purely medical concern.
If we seriously believe that the human experiences of certain of-
fenders are significant data for juries and judges to consider in
sentencing them, then we should have to conclude that it is not the
offender's alleged mental illness that is really relevant, but rather his
human circumstances — his upbringing, family situation, values, and
the like. This would mean that psychiatric testimony would be only
one among several types of expert testimony to be considered. The
courts would thus be thrown open to behavioral scientists of all
sorts, all of whom could contribute, each in his own special way, to
the jury's understanding of what happened, and why, in a given
criminal case. If this were implemented, psychiatrists would have
to relinquish the prestige and authority vested in their medical
degrees, which now enable them to be experts in so-called mental
illnesses or psychopathologies. As toxicologists need not be physi-
cians, so experts in human behavior need not be psychiatrists. The
psychiatric expert's status has traditionally been based on his affilia-
tion rather than on his usefulness. This, I submit, has been one of the
factors that has undermined, and rightly so, the value of psychiatric
expert testimony in the eye of the law and the public. A respectable
and self-respecting expert must be one whose expert status derives
from special skills and knowledge, not from membership in a special
group. This is especially true in the case of psychiatry, since mem-

bership in various professional groups may be gained on the basis of
criteria quite unrelated to the skills required for, say, assessing varia-
tions in social or ethical behavior. Hence it is logicallyand em-
pirically possible for a person to be an expert in psychiatry without
being an expert in the science of human behavior.
Excusing Conditions
The concept of an excusing condition was most clearly formulated
by Hart (1958):
It is characteristic of our own and
advanced legal systems that the
all
any rate for serious crimes carry-
individual's liability to punishment, at
ing severe penalties, is made by law to depend on, among other things,
certain mental conditions. These conditions can best be expressed in
negative form as excusing conditions; the individual is not liable to
punishment if at the time of his doing what would otherwise be a
punishable act he is, say, unconscious, mistaken about the physical con-
sequences of his bodily movements or the nature or qualities of the
thing or persons affected by them, or, in some cases, if he is subjected
to threats or other gross forms of coercion or is the victim of certain
types of mental disease. This is a list, not meant to be complete, giving
broad descriptions of the principal excusing conditions; the exact def-
inition of these and their precise character and scope must be sought
in the detailed exposition of our criminal law. If an individual breaks
the law when none of the excusing conditions are present, he is ordinarily
said to have acted of "his own free will," of "his own accord," "volun-
tarily"; or it might be said, "He could have helped doing what he did."
[Pp. 81-82.]
from Hart's subsequent discussion as well as from in-

It is clear,
spection of the administration of Anglo-American law, that the
logical prototype ofan excusing condition is an accident. In this case,
no responsibility can be ascribed to the offender. It is important to
note, however, that this principle is no longer adhered to, as in cases
of compensation for industrial accidents. The employer need not be
at fault for the worker to be awarded compensation for injuries so
incurred. In practice, no legal system admits without qualifications
that all criminal responsibility is excluded — automatically, as it were
— by any particular excusing condition. Hence, mental illness — like
accident, provocation, or duress — may or may not constitute an
excuse for a given criminal act. Here we need not be concerned
with the problem of what factors, in addition to the psychiatric ones,
affect the court's judgment concerning whether mental illness is or is
not an excusing condition. What will interest us is only the logic and
psychology of why mental illness should ever be considered an
excusing condition.
Should "Mental Illness" Be Considered an Excusing

Condition?
Those who consider mental an excusing condition do so
illness
because they regard so-called mentally ill persons as falling in a class
distinct from and different from those who are mentally well. This
distinction is supposed to rest on psychological or psychiatric cri-
teria. As outstanding a legal authority as Professor Glanville Williams
(1953) has stated, apropos of considering the restraining effects of
punishment, that "Mentally deranged persons, however, can be sepa-
rated from the mass of mankind by and can be given
scientific tests,
treatment instead of being subjected to punitive sanctions. Being a
defined class, their segregation from punishment does not impair the
efficacy of the sanction for people generally" (p. 347).
I submit that view embodies a grave error. That no scientific
this
distinction between mentally sick and mentally healthy persons exists
— at least at present — is evident from the psychiatric literature.
Another, perhaps simpler, source of evidence to support this conten-
tion is the well-known battle of the psychiatric experts. It is possible,
in virtually any case in which psychiatric testimony is introduced, to
secure psychiatric testimony in opposition to it. How are we to
reconcile this fact? If we compare psychiatric to, say, toxicological
testimony, a comparable situation would be one in which the toxi-
cologist for the prosecution testified that a body contained a lethal
amount of whereas the toxicologist for the defense testified
arsenic,
that it did not. This, of course, never happens, because one of the
experts could be, and would be, proved guilty of perjury.
How, then, can a similar sort of situation happen in psychiatric
testimony? Psychiatric experts can render conflicting opinions, I
believe, because the standards or criteria for their opinions always
remain unexplicit. Thus, they can testify to virtually anything — as
expert opinion (not as fact) — and they cannot possibly be proved
wrong. Neither can they be proved right. It is as if both toxicolo-
gists in the example cited could be right, one because he considered
the lethal dose of arsenic to be x milligrams, the other because he
considered it to be y milligrams. As long as we do not seek to ascer-
tain the criteria that the experts use — and demand that these be
framed in objective, descriptive terms — we encourage them to
influence and lead us, rather than to inform us! It is my thesis,
briefly, that menril illness is not the wt of phenomenon whose

presence or absence can, at least according to current practices, be
easily identified by scientifically impartial methods. Since there are
no scientifically accepted ethical and social criteria of mental health
—a concept corresponding to the permissible level of arsenic in the
human body in our analogy — there can be no scientifically accept-
able criteria of mental illness.
In addition to this chiefly logical argument against regarding men-
tal illness as an excusing condition, we should also consider the
argument, presented earlier, that "mentally ill" behavior is more
akin to action than to happenings. Now, it may correctly be argued
that, in some part, such behavior is also similar to happenings. To
the extent to which a person "acts" in an involuntary fashion, to
precisely that extent, however, he cannot be regarded as a "human
being" (in the social sense of the term). This, then, leads to the
apparently insoluble dilemma in which much of contemporary for-
ensic psychiatry finds itself. Either we regard offenders as "sane"
and punish them, or we regard them as "insane," and, though offi-
cially excusing them of "crimes," punish them in the most serious

way possible, namely, by treating them as beings who are "inhuman"
or "less than human" (Guttmacher and Weihofen, 1952; Weihofen,
1956). In this dilemma, it seems to me that the most dignified, and
psychologically and socially most promising, alternative is not to
consider mental illness an excusing condition. Treating offenders as
responsible human though sometimes they may not be
beings, even
individually "blameworthy," offers them the only chance, as I now
see it, of remaining "human" and possibly becoming more so.
Many contemporary forensic-psychiatric authors tacitly adhere
to the premise that illness is bad and that virtually any method that
is likely to prove therapeutic may justifiably be employed, with or
without the consent of the patient. Wertham (1955) called this

"psychoauthoritarianism" because it substitutes the psychiatrist's
authority for the patient's responsibility for and self-determination
of his own Another appropriate descriptive label for this sort
fate.
of orientation would be to call it the "medical" or "therapeutic"

attitude. In contrast to it, we may speak of the ethic of responsibility
and democracy — or,
more precisely, of the ethic of the "open
society" (Popper, 1950) —which places higher value on personal
integrity and self-determination than it does on health. For instance,
it is illegal for a physician to treat a patient, if he is of age and con-
scious, without his consent. Legally, unauthorized treatment is as-
sank and battery. Now, those adhering to the ethics of therapeutism
could object and say: "But if the physician could show that the
patient was sick, and that he did properly treat him, should this not
exonerate the physician from the charges?" In fact, such a physician
might even argue that he should be regarded as the patient's (and
society's) benefactor, rather than as a lawbreaker. It seems to me
that both positions rest on reasonable arguments. How we decide
will depend on which values, among several conflicting ones, we
prefer. Decreeing the supremacy of health as a value, will, in many
such situations, result in serious losses in individual self-determina-
tion and personal freedom. Conversely, if it is decreed that dignity,
self-responsibility, and freedom are supreme values, even more im-
portant than health, then, in some situations at least, the health of
persons may suffer as a consequence. This is the case, for example,
in the widely publicized instances in which members of the sect
known as Jehovah's Witnesses may die following an operation,
because the use of blood transfusions is prohibited by the religious
teachings of this group. It has often been asserted, and it remains
true, I believe, that such diversity is not only the price of democ-
racy but its very essence.
The converse of this situation (that is, the converse of the ethical
primacy of individual choice, and its consequences)
responsibility,
characterizes the practices of contemporary forensic psychiatry.
This includes the uses to which psychiatric testimony is put in crim-
inal trials, and also the tactic of committing persons charged with
criminal acts who had been acquitted by reason of insanity. What
I have earlier called the psychiatrization of the law means precisely
this; the subordination of the ethics of the "open society" to the
ethics of medical-therapeutic considerations and arguments. Thus, in

the legal adjudication of a case, claims concerning the mental state
of an offender may be given more weight than his actual partici-
pation in the act, his self-confessed reasons for it, his gains from it,
and so on. Likewise, in committing an acquitted "criminal" to a
mental hospital, supremacy is given to the notions of mental illness
and therapy, while injury is done to the value that no one should
be detained without being proven guilty of criminal activity. By the
same token, the ethically odious conception of an indefinite sentence
(particularly for a person unconvicted of any crime) is made tol-
erable, at least for some people, by disguising it as serving the inter-
ests of a higher ethical goal, namely, the goal of good individual
and public health/ Clearly, we must make a choice between the
ethics of the "open society" and the ethics of therapeutism.
EPILOGUE
I should like to add a brief note to what

have said concerning
I
the potential practical implementation of the point of view I have

expressed.
Isubmit that a great deal of the complicated machination that now
goes on in the name of pleading insanity in criminal cases could be
obviated if all persons were treated as though they were responsible
for their actions. (Needless to say, the death penalty would have
to be abolished before such a viewpoint could seriously be enter-
tained. So long powerful temptation on psy-
as it exists, it exerts a
chiatrists, lawyers, and everyone else to use the insanity plea for no
other purpose than to avoid this penalty.) I would further propose
that there should be only two types of institutions: jails and hos-
pitals. No hybrids would be permitted. This would mean the elimi-
nation of all involuntary hospitalization as hospitalization. (Some

persons now with in this way probably would have to be sen-
dealt
tenced to jails, which could then function therapeutically.) Accord-
ingly, persons charged with criminal offenses would be either
acquitted or sentenced to jail. Acquittal would be complete and
unconditional, as the term implies. Psychiatric, sociologic, ethical,
and other considerations could be weighed in determining the
sentence and in carrying out the penal disposition. The latter could,
conceivably, range from neutral segregation — just putting in time
— to a full-fledged psychiatric rehabilitation program. Since the
persons to whom such therapy would be administered would be
restrained by law, and since the treatment itself might be adminis-
tered against their wishes, it would seem to me more honest, and
hence more desirable, to codify this type of incarceration as jailing
rather than as hospitalization. What is being advocated, in brief,
is a more consistent, candid, and forthright separation of self-defined
illness with self-responsibly undertaken treatment on the one hand,
and of other-defined "illness" or criminality and legally imposed

"treatment" or confinement on the other hand.
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168 * LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY
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Part II
Criminal Psychology
HANS TOCH
Introduction to
8 Criminal Psychology
widely assumed that a convicted felon must be punished by

It is
the law in proportion to the seriousness of his offense. It is also

assumed that an effort must be made to "rehabilitate" or "correct"
the errant culprit so that he becomes a congenial and law-abiding
member of the community.
Chapter 13 will discuss the fact that we cannot really accom-
plish both aims at the same time. One reason for this is that if we
share the Mikado's sublime object of making "the punishment fit
the crime" we have to punish in the same way every person who
has committed the same crime. If we send one forger to prison for
five years, we must send the next forger to prison for five years.
If we maintain that first-degree murder deserves a life sentence,
anyone found guilty of murder in the first degree must spend the
remainder of his life in prison.
But as we shall see later in this section, the same offense can be
committed by a variety of people for a variety of reasons. One of
our two forgers, for instance, may have stumbled into the profession
accidentally — through an unfortunate choice of acquaintances, as
a misguided outlet for artistic leanings, under the temporary influ-
ence of alcohol, or in a period of despondency over a financial
crisis; once detected or after a few weeks of sobering prison life,
he may never etch anything more objectionable than bathing beau-

ties or wild flowers. The second forger may be a chronic offender
with a string of convictions stretching back to his eighth birthday.

His personality may be so warped that only prolonged psychiatric
attention may hold out hope of preventing the continuation of his
annoying criminal career. If our aim is to "correct" these two
culprits, we must clearly take their differences into account. If we
do, we may rehabilitate both; if we don't — and if we "punish" both
of them in proportion to their offense—we may rehabilitate neither.
171
172 • CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY
We may convert the first forger into a bitter, antisocial person,
and we may release the second before we have made the necessary
impact on him. 1
The same point holds for our murderers. In general, persons
guilty of first-degree murder are the safest people to release from
prison — they seldom commit further offenses beyond traffic vio-
lations. Occasionally, however, such a person is a very serious
menace to society by virtue of his strong, uncontrolled impulses.
From a correctional or rehabilitative point of view, this type of
offender may well have to be confined for life, whereas his fellow
murderers might at best be wasting many years in which they
could make constructive contributions to society.
Criminal psychology is a discipline which shares with others the
problem of rehabilitation or correction of offenders:
As a science, criminal psychology studies the causes of criminal
behavior. It attempts to isolate, describe, and understand the par-
ticular combinations of factors which lead particular people to com-
mit particular crimes. It seeks to arrive at general statements or laws
about patterns of causation of antisocial behavior.
As psychology aims at reducing crime by
a profession, criminal
treating offenders. The concern here is with finding ways of
changing people so that they refrain from antisocial behavior.
THE CONCEPTION OF MAN AS

FREE MORAL AGENT
Rehabilitation as an objective in dealing with criminals has gained

acceptance only very recently. Less than two hundred years ago,
the prevalent form of treatment of convicted offenders was cor-
poral punishment. Favorite forms of punishment included flogging,
mutilation, branding, and the stocks and pillory (Barnes, 1930).
Capital punishment was applied with horrifying frequency. Ac-
cording to one estimate, 200,000 witches were executed in Europe
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Henry VIII slaughtered
72,000 of his subjects, and legalized boiling to death as one means
of doing so (Lawrence, 1928). Before the revision of the English
penal code in the first half of the nineteenth century, 222 types of
offenses could result in hanging.
1 Most forgers actually fall into the second category. The chances of their
rehabilitation in prison are negligible. Upon release they generally relapse easily
into forgery.
INTRODUCTION TO CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY • 173
This not to say that there was anything uniform about the
is
application of punishments. In most instances the offender could

expect mercy, but the nature of his offense gave him no infor-
little
mation about the severity of the punishment he could anticipate.

Judges were concerned not only about punishing the offender
for his misdeeds, but also about deterring others from turning to
crime. Hangings were considered to be highly educational, and were
widely advertised. Branding and mutilation in part served the same
purpose, in that each victim, if he survived, could provide a roadside
warning to others. Thus William the Conqueror decreed "that no
one shall be killed or hung for any misdeeds, but rather that his
eyes be plucked out and his feet, hands and testicles cut off, so that
whatever part of his body remains will be a living sign to all of his
crime and iniquity" (Barnes, 1930, p. 61).
Both the aim of punishment and that of deterrence were firmly
rooted in a religious conception of human nature. Man was viewed
as a free moral agent. He was seen as being able to choose between
righteous behavior sanctioned by God, and evil conduct of which
God took a dim view. Severe punishment could thus be regarded
as a pious act.
A philosophy of deterrence followed from the premise that the
potential criminal could choose not to commit his evil act. Deter-
rence also was a sacred obligation from the religious viewpoint,
since a crime deterred represented a soul saved.
DIVINE INTERVENTION IN
THE COURTROOM
The religious conception of crime was implicit in the very nature
of medieval trials. Until 1215, for instance, the favorite method of
adjudication in Europe was Trial by Ordeal, in which God was pre-
sumed to deliver the verdict by intervening on behalf of the defend-
ant or by not doing so. If God intervened for the defendant (making
it possible, for instance, for him to be boiled without blistering, or
to float when weighed down with stones, or to walk between fires,
or to touch a corpse without flinching) he was declared innocent.

If God he was declared guilty. A series of pray-
failed to intervene,
ersand invocations was prescribed for every form of ordeal. Boiling
water, for instance, was sometimes "adjured" as follows:
"O holy water, Oblessed water, water which washest the dust and
sins of the world, I adjure thee by the living God that thou shalt show
thyself pure, nor retain any false image, but shalt be exorcised water,
tomake manifest and reveal and bring to naught all falsehood, and to
make manifest and bring to light all truth; so that he who shall place
his hand and true, shall receive no hurt; but
in thee, if his cause be just
if let his hand be burned with fire, that all men may
he be perjured,
know the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will come, with the
Holy Ghost, to judge with fire the quick and the dead, and the world!
Amen!" (Cit. Wigmore, 1941, p. 11.)
Civil cases were also divinely decided. One type

took the of trial
form of a sporting event in which champions of plaintiff and de-

fendant (sometimes monks) would compete, and God presumably
selected the winning team.
An obviously insane offender was not considered — even in the
Middle Ages — as exercising free will. This far from mitigated
the severity of his treatment, however, because the devils which
were assumed to inhabit and control him were usually harassed by-
torturing and burning their unfortunate host.
HEDONISM AND CLASSICAL

ANTHROPOLOGY
Early versions of criminal psychology developed against this
background. One such development is the application to crime of
Bentham's theory of hedonism. Jeremy Bentham anticipated modern
behaviorism by asserting that "Nature has placed mankind under
the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure" (Ben-
tham, 1907, p. 1).
Crime, like other human conduct, was seen as representing an
effort to gain pleasure. The criminal was a special case because he
derived pleasure at the expense of the community: his search for
happiness provided pain to others. Punishment must be designed to
deter this type of effort by making it unprofitable. This could be
accomplished by making the punishment "not less in any case than
what is sufficient to outweigh [the value] of the profit of the of-
fense" (p. 179). The pain inflicted by the punishment must equal the
pleasure to be derivedfrom the offense. By the same token, arbitrari-
ness or cruelty would serve no purpose: "The punishment ought in
no case to be more than what is necessary to bring it into conformity
with the rules here given" (p. 182). Bentham thus provided "rules"
for making the punishment fit the crime in equitable fashion.
Bentham's attempt is very closely paralleled by Cesare Beccaria's
Essay on Crimes and Punishments, which represents the cornerstone
of the so-called Classic School of Criminology. Beccaria, like Ben-

tham, believed that "pleasure and pain are the only springs of actions
in beings endowed with sensibility" (Beccaria, 1819, p. 21). He
also argued that crime constituted an injury against society and
was "to be measured by the injury done to society" (p. 32). And
he, too, concluded that punishment should be determined by the
extent of the injury, and should not exceed it. Thus crimes against
property should be punished by fines, if at all possible. Beccaria
took a strong stand against capital punishment, against torture, and
against unfair trial procedures resulting in inequitable sentences.
These views occasioned strong attacks from contemporary jurists,
who "accused Beccaria of being the protector of robbers and mur-
derers, because he wanted to abolish the only means of compelling
them to a confession, the torture" (Ferri, 1910, p. 19).
Both hedonism and classical criminology were firmly based on
a psychology of volition. They assumed that every criminal act re-
sulted from a decision of free will in the face of a temptation. They
assumed that this temptation varied with the offense. Punishment,
therefore, also had to vary with the offense. 2 This would increase
both its equitability and its effectiveness as a deterrent.
THE POSITIVE SCHOOL

OF CRIMINOLOGY
The Positive School of Criminology, which was inaugurated in

1872 by Cesare Lombroso, denied the role of free will in causing
crime, and maintained that crime was determined, by factors which
could be isolated and measured:
The positive school of criminology maintains that it is not the

. . .
criminal who wills; in order to be a criminal it is rather necessary that

the individual should find himself permanently or transitorily in such
personal, physical and moral conditions, and live in such an environ-
ment, which become for him a chain of cause and effect, externally and
internally, that disposes him toward crime. [Ferri, 1910, p. 22.]
The positive school of criminology took a strong stand against

any system in which the law or the judge fixes the prison term of
the offender in accord with his offense:
2 Bentham made one allowance for individual differences among offenders:

since all were not equally sensible to pain, he felt that in fixing the punishment
"circumstances influencing sensibility ought always to be taken into account"
(Bentham, 1907, p. 182).
Add your sums and subtract your deductions, and the prisoner is
sentenced to one year, seven months, and thirteen days. Not one day
more or less! But the human spectator asks: "If the criminal should
happen to be reformed before the expiration of his term should he be
retained in prison?" The judge replies: "I don't care, he stays in one
year, seven months, and thirteen days!"
Then the human spectator says: "But suppose the criminal should
not yet be fit for human society at the expiration of his term?" The judge
replies: "At the expiration of his term he leaves prison, for when he
has absolved his last day, he has paid his debt!" [Ferri, 1910, pp. 84-85.]
THE "CRIMINAL" MAN

As an alternative to this system, the members of the positive
school of criminology advocated the study of all factors which
might influence a given person's criminal career. This included his
social and economic conditions, his ethnic group membership, and
the state of the weather at the time of the crime. Lombroso and his
followers, however, concentrated on the "anthropological factor,"
which "represents the organic and psychological condition of the
criminal" (Ferri, 1910, p. 61). Within the "anthropological factor"
the positive criminologists were primarily concerned with anatom-
ical differences.
Thus Lombroso (1911a) ascribes the birth of his system to the
following event:
I . . . began to study criminals

in the Italian prisons, and, amongst others,
I madethe acquaintance of the famous brigand Vilella. This man pos-
sessed such extraordinary agility, that he had been known to scale steep
mountain heights bearing a sheep on his shoulders. His cynical effrontery
was such that he openly boasted of his crimes. On his death one cold
grey November morning, I was [chosen] to make the post mortem,
and on laying open the skull I found on the occipital part, exactly on
the spot where a spine is found in the normal skull, a distinct depression
which I named median occipital fossa, because of its situation precisely
in the middle of the occiput as in inferior animals, correlated with
the hypertrophy of the vermis known in birds as the middle cerebellum.
This was not merely an idea, but a revelation. At the sight of that skull,
I seemed to see all of a sudden, lighted up as a vast plain under a flaming
sky, the —
problem of the nature of the criminal an atavistic being who
reproduces in his person the ferocious instincts of primitive humanity
and the inferior animals. Thus were explained anatomically the enormous
jaws, high cheek-bones, prominent superciliary arches, solitary lines on
the palms, extreme size of the orbits, handle shaped or sessile ears found
in criminals, savages and apes, insensibility to pain, extremely acute sight,
tattooing, excessive idleness, love of orgies, and the irresistible craving
for evil for its own sake, the desire not only to extinguish life in the
victim, but to mutilate the corpse, tear its flesh, and drink its blood."
[Pp. xiv-xv.]
This description forms the core of Lombroso's theory of the "Crim-

inal Man," which is briefly summarized in Chapter 9 (page 197).
What concerns us here is that this point of view at the time of its
inception was a very progressive one: it led to the advocacy of
different types of treatment for offenders with varying psycholog-
ical characteristics. Followers of Lombroso were thus among the
firstproponents of probation, parole, indeterminate sentences, the
juvenile court, experiments with youthful offenders, and other
measures of modern penology. Lombroso himself firmly supported
these ventures, especially in the United States, where many of
them originated.
CRIME AND ANATOMY

The progressive label which applies to Lombroso's demands for
individualized treatment does not apply to his biological orienta-
tion. In an elaborate study of 3,000 convicts, the English physician
Charles Goring (1913) demonstrated that Lombroso's biologically
inferior criminal was — in the words of James Thurber —a "myth-
ical beast." No differences in anatomical characteristics (with the
and weight) could be found
possible exception of a difference in size
between carefully drawn samples of law-abiding citizens and insti-
tutionalized offenders.
Early texts in criminal psychology, like that of Healy (1915), in-
clude physique as one of several factors leading to crime. Some con-
temporary investigators, including Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck
(1950, 1956), have related body type to delinquency but have
stressed the complex relationship between physique and other causes
3
of crime.
3 Lombroso's original "criminal man" has recendy been represented only in
the esoteric writings of Sheldon (1949) and Hooton (1939). Hooton has even
outdone Lombroso in that he has described a large number of "criminal men."
Thus, "Massachusetts criminals are notable for thick beards, red-brown hair,
dark brown, green-brown and blue-gray eyes, whites of eyes discolored with
yellow or brown pigment flecks," and so on, whereas Tennessee criminals have
"thin beards and scanty body hair, light brown shade of hair, blue-brown eyes
with speckled or diffused irides, foreheads with little or no shapes, ." (Hoo-
. .
ton, 1939, pp. 57-58). Hooton also lists different body types for different types
of crimes, for different ethnic origins, and for different states of sanity. In all
instances, he makes the gratuitous assumption that his differences point in the
direction of biological inferiority of criminals. Hooton draws the moral from
THE EVOLUTION OF CRIMINAL

PSYCHOLOGY
Generally speaking, nineteenth-century views of crime differ

from modern ones in their mechanistic picture of cause and effect.
In contrast to the free-will conceptions which prevailed through
the eighteenth century, criminal behavior had come to be seen by
the positive criminologists as a simple and direct result of such
factors as biological make-up, intelligence, poverty, and climate.
If a person was generously endowed with predisposing factors,
his criminal behavior was as inevitable as taxes. Prediction of
criminality became a simple matter of locating the presence of fa-
vorite causal factors. If a person possessed too many no
of these,
treatment was assumed to be possible. Neither love nor communality
needed to be lost between these predestined offenders and the pre-
destined nonoffenders who made up the decreasing bulk of hu-
manity.
Both the simplicity and the fatalism of this view have gone the
way of all reassurances. Today, each offender is seen as the result
of a complex interaction of causes extending into every nook and
cranny of his past and his current experience. Diagnosis and treat-
ment have thus become a truly monumental task, which we are
barely beginning to face. Before we discuss the current status of
criminal psychology in subsequent chapters, may
be helpful to
it
characterize briefly the two schools of thought which have entered

into today's view of the problem.
THE PSYCHIATRIC AND

SOCIOLOGICAL VIEWS
Modern criminal psychology owes its origin to sociology on the

one hand, and to psychiatry on the other. Each of these disciplines
has been concerned with a special type of offender, and each has
derived principles which have joined to make up the "modern"
view of crime.
this fable that criminals should be permanently segregated and that many should
be prevented from having children.
For other illustrations of primitive views of crime causation, mainly bio-
logical theories current in the United States between 1890 and 1915, see Fink
(1938).
Two hypothetical cases follow. The first — Charles

Jones — repre-
sents the crime problem as seen by the sociologist. The second —
Richard Smith — depicts the "psychiatric" viewpoint:
Charles Jones
At the relatively tender age of twenty-five, Chuck has managed

to spend better than ten years behind bars. He began his career as
a member of an organization entitled "The Tough
which Braves,"
engaged in extramural activities of various sorts, including automo-
bile thefts and after-hour shopping in closed stores. As a result of
this — and because of a tendency to avoid school — Chuck spent sev-
eral years at local institutions for juvenile delinquents. He graduated
into an adult institution during a jurisdictional dispute between the
"Braves" and the "Fighting Marines," when he disabled several of
the enemy with home-made shotgun. Subsequent felony convic-
a
tions included burglaries, unarmed robberies, and an attempted rape.
The probation report reveals that Chuck is of slightly lower than
average intelligence but of relatively normal personality. He is the
oldest of twelve children. His father was an unskilled laborer who
migrated to a large northern city from the Deep South, and held a
succession of low-paying jobs. When Chuck was five years old, his
parents obtained a divorce, and Chuck's mother married an unem-
ployed alcoholic. She later separated from her second husband and
had to make a meager living taking in laundry.
Chuck has grown up in slums and correctional institutions. His
only friends are his associates in the streets and in prison. His voca-
tional qualifications are nil, although he is currently taking a course
in welding.
Richard Smith
Dick is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder. He has a
prior conviction for felonious assault, as well as a juvenile record.
He was brought to the attention of authorities at the age of
first
eight, when his parents found that they could not control him. The
culminating episode was Dick's setting fire to the family dog —
a winsome, long-haired cocker spaniel — and
watching the animal
perish in agony. Only two weeks before, Dick had worried his
school principal by narrowly missing a woman teacher with a
large boulder he had thrown at her. Placed in a private institution
by arrangement of the juvenile court (see Chapter 11), Dick proved
difficult to handle. In one of his weekly escape attempts, he seriously-
injured a kindly old janitor named Pop.
Shortly before his first felony conviction, Dick spent six months
under observation in a mental hospital, and was released because of
overcrowded conditions at the hospital. It was several weeks later
that Dick broke a beer bottle over the head of a stranger who had
"called him names." Two years after his release from prison for this
offense, Dick strangled his fourteen-year-old girl friend, whom he
suspected of unfaithfulness.
The Rorschach Test and other instruments administered to Dick
during his presentence investigation and in prison showed him to
be emotionally unstable and explosive. He seemed to have specially
pronounced feelings toward persons in authority. He regarded such
people with fear, hatred, defiance, and suspicion. Interviews estab-
lished that Dick felt strong resentment toward his father, whom he
described as strict and unkind. The father had spent a great deal of
time away from home, and Dick felt that he "just hasn't given a
damn" for his family. Dick expressed feelings of affection for his
mother, who had long since passed away on a vacation trip to
Europe.
Chuck's antisocial behavior would be attributed to his under-
privileged circumstances as a child. Thrown into the gutterby a
lack of home life, with no guidance except that provided by his
misguided peers, Chuck is which
seen drifting into a sequence
leads almost inevitably from delinquency to crime. Dick, on the
other hand, has been impelled to crime by feelings which have their
origins in early frustrations and disappointments. Whereas Chuck
learned to be a criminal, Dick was predisposed to antisocial conduct
by a deeply warped personality which combined bitter hatred with
an keep feelings under control. When carried to its
inability to
extreme, Dick's problem could place him in the "sociopathic" cate-
gory discussed in Chapter 12. In any event, Dick would seem to
require some form of psychiatric treatment. Chuck, on the other
hand, should clearly "unlearn" his antisocial habits, and should never
be returned to his unfavorable environment.
Recent thinking has shown this scheme to be impractical. Psychi-
atrists are almost impossible to come by (even at exorbitant salaries),
and conventional psychotherapy cannot occur in authoritative

prison settings. Nor can slums be eliminated or families relocated
for the benefit of individual offenders.
became apparent on closer examination that there is less
It also
difference between people like Dick and Chuck than might originally
appear. Although Chuck may certainly be described as a product

of his environment, his reactions to his environment must have
played a part in determining the result. He may have felt frus-
trated and thwarted by conditions which might not have the same
effect on other boys. (If this were not the case, every underprivi-
leged youngster would land in prison.) It would also be overly op-
timistic to assume that Chuck's years of unfortunate experiences
have not left a substantial mark on him that must be dealt with.
Dick, on the other hand, through a lifetime of reactions to pres-
sure, could probably manage to create an unfavorable environ-
ment for himself. He has almost certainly antagonized his respectable
friends, and he has become part of a circle or "subculture" of pro-
fessional criminals and other antisocial people. Even if his emotional
problems are eliminated, their past consequences might drive him
back to crime.
THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK

FOR CORRECTION
In practice as in theory, correction today is in its infancy. "The
punitive notion is still dominant, despite the shift in its justification
from the purpose of retribution to the alleged purpose of preven-
tion" (Wake, 1943, p. 33). This problem will be considered in
Chapter 13, but a general overview may be helpful.
In many countries, such as those of the British Commonwealth,
a person found guilty of a felony knows roughly what treatment
to expect. The judge fixes a prison term corresponding to the gravity
of the offense, in the tradition of Bentham and Beccaria. About the
only other facts concerning the offender he may take into account
are his age, which determines the type of institution to whose care
he committed; and his past record. The judge is certainly not con-
is
cerned with the felon's intelligence (unless the offender is definitely

feeble-minded) or his personality (unless he is a raving lunatic) or
his social history. If the prison rehabilitates, it must do so during the
time period fixed by the offense. Few personal characteristics of the
offender are taken into account in setting the "time clock." Correc-
tional reform has occurred in the shape of fewer and shorter prison
sentences. 4
In the tradition of positive criminology the average American
4
For a description of English sentencing procedures, see Halsbury's Laws
of England (Simonds edition) X, 434, 486-521. Also see H. E. Palmer, Prin-
ciples of punishment, Crim. Law Rev., 1957, pp. 155 rT. and E. J. Horsford>
Sentencing power of quarter sessions, Crim. Law Rev., 1958, pp. 172 ff.
judge will try to learn whatever facts about the offender seem rele-
vant for gauging the nature and duration of the treatment he re-
quires. Thus the judge, before passing sentence, may order a pre-
sentence investigation, consisting at least of a case history obtained
through interviews, and sometimes including psychiatric reports and
diagnostic test results. If this information promises hope, the judge
may tend to put the offender on probation. If not, he has other ways
of taking individual differences into account. If the offender is a
juvenile delinquent and appears before a juvenile court, various types
of treatment facilities may be available. (See Chapter 11.)
If the offender an adult under the law, he is more formally
is
disposed of. We may recall the cartoon of the two middle-aged of-
fenders asking the judge, "Your honor, can't you look at us as mid-
dle-aged juvenile delinquents?" (Banay, 1949, p. 57.) Since this
possibility does not exist, the alternative to probation for adult
offenders usuallv is prison.
The Dilemma of Parole 5
In most American jurisdictions, the length of a person's stay in

prison is determined by a parole board. Parole has
at least in part
been defined as "a method of selectively releasing an offender from
an institution prior to the completion of his maximum sentence,
subject to conditions specified by the paroling authority, a method
whereby society can be protected and the offender can be provided
with continuing treatment and supervision in the community" (Na-
tional Conference, 1957, pp. 65-66).
In theory, parole makes possible the release of a prisoner when-
ever he is rehabilitated. No person need remain in custody if he has
been converted into a respectable, law-abiding citizen. On the other
hand, dangerous offenders upon whom treatment may not have
made sufficient impact can be retained until their correction is
accomplished. When a person is released on parole, his treatment
need not be abandoned. He remains under the supervision of a
parole officer, who not only has the task of watching over him, but
also can provide various types of assistance and support. Such as-
sistance could range from personal counseling and therapy to help
in locating a job.
There are many reasons why this theoretical picture does not
5 1 grateful to the Michigan Parole Board, and especially to my late

am
friend,A. Ross Pascoe, for many opportunities to observe parole in practice
and to contemplate its potential.
INTRODUCTION TO CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY 1R3
conform to practice. One major reason is that it presupposes that

effective "treatment" does occur in prisons. As Chapter 13 shows,
this assumption is unjustified. In fact, there is reason to suspect that
prison routine is not only sterile and uncomfortable, but frequently-
stultifying.
Penal institutions today range from chain gangs and prison camps
in which inmates are maintained in pitifully subhuman condition —
to small, minimum security intensive treatment settings like the
A^ichigan camps for youthful offenders described in Chapter 14.
The average prison lies somewhere in between. It tends to be an
institution which officially subscribes to the practice of rehabilitation
and claims to provide treatment, but does nothing of the sort. One
former inmate relates:
As I sat in my cell, year after year, reading the articles, books and
speeches in which penologists were enunciating this [rehabilitation]
doctrine, I waited eagerly for some sign of change in the actual
administration of the prison. But nothing happend. I waited in vain.
For I am obliged to record the fact that, during the years I spent
in the state prisons of New York and Massachusetts, not a single
attempt was ever made to reform me, and that I did not see a single
attempt officially to reform criminals as an aim of prison admin-
istrative policy. [Nelson, 1933, p. 43.]
Ifno treatment at all is provided, the best time to release a person

becomes arbitrary, unless aging or discipline mellows him or he
spontaneously changes for the better.
Another factor that may work against parole is the sentence.
Lenient sentencing, or the habit of letting people plead guilty to
relatively minor offenses, may result in periods of confinement too
short for observation or for treatment. If the minimum sentence is
long and close to the maximum, on the other hand, it may leave no
time for the person to be paroled.
Parole authorities are also subjected to many pressures. The public
urges caution. Whena paroled offender commits a crime, the offi-
cials who him stand accused. (For many years, the Chicago
released
Daily Tribune sported the slogan "Abolish Parole!") While the
public and press demand the retention of prisoners, the wardens of
overcrowded institutions urge liberal release policies. Parole boards
are sensitive to both these pressures. In some states, they respond to
one and they release no one; in others, they grant releases freely.
In neither case is the cause of rehabilitation served.
Clearly, the presence of treatment-oriented features in the cor-
rectional process is useless if other parts of the process lag behind.
TWO TRENDS IN CORRECTION
Several of the following chapters implicitly or explicitly raise

questions about current practices in treating offenders and point to
directions for future developments.
One of the most obvious trends in the correctional field is the
tendency to give younger offenders the benefit of innovations and
experimental programs. Parole was first established in the United
States at the Elmira Reformatory in New York, an institution for
juveniles. The Juvenile Court was a radical departure from formal
criminal trial procedures. The first such court (Chicago, 1899)
had jurisdiction over children up to 16 years of age. For a discus-
sion of the present-day juvenile court, see Chapter 11.
More recently the youthful offender (the offender in his late
teens and early twenties) has become the object of special attention.
In England, for instance, the Borstal System was established around
1910. Institutions comprised in this system provided vocational train-
ing of various sorts, and generally tried to get away from the ex-
treme regimentation of prison life. They attempted "to study the
individual lad, to discover his trend and his possibility, and to infect
him with some idea of life which will germinate and produce
character, controlling desire and shaping conduct to some more
glorious end other than mere satisfaction or acquisition" (cit. Fry,
1946, p. 157).
In the United States, interest in the youthful offender dates mainly
to the Youth Authority Corrections Act drafted by the American
Law Institute (1940). The purpose of this model legislation, as
stated in its very first paragraph, was "to protect society more ef-
fectively by substituting for retributive punishment methods of
training and treatment directed toward the correction and rehabili-
tation of young persons found guilty of violation of law." This
objective has led to many interesting experiments, including the
Michigan program described in Chapter 14. €
The logic of treating the youngest offenders first is inescapable.
There is almost universal agreement by crime experts of every per-
suasion that the roots of criminal behavior are embedded very early
in life. If past experience piles up around the offender in cumulative
6 In addition to official efforts on behalf of young offenders, many private

ventures could be mentioned. Probably the most famous early experiment is
the one carried out at the Hollabrunn Institute by Aichhorn (1955).
fashion, early roots — fertilized by the slum, the prison, the dishonest
society, or the unhappy home — can soon grow too large to unearth.
The more promptly a remedial brought to bear, the
environment is
better the chance of preventing adult criminality, and the less stren-
uous the task. Early diagnosis and treatment must thus be one of the
prime objects in correction.
Another current aim in correction is to define "treatment" very
broadly. The sophisticated layman frequently steps in — in place of
the psychiatrist, the psychologist, or the social worker — as a cor-
rectional therapist. (See Fenton, 1958.) One obvious reason for this
liberal approach is the magnitude of the task and the scarcity of
professional help. A more convincing reason is that just as it does
not take professional personnel to engender antisocial tendencies,
it does not require professional persons to undo the damage. The
unhealthy environment which promotes delinquency is offset with
a restituting environment. This environment should consist of peo-
ple who can be perceived by the offender as a "natural" social group
and therefore accepted must make up for the deficiencies
as such. It
of persons in the offender's past, with acceptance and support pro-
vided by sympathetic persons in the present. August Aichhorn an-
ticipated this philosophy when he wrote that "the more the life of
an institution conforms to an actual social community the more cer-
tain is the social rehabilitation of the child" (Aichhorn, 1955, p. 117).
It has also been argued that since the offender develops as a result
of cumulative concentrated pressures, the rehabilitative effort, to be
effective, must be equally concentrated and unmitigated. It does not
suffice to expose the correctional candidate to short bursts of positive
relationships between vast stretches of social vacuums (or worse). A
total, continuous therapeutic community is needed. (See Chapter
14. See also the discussion of half-way homes for alcoholism in
Chapter 16.)
A WORD OF CAUTION
must not be assumed that the two trends described above con-
It
stitute avalanches which threaten to engulf the traditional penal
system, or are likely to result in wholesale reductions of the crim-
inality rate. Such efforts currently take place on an extremely small
scale, and in the context of institutions that act at cross-purposes
with them. Moreover, criminal psychology has not yet advanced to
the point where offenders can be sorted into meaningful groupings
for treatment in separate institutions. We are only beginning to iso-
latecomplex types of causal patterns like those described in Chapter
11, and are still groping in our efforts to obtain measures of crimi-
nal tendencies, such as are needed to select the best candidates for
treatment (see Chapter 10).
Finally, many types of offenders are not easily reached by any
presently discovered methods. The offenders discussed in Chapter
12, for instance, are frequently diagnosed as "sociopathic" because
they seem unresponsive to all treatment. 7 The drug addict (see
Chapter 15) and some alcohol offenders (see Chapter 16) are phys-
ically and emotionally dependent on their habits to the point where
even intensive efforts to rehabilitate them are notoriously ineffective.
But none of this is the main ground for pessimism about the fu-
ture of correction. It would still be possible to make tremendous
strides with more amenable correctional subjects. Large-scale at-
tempts to rehabilitate offenders, however, encounter strong public
and official resistance.
TREATMENT AND THE PUBLIC

Social psychologists concerned with social change have written
a great deal on the subject of resistance to change. It is an inter-
esting fact that no matter how urgent or ripe or necessary a reform
may be, one can expect some public and official opposition to it.
The reasons for this opposition have to be carefully investigated;
one cannot convince people to permit change unless one understands
why they oppose it.
In the case of opposition to correctional reform, one must remem-
ber that, as we have already noted in Chapter 1, many people tend
to feel very impatient and intolerant with offenders against the social
order. During the last few weeks before Caryl Chessman's execution,
Governor Brown of California received telegrams such as "My
Daughter Will not Be Safe Until He Is Dead" and "Don't Be Swayed
By Those Bleeding Hearts." 8 In response to outbreaks of juve-
All
nile delinquency, public-opinion polls show a heavy majority of the
public favoring all kinds of restrictions on teenagers, including the
right of teachers to paddle them in schools. 9
7 Here however, as pointed out in page 291, the "therapeutic

too, commu-
nity" has been tried with success.
8 Time, February 29, 1960.
9 Public Opinion News Service, January 16, 18, 1960.
Rare indeed is the person who can read the details of a cold-
blooded crime of violence without catching himself musing about
how the culprit would look strung up by his feet over a slow fire.
This is an intimate, personal feeling. We are not prone to question
it. When we have this feeling we rarely ask ourselves whether any-
thing constructive is gained by compounding violence through

retribution.
It is such feelings as these which backbone of public
constitute the
resistance to correctional reform. People are very likely to argue
that crime must be expiated and discouraged through "deserved"
punishment. They also tend to maintain that formal treatment pro-
grams constitute an open invitation to crime. This argument is based
on the implicit premise that luxurious hospitals or playgrounds are
the only alternative to prisons. It fails to envisage the lengthy, ardu-
ous, intensive process which would in reality be involved. It makes
no allowance for the necessary restriction of freedom, and for the
required institutional control and supervision.
The argument is also based on the outdated conception of human
nature discussed earlier in this chapter. If crime were the result of
free conscious resolutions based on calculations of personal profit,
the point might be well taken. But such explanations, and the penal
systems based on them, have failed us. This failure has not received
enough publicity.
The fact that sound rehabilitation does involve fairness, sympathy,
consideration, and understanding should not of itself arouse oppo-
sition. It might offend punitive desires, but it could meet with the
support of the fellow feeling, the capacity for empathy (especially

with the underdog) that we all possess. The same surge of indig-
nation that resulted in the abolition of torture and the whipping
post could be summoned to eradicate the less dramatic inhumanity
of the large walled prison. This again, however, requires publicity.
It is obvious that the press and other mass media of communi-
cation can affect people's attitudes by the types of coverage they

give to crime and correction. It has been argued that newspapers
have tended to excessively emphasize sensational descriptive detail
instead of placing the burden, as they could, on an understanding
of the background and personality of offenders (Kobre, 1957).
Instead of waiting for prison riots to expose destructive features
of the penal system, mass media could communicate a feeling for life
within institutions on a day-to-day basis. The frustrating existence

of the predelinquent slum dweller, the lack of opportunities which
await the "ex-con," the impersonal fare of courtroom justice could
all be brought into the public domain. Such information could
easily set the stage for acceptance of reform, especially if intimate

portraits of experimentalprograms in action were also provided.
Depiction of delinquency from the delinquent's point of view might
also help provide a basis for national crime prevention on the part
of community agencies. The following excerpt from an interview
with a former delinquent, published in The New Yorker, illustrates
this possibility:
"To tell I can't say any teachers ever helped me in nothing"

the truth,
he replied. used to get the feeling they don't want nobody to learn.
"I
—
You know how it is after you've read yourself blue, they give you a
test to show how you never understood. Then you flunk, and they start
the rigmarole over. The way things is, a guy can go to school for the
rest of his lifetime and never learn enough to keep him awake. It's like
—
a guy I used to have for a friend ten years out of school, and he couldn't
sign his name. That's school for you." (Harris, 1957.)
This glimpse of one delinquent's unsatisfactory school experiences

provides an indication of the fact that schools could play an im-
portant role in helping to prevent delinquency, which they now
sometimes stimulate. Public awareness of the problem could generate
pressures to this end.
One could cite many instances of journalists, radio commentators,
film producers, and other practitioners of mass communication who
have constructively reported on problems in the area of crime and
correction. An arbitrarily chosen illustration is a series of articles
written by Harrison Salisbury for The New York Times about
juvenile gangs in New York City (Salisbury, 1958). Salisbury ex-
posed many gang problem, including the subtle rela-
facets of the
tionship between the adult community and the juvenile gang. John
B. Martin also illustrates the point. His articles about the Jackson
prison riot, later collected in book form, provide an insightful
picture of the prison problem (Martin, 1954).
TREATMENT AND VESTED INTEREST

Another source of opposition to reform are public officials. Legis-
lators and others who control the allocation of expenditures tend
to favor activities which are more visible to their constituents —
and of more concern to them — than are prisons. Officials in the
system at times defend their own actions as almost God-given in

their unimprovable perfection. Any proposed innovation is liable to
be seen by some as naive and unrealistic; by others, as directed
against them personally.
sometimes confuse what they ought to be doing with
Officials also
what they actually do. Wardens who rule over purely custodial
establishments may talk at correctional meetings about the most
advanced rehabilitation techniques, thus conveying the impression
that their charges reside in a hospital atmopshere. In a recent trip to
a woman's prison the writer was regaled with a lecture about the
unlimited educational opportunities at the insitution. The "educa-
tional opportunities" of the average inmate turned out to be a forty-
hour week of pushing carts or stacking sheets in a giant laundry.
These types of apologetics and self-deceptions can again be
neutralized by publicity. Reporters need to investigate actual prac-
tices rather than to publish handouts, tables of organization, or other
canned publicity. On the other hand, they cannot afford to make
unsubstantiated charges which might have been corrected by check-
ing both sides of a story. The line between yellow journalism and
reform journalism is a narrow one and must be kept in mind, since
reform journalism is an effective tool of change, whereas yellow
journalism can retard progress. What is needed from the media of
communication is a sympathetic portrayal of the human problems
in correctional settings.
EPILOGUE
Not all change is constructive change. In considering new pro-

grams for the treatment of offenders we must take care to avoid
magic solutions or straw grasping.
T
W
e must beware of the tempta-
tion to do anything for the sake of doing something. Theories should
be sound. Implementation should be preceded by pilot projects,
evaluations, and research. However, if the choice is between lethargy
and haste, the latter may prove to be the lesser evil. Wherever fellow
human beings are maintained in degradation, humiliation, and
suspended animation, the overready acceptance of hope is preferable
to the cynical defense of tradition.
References
Aichhorn, A. Wayward youth. New York: Meridian Books, 1955.

American Law Institute. Youth Correction Authority Act official draft.
Philadelphia: The Institute, 1940.
Banay, R. S. The psychopathic adolescent offender. In Current ap-
proaches to delinquency, Yearbook. New York: National Probation
and Parole Ass., 1949.
Barnes, M. E. The story of punishment. Boston: Stratford Co., 1930.
Beccaria, Cesare Bonesana, marchese di. An essay on crimes and punish-
ment. Philadelphia: Philip H. Nicklin, 1819.
Bentham, J. An introduction to the principles of morals and legislation.
Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1907.
Fenton, H. An introduction to group counseling. New York: American
Correctional Ass., 1958.
Ferri, E. The positive school of criminology. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr
& Co., 1910.
Fink, A. E. Causes of crime. Philadelphia: Univer. of Pennsylvania Press,
1938.
Fry, Margery. The Borstal System. In Penal Reform in England. (English
Studies in Criminal Science, Vol. I.) London: Macmillan, 1946.
Glueck, Sheldon, & Glueck, Eleanor T. Unraveling juvenile delinquency.
New York: Commonwealth Fund, 1937, 1950.
Glueck, Sheldon, & Glueck, Eleanor T. Physique and delinquency. New
York: Harper, 1956.
Goring, C. The English Convict: A statistical study. London: His Ma-
jesty's Stationery Office, 1913.
Harris, E. They can be different than they ever knew. The New Yorker,
September 7, 1957.
Healy, W. The individual delinquent. Boston: Little, Brown, 1915.
Hooton, Earnest A. Crime and the man. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

Kobre, S. Behind shocking crime headlines. Tallahassee: Florida State
Lawrence, J. A history of capital punishment. London: Low, Marston,
1928.
Lombroso, C. Criminal man. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1911. (a)

Lombroso, C. Crime: Its causes and remedies. Boston: Little, Brown,
1911. (b)
Lynd, R. S. Knowledge for what? Princeton, N. J.: Princeton Univer.

Press, 1946.
Martin, J. B. Break down the walls. New York: Ballantine Books, 1954.
National Conference on Parole. Parole in principle and practice. New
York: National Probation and Parole Ass., 1957.
Nelson, V. F. Prison days and nights. Boston: Little, Brown, 1933.

Salisbury, H. E. The shook-up generation. The New York Times, March
24-30, 1958.
Sheldon, W. H. Varieties of delinquent youth. New York: Harper, 1949.
Waite, J. B. The prevention of Crime. Ann Arbor: Univer. of Michigan
Press, 1943.
Wigmore, J. H. A kaleidoscope of justice. Washington, D. C: Washing-
ton Law Book Co., 1941.
HANS TOCH
JACOB GOLDSTEIN
The Development of
Criminal Predispositions
Every crime expert is occasionally asked questions such as —

"How do people become criminals?" or "What really causes crime?"
This is the type of inquiry to which no ready replies are available.
As Void (1958) states the case, "There is no entirely adequate or
generally accepted theory of criminal behavior" (p. 305). Another
authority (Cantor, 1932) puts it this way: "It may be critically
maintained that not one single generalization has been formulated on
the basis of fact in terms of which the tendency to commit certain
crimes can be predicted or the conditions generating them con-
trolled" (pp. 68-69). Dressier (1959) characterizes the situation
rather amusingly as follows:
But surely there are experts who know what causes crime and delin-
quency? If so, they do not agree in their findings. Here, according to
testimony given before legislative committees between 1954 and 1958
by presumed experts, are causes of delinquency: Too much corporal
punishment; not enough corporal punishment; underprivilege; overpriv-
ilege; too little familial affection; too much familial affection; absence of
recreational facilities; too much leisure time; lack of education; over-
education; tough police; lenient police; feeble-mindedness; intellectual
brilliance; neglectful parents; oversolicitous parents. Some authorities
testified that comic books incited to delinquency; others, that they had
no demonstrable effect upon children. A
California Assembly subcom-
mittee heard a Stanford University professor of law say that it is not
known whether sex deviates become such through reading pornographic
literature or whether they read the literature because they have psycho-
logical problems. At the same hearing, a minister argued that sex-mad
magazines are creating criminals faster than jails can be built.
Broken homes were adduced before investigative bodies as causal
factors, while testimony to the contrary was also introduced. Use of
narcotics or alcoholic beverages was advanced as a potent influence at
the same time that other witnesses asserted they accounted for but little
delinquency.
192
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CRIMINAL PREDISPOSITIONS •
193
Other causes which had "yea" and "nay" advocates were: Biological
inferiority; modern advertising; pay-as-you-go plans that divert a dis-
proportionate share of the family income to keeping up with the
neighbors; the doctrine of easy money; our materialistic culture; the
credo of success; and the American cultural value of resistance to au-
thority of any kind." [Pp. 85-86.]
For some crime experts, these conflicting explanations can still add
up to a description of the causes of crime. Thus Abrahamsen (1952)
suggests as two basic "laws" of crime causation: (1) "A multiplicity
of causative factors which vary qualitatively and quantitatively go
into the making of criminal behavior"; and (2) "Since these causative
factors differ from case to case of criminal activity, there can be no
one rule given as to its causes. The causation of criminal behavior is
a matter of relativity" (p. 53). Although to some extent this is
obviously true, the questions arise, How relative is relativity? Is there

anything we can say about how criminal behavior arises? In this
chapter, we shall briefly review some of the things people have in
fact said. We shall also worry a bit about their right to say anything
at all.
THE NATURE OF "CRIME"

When we how people become criminals, we must first assume
ask
that we know what we mean by "criminals." If we take a "legalistic"
viewpoint, this question presents no problem: A criminal is a person
who violates the criminal code in the jurisdiction under which he
lives. Thus a "criminal" in Massachusetts is a person who breaks a
law of Massachusetts, or who violates a federal law. He may in fact
do both, as when he robs a bank. One problem which immediately
arises with this definition is that the same person, committing the
same act, might be a "criminal" in Massachusetts, but not in New
Hampshire. Another problem is that the bulk of the population of
Massachusetts would be "criminals." Any person playing cards for
money, for instance (and this form of social sport is not unknown
in Boston) violates a Massachusetts statute. Massachusetts, like other
states, also forbids sexual behavior which is freely indulged in by
local residents (Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin, 1948). An interest-
ing fact cited by Sellin (1938) is that in one part of Mexico 73
percent of the marriages are clearly "criminal" under the law (p. 22).
Similarly, in the American South and among southern migrants in
the North, it is also not uncommon to see family arrangements which
the law would clearly regard as bigamous. Such contrasts between
laws and practices are cited by sociologistsand psychologists who
would prefer to define "crime" as behavior which is antisocial, that
is to say, directed against the interests of society at large; or as a
violation of the moral standards of the group. Anthropologists also
like to define crime in terms of violation of moral standards, because
this definition is applicable to primitive communities which have no
written code.
Whichever the definition of crime, a practical problem comes
up when we try to locate the people we have defined as criminals,
so that we can study them. Even if we accept the legal definition,
we have limited access to lawbreakers who are not apprehended.
And there are many reasons for suspecting that the offenders we
capture cannot adequately speak for their colleagues at large. Psy-
choanalysts, for instance, have pointed to an unconscious "wish for
punishment" as one of the motivating factors in crime (Reik, 1945).
They cite example after example of illegal acts which seem designed
to invite attention to the "guilty" party. Police officers are frequently
puzzled by "bad check artists" who carefully endorse checks with
their correctname and address. If there is an unconscious wish for
punishment, it would be excessively represented (by its very nature)
among culprits who "get caught." This would increase the relative
proportion of people with emotional difficulties among our prison
population, compared to criminals at large.
Intelligence may also be a factor which is related to whether an
offender is likely to avoid discovery. An examination of available
culprits could therefore give the mistaken impression that the
"average criminal" is not very bright (a view which was widely
held until fairly recently).
We might also get a false picture of the prevalence of certain
offenses. Some acts (like exhibitionism, for instance) lead to appre-

hension in almost every case. Others involve relatively little risk
of capture. Similarly a person who violates repeatedly is more
likely to be captured than the "one shot" criminal, and thus it
might falsely every offender was a chronic recidivist.

appear as if
Finally, the strong biases of the law (already discussed in Chapter

1) must be taken into account. As Shakespeare remarked in King
Lear
"Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;

Ann it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it." [IV, 6.]
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CRIMINAL PREDISPOSITIONS •
195
A study of captured offenders enhances the apparent prevalence

of crime among lower socioeconomic groups. It also defines as
"criminals" any people toward whom the arm of the law exercises
special attention at any given time.
If we are to study "criminals" we alsohave the problem of locat-
ing a group of "noncriminals" with whom to compare them. This
turns out to be more difficult than it looks. Several studies have
shown that the average "respectable" citizen is far from law-abiding.
One survey of 1,700 people, for instance, indicated that the typical
middle-class male has managed some 18 adult offenses (Wallerstein
and Wyle, 1947). An informal survey of a class of police officer
candidates credited them with a public debt of 2 /2 years
l
apiece. 1
Whom are we to use as a "control group" to study imprisoned law
breakers? Great caution must obviously be exercised in contrasting
those of us who are in prison with those of us who are not.
SPECIFIC OR GENERAL CAUSATION?

The next problem we must face is whether it is possible to find
principles which shed light on all crime, or if not, what groupings
of criminals are to be explained.
It has already been noted that the nature of the crime does not
give us very much makes little
information about the offender. It
sense to speak of the psychology of the burglar or the murderer

or the juvenile delinquent. Groupings within crime categories, how-
ever, have been very successfully discussed. Psychiatrists, for in-
stance, have written many case studies of certain types of psychotic
murderers; Chapter 11 in this volume discusses various meaningful
groupings of juvenile delinquents, such as gang boys and aggressive
nonsocialized delinquents; in Chapter 17 we shall see that some sex
offenders are also emotionally whereas others are not.
ill,
The same categories of offenders may sometimes be sensibly

grouped in different ways. Thus, we can discuss alcohol offenders
(Chapter 16) in terms of whether or not they are addicted to alcohol,
or in terms of the drinking groups to which they belong. The point
is that different sortings can lead us to different types of explana-
tions. If we discuss alcohol offenders in terms of their addiction or

nonaddiction, for instance, we may be led to place emphasis on
physiological factors; if we look at the group memberships of alco-
*We are indebted to Robert Scott for this information.

holies, we may emerge from our efforts with a discussion of the
role of socioeconomic class.
One problem with sorting people within categories of offenses
is that we are likely to end up with groupings which may make it
more difficult to discover psychological characteristics which cut
across offense categories. "Psychopathic personalities," for instance,
as discussed in Chapter 12, could not be diagnosed. Instead, we
should talk about "psychopathic confidence men" or "psychopathic
thieves." Similarly, if traits like "aggressivity" or "impulsivitv"
were fairly universal among people who commit crimes, this could
not be discovered one worked within types of crime.
as long as
Neither would one ever be able to arrive at measures on the
basis of which we could predict delinquency, such as are discussed
in Chapter 10.
It thus becomes desirable to tackle the problem of crime both in
terms of specific "types" of offenders (with whom we can work
closely and whom we can try to understand intensively) and in
terms of fairly broad characteristics of offenders in general. If the
latter seems difficult to justify, it may help to recall our definition
of crime: we can remember that however much crimes vary in
detail,they do involve a violation of law or of the informal rules
of society (depending on which definition one prefers). One can
therefore assume that people who violate such rules — and who do
so at the risk of being punished if they are discovered — might tend
to be somewhat different in their personality or make-up from peo-
ple who take more trouble to conform to the rules. At least, such
has for many centuries been the fond hope of the legions of social
scientists of every persuasion who have been concerned with the
problem of crime causation.
THEORIES OF CRIMINAL
PREDESTINATION
In the preceding chapter we traced the origins of criminal psy-

chology to the Positive School of Criminology headed by Cesare
Lombroso. It group of scholars who firmly maintained that
was this
treatment of criminal behavior must be based on data about the
psychology of the offender. Personal characteristics of the criminal,
rather than the nature of his crime, were seen to be the relevant
facts.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CRIMINAL PREDISPOSITIONS • 197
Another reason why Lombroso could be regarded as a progenitor

of modern psychological views of crime is his emphasis on crime
causation. In the days when the free-will conception was prevalent,
the question, How do people become criminals? seemed silly. It
seemed obvious that those who transgressed against the moral code
chose to do so, and that nothing lay behind their choice except spon-
taneous perversity. Criminals were seen to have a criminal disposition,
and the question of predispositions never came up. The only ex-
ception to this rule was the conception of mitigating circumstances,
such as when a person was possessed by devils (in medieval times),
or if he was clearly insane or incompetent (in the days of classical
criminology)
In his philosophy of crime causation, Lombroso was a strict deter-
minist. He described criminal behavior as a "natural phenomenon"
which he was "as necessary as birth, death, or conception"
felt
(1911b, p. 377). For Lombroso the most prevalent criminal was the
born criminal. Such a person, said Lombroso, could be identified
by physical characteristics or "stigmata": an asymmetrical face,
ears, a low, receding forehead, and promi-
unusually large or small
nent eyebrows, jawbones, and cheekbones. The fact that the long
list of Lombroso's physical stigmata mind the image of
calls to
lower animals is not an accident. Influenced by evolution, Lombroso
regarded these features as "atavistic," which means "inherited from
early ancestors." Lombroso conceived of his born criminal as an
individual who had retained characteristics of his prehuman rela-
tives, with uttter disregard for evolutionary developments in the
interim.
Physiological and psychological stigmata were also listed by
Lombroso as "atavistic" characteristics. Among these were insensi-
bility to pain; sharp vision; the ability to recover quickly from
wounds; resemblance between the sexes; laziness; a complete
a great
lack of shame, honor, remorse, and pity; recklessness; excitability;
a passion for gambling and alcoholic drinks; vanity, and a special
conception of God. There were also habits, such as tattooing; an
excessive use of gestures; and an addiction to picturesque language
(Lombroso, 1911a, 1911b). Lombroso saw a substantial area of
overlap between the born criminal and the epileptic, and regarded
epilepsy as an important cause of crime.
Although Lombroso described criminal types other than his born
criminal, and although he discussed (especially in his later writings)
many causes of crime, his emphasis always remained on biological
causation: "The study of crime does not lessen the fatal influence to
be assigned to the organic factor, which certainly amounts to 35%
and possibly even 40%; the so-called causes of crime being often
only the last determinants while the great strength of congenital
impulses remains the ultimate cause" (1911b, p. 376).
Whichever the combination (it variesmarkedly among Lom-
broso's followers), criminal behavior was seen as completely pre-
determined. This is a general characteristic of the theories of crim-
inal behavior which were current in the late nineteenth century and
early twentieth century. It is even shared by investigators who were
otherwise completely opposed to each other. Thus Goring (1913),
whose sophisticated statistical study of English convicts was intended
to demonstrate that Lombroso's "stigmata" were not widely evident
in prisons, simultaneously maintained that crime was almost entirely
a product of heredity.
The most famous exponent of the view that crime is a result of
heredity is probably Robert Dugdale, who in 1877 published his
study of the Juke family. In the course of an inspection tour of
county jails in New York State, Dugdale had come upon six mem-
bers of this family:
These persons belong to a long lineage, reaching back to the

six
early colonists, and had intermarried so slightly with the emigrant popu-
lation of the old world that they may be called a strictly American
family. They had lived in the same locality for generations, and were so
despised by the reputable community that their family name had come
to be used generically as a term of reproach.
That this was deserved became manifest on slight inquiry. It was found
that out of twenty-nine males, in ages ranging from fifteen to seventy-
five, the immediate blood relations of these six persons, seventeen of
them were criminals, or fifty-eight per cent; while fifteen were convicted
of some degree of offense, and received seventy-one years of sentence.
. The crimes and misdemeanors they committed were assault and bat-
. .
tery, assault with intent to kill, murder, attempt at rape, petit larceny,
grand larceny, burglary, forgery, cruelty to animals. With these facts
in hand, it was thought wise to extend the investigation to other branches
of the family, and explore it more thoroughly. [Dugdale, 1910, p. 8.]
Dugdale embarked on a careful study of seven generations of

Jukes. He found, among the less conventional members of this fam-
ily, 200 thieves and related criminals, 280 beggars, and 90 prosti-
tutes. In 75 years, the family had cost the state an estimated $1,300,-
000. Dugdale assumed that the generous prevalence of criminality
in the ranks of the Jukes^ could only be interpreted as a function
of heredity. He recognized "environment" as a secondary, contrib-
uting factor, which works in the same direction as heredity. For

instance, he describes the living conditions of the Jukes as a con-
tributing cause of their high illegitimacy rate:
They lived in log or stone houses similar to slave-hovels, all ages,

sexes, relationsand strangers "bunking" indiscriminately. One form of
this bunking has been described to me. During the winter the inmates
lie on the floor strewn with straw or rushes like so many radii to the
hearth, the embers of the fire forming a center towards which their feet
focus for warmth. This proximity, where not producing illicit relations,
must often have evolved an atmosphere of suggestiveness fatal to habits
of chastity Sometimes I found an overcrowding so close it suggested
that these dwellings were the country equivalents of city tenement
houses. Domesticity is impossible. The older girls, finding no privacy
within a home overrun with younger brothers and sisters, purchase
privacy at the risk of prudence, and the night rambles through woods
and tangles end, too often, in illegitimate offspring. [Pp. 13-14.]
Another line of evidence which was followed by the advocates of

hereditary predetermination was the study of twins. These studies
were intended to show that if one member of a pair of identical
twins embarked on a criminal career, the other member of the pair
was predestined to do likewise. The best known of these studies —
that of the German physiologist Johannes Lange — is revealingly
entitled Crime and Destiny (1930).
Heredity was also seen by many as exercising its predestination
indirectly. Thus several early studies (for example, Goddard, 1914)
purported to demonstrate that criminality was a result of feeble-
mindedness. The same claim was made for "imbalance" of the en-
doctrine glands (Schlapp and Smith, 1928). "Moral insanity," the
grandparent of the modern concept of psychopathic personality (see
Chapter 12), was regarded as an inherited deficiency. Alcoholism was
similarly cited.
The proponents of constitutional, hereditary, or biological causes
of crime did not have a monopoly on the view that crime was an
inescapable consequence of powerful forces. The early advocates of
environmental or social causation talked of crime in a similar fashion.
Quetelet, who is considered to be the first "social criminolo-
gist," formulated a "thermic law of delinquency," according to
which crimes of blood would result from southern climes whereas
crimes against property would be produced in the North. "Society
prepares crime," he stated; "the criminal becomes its executive"
(cit. Quiros, 1912, p. 19). Kropotkin, the author of a book on prisons
published in 1890, went even further: "Take the average tempera-

ture of the month, and multiply by 7; then, add the average hu-
it
midity, multiply again by 2, and you will obtain the number of

homicides that are to be committed during the month" (cit. Quiros,
1912, p. 34). Economic statistics were repeatedly used to support
the argument that crime is a function of deprivation or prosperity.
One famous study, that of Georg von Mayr, found an increase of
one theft per 100,000 persons for every half -penny increase in the
price of rye in Bavaria (cit. Sellin, 1937). Hundreds of other author-
ities, including Charles Dickens, made a strong case for the propo-
sition that proverty is the direct, exclusive, and sufficient cause of
crime.
THE MULTIPLE-FACTOR APPROACH

The multiplication of crime experts who steadfastly maintained
favorite causes of crime led to the development of theories in which
many such factors were added together. A picture emerged of crime
resulting from a long list of causes (which varied with the expert),
with the provision that the proportions of ingredients for particular
criminal concoctions could vary. Thus climate might play a domi-
nant role in stimulating crimes of violence in the South, whereas
crimes such as those of Shakespeare's Richard III, might be pre-
dominantly the result of a degenerate physique:
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them;
Why, I, weak piping time of peace,
in this
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to see my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity;
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain [I, 1.]
The two best-known advocates of the multiple-factor approach

were Healy (1915) and Burt (1925). Healy enumerated 138 factors,
and found that most delinquents could be adequately described by
invoking one major and two minor factors. His most important factor
was "mental abnormalities and peculiarities." Burt enumerated 170
factors, which he classified into nine categories.
The multiple-factor approach survives today in the shape of the
delinquency prediction tables constructed by Sheldon and Eleanor
Glueck (1930, 1934, 1937, 1950, 1959). These background

tables list
and personality factors which are presumably related to actions one

wishes to predict. The tables vary, because factors which make it
likely that a delinquent succeeds on parole may be different from
those which ensure that he will behave himself in prison. The usual
Glueck table lists five factors, and gives a numerical "score" for
each, showing the extent to which it "predicts." (For further detail,
and for a discussion of this method, see pages 236 ff. in Chap-
ter 10.)
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CRIMINAL

PREDISPOSITIONS
As suggested Chapter 8, the mainstream of modern criminal

in
psychology can be viewed as a product of two tributaries. The first
of these is the psychiatric or psychoanalytic viewpoint; the second
consists of various theories which may be described as sociological
or social-psychological. Despite differences between two these
schools of thought (which have been generously emphasized by
them) they have an important common concern. This concern is
with the development of criminal predispositions.
According to the dictionary, the word "predisposition" stands for
"the condition of being inclined beforehand to do something"; it
denotes "a pre-existing favorable state of mind." When referring
to diseases, the word suggests that a person is liable to succumb to
the microbe which happens along.
first
If we adopt these meanings, we would talk about the "develop-

ment of criminal predispositions" when we deal with the formation
of needs or attitudes which render a person susceptible to crime,
which him beforehand" to criminal behavior. We would
"incline
not think about "what causes crime" directly, but about how a
person acquires psychological characteristics that increase the prob-
ability of his behaving in an antisocial fashion.
The Sociological View

Unfairly and simply stated, the sociological view of the develop-
ment of criminal predispositions is that these predispositions are
learned by the developing person from the people who surround
him. While some sociologists have been mainly concerned about
the people who intimately surround the very young child (its fam-
ily), other sociologists have taken a broader view; some have shown
that every human being with whom the growing person comes into
contact, however indirectly, may help to teach him antisocial atti-
tudes, habits, and ways of thinking.
A first step in studying crime in this fashion is to explore various
types of human surroundings, with a view to locating the ones which
seem to exercise the most pernicious influence. A group of Chicago
sociologists followed this procedure in their own city (Park, Bur-
gess, and McKenzie, 1925). An area which seemed to them to be
an especially undesirable neighborhood for a growing child was the
West Side district immediately south of the Loop. This type of lo-
cation was characterized by them as a "zone of transition" from
residence to business use:
Here are to be found the slum or semi-slum districts of American

where play is crime. Boys' gangs, juvenile delinquency, poverty,
cities
desertion, bad housing abound. The areas of first immigrant settlement
are located here, as Little Sicily, the Ghetto, the Black Belt, from which
their most enterprising numbers are seeking to escape. Close along the
Central Business District, and following out along the main thorough-
fare, are the rooming house districts with their mobile and mixed popu-
lation of youth and old age, aspiring and defeated individuals, pleasure
seeking Bohemians and hard working students, rural Fundamentalists
and radical freethinkers, and of law abiding citizens and professional
criminals. [Burgess, cit. Shaw, 1929, pp. 19-20.]
In 1921, a delinquency expert named Clifford Shaw

about the set
task of carefully pinpointing the residence of 100,000 Chicago school
truants, juvenile delinquents, and adult offenders. He published the
results of his labors in a volume entitled Delinquency Areas (1929),
which today considered a classic, although some of the findings
is
are controversial. Shaw found that his offenders were "largely con-
centrated in certain areas adjacent to the business districts and the
large industrial centers." He
concluded that "since delinquents are
largely concentrated in these characteristic areas, it may be assumed
that delinquent behavior is very closely related to certain community
situations which arise in the process of city growth" (p. 204).
Specifically, Shaw suggested that the disintegration of community
life in the zone of transition creates "criminal patterns" which come
to "shape the attitudes and behavior of persons living in the area.
Thus the section becomes an area of delinquency" (p. 206).
How is this delinquency taught? Shaw illustrates the process in
a group of case studies published under the heading Brothers in
Crime (1938). The studies center about five brothers who grow into
delinquents on the shores of the Chicago River. According to Shaw,

delinquency for these youngsters started as a game played with
other children in similar circumstances. Rather than go to school,
the brothers and their friends would browse through department
stores in the Loop, stealing inconsequentials. Such early influences
were reinforced by the teachings of all manner of people with whom
the boys came in contact later in life. The family influence, which
might have counteracted these teachings, was too weak to be effec-
tive. The family was far from close, and no affection or loyalty was
lost in its bosom. The parents had neither the time nor the desire to
exercise control. Thus, these five "careers in delinquency, from the
first simple acts of stealing to the more serious crimes which oc-
curred in later years, represent a gradual process of informal training,
education, habituation and sophistication in the process of stealing"
(p. 350).
Many students of crime, besides Shaw, have emphasized the cru-
cial role of the gang as an "antisocializing" agent. Survey studies,
such as Thrasher's The Gang (1936) and Whyte's Street Corner
Society (1943), have described these highly complex organizations
in great detail. Several theories have been developed to explain why
these play groups exist, why they take the form they do, and how
they go about the business of training delinquents.
One of these theories, formulated by Albert Cohen in The Delin-
quent Boys (1955), stresses that an obvious characteristic of the
gang "subculture" is its opposition to some of the dominant values
of "respectable" adult society. This "negativistic" attitude which
permeates the gang finds expression in malicious delinquent behavior,
such as deliberate destruction of property. Stealing, for instance, is
frequently combined with vandalism, as in the following incident:
"We would get some milk bottles in front of the grocery store and
break them in somebody's hallway. Then we would break windows or
get some garbage cans and throw them down someone's front stairs.
After doing all this dirty work and running through alleys and yards,
we'd go over to a grocery store. There, some of the boys would hide
in a hallway while I would get a basket of grapes. When the man came
after me, the boys would jump out of their places and each grab a
basket of grapes." [Cit. Cohen, 1955, p. 29.]
Cohen assumes that this type of conduct represents an expression

of protest. The protest is directed against a society which keeps
working-class children and their parents in underprivileged circum-
stances. Other characteristics of gangs seem to Cohen to be designed
to compensate the slum boy for opportunities he does not find
elsewhere.
Cohen thus assumes that society at large plays a negative role
in the process of "teaching" delinquency. Others (like Shaw) have
regarded this assumption as unnecessary. They have argued that
criminal attitudes and criminal behavior are simply learned from
intimate associates, as are other types of attitude or conduct. Just
because we view criminality as antisocial does not mean that it is
learned to spite us, or even that our presence is considered. Void

(1958), who seems to hold this view, puts it this way: "The acquir-
ing of attitudes favorable to crime — and the learning of criminal
behavior patterns — is just as 'normal' a psychological process (is,
in fact, the very same psychological process) as that of learning the

way of life approved of by law-abiding society" (pp. 186-87).
Occupying a middle ground between the social protest theory
and the simple learning theory is the type of conception typified
by Sutherland's well-known principle of "differential association."
According to this view, the developing criminal is exposed to a
variety of groups, some of which are procriminal, while others are
anticriminal or neutral. The criminal learns his criminality from all
his associations, not merely from broken homes and delinquent gangs.
Some of his teachers may never even have visited a "delinquency

area," or seen a member of a juvenile gang. Sutherland's professional
thief (1937) for instance, "is part of the underworld and in certain
respects segregated from the rest of society" (p. 206). He remains
is
aloof from his neighbors because he does not care to publicize his
vocation; he on good personal terms with other thieves so as to
is
exchange services, technical data, and gossip with them — he also de-
rives his professional status and identity from this membership; he
"cultivates" the clients from whom he eventually steals; he has non-
criminal friends who accept him as a person, although they may
know him as a thief; he has a cooperative arrangement with dishonest
politicians; finally, he is a full-fledged member of society at large. In
fact, "his interest in money and in the things money will buy and his
efforts to secure 'easy money' fit nicely into the pattern of modern
life" (p. 209). Learning of crime occurs in every one of these rela-
tionships, including those with noncriminals. "White collar" crimi-
nality provides examples of how
crime can develop among the most
favored segments of society, where it is perpetuated in the midst of
wealth and respectability (Sutherland, 1956).
More than any other group, the family has been talked about as
the place where criminal predispositions develop. Aauch has been

made of the large incidence of broken homes
backgrounds of
in the
juvenile delinquents. From the sociological viewpoint, an important
effect of the broken home is to limit supervision of the child, en-
abling it to fall freely into the arms of the gang. The family has
also been suspected of directly transmitting antisocial attitudes.
Among others, the Gluecks (1930) have presented data suggesting
that well over 80 percent of all offenders are exposed to delinquents
at home.
It is fair to say that in the literature today, the broken home is
no longer viewed as the key to crime. The assumption that the fam-
ily teaches crime has also lost much of its popularity. The average
statistical breakdown (e.g., Michigan, 1959) suggests that nine of
ten offenders do not have the benefit of delinquent relatives; when
such a relative does turn up, he usually is a person of the same gen-
eration as the offender's.
It would be foolhardy to infer from this that the family is not
involved in the development of criminal predisposition. To explore
the family's most important effects we have to enter the domain of
the psychological or psychiatric clinic.
The Psychoanalytic View
According to Wertham (1941), Freud once remarked after read-

ing an analysis of a murder case, "Now we know everything —
except why the murder was actually committed" (p. 193). Those
who approach criminal predispositions from a psychoanalytic view-
point frequently accuse their sociological colleagues of the very
same type of omission.
Why don't all slum dwellers, or all children from broken homes,
or all gang members eventually land in prison? How can respectable
citizens as well as seasoned convicts emerge from the same families?
How can social influences be invoked to explain the misdeeds of
people from law-abiding backgrounds? Such are the questions psy-
choanalysts and psychiatrists ask in order to make the point that
sociological theory requires supplementation.
Psychoanalysts assume that the essential predispositions to crime
are not learned attitudes and skills, but deep-seated feelings and con-
flicts which persist from early childhood. The people who are re-
sponsible for the development of such predispositions are the
parents. In the words of Abrahamsen (1952), "we may say that
the causes of a child's delinquent behavior may be traced to his par-
ents, particularly to his mother's emotional attitude toward his
early instinctual manifestations" (p. 27).
Probably the most dramatic indictment on record of parents who
cripple their children emotionally is Aichhorn's classic Wayward
Youth (1955), first published in 1925. This book describes the warm,
human attempt by a small group of dedicated people to rehabilitate
delinquent children of the unsocialized aggressive variety (see pages
245 ff. in Chapter 11). The children involved in this experiment
were a most unpleasant sort, as illustrated by the following excerpt:
Wecan differentiate two kinds of hate reaction. One type hates the
environment quite openly, without any attempt at concealment. This
hate varies in quantity from a mere intimation to open repudiation and
deadly hate. When we group all these reactions together we see their
similarity.
The secondhate type appears less often. It is concealed and is harder
to recognize. This group is obliging to the point of insistence, friendly
to a degree of unpleasant intimacy, self-conscious to the point of arro-
gance. They are liars and intriguers; they tyrannize over their comrades
in secret. All that they do and say becomes understandable when we
recognize their hatred.
Aichhorn's explanation leads us to the parents:
I have always found that this hate is a reaction to an unsatisfied need

for love. In many cases it is objectively justified; in others it arises
only from the child's subjective feeling. In the first type, the hate is the
result of too little love, a repudiation by the parents. In the second, the
hate comes from another source; the parents, disappointed in each other,
expend too much libido on the child. The child feels that this love is
not given to him for his own sake and reacts to it by becoming dissocial.
Each group expresses its hate in a characteristic way: Open insubordina-
tion to the point of brutality in one group; underhanded intrigue to
cowardly murder in the other. [Pp. 127-28; italics added.]
The main criminal predisposition which psychoanalysts describe

is the inability to control impulses: "The criminal carries out in his
actions his natural unbridled instinctual drives; he acts as the child
would only could" (Alexander and Staub, 1956, p. 30); "he
act if it
is not able to give up immediate pleasure in favor of later pleasure"
(Aichhorn, 1955, p. 1952).

Thus, according to psychoanalytic theory, the criminal does not
differ from the noncriminal in his basic make-up. are all born We
with antisocial needs which, if freely followed, would embark us
on horrendous criminal careers. In early childhood, however, as a
result of parental training, most of us develop effective checks for

these impulses, whereas the potential criminal does not. In somewhat
more technical language, he has a weak ego, or one whose effective-
ness reduced by emotional conflict.
is
In psychiatric literature one also frequently encounters interpre-

tations of specific features of crimes in terms of their presumed
unconscious symbolic significance for the criminal. In mental exer-
cises shared by the analyst and his patient, every detail of the offense
can be related to events in the offender's early childhood. If a
woman has been murdered, it may be routinely revealed that she
acted as a stand-in for the murderer's mother (Lindner, 1955), but
a sex reversal is not out of the question. The following excerpt
represents the ultimate in permutation:
In that moment he understood with his feelings why he had stolen

all those cars. At the same time, however —
and this is more important
a car in itself had a meaning to him. In a symbolic way it represented
his mother. Since he could not get her, he had to have a substitute, and
a car was that substitute. Hence his thrill every time he drove a car;
hence his continuous stealing. [Abrahamsen, 1952, p. 23; italics added.]
It would be a serious error to assume that this type of explanation

represents the essence of psychiatric thinking about crime.
The Subculture versus the Ego

Illustrations were provided in Chapter 8 to suggest that psychiatry
and sociology have tended to concentrate on different types of
offenders. At first glance, it might seem as if this possibility could
provide the ideal resolution for the controversy between the two
schools of thought: psychiatry could explain the Leopolds and
Loebs, the psychopathic personalities, the angry young men, the
psychotic murderers of noble birth; sociology could regard as her
exclusive province the slum-bred juvenile delinquents who follow
invariant sequences leading from joyrides to burglaries. One could
even speculate about the relative prevalence of the two types of
offenders. This possibility is illustrated by the following article from
a large prison newspaper, in which a "sociological" offender seems
to be contemplating with distaste the prospect of being swamped
by his "psychiatric" counterparts. The item, entitled "Young punks
gall an 'old pro' yegg," was written by Sidney J. Harris:
He an old-fashioned criminal I used to see occasionally when I was

is
a reporter nearly 20 years ago. A

quiet round-faced man, he was a first-
class burglar and safe-cracker, but otherwise a quiet decent sort of chap.
"I don't know what's got into young fellows these days," he shook
his head mournfully as we had a cup of coffee together. "They're
monsters, not human beings. I wouldn't spit on the best of them.
"In my day, a thief was a thief. He did his job and went home and
tried to enjoy himself the same way other men would. He didn't like
violence, he didn't hate anybody, and he wasn't trying to prove anything.
"Now I see these punks all over the streets, and they're enough to
make an honest thief's stomach turn. They don't have any brains, and
they don't have any heart either. All they can do is hit and shoot and
curse.
"With a couple of drinks they'll knock bucks
off a cab driver for 10
in change. —
What do you writing fellows call them psychopaths?"
"How do you account for the difference?" I asked him.
"Who knows?" he shrugged. "Something has gone out of them. They
don't love anything, and they even seem to hate themselves. They don't
have families or hobbies, as we used to. They don't even seem to want
— —
to be successful just noticed and that's the surest way to get caught."
"Then you think they want to get caught?" I suggested.
"Sure," he said. "They want to prove how tough they can be, even
walking to the chair. What's the point of 'punishing' punks like that?
You've got to straighten out their mental kinks when they're small, or
you can't do anything with them at all.
"The old bunch I used to know are mostly dead," he sighed. "Ah, they
were fine fellows, some of them, a pleasure to talk with.
"It's a funny age we're living in, when a professional thief can't bring
himself to associate with the scum running around these days." [The
Spectator, January 16, 1959.]
A typology of offenders may prove to be the answer to the con-

troversy between the sociological approach to crime and the psycho-
analytic view of it. Cohen (1955) states this point, and enumerates
two alternative solutions:
It maybe that we are confronted with a false dichotomy, that we are

not really forced to choose between two conflicting theories. There is
the possibility of two or more "types" of juvenile delinquents, each the
result of a different kind of etiology or causal process: one, let us say,
predominantly subcultural and another predominantly psychogenic.
There is the possibility of subcultural and psychogenic "factors" simul-
taneously but independently at work in the same personality, each
providing a separate and distinct "push" in the direction of delinquency,
like two shoulders to the same wheel. However, we are especially in-
terested in a third possibility, namely, that in the majority of cases
psychogenic and subcultural factors blend in a single causal process, as
pollen and a particular bodily constitution work together to produce hay
fever. If this is so, then the task of theory is to determine the ways in
which the two kinds of factors mesh or interact. [P. 17.]
What might be required, in other words, is a description that
provides a meeting ground between motivation and socialization.
THE DEVELOPMENT OE CRIMINAL PREDISPOSITIONS • 209
THE STUDY OF PREDISPOSING

ATTITUDES AND FEELINGS
One way of looking at the etiology of criminal predispositions

which bridges the gap between the couch and the slum is to view
the offender's developing problems as he himself perceives them.
We can study the pressures which the sociologists describe without
neglecting personal differences by recognizing that "influence," if
it is to be effective, has to be felt and translated into personal mean-
ings and needs. The psychiatrist B. Glueck is quoted as having
remarked, "a factor cannot become a cause before it is a motive"
(cit. Bovet, p. 20). What means is that neither deprivation, nor
this
lack of supervision, nor the bad advice of playmates nor the harsh-
ness of a severe father can produce delinquency directly. These
pressures must first be experienced as pressures; they must stimulate
resentment, frustration, anger, despair, cynicism or any of the other
feelings, attitudes, purposes, and values which predispose toward
delinquency.
The study of antisocial feelings and attitudes is compatible with
the "sociological" approach because it deals with psychological re-
actions to the unhappy and unsalutary influences which
situations
sociologists describe. The "psychiatric" view is also implied: identical
pressures may occasion different reactions in people whose emotional
"susceptibility" varies because of different experiences in early life.
Crime may
be said to occur at the crossroads of adversity and
debility. In the words of Banay (1948) it "is a reaction to unen-
urable internal pressures suffered by the individual" (p. 219). Prob-
ably the best evidence for this view monumental study of
is the
delinquency conducted by William Healy and Augusta Bronner in
psychiatric clinics of three large cities. In this study, in which de-
linquents and nondelinquents within the same families were com-
pared, it was found that delinquency resulted whenever a child felt
that it could not carry out its purposes and gain its satisfactions in
socially acceptable ways. Delinquency, in other words, was a sub-
ways of satisfying needs.
stitute for positive
According to Healy and Bronner (1936), a delinquent child tends
to be desperate. As one views such a child, one is struck by "the
immense amount of discoverable emotional discomfort that clearly
has been part of the story of the origins of delinquency" (p. 7).
Most of the delinquent youngsters studied by Healy and Bronner
differed from nondeliquent brothers and sisters in that they
their
felt rejected, unloved, thwarted, disturbed, and generally unhappy.
Whether in any particular case the parents had actually done any-
thing to provoke this, or whether the feeling was mostly the child's
doing, is a question we need not ask. The answer is irrelevant to the
practical problem of locating the psychological roots which give
birth to the criminal act.
These psychological roots are unique to each offender. Healy and
Bronner illustrate this with reference to truancy:
One boy may be avoiding a situation in which he feels inadequate and

discouraged; another has developed out of family life antagonism toward
all forms of authority —
school representing one form; another has such
need of recognition that, even though he does not dislike school he
truants in order to be a "regular fellow" with his companions; still an-
other is the victim of peculiar anxieties which make the classroom hate-
ful to him. [1936, p. 6.]
Thus we can ask about each offender in turn, What is he trying

to accomplish? What do his offenses mean to him? How does he,
personally, view his antisocial acts in the context of his own pur-
poses, attitudes,and values? Such questions require individual at-
tention and study of every antisocial person. They mean that "we
must individualize each offender, attempt to uncover, from a study
of his background, what made this man act this way this time"
(Dressier, 1959, p. 101).
The results of this type of inquiry make treatment possible. Of
course, we may only rarely be able to solve the offender's problem
as he sees it.However, we can frequently change his attitudes or
feelings. If we cannot revolutionize the world or undo past damage,
we can often convince people to adopt relatively congenial and
harmless solutions to even the most heartbreaking dilemmas.
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Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press, 1956.
Banay, R. S. Youth in despair. New York: Coward-McCann, 1948.

Bovet, L. Psychiatric aspects of juvenile delinquency. Geneva: World
Health Organization, 1951.
Burt, C. The young delinquent. New York: Ronald, 1925.
Cantor, N. F. Crime, criminals and criminal justice. New York: Holt,

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Cohen, A. K. Delinquent boys. Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press, 1955.
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Glueck, Sheldon, & Glueck, Eleanor T. Later criminal careers. New
York: Commonwealth Fund, 1937.
Glueck, Sheldon, & Glueck, Eleanor T. Unraveling juvenile delinquency
New York: Commonwealth Fund, 1950.
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1943.
CHARLES HANLEY
The Gauging of Criminal

Predispositions
If some personalities are more likely to become delinquent than

others, we should be able to devise "personality" measures that pre-
dict future criminal actions. When we secure measures of traits that
contribute to delinquency, we combine
are in an enviable position to
humanitarianism and economy: we can guide persons away from the
criminal life and its attendant misery; and we can reduce our loss
to crime and our expenditure in coping with criminals.
One possible application of a prediction instrument is to identify
potential offenders before they have become delinquent. Predictive
measures, for instance, could be employed in the school system to
detect the presence of criminal predispositions in children. Children
with such predispositions could then be given special training or
treatment.
Measures of delinquent characteristics can also be useful in screen-
ing possible offenders from sensitive positions. The military, for
instance, may wish who
have a high probability of
to reject recruits
getting into trouble. Banks, law-enforcement agencies, and other
establishments which offer special temptations could reduce their
difficulties by screening out the criminally predisposed of their can-
didates for employment. The aim of this screening, of course, should
be to guide such persons into positions where temptations are fewer,
not to dump potential troublemakers into someone else's lap.
A second use of prediction measures is less obviously practical.
The discovery of diagnostic patterns of personality among delin-
quents should lead to increased insight into the causes of crime.
With this increased understanding, prevention programs may shift
their emphasis from the prevention of delinquency as such to the
elimination of factors that lead to crime. This would involve a shift
of interest from coping with criminal personalities to preventing
their occurrence. While holding to this possibility, however, we
213
must remember that large-scale cultural changes may be required;
these can be produced slowly, if at all.
Measures that predict early misconduct may also be useful for
evaluating our treatment of offenders. For example, if we adminis-
tered a delinquency potential measure before and after a group
counseling program in a prison, and found a shift from the criminal
to the normal end of the scale, we would have an indication of our
program's success.
Such applications rest on the discovery of effective measures; this
in turn depends on the validity of the hypothesis that a person's
personality can predispose him to criminal activity. From the view-
point of psychology, the most reasonable position probably is one
that hypothesizes a contribution by personality to the aggregate of
influences responsible for criminal behavior. The extent of this con-
tribution will limit the degree to which predisposition to crime can
be measured by psychological instruments. Had psychologists a
well-stocked store of precise measuring instruments, the contribution
of personality to criminal behavior could be determined by a few
extensive but simple studies. As matters stand, the tools are them-
selves fallible; they rarely yield precise measurements. For this rea-
son, when we fail to predict delinquency, we cannot say whether the
failure occurred because personality is unrelated to delinquency, or

whether the instruments used to measure personality were so poor
that their use concealed a genuine relationship.
The prediction of delinquent behavior by psychological measures
has not been spectacular to date; yet the belief that personality fac-
tors contribute to criminal misconduct is repeatedly asserted by
experts in the field. Given this state of affairs, we must not overlook
the possibility that our psychological instruments are defective.
Taken merely as measures of differences among individuals, per-
sonality scales must meet certain basic requirements if they are to
be trusted. The same requirements apply with equal force to the
things we wish to predict. Before turning to predictive devices,
therefore, we should consider first how delinquency stands as a
variable to be measured.
DELINQUENCY AS A CRITERION
Psychologists use the term "criterion" to describe whatever they

attempt to predict. In the present instance, the criterion to be pre-
dicted is one based on information regarding delinquent acts of
THE GAUGING OF CRIMINAL PREDISPOSITIONS • 215
varying seriousness. Acriterion of this kind is itself a measure; it
may be accurate and precise or inaccurate and vague. When a cri-
terion is precise and accurate — in technical terms, reliable and valid
— it is, in principle, predictable. Should it lack reliability and validity,
it is inherently unpredictable. A number of factors related to the
criterion of delinquency act to reduce its validity and reliability.
The commonest criterion of delinquency is the dichotomy of

"confined versus nonconfined." Individuals in prisons, jails, and re-
formatories are assumed to be more delinquent than those more
fortunate in their place of residence. While this criterion is sensible,
it suffers from drawbacks so far as prediction is concerned.
certain
To begin with, the law-enforcement process is not infallible. Among
the confined population are some who have been wrongly convicted,
while the unconfined group contains a fair number of individuals
who belong in jail. To the extent that justice miscarries, the relia-
bility of the criterion is lowered and its predictability reduced in
proportion.
A second limitation occurs because individuals are imprisoned for
a wide variety of offenses, many of which have little in common
so far as personality is concerned. Wife-murderers, confidence men,
statutory rapists, thugs, homosexuals, income tax violators, book-
makers, bribe-takers, narcotics addicts, abortionists, counterfeiters,
bank robbers, and
swindlers, extortionists, fences, second-story men,
contemptuous witnesses all are classed together with a host of other
offenders into the category "confined." Yet differences in most per-
sonality traits are probably no greater between confined and non-
confined persons than they are within each group.
Toimprove accuracy and precision in the criterion, we might
attempt to enlarge the dichotomy of "confined versus nonconfined"
so as to include an estimate of the seriousness of offenses. Apart from
the formidable scaling problems involved — is larceny worse than
rape? — the more refined criterion is handicapped by judicial pro-
ceedings that may mask the relative seriousness of criminal behavior.
As Newman (1956) points out, some convictions represent a com-
promise between defense and prosecution; the felon pleads guilty
to a lesser charge in order to escape prosecution for a more serious
but harder to prove offense. The notorious Al Capone, for example,
was associated both personally and administratively with a wide
range of the more aggressive and lucrative crimes; yet his most
serious conviction was for income tax violation, an offense of little
concern in delinquency prevention campaigns.

The methods used to establish the criterion of delinquency, it ap-
pears, are unsatisfactory on several counts, and its prediction from
psychological data, as from other types of information, is bound to
be less than perfect. To
be sure, the influence of errors in the cri-
terion may be small or moderate rather than large; this must be the
case if prediction of misconduct is to be feasible.
RELIABILITY OF A PREDICTOR
Reliability sometimes is described as the degree to which an instru-

ment provides precise measures of individual differences. A scale
may be reliable, therefore, even though we are unable to identify
just what it is that is being measured. A reliable measure is said to
provide a stable score. If we measure a sample of subjects next week,
a highly reliable scale will assign them approximately the same scores
as were obtained today. Whenever a psychological variable is
thought to be stable over time, measures of it should have high test-

retest reliability; that is, a high correlation should hold between
results of the two temporally separated applications of the instru-
ment. If, on the other hand, either or both sets of scores are subject
to much random error, their correlation 1
will be low, indicating
lack of reliability. We
cannot make much use of scores that fluctu-
ate widely over relatively short intervals of time; hence high relia-
bility is a necessary condition for useful prediction.
A
low correlation between test and however, may not al-
retest,
ways indicate random error in the measuring instrument. Real
changes in the underlying psychological variable may take place to
reduce the test-retest correlation. If the dimension being measured
is one that can be expected to change in individuals over time, alter-
natives to the test-retest method are useful. One technique is to use
parallelforms when the measure lends itself to such treatment. Cer-
tain widely used intelligence tests, for example, have two forms con-
structed to include similar, but not identical, content. When subjects
are given both forms of the test, the two sets of scores will correlate
1 The two measures is "perfect," when, by knowing

"correlation" between
a person's scoreon one of the two measures, we can predict his exact score
on the second measure. The correlation is zero when knowledge of one score
does not help to predict the other score. Correlations may be less than perfect
but better than zero, indicating that some relationship exists between the
scores. The extent of the relationship is given by a "correlation coefficient"
computed by simple techniques. In general, the higher the correlation the
better the prediction.
highly if the measures are relatively free from random error. The
parallel-form approach, however, is rarely used with personality
measures. The alternative in such cases is to employ an internal con-
sistency coefficient.
To estimate internal consistency, we must
have a scale with sepa-
rately scorable parts. Some measures of delinquency potential, for
example, consist of questions to be answered as either "true" or
"false." A subject's score number of responses he makes of
is the
the kind classified as delinquent by the authors of the scale. If an-
swers to such items were determined by a toss of the coin, indi-
vidual differences in scores would be produced entirely by chance.
To discover whether something of this kind occurs with actual
scores, or whether they represent underlying psychological dis-
positions,an odd-even or equivalent estimate of reliability is used.
Separate scores are calculated for the odd items and the even items.
When little random error is present, these scores will correlate
highly. Should scores on the even-numbered items prove unrelated
to scores on the odd-numbered items, however, the measure is
unreliable.
VALIDITY OF THE PREDICTOR
Validity is sometimes described as the degree to which a scale

measures what it was designed to measure. It is proper, nevertheless,
to think of an instrument as having and lacking many validities. A
yardstick, for example, is a valid measure of height, not weight. An
intelligence test is a valid predictor, of years of future schooling and
school grades; it is much less valid as a measure of future social
adjustment. Furthermore, a measure that predicts delinquent be-
havior is a valid measure of delinquency potential regardless of its
original aim.
The psychologist wishing to demonstrate that his scale is a valid
measure of delinquency potential usually selects one of two methods.
Most convincing is predictive validity. The procedure is simple.
The scale is given to a sample of nondelinquents who are followed
for a number of years until an appreciable number have become
delinquent. If scores on the scale discriminate those who became
offenders from those who did not, the scale has predictive validity.
Because prediction studies take time and effort, most measures first
are validated by a method that compares scores of groups known to
be different on the variable to be predicted. A
measure that makes
this kind of discrimination has concurrent validity. Most demon-
strations of validity for measures of delinquent personality traits
have taken the concurrent form: scores of confined and nonconfined
persons are compared to discover the degree to which the scale
distinguishes between them.
High concurrent validity is a hopeful sign that the author of a
scale is on the right track, but it does not guarantee his measure
will have predictive validity. Because it involves the comparison of
normals with offenders after they have been convicted, concurrent
validity may reflect the influence of factors that result from rather
than precede delinquent behavior. Take, for example, the question:
"Are you often bored?" When known delinquents are found more
answer "true" to this query, is the result con-
likely than normals to
sistent with our impression of the delinquent personality as rela-
tively aimless and thrill-seeking, or should we attribute the difference
to the fact that prison life is boring? The flaw in concurrent validity
is even more clearly illustrated by questions that ask in one way or
the other: "Have you ever been in prison?" A measure with several
items of this type ought to be effective in discriminating between
prisoners and normals, but useless in predicting the career of subjects
who have not yet committed crimes.
Weneed evidence of predictive validity before we can apply psy-
chological instruments in real-life situations. And predictive validity
must be imperfect because of the flaws in the criterion of delin-
quency. It will also be lowered to the extent that the measuring
instrument is unreliable. For this reason, a report of the validity and
reliability of a scale should be incorporated in the manual of any
predictive measure. Individuals responsible for the selection of psy-
chological instruments can find no more authoritative source of
information on the strengths and weakness of current devices than
isprovided by the Fifth Mental Measurements Yearbook edited by
O. K. Buros (1959). This encyclopedic volume contains multiple
evaluations of commonly offered psychological measures as well as
extensive bibliographies for very nearly all devices given wide dis-
tribution. The evaluations of measures of delinquency potential, it
may be added, almost always criticize the manner in which concur-

rent validity is treated by the authors of these measures as equivalent
to predictive validity.
THE BASE-RATE PROBLEM

Delinquency — as expressed by such criteria as confinement or
police record — is not a common state of affairs. While this fact is
fortunate for society, it is less desirable as far as prediction studies

are concerned. We
can use a valid scale more effectively when half
the population is delinquent than we can when only a few percent
become criminals. The proportion of individuals in the population
who fall into the category to be predicted establishes the "base rate."
Meehl and Rosen (1956) have presented a formal treatment, later
corrected in certain details by Cureton (1957), of the effect of base
rates on accuracy of prediction. The main elements of their analysis
can be illustrated by a fictitious example.
Suppose that Nation Q
has a serious delinquency problem in its
100,000 man Interplanetary Force. From psychologists expert in

galaxian personality traits, the authorities in charge obtain a pencil-
and-paper delinquency potential scale. Preliminary research indi-
cates that it has high internal consistency and test-retest reliability
as well as considerable concurrent validity. Encouraged by these
findings, the personnel office begins a large-scale prediction study.
All new recruits take the scale and are followed to the end of their
The results show that a score of 50 or more on the scale
enlistments.
was obtained by 60 percent of recruits who later became disciplin-
ary offenders, whereas only 5 percent of normal recruits scored that
high. The scale, it is clear, has predictive validity. How will it do
in application?
Imagine first that the delinquency rate is so high that half of the
men in the Interplanetary Force become offenders during their en-
listment. If all who score 50 or more on the scale are rejected as
recruits, the delinquency rate should drop 60 percent with a loss of
only 5 percent of useful men. Where the Interplanetary Force num-
bered 50,000 good men and 50,000 delinquents before the scale was
introduced, its application with a cut-off score of 50 will produce
a force of 20,000 delinquents and 47,500 normals. With only a slight
reduction in the number of solid astronauts, a tremendous decrease
in the frequency of space offenders is effected; 2,500 normals are
dropped in order to get rid of 30,000 delinquents.
The effectiveness of the scale in the preceding example is based on
a delinquency rate optimal for prediction. Suppose the contrary is
true, that the base rate is something more typical of modern armed
forces, say 5 percent delinquency. Under only 5,000
this condition,
of the men will become offenders. Using the same scale and cutting
score as before, the authorities now must reject 4,750 good men in
order to eliminate 3,000 potential delinquents. Whether or not the
scale should be employed for screening in this last condition depends
on several nonpsychological factors: how easy recruits are to come
by, how expensive it is to lose a good recruit, how costly it is to deal
with a delinquent after he gets into trouble, and how much an of-
fense damages the Force.
The base rate is as important in real-life situations as in this imag-
inary application.It is not enough to know that a psychological scale
can predict criminal activity. To evaluate the measure completely,

we must have information regarding the degree to which it discrim-
between future delinquents and normals, how common delin-
inates
quency is in the population, and how important it is to forestall
delinquency at the cost of misclassifying an individual who will not
become an offender. Methods of predicting future delinquency that
ignore the problem of the base rate usually seriously overestimate
their practical effectiveness.
TYPES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL MEASURES
Not all measures that have been employed as possible predictors

of misconduct properly come under the heading "psychological."
Among these are such devices as the social worker's rating of situ-
ational factors, the sociologist's estimate of socioeconomic status,
and the physical anthropologist's indices of skull shape and physique.
Truly psychological instruments can be grouped into three cate-
gories: (1) inventories or self-report questionnaires, (2) psycholog-
ical tests, and (3) projective tests.
An inventory is a collection of statements or questions dealing

with one's present and past attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors toward
oneself and others. Inventories are easy to administer; the subjects
merely read the statements, called items in the argot of psycholo-
gists, and mark a standard answer sheet so arranged as to limit dras-
tically the range of possible responses. Commonly, only a choice of

"true" or "false" is offered, a restriction that many feel obliterates
shadings of meaning that may be important. Other inventories allow
the subjectmore leeway and use a numerical scale of agreement and
disagreement by which he can indicate the extent to which an item
expresses his view of matters. Answers to inventory items, it should

be added, are never "right" or "wrong." What, for example, could
be a universally correct answer to items like these: "I am easily
awakened" or "I would like to hunt polar bears"?
When an objective standard can be employed with every answer
to mark it correct or incorrect, we have a psychological test. For
instance, "Is Paris closer to Antwerp than to Vienna?" is a test item.
For everybody, the correct answer to the test item is "yes." It would
be silly, on the other hand, to say that a "yes" or a "no" is univer-
sally correct for an inventory question such as "Do you like loud,
noisy parties?" or "Do you ever suffer from upset stomach?" Tests,
especially if individually administered, permit a wider range of re-
sponse than is possible with an inventory. Answers to individual
intelligence tests, for instance, have been scored for such diverse
characteristics as accuracy of information, correct solution of prob-
lems, speed, quality of performance, and fluency.
Projective our third category of psychological instruments,
tests,
combine relatively ambiguous material with instructions that encour-

age the widest range of responding to it. The latitude permitted the
subject, of course, makes scoring his responses a task that requires
the services of a professional psychologist. Most projective tests,
moreover, are designed to be given to one subject at a time by a

highly trained administrator. In order to reduce difficulty in scoring
and to make group administration possible, some experimental ver-
sions of well-known projective tests have altered the method of
administration so as to allow a standard answer sheet to be used in
group testing. These measures are comparable to more widely used
group psychological tests that utilize the multiple-choice format for
securing answers in an easily scored form.
If a psychological instrument is to screen potential delinquents,
the inventory has several advantages over its rivals. First of all, there
is the fact that inventories usually are easiest to administer. Second,
the scoring of an inventory is so simple that a clerk can handle hun-
dreds of records in a relatively short time. Both of these character-
istics make the inventory ideal for large-scale applications.
The inventory has the additional advantage of being easily pre-
pared for specific tasks. Inventories used to predict delinquency, for
example, can readily be made to cover material that experience,
intuition, or psychological theory indicate is related to criminal be-
havior. Constructing a specific psychological test for delinquent ten-
dencies, on the other hand, would require considerably more pains,
and the same is true when
a special projective test is wanted. For
on delinquency abounds with reports of
this reason, the literature
specially devised inventory measures, whereas investigations em-
ploying psychological tests or projective tests are not only fewer
in number, but have had to utilize measures originally developed for
quite different purposes. 2
CONSTRUCTING AN INVENTORY
MEASURE
Inventories frequently are devised by a highly empirical proce-

dure. Five steps may
be followed: (1) development of a "pool" of
items, (2) collection of answers by subjects, (3) analysis of these
responses to secure a provisional scale, (4) "validation" of the pro-
visional scale, (5) refinement of the measure. To be sure, not all in-
ventory scales are manufactured in just this way. When an investi-
gator has reasons for believing that items of a particular type will
predict his criterion, he may dispense with the first three of these
steps. If the abbreviated approach is to succeed, however, the as-
piring inventory maker must possess insight into the nature of the
behavior he wishes to predict and be both discerning and lucky in
his choice of items. Because this armchair short cut rarely is more
than partially successful, the purely empirical method is resorted
to most frequently.
THE MMPI: AN EMPIRICALLY

DERIVED INVENTORY
The empirical method of inventory construction is responsible for

the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or MMPI, the
most widely investigated of our true-false paper-and-pencil per-
sonality questionnaires. The MMPI product of the psychiatric
is a
clinic; hence its many diagnostic scales deal with standard neurotic
and psychotic patterns of behavior. One scale, however, is of special
interest in the present context because it measures personality traits
of patients diagnosed as Psychopathic Deviates (see Chapter 12).
Such individuals are thought to constitute an appreciable portion
2 The predominance of inventory measures in this field is apparent in Kvar-
aceus' review covering psychological measures of delinquent tendencies re-
ported through 1953, in Chapter 5 of The community and the delinquent (1954).
of prison populations. The MMPI Psychopathic Deviate Scale, usu-

ally abbreviated as Pd, is, promising measure to
for this reason, a
apply in prediction of misconduct. The procedure followed in de-
vising this scale, like the others in the MMPI, is an excellent example
of the empirical approach to scale building.
Construction of the Pd Scale
The authors of the MMPI, Starke R. Hathaway and J.Charnley

McKinley, began with a large pool of items — over
five hundred in
all. Written on the basis of clinical experience, study of psychiatric
examination forms and case-taking directions, coverage of psychi-

atric textbooks, and a survey of earlier personality measures, these
items express such a large number of important human character-
istics that the person taking the inventory gives himself, in effect,
a broad psychiatric and psychological interview.
The second step involved the collection of responses of normal
and deviant individuals. The latter group for the construction of
the Pd scale consisted of patients diagnosed as psychopathic deviates
minor delinquencies"
in a mental hospital. "All had long histories of
(McKinley and Hathaway, 1944), but there were no neurotics,
psycho tics, or major criminal types among them. Stealing, lying,
truancy, sexual promiscuity, drunkenness, and forgery were com-
mon behaviors in this group. There were more women than men,
perhaps because of our cultural preference for treating psychopathic
men in prisons rather than in clinics. Normal subjects used for com-
parison purposes were married Minnesotans in addition to high
school graduates applying for admission to the University of Minne-
sota.
The third step began after deviant and normal subjects had taken
the MMPI. From inspection of the proportions of deviants and nor-
mals endorsing each item in the inventory, provisional scales were
established that discriminated between the two groups.
Step four consisted in scoring these provisional scales for each
subject and contrasting the results for deviants and normals. The
Pd scale is the fifty-item measure that best separated these two types
of individuals. It discriminated between persons previously known
to differ with respect to psychopathic tendencies; hence its original
validity is of the concurrent variety.
A technical point arises here. When we use the groups from whose
responses a scale is developed to validate the measure, differences
between the groups tend to be inflated because items that diff eren-
tiate subjects by chance alone are allowed to contribute to the
scores. For this reason, further validation, called cross-validation, is
desirable. Step five, therefore, consisted in giving the MMPI to a

new group of patients diagnosed as psychopathic deviates, and to a
sample of 100 males who had received a similar diagnosis in prison.
Scores of these deviant individuals then were compared with those
of the original normal sample (it would have been even better to
obtain a new group of normals for this comparison).
The analyses of these last results securely establish the concurrent
validity of the Pd scale. Although directed at the diagnosis of psy-
chopathic deviation as it is seen in clinics, the Pd measure was even
more successful at distinguishing between prisoners and normals.
This concurrent validity of the Pd measure has been repeatedly
confirmed by later investigations.
The way MMPI was governed by differences
responses are scored
between responses of deviates and normals. The more common re-
sponse among deviates is "keyed" on the Pd scale; an individual's
raw score is the sum of such deviate answers. This means that the
higher the Pd score, the more a subject resembles a psychopathic
deviate.
The practice of basing the scoring system on empirical results
maximizes the degree to which a given scale will separate deviants
from normals. The psychologist who employs this method is willing,
in principle, to score "false" as diagnostic even though he had ex-
pected "true" to be the deviant response. This procedure, call cri-
terion-keying, and the discarding of nondiscriminating items can

weaken the relation between the final scale and any theoretical
rationale that may have governed its original development; hence
interpreting or understanding what it is that accounts for the suc-
cess of the scale, assuming it proves useful, may be difficultand sub-
ject to controversy. The purely empirical approach, in other words,
may achieve practical ends at some sacrifice of insight into just what
is being measured in the area of personality.
Prediction with the MMPI

The Pd scale, unlike the majority of similar paper-and-pencil
measures of delinquent tendencies, has been shown to possess a cer-
tain degree of predictive validity. The relevant data were collected
by Hathaway and Monachesi (1953) in their well-known study of
juvenile delinquency. Two years after administering the MMPI to
a sample of 4,048 ninth-grade boys and girls in the public schools
of Minneapolis, Hathaway and Monachesi checked county and city

records and found that 591 —some 22 percent of the boys and eight
percent of the girls — had appeared before the courts or police.
That these percentages are high is a reflection of the rather broad
definition of delinquency employed in the investigation. The delin-
quents were classified into three levels according to the seriousness
of their offenses:
I. This misconduct is used to denote those who committed
level of
repeated offenses such as auto theft, burglary, grand larceny, holdup with
a gun, and gross immoral conduct (girls), accompanied by less serious
offenses
II.This classification involves the commission of only one serious
offense such as auto theft, grand larceny, or gross immorality, or more
than one less serious offense such as petty larceny, immoral conduct,
assault, disorderly conduct
III. The youngsters placed in this class had committed minor offenses
such as destruction of property (especially when this was connected with

play activities), drinking, one or more traffic offenses (escapades involv-
ing speeding, driving without a license, and/or going at high speed
through a stop light or sign), curfew violation, and immoral conduct
[Hathaway and Monachesi, 1953; p. 110.]
Nearly half of the 591 members of the delinquent group had be-
come offenders before the MMPI
was administered. The predictive
validity of the Pd scale, therefore, must be determined by analysis
of the scores of those subjects whose first record of misconduct
postdated testing; such individuals are true "predelinquents." Mean
Pd scores for the predelinquent boys are shown
Table 2 together
in
with the mean score obtained by a subsample of 200 boys in the
nondelinquent group.
Table 2
Average Pd Scores of Predelinquent and Normal Boys
Delinquents Normals
Category I Category II Category III
Mean Score 63.4 62.5 60.8 58.4

Number of Cases 12 96 79 200
Because there were relatively few predelinquent girls in their

sample, Hathaway and Monachesi combined the data for Categories
I and II. The average Pd score for the girls in these two classes was
64.7, and 64.6 for the girls in Category III. The control group of 200
nondelinquent girls had a mean Pd score of 58.4. Differences be-
tween delinquents and normals, except for those in the mildly delin-
quent Category III, are too large to be attributable to chance alone.
There is also a tendency among the boys for the more seriously
delinquent to receive higher Pd scores. 3
from these results that the MMPI Pd scale can predict
It is clear
misconduct in young people with no record of delinquency up to

the time of testing. Pd, moreover, is not the only MMPI measure
that forecasts later misbehavior. The Hypomania scale (Ma), which
deals with overactivity, also discriminates predelinquents, in Cate-
gories I and II, from normal youngsters.
The MMPI contains scales designed to reveal careless or decep-
tive answering. When scores on these scales are too high, the record
is invalidated and not used in comparisons of the sort described
above. Approximately 12 percent of the boys and 8 percent of the
girls who later became delinquent had invalidated records, as com-
pared to 6 percent of the boys and 5 percent of the girls in the
normal group. Invalidated records, it appears, predict later miscon-
duct to a limited degree, because they are more frequent among
children who become delinquent in the future.
The Hathaway and Monachesi results indicate that delinquency
is to some extent predictable with a paper-and-pencil personality
inventory. Yet if we ask how accurate these predictions are — how
much better than blind guessing — thenot overly encour-
answer is
aging. The differences between scores of predelinquents and nor-

mals, while real, are rather small to be useful in immediate applica-
tion. Furthermore, the problem of the base rate emerges at this
point.
The difficulties besetting prediction of delinquency can be illus-
trated by example using these real-life MMPI results.

a hypothetical
Suppose that we had attempted to conduct an experimental delin-
quency-prevention program in Minneapolis at the time Hathaway
and Monachesi gathered their MMPI records, and that a good fairy
had whispered to us that invalidated MMPI records would be found
to predict later misbehavior. "Select those youngsters who give in-
"and you will increase the number of
valid records," she advises,
predelinquents in the group you pick for training." What would
happen if we had followed her suggestion?
3 It is customary to present MMPI scale scores in transformed values. The
inventory contains tables for converting raw scores into scores with means of
50 and standard deviations of 10 in the normative samples. The data in Table
2 have been transformed.
To begin with, although invalidated records are twice as common

among predelinquent boys — 12 percent as compared with 6 percent
of normals — the difference is not large. Then, too, the base rate for
delinquency subsequent to administration of the inventory is low:
only 187 boys became delinquent out of a total group of 1,683 who
had no records of misconduct up to the time Hathaway and Mona-
chesi tested them. Of these 187 predelinquents, only 27 gave invali-
dated records, while there were 101 such records among the returns
of the 1,649 normal boys. Our training program using as subjects all
boys with invalidated records would therefore deal with 128 boys,
101 of whom would not need our attention. Normal boys would be
about three and a half times as common as predelinquents in this
special group.
Of course, be even worse off if we did not use any
we would
selection device and merely took boys as they came until our experi-
mental group was filled. In such a case, we would train nearly eight
normal boys for every predelinquent. Selecting candidates by use
of this one MMPI measure, it seems, does reduce the number of
normals who are mistakenly classified as predelinquents; however,
the reduction is not as great as we might desire. Further, even if the
program is completely successful, we reduce the delinquency rate
by only 12 percent. Eighty-eight percent of delinquents, having
our attention until their misconduct
valid records, escape later brings
them into conflict with society.
We might have bettered the last figure in our hypothetical pro-
gram by selecting on the basis of Pd and Ma scores as well as on
invalidated records. If we had used all three of these devices, the
percentage of the predelinquent group that would have been chosen
for training would rise appreciably, but whether or not the ratio
of predelinquents to normals in the group selected would differ very
much from that obtained with invalidated records alone is doubtful. 4
To increase the precision of diagnosis with the MMPI — to ensure
that predelinquents rather than normals are chosen for training —
two alternatives to the procedure just described are of potential merit.
The first is on the standard MMPI scales,
to use the profile of scores
that is, to describe each record according to which of the scales are
high and which are low for the individual. The second is to devise
4 It not possible to estimate the needed figures from the data that Hatha-
is
way and Monachesi provide. It seems unlikely, however, that a drastic reduc-
tion from the 3 Vz to 1 ratio would be achieved by use of Pd and Ma in addition
to invalidated records.
a new scale aimed specifically at the prediction of misconduct as it
appeared in the Minneapolis sample.

Considerable attention is given by Hathaway and Monachesi
(1953) to the contribution of profiles in helping us understand the
dynamics of delinquent behavior. Detailed information is also pre-
sented on the frequency of various profile types among delinquents
and normals. In an inventory with as many scales as the MMPI,
however, even the simplest classification of profiles must necessarily
be extensive. To segregate MMPI profiles according to a relatively
simple scheme that takes account of which scales are highest and
next highest for each subject, Hathaway and Monachesi (1953) use
one hundred different categories.
How good prediction from this classification of profiles would have

been in the Minneapolis sample unfortunately cannot be estimated from
the published frequencies of the profile types, because the Hathaway
and Monachesi (1953) data are based on all delinquents, that is, the
records of individuals who became delinquent after testing are pooled
with those of boys already delinquent. The same confounding of con-
current and predictive data occurs in a study by Rempel (1958) of the
validity of a more mathematically precise method of employing profile
information obtained for the subjects in the Minneapolis study. His
delinquent group consisted of all boys whose misconduct ranged from
moderate to serious up to four years after the original administration of
the MMPI. Using a sophisticated analysis, Rempel found that 69.5 per-
cent of ths delinquent and 62.3 percent of the normal boys could be
correctly identified by a mathematical formula describing their MMPI
profiles.
While Rempel's formula may represent the most effectiveness for the
method of profile diagnosis because it is based on responses of boys
already delinquent as well as on predelinquent records, the number of
normal boys diagnosed as having delinquent personalities is still large.
If our hypothetical training program had used Rempel's formula for
selecting its candidates, we would have chosen a group of approximately
170 delinquents and predelinquents and 410 normals out of the Minne-
apolis sample of boys. Roughly 2Vz normals would have been given
training for every boy who needed it. Not the most efficient selection,
perhaps, but better than the ratio of nearly 4Vfe to 1 that would hold
if the inventory was not used.
The standard scales of the MMPI, including Fd, deal with per-
sonality characteristics that may predispose to or inhibit delinquent
behavior, but these scales were not designed to predict misconduct
of the sort encountered in the Minneapolis study. It is possible,
therefore, that an effective empirical MMPI scale could be devel-
oped for the specific task of predicting later delinquency. In a dis-
cussion of the results of a second two-year follow-up of their

subjects, Hathaway and Monachesi (1957) list 33 MMPI items that
discriminate predelinquent from normal boys. These items could
be combined into a provisional delinquency scale to be refined in
the usual manner. Since only 1 1 appear on P d and Ma, the 3 3 items
might have predictive properties appreciably better than the two
standard scales. Since no information on scores, when these items
are used as a single measure, is given by Hathaway and Monachesi,
the validation of the items as a scale remains a task for the future.
At this point, evidence on the predictive power of MMPI meas-
ures comes to an end. 5
Whether or not accuracy of prediction of
delinquency by the MMPI can be improved is a question that must
be settled by data not yet reported. There is, of course, no reason
why useful predictive instruments may not be devised outside the
regular MMPI format. There are several pencil-and-paper measures
for which concurrent been demonstrated; some of these
validity has
may have better predictive validity than Hathaway and Monachesi
have shown for MMPI scales. But the MMPI is important in the
present context simply because it is one inventory for which evi-
dence of predictive validity exists. By using its discriminating items
and adding others to cover particular areas of personality more
thoroughly, better predictors may yet be developed. For this rea-
son, we need to consider what kinds of content the discriminating
items of the MMPI deal with.
Predictive MMPI Content

One way to describe the content of discriminating items and
scales ismake a rational classification, that is, to read the items
to
and group them according to the sense they seem to make. Inspec-
tion of the 33 most predictive items reported by Hathaway and
Monachesi (1957), for instance, reveals that 6 deal with various
aspects of disturbed relations in the home, 6 with difficulties in
school, 6 with a need for thrill and adventure, 3 with sex, and 3
with tactics to follow when in trouble. The content concerned
with family and school is, to be sure, what a study of the literature
on delinquency would lead us to expect. That responses of delin-
quents to such items reflect poor real-life home and school adjust-
5 Delinquency among prisoners, that is, misbehavior during confinement,
seems predictable by use of the MMPI. Paton has cross-validated an empirical

MMPI measure for this purpose (1958). Data on the base rate unfortunately
are missing.
ment is suggested, for example, by an investigation by Wirt and
Briggs (1959), who surveyed records of social agencies and in-
terviewed parents of a subsample of the subjects in the Minneapolis
study.
Thepsychologist seeking to construct a better scale must con-
sider the possibility of writing items to deal with content that is
sketchily covered by Hathaway and Monachesi's items. The fact
that six of their predictive items describe disturbed home conditions
ensures that a subjectfrom such an environment is likely to reveal
the fact, whereas only one item covering home conditions is
if
offered, the information may not be too reliable. Responses to six

items concerned with the same area of behavior ought, other things
being equal, to give more precise information than is obtained when
only one is used.
There on the other hand, to add items that repeat
is little point,
content already adequately covered by a scale. Clearly, some type
of systematic classification of items is needed. One approach is to
consider the relations among responses before attempting a classi-
fication by content. Items can be grouped according to the way an-
swers to one are related to responses to others. When replies to a
particular set of items are correlated, that is, when knowing how
subjects answer item A helps us predict how they answer B, C, and
D, we can hypothesize that the four items reflect the operation of
a single source, dimension, or factor of personality. Psychologists
who seek this sort of information about items usually employ one
of several versions of a computational method known as factor
analysis. Once the empirical groupings of items are disclosed by
factor analysis, items associated with each factor are studied to
provide clues as to the nature of the underlying source of variation.
Two recent investigations have employed factor analysis to un-
cover the dimensions underlying scores on the Pd scale. One is a
study by Comrey (1958) of responses of normals and a variety of
psychiatric patients. The other, by Astin (1959), employed records
of hospitalized drug addicts. Despite differences in the composition
of their samples and methods of factor analysis, their results are in
fair agreement. Both find that certain Pd items reflect a systematic
tendency toward feeling of persecution. Another factor observed
in both studies concerns the occurrence of episodes of unaccount-
able cheerfulness and liveliness. Astin's factor of Social Maladjust-
ment, however, is split in Comrey's analysis into separate factors
of Delinquency and Anti-Social Behavior. Similarly, Astin's Neurot-
icism factor appears as factors of Shyness and Neuroticism in Com-

rey's study.
Limitations of Inventories
Although they share with all measures that might be applied to
the problem of predicting delinquency the difficulties that arise from
the nature of the criterion and its complex causation, inventory
scales posses some specific inherent weaknesses. The most obvious
of these concern the extent to which responses reflect the state of
affairs as an unbiased observer might report it. Are the answers of
subjects true? Certainly there is nothing about the questionnaire that
compels a person to be accurate in his self-portrayal. A consider-
able body of research and theory suggests that some subjects can
and do consciously or unconsciously distort their answers so as to
appear either better or worse than they really are. For this reason,
the MMPI, unlike many other paper-and-pencil inventories, includes
measure the extent to which subjects bias their
scales that attempt to
scores by presenting themselves in unrealistically favorable or un-
favorable lights.
Another well-known but usually unheeded source of trouble
arises because individuals vary in the extent to which they endorse
or reject items regardless of content. Some subjects, for example,
are more likely than others to answer "true" to questions dealing
with "liking" things, apparently above and beyond what it is that
is liked (Hanley, 1959). When a personality scale contains many
items worded same fashion, to include terms that call for
in the
individual interpretation of meaning (for example, "often," "cer-
tainly"), influences of this kind, called response sets, may syste-
matically alter scores. If, on the other hand, a measure is composed
of items with many different wordings, responses will be affected
by a host of influences having do with the general content
little to
of the For these reasons, it seems idealistic to hope that great
scale.
precision in diagnosis is possible with any inventory scale. It is
possible that measuring devices which do not suffer from the in-
herent weaknesses of inventories will prove more accurate in predict-
ing delinquency. Among these are psychological tests and projective
tests. Unfortunately, relatively little has been reported thus far re-
garding their effectiveness in the area of delinquency.

PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS
Intelligence measures are the classic examples of psychological

tests. The relation between intelligence and criminality has been
the subject of controversy for decades. In a survey of studies of
intelligence and delinquency conducted in the United States and
Great Britain over the past forty years, Woodward (1955) con-
cludes: "The average I.Q. of delinquents in the U.S.A. and Great
Britain has been estimated at 92, and it appears probable that the
difference between this figure and the general population norm (of
100) is accounted for by the association with delinquency of that
constellation of cultural factors which adversely affects the test
score" (p. 299). The average difference of eight points that may
hold between delinquents and normals may be due in part, in other
words, to such facts as that come from intellec-
delinquents tend to
tually deprived backgrounds where low IQs are common. Should
this be the case, a group of offenders from lower socioeconomic
levels may be no more different in IQ from
normal sample than
a
is the case where nondelinquent lower-status subjects are compared
with normals.
Regardless of the origin of the relation between intelligence and
delinquency, confirmation of its existence means that IQ scores
might be useful in predicting misconduct. Unfortunately, compari-
sons of the intelligence test performance of normals and delinquents
typically involve concurrent rather than predictive validity, and
ignore the problem of the base rate. An example of test differences
between known delinquents and controls illustrates these points.
Zakolski (1949) gave a battery of tests to 50 industrial school and
50 public schools boys. Mean scores on three well-known measures
of ability are shown in Table 3.
Table 3
Scores of Delinquent and Control Boys on Ability Tests
Trait Test Delinquents Normals

IQ (verbal) Otis 82.6 92.7
IQ (nonverbal) Revised Army Beta 85.5 95.9
Mechanical Ability MacQuarrie 36.3 54.7
From Zakolski, 1949.

We can generalize these results — the Otis scores, for example — to

real life only if two assumptions hold: concurrent validity must
approximate predictive validity; and subjects must be representative
of delinquent and normal boys in general. If these conditions are
met, we can expect approximately one half of predelinquent boys to
score 82 or less on the Otis. From additional information that Zakol-
ski givesabout spread of scores in his groups, we estimate that
roughly 16 percent of normal boys will score this low.
How accurate will the test be in a prediction study where the
expected rate of delinquency is 10 percent? In such a situation, if
we test 1,000 boys not yet offenders, 10 percent will later become
delinquents. A score of 82 or less should, therefore, pick up 50 of
the 100 predelinquents and 144 of the 900 normal boys. Nearly three
nondelinquents would be misclassified for each predelinquent cor-
rectly identified. Our
accuracy is of the same order as that
level of
achieved with the MMPI in the Minneapolis study.
This degree of effectiveness, of course, is heavily dependent upon
the correctness of our dubious assumptions. It is unlikely that any
test will have as high predictive as concurrent validity. Zakolski's
subjects may not be representative of the general populations of
delinquents and normals. The figure of 10 percent for the base rate
probably is too high. Our estimate of accuracy, therefore, surely
errs in the direction favoring the use of the test.
These qualifications apply to a study by Jones, Livson, and Sarbin
(1955), who show that institutionalized delinquent boys obtain lower
scores than controls on a "perceptual-completion" measure, the
Street Gestalt Completion Test. In this device, familiar objects are
shown by partly completed drawings; the task is to identify the
subject of the drawing. Perceptual completion is one of many
ability factors; it is possible that comparisons of delinquents and
normals on standard measures of other abilitiesmay uncover par-
ticular types in which delinquents are especially deficient. The work
in this area is interesting but essentially exploratory.
A recent development in the field of personality an increased
is
interest in psychological tests that measure traits other than ability.

Under the leadership of Raymond B. Cattell (1957), a host of
psychological tests have been developed to cover what appear to be
rather distinct personality traits. When basic research on these new
measures completed, their use in preliminary comparisons of delin-
is
quents and normals can be expected. A

test of this general type, de-
vised by Cassel (1952), has been used in a concurrent validity study.
Cassel and Van Vorst
(1954) gave the Cassel Group Level of Aspira-
tion Test to samples of delinquent boys, delinquent women, and high
school seniors. Our "level of aspiration" is the performance we seek
to achieve; our past successes and failures affect this level, and peo-
ple differ in the extent to which their aspirations are affected by their
past experience. The Cassel test consisted of eight identical parts in
which the subject draws top and bottom of each of
circles at the
a series of X's arranged four rows to the page. Before commencing
any part, he makes a "bid," that is, estimates how many X's he will
complete within a 30-second time limit. Overbidding is penalized,
but one can earn a score no greater than the bid. The size of the
bid, past performance, and past bids may be compared in a number
of ways. Cassel and Van Vorst report differences that seem related
to dissimilar levels of aspirations in delinquents and controls. The
problem of the base rate is not treated, but the authors are careful
to describe their study as dealing with "in-prison" and "out-of-
prison" samples.
Another investigation in the same vein is reported by Doctor and
Winder (1954), who studied the performance of normal boys and
institutionalized delinquents — matched for race, age, mental ability,
and socioeconomic status — on the Porteus Maze Test, basically
a measure of intelligence. Their results agree with earlier studies of
the Porteus Test that show personality differences — as measured by
a score based on such things as regard for instructions, impulsivity,
and carefulness — between delinquents and normals. This "qualitative
score" is not highly related to intellectual ability. In the Doctor and
Winder study, some 70 percent of delinquents obtained high quali-
tative scores as compared with a value of 30 percent in the control
boys. These findings, of course, are suggestive rather than definitive,
for the reasons outlined with the preceding measures.
It appears that psychological tests might be employed in place of
inventories in predicting delinquent behavior. Much basic research
is called for, however, before putting such measures into practical
application.
PROJECTIVE TESTS
The picture with respect to projective tests resembles that hold-

ing for psychological tests — findings are "suggestive," "preliminary,"
or "promising," without much hope of immediate applicability. One
study, nevertheless, stands out as indicating possible usefulness. As
part of an extensive investigation directed by the Gluecks (see

page 237), using samples of 500 delinquent and 500 normal adoles-
cent boys, responses to the Rorschach Inkblot Test were analyzed
by Ernest Schactel and his late wife. Schactel (1950) reports im-
pressive concurrent validity for the Rorschach Test when it is used
by skilled clinicians.
The Rorschach Test (Rorschach, 1942) consists of ten cards, each
showing an elaborate inkblot. Subjects are asked to tell what they
see in the cards. The method of administration is standardized, and
the test has been the subject of thousands of studies. The Rorschach
is widely used in clinical work.
There are several scoring systems for the Rorschach Test. Purely
formal aspects of performance may be scored by a number of simi-
lar schemes. One important score, for example, is the number of
responses in which human or humanlike movement is described.
Table 4 gives the frequency of such "M" responses in the normal
and delinquent samples studied by Schactel.
Table 4
Number of "M" Responses to the Rorschach Test
Number of Subjects
U
Number of M" Responses Delinquent Normal
241 204
1 131 150
2 82 71
3 31 39
4 9 16
5 5 5
6 1 5
7 or more 10
Total 500 500
From Schactel, 1950.
While normal boys show the greater tendency to give "M" re-
sponses, the measure in itselfnot very discriminating, especially if
is
we generalize from the data to situations with a lower base rate.

Better discrimination was obtained when the Schactels made rat-
ings of several personality traits hypothesized as relating to delin-
quency in the kind of subjects being observed. Ratings of this type
require the services of expert clinicians. The best discrimination,
however, occurred when the Schactels, without knowledge of the
Rorschach protocols into "delin-
status of the subjects, sorted the
quent," "neutral," and "nondeliquent" categories, using as a guide
their theoretical analysis of the kinds of personality characteristics
that would produce delinquency in the milieu from which the sub-
jects were drawn. Some 329 of 496 delinquents were correctly iden-
tified, while another 135 were classed as "neutral." Among 495
nondelinquents, 333 were classified accurately, while 121 were called

"neutral." A diagnosis of delinquency was accurate in 66 percent of
delinquent cases and fell on nondelinquents only 8 percent of the
time. In a situation with a base rate of 10 percent, about one non-
delinquent would be misclassified as delinquent for every delinquent
properly identified.
It is clear that these highly trained clinicians were able to discri-
minate between delinquent and normal Rorschach record with
surprising accuracy. Whether such efficiency would hold up in a
truly predictive study with a realistic base rate is, of course, a matter
that only empirical evidence can settle. Although such evidence can
be obtained, the difficulty remains that clinicians who can make
the discrimination as accurately as Schactel appears to have done
may not be available for practical employment of the Rorschach.
The impressive results of the Schactel study, for this reason, may be
difficult to transform into real-life applications. The same difficulty
holds for any projective test that requires evaluation by skilled per-
sonnel who are few in number.
THE GLUECK PREDICTION TABLES

The reader by this time will have formed an opinion of the merit
of psychological measures for predicting antisocial behavior. Before
closing the chapter, however, we ought to consider how the job
can be handled with nonpsychological tools. The most widely pub-
licized of these at present are the prediction tables devised by
Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck (1950). Should these tables live up
to claims that have been made for them, the question of whether
or not to utilize psychological measures might become a dead issue.
The various prediction tables were developed by the Gluecks
after decades spent in the study of criminal careers. The Social
Prediction Table has been the most widely discussed; it employs
ratings by social investigators of the following items dealing with
conditions in the preschool years:
Discipline of boy by father
Supervision of boy by mother
Affection of father for boy
Affection of mother for boy
Cohesiveness of family
The Social Prediction Table is seen by the Gluecks as the most

useful of their tables for the practical prediction of delinquency
(Glueck and Glueck, 1956). Among their other tables, which do
not markedly improve predictions from the Social Prediction Table
alone, are some that incorporate psychological measures. These in-
clude the ratings of Rorschach Test responses discussed in the pre-
vious section, and scores on psychological tests. In addition to
psychiatric ratings, other tables include such variables as birthplaces,
nativity, and religion of parents; economic status; school behavior;
and factors related to early antisocial behavior.
The chief evidence for the validity of the Glueck tables appears
in Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency (Glueck and Glueck, 1950), a
book reporting comparisons of 500 offender and 500 control boys.
The two groups were matched with varying degrees of success for
intelligence, age, place of residence, and ethnic origin. Striking dif-
ferences were observed; results with the Social Prediction Table, for
Gluecks to assert that delinquent tendencies can be
instance, led the
diagnosed with accuracy as early as the age of six.
While hailed by many (a symposium of reviews in the Journal
of Criminal Law and Criminology, 1951, is mainly highly favorable),
the procedures and conclusions in this Glueck study have also been
severely criticized. Rubin (1951) raises serious objections to most
aspects of the investigation, two being especially relevant to topics
in this chapter. The first is that the delinquent boys the Gluecks
observed are not representative of delinquents in general. Second,
the Gluecks did not study delinquents when they were young, but
rather extrapolated from data obtained boys had been insti-
after the
tutionalized during adolescence. Criticisms by Shaplin and Tiede-
man (1952) also relate to these points. In our terminology, these
critics argue that the Glueck study has concurrent rather than
predictive validity. Similar strong objections by Reiss (1951) include
discussion of the base rate. The accuracy of the Glueck tables, he
emphasizes, is based on a situation with equal numbers of delin-
quents and controls. When the base rate is set at a more realistic
figure — 10 percent — the tables turn out to be far less discriminating
than claimed. This criticism has been repeated by Walters (1956),
who shows how a base rate of 2-4 percent makes prediction from
the tables quite inaccurate. It is clear that even when the use of
concurrent for predictive validity is ignored, the practical effec-
tiveness of the Glueck tables has been greatly overestimated.
Studies of the true predictive validity of the Glueck tables are
said to be in progress. Until these are fully reported, can only we
turn to recently published evidence (Glueck and Glueck, 1959) con-
cerning the usefulness of these tables in predicting the behavior of
the 500 delinquent boys subsequent to the time they first were
seen by the Gluecks. The data relate to behavior in various types
of peno-correctional treatments instituted after the original study
began. Table 5 lists the kinds of treatments, together with informa-
tion regarding the predictive accuracy of tables specially devised for
each type of treatment.
Table 5 conveys two impressions. For one, the content is incom-
plete, making the data difficult to evaluate in their present form.
For another, the seem to be highly accurate in predicting
tables
"failure." The material can be clarified by making separate and
complete tables for each kind of treatment. When this is done, how-
ever, the results lose much of their impressiveness. An example is
provided in Table 6, which gives the complete results for straight

probation. When the evidence is put into this form, we can readily
evaluate the accuracy of the predictions. Among the 286 boys for
whom failure was predicted as having a better than even chance of
occurring, 270 actually failed. Of 10 boys predicted to have a less
than even chance of failure, 4 did not fail. The predictions were
correct, therefore, in 274 cases out of 296, slightly less than 93 per-
cent of the time.
Impressive predictions, indeed! But what about the base rate?
Most of the 296 boys on straight probation failed. If we had no
Glueck table handy, our best prediction would be that every boy
would fail. This prediction would be correct 276 times out of 296,
a bit better than 93 percent accurate. It seems that we do slightly
better without the table than with it!
Using the same procedure of predicting the most common be-

havior for all subjects concerned, we find in all categories that the
prediction tables make a negligible contribution to accuracy of pre-
diction. The showing for the Glueck tables comes in the case
best
of failure in prison: 80 percent accuracy with the prediction table
as compared with 74 percent from the base rate of nonfailure.
Despite the superficial appearance of great accuracy, it is clear that
THE GAUGING OF CRIMINAL PREDISPOSITIONS 239
these data do not show that the methods employed by the Gluecks
possess greater validity than has been characteristic of far humbler
paper-and-pencil inventory measures.
Table 5
Comparison of Predicted versus Actual Behavior by

Type of Treatment
Actual Behavior
Total
Number Serious or Persistent
of Minor Offender
Predicted Behavior Offenders Number Percent
More than even chance of 'failure"

'
Straight probation 286 270 94.4

Probation with suspended
sentence 344 337 98.0
Correctional school 465 366 78.7
Parole 458 417 91.0
Reformatory 39 21 53.8
Prison 4 3 75.0
Occasional Minor
Offender or Non-Offender
Less than even chance of "failure"

Straight probation 10 4 40.0
Probation with suspended
sentence 11 0.0
Correctional school 22 12 54.5
Parole 3 2 66.7
Reformatory 118 80 67.8
Prison 31 25 80.6
The small number of cases in certain categories is due to the nature of the
sample which is made up of true juvenile offenders (serious or persistent
minor).
From Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck, Predicting delinquency and crime. Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959, p. 258. Used by permission of
the publishers.
240 • criminal psychology
Table 6
Prediction of Behavior on Straight Probation
Frequency of Actual Behavior

Occasional or Serious or Persistent Total
Nonoffender Offender
More than 50%
chance of 16 270 286
Frequency "failure"
of Less than 50%
Prediction chance of 4 6 10
"failure"
Total 20 276 296
CONCLUSION
The preceding pages indicate the difficulties that must be over-

come if psychological measures are to become useful in combating
antisocial behavior. The accuracy of the best of these instruments
is not high, although appreciably better than chance. More im-
portant, the studies we

have cited suggest these measures might be
improved markedly, given sufficient attention. This has not occurred
While the number of psychological investigations of delin-
to date.
quency may appear large, deviation that leads to punitive detention
has received only a fraction of the attention psychologists have
given to deviation that leads to other types of treatment.
The contributions of psychologists to the field of delinquency,
moreover, often have taken the form of "explanations" of mis-
conduct rather than suggestions as to how society can cope with
it Should the day arrive when practical means for
realistically.
dealing with delinquency are the main object of research, the im-
provement of psychological instruments for diagnosing the presence
of criminal tendencies ought to play an important part in the effort.
Past investigations, althought inadequate in various ways, point to
a useful role for psychological measures in the future.
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1958, 22, 17-23.
Rorschach, H. Psy chodiagnostics. (2d ed.) Berne: Verlag Hans Huber,
1942.
Rubin, S. Unraveling juvenile delinquency: I. in a research
Illusions
project using matched pairs. Amer. J. Sociol., 1951, 57, 107-114.
Schactel, E. G. Some notes on the use of the Rorschach Test. In Sheldon

& Eleanor T. Glueck, Unraveling juvenile delinquency. New York:
Commonwealth Fund, 1950.
Shaplin, J. T., & Tiedman, D. V. Comment on the juvenile delinquency
prediction tables in the Gluecks' Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency.
Amer. sociol. Rev., 1951, 16, 544-548.
Walters, A. A. A
note on statistical methods of predicting delinquency.
Brit. J. Delinquency, 1956, 6, 297-302.
Wirt, R. D., & Briggs, P. F. Personality and environmental factors in the

development of delinquency. Psychol. Monogr., 1959, 73, No. 15.
Woodward, Mary. The role of low intelligence in delinquency. Brit. J.
Delinquency, 1955, 5, 281-303.
Zakolski, F. C. Studies in delinquency: I. Personality structure of

delinquent boys. /. genet. Pschol., 1949, 74, 109-117.
WILLIAM W. WATTENBERG
Psychologists and
Juvenile Delinquency
The psychologist can state three basic facts about juvenile de-
linquency: (1) As is true of any form of social behavior or mis-
behavior, delinquency is the result of the complex interaction of
many forces — physical, intellectual, social, and cultural. (2) Boys
and girls involved in misdeeds have personalities which can still
be substantially modified. (3 ) Although much research has been

done about juvenile delinquency, a great deal remains to be learned.
The most important fact of all is that delinquency is a complex
phenomenon. It is an example of what the scientist would call
multiple causation. For example, in the cases treated by the Judge
Baker Foundation Clinic in Boston, the experienced team of Healy
and Bronner (1936) found that on the average three or four causal
factors would be operating, and that in each case the combinations
might be different.
One convenient way of ordering the material is to examine some
of the more frequent combinations of cause and effect. We may
think of these as being verified clusters of characteristics, something
like what physicians would call a syndrome. Before such clusters
are described, however, a caution must be given: There is danger
that the reader will think we are inviting the classification of young
people into types, that it is possible to label each delinquent and
put him into the proper pigeonhole for treatment. Rather, what we
shall be doing is to portray a few of the many combinations which
in varying degrees make up the total group we call delinquents.
Although we on the pioneering cluster
shall rely to a large extent
analysis made by Hewitt and Jenkins (1946) from a statistical study
of 500 cases brought to a child guidance clinic in Ann Arbor,
Michigan, we shall supplement with the findings of other inves-
this
tigators who have exploited the same general idea.
243
GANG CHILDREN
Numerically speaking, the most common "type" of delinquent
is a young man or woman who gets into difficulties as one member
of a group with whom he or she has pleasant, easy-going social rela-
tionships. These youngsters take a casual attitude toward laws. Their
credo boils down to "Be loyal to thy friends." They will do "any-
thing" for a friend, and they have many friends.
Superficial investigation shows that these young people come
from easy-going, neglectful homes in areas where the delinquency
rates are high. It is frequently pointed out that in such homes
the young people are "unsupervised." Various investigators
use different terms to describe these young people. Hewitt and
Jenkins called them "socialized delinquents." In the well-known clas-
sification by Riesman they would be termed "other-directed." They
fit the pattern Havighurst and Taba (1949) called "adaptive."
If we dig beneath the surface, we are likely to find that at a very

early age these children were allowed to roam the streets and were
trusted to their own resources. Early they learned to rely upon
other children for safety and satisfaction. They came to be de-
pendent upon contemporaries, not upon adults. There are two
results: (1) their consciences are weak, extremely flexible; and (2)
they have a deep anxiety, a dread of loneliness. They respond to
their anxiety by becoming very skillful at securing and holding
friends. So adept are they at casual socializing that they can and
do keep their anxiety down by having social fun. They are hungry
for friends and for excitement.
In the socially least favored areas of a city these young people
become delinquent in large numbers. For one thing, the very cir-
cumstances of life for adults almost guarantee that most youth will
go unsupervised. The pressures of earning a living and fighting
poverty preoccupy the parents. Many are products of life on foreign
soil or rural areas and do not understand city life. Furthermore, the
dwelling units are small and overcrowded; to avoid having the

children underfoot the adults encourage them to fend for them-
selves. As Clifford Shaw (1942), his colleagues at the Illinois Insti-
tute for Juvenile Research, and subsequent sociologists have shown,
these neighborhoods are typified by and by a
social disorganization
tradition of delinquency. Daring and excitement are found most
easily in conflict with rival gangs or with the police. This accounts
PSYCHOLOGISTS AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY •
245
for the fact that in general the lower the average family income in
an urban neighborhood, the higher the delinquency rate. An un-
published study by the present author discovered a rank-order cor-
relation rate above .90 for this relationship in Detroit.
Delinquency of this variety does not yield to strictly psycholo-
gical measures. The gang boy poor candidate for coun-
or girl is a
seling or psychotherapy. Although there is a deep stratum of anx-
iety, the person's social skill prevents this from emerging in a form
suitable for treatment purposes.
The most obvious tactic to follow with these young people is to
remove them from group and place them in one which
a delinquent
is not delinquent. Unfortunately, in the neighborhoods in which
most live this turns out to be almost impossible. The next best move
is to attempt to bring an entire group under skilled supervision as
is being done by the "detached worker" program inaugurated by
the New York City Youth Board and copied in other places. On
occasion this works well.
Failing some such salvage operation, what usually happens is that
these gang youngsters continue to get into trouble until they are
old enough to form enduring liaisons with the opposite sex. Then,
in loyalty to sweetheart or spouse they stay out of trouble. As
delinquents their careers seem unending; fortunately, adult crimi-
nality is not their line.
Experienced police and juvenile court officials are familiar with

this pattern. They consider the individuals to be psychologically
normal, and therefore rarely request psychological evaluation. In
thisthey are wise; in most cases an elaborate psychological appraisal
(anything beyond routine intelligence testing) would be a waste
of scarce resources.
At the present state of our knowledge — which may, of course,
change at any time — psychologists
such have little to offer. The
as
reduction of this type of delinquency is more likely to grow out
of the efforts of sociologists and group workers.
UNSOCIALIZED AGGRESSIVE BOYS
In contrast to the above group are the boys termed "unsocialized

aggressive" by Hewitt and Jenkins (1946). Other workers have
called them "ego-damaged." Probably the best full-length descrip-
tion is in Redl and Wineman's Children Who Hate (1951).
Composed almost exclusively of boys, this group is typified by
explosive attitudes and a wide range of offenses. Their police rec-
ords begin early, expand rapidly, and include everything in the
book. They have little tolerance for any type of frustration, and
their self-control is repeatedly burst apart by eruptions of rage.
The homes these boys come from are usually classed as "reject-
ing." Their mothers actively dislike them; if the fathers have not
deserted, they are given to physical violence. In terms of the items
which make up the Gluecks' Social Prediction Scale (1959), dis-
cussed in the previous chapter, (love of father for child, discipline
by father, love of mother for child, supervision by mother, and
family cohesion), these boys register scores that indicate delinquency
and repeating are certainties. They live up to the predictions.
When seen close up, the parents of these boys prove to be vio-
lently ambivalent: They are capable of fierce protection of their
offspring, and alternate this with brutal and impatient treatment.
Lacking any security and confronting aggression, these children
carry so heavy a load of hate that they cannot master it or their
other impulses except for temporary delinquent purposes. In school,
they are readily recognized even in the primary grades. They cannot
settle down to work; they are enraged by minor setbacks; they
see the world as united against them; they are cruel to other
children; they are foolhardy little daredevils bereft of a sense of
consequences.
Unless something is done, these violent and dangerous boys will
develop into equally dangerous men. Throughout their lives they
will menace other people and themselves. The evidence indicates
that fifteen years after their first delinquency they will be in prison.
Extensive experimentation conducted by Fritz Redl (1952) both
at the Pioneer House in Detroit and under auspices of the Na-
Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, has de-
tional Institute of
monstrated that a well-designed treatment home can repair the
damage to such boys and enable them to cope adequately with
life problems.
Skillful work is required to identify those boys who could be
helped by an appropriate program. The fact is that the explosions
of anger which appear to be the key symptom can be caused by a
number of conditions, each offering a different probability of suc-
cessful treatment and each calling for a different disposition by the
juvenile court. In some instances, for example, some types of incom-
plete brain development or brain damage may be responsible for
the lack of controj.
247
If brain damage is treatment-home program

a crucial factor, a
would hardly work. In such cases, sedatives administered under
medical supervision may control the outburst. More likely, perma-
nent institutionalization will be required. In other cases, mental
illness (a psychosis) may be in the picture. Here commitment
to a mental hospital or a treatment home for emotionally disturbed

children is in order.
Most states almost totally lack adequate treatment homes. Here
and there, heroic workers attempt to make do with improvised
facilities — and too often fail. Few psychiatrists, psychologists, and
social workers have been trained to man the necessary programs.

As far as this group of boys is concerned we might as well be
living in the Dark Ages, except for one fact: we know what can
be done and what needs to be done.
Related to the lack of appropriate facilities goes delay in giving
these children what treatment is available. We do not know for
sure what could be accomplished if there were prompt action the
minute such a child was spotted. When this could be done, at the
age of five or six, his small size beclouds perception of danger.
Even when he commits his first actionable offenses at seven or
eight, people let themselves be beguiled by the vain hope that "he
will grow out of it." Accordingly, at first he may
be placed in a
boarding home, or returned to his parents, or receive perfunctory
probation. Precious years drag by. Meanwhile, the parents become
more violently hostile, neighbors turn persistently punitive, class-
mates do battle at the least provocation. In school, scholastic dif-
ficulties and failures are piled on top of futile, impatient discipline.
Years of war with a hostile world — and such a boy's conduct
would turn all but the saintliest saints against him — etch aggression
ever more ineradicably into the personality structure. A psycholo-
gist who
could give the alarm early and be insistent in opposing
temporizing and inconclusive measures suggested because the of-
fender is "so young" may literally save a life.
"ACCIDENTAL" DELINQUENCY
Another contrast is provided by those young people who are

caught in offenses which are definitely illegal and which resulted
from lapses in judgment or from problems arising in the course of
the child's normal development. Put differently, the young people
are really normal in a basic psychological sense. Possibly they did
not recognize the seriousness of what they did; possibly their
deeds seemed innocuous because "everyone" they knew did the same
thing (like adults driving four miles an hour over the speed limit)
or they were copying what they felt to be sophisticated behavior
of grownups. Having detected the offense, the police performed
their duty of law enforcement. For some reason, the case reaches
the court. What should be done?
In some instances, the offense is serious in its consequences rather
than its intent. Some boys, for example, were dropping snowballs
from an overpass onto automobiles speeding on an expressway. One
startled driver lost control of his car. As a result, four cars were
wrecked and three people went to hospitals. The boys were aghast
at what they had unwittingly done. Their dismay at the event was
doubled by being taken into custody and redoubled by their parents'
reactions.
Probably this string of unpleasant consequences by itself would
strengthen the consciences of these boys if they were normal chil-
dren. This alone would guarantee that they would neither repeat
this offense nor engage in any which was remotely similar. Gen-
erally, normal young people learn from being punished. More harm
than good, however, is done if the punishment takes a form bring-
ing them in contact with tough delinquents prepared to teach the
tricks of true crime.
A second type of "accidental" delinquency results from dis-
covery and apprehension of a young person for activities which,
although illegal, are prevalent and usually undetected. The prin-
cipal illustrations have to do with sex behavior, both homosexual
and heterosexual. The Kinsey reports have confirmed many re-
searches which were less ambitious. Sex activities of various kinds
which would be clear violations of the law are very prevalent.
Among boys, for instance, Kinsey has established that homosexual
stimulation does not forecast adult maladjustment but does involve
over 20 percent of adolescent males. Police statistics show that only
a small proportion of the total incidents is detected. However, if
accidental discovery does take place some adults will call the police,
and the offenders quite likely will be brought to court.
A number of problems immediately emerge. First, the activity
is clearly illegal; no law-enforcement officer or judge can condone
it. Second, sexual activities of this nature are considered perverted,

and there is always the possibility that a young person caught in
such an act may develop abnormally. For these reasons, a case of
PSYCHOLOGISTS AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY 249
this type is almost certain to be referred to a psychologist or a
psychiatrist. What is his responsibility?

An
experienced professional will realize at once that any recom-
mendation he may make will be accepted only if all concerned
are sure he has been thorough in his work. Therefore, he will act
with care. Usually, he will test all youngsters involved and will do
some detective work to discover who instigated the episodes, and
how. It is possible that the principal instigator or the principal
victim present sufficient evidence of emotional disturbance to war-
rant a referral for counseling or therapy. It is always possible that
an adult exploiter has been active and that his apprehension should
be recommended as a police measure.
In the majority of youths, however, it will turn out that person-
ality structures are clearly within the normal range. In this event,
some court official (possibly the psychologist) will make it clear
to the young people that their conduct was unacceptable and that
it is banned. Also, a conference with the parents must be held to
help them recognize the incident for what it was and to resolve
any doubts they may have. Care must be taken to settle any anxi-
eties which might lead to real perversion. Usually this type of case
is cleared up unofficially. (See pages 259-262.)
A different situation, one involving what the child development

people now call "developmental tasks," is linked to the fact that
many preadolescents are impelled to establish their psychological
independence and freedom from childishness. They may choose
to show resourcefulness or daring or both by acts of theft or van-
dalism. Usually, if the item taken is inexpensive or the damage is
slight, the police settle the episodes satisfactorily by seeing that

the loss is made good. Occasionally, however, the aggrieved party
makes a complaint which must be taken quite seriously. If a school
system, for example, has spent tens of thousands of dollars replac-
ing stoned windows, it may decide to insist upon recourse to the
courts. If the item taken is an automobile, court action may be
mandatory.
The settlement of damages is not the task of a psychologist; his
duty is the assessment of personality. In cases of this type, his in-
vestigation may show developing "on schedule,"
that the child is
and that the behavior under review is an unfortunate outcropping

of normal motivations. Clearly, repetitions must be prevented.
Therefore, he will probably urge the judge to limit his disposition
to an impressive verbal warning, possibly reinforced by probation.
He will declare against the use of facilities
needed to deal with more
disturbed or more seriously delinquent boys or girls.
A psychologist in a juvenile court, and any other to whom trou-
bled parents may turn, must master the facts of child development.
He has to know what normal youngsters are like in order to ascer-
tain what is abnormal. More important, he may have to help his
colleagues in the court, and parents as well, keep the incident in
proper perspective.
Even the most normal adolescents do outrageous things. They
will adopt ungainly or offensive clothing fads. Their language is
often salted with slang and profanity. From time to time dance
movements are almost obscenely suggestive. Young people will
attempt bravado by smoking, drinking, and imitating adult vices.
When seen in a youngster who we know has been delinquent,
these acts may be viewed as delinquent or even as the cause of
delinquency. Probation officers, attendants in detention homes,
and police officers are apt to wage war on such conduct. Even an
occasional judge will order an obnoxious haircut shaved off under
the illusion that this will wipe out delinquency.
Campaigns of this nature will occasionally sweep through a com-
munity, and become epidemic among court workers. It is one
function of psychological science to indicate at which aspects of
a total situation we can most effectively use our limited resources.
Psychologists have a duty to reduce to a minimum the misdirection
of energy. They will recognize the perils of trying to eradicate
normal behavior; they can also recognize even trained people's
hope for magic solutions. So, when an occasional false hue and cry
is raised, they will circumspectly do their part to restore per-
spective.
Another variety of "normal" delinquency arises over behavior
which is symbolic of grown-up status — permitted to adults but
forbidden to youth. Drinking and driving cars are two examples.
Peripherally, there is behavior where adults are not usually appre-
hended, but young people may be, as in petty gambling or pre-
marital sexual intercourse.
These activities are considered "sophisticated" by many adults;
to an adolescent, they may be symbols of adulthood. The "You
Must Be Over 21" sign in a bar is a challenge. Accordingly, in the
same spirit with which many self-considered law-abiding citizens
swigged during Prohibition days and laughingly called themselves
"scofflaws," so many a teen-ager defies similar enactments applying
251
to him. Moreover, he may receive tacit, if not active, encourage-

ment from parents.
In those cases which reach the courts, and especially a court
clinic, there may be complicating factors. In some cases the be-
havior is an aspect of a neurotic parent-child interaction which is
moving toward more serious misbehavior; for some girls it is a

prelude to sex delinquency. In other instances, the case has come
to court because police are applying "selective enforcement." They
have reason to believe the group taken into custody has engaged
in other offenses.
The vast majority of the "sophisticated" offenders, however,
willbe recognized to be engaged in a "normal and natural" reach-
ing for adult status; they are doing exactly what a psychologist
would expect many adolescents to attempt. Indeed, the very fact
that the activities are prohibited is, psychologically speaking, self-
instigating of infraction upon the part of the original enactment.

All this a trained psychologist knows. However, if he is an officer
of a court, and the statute in question has been adopted by legis-
lators who undoubtedly are cognizant of these very arguments,
the psychologist can hardly take what is essentially a subversive
course. Should offenders be brought to his attention, he must con-
sider the offense to be just that. If examination reveals no verifiable
personality or emotional defect in the young people, that fact he
relays to the proper authority.
MOTHER-DAUGHTER FEUDS
Among some girl delinquents there is a subtle and potent inter-
action between mother and daughter. Indeed, in many such cases
the mother is the person who made the complaint to police or
court. A portion of the motivation, not always unconscious, for
the daughter's offenses is spitefulness: she enjoys being a source of
disgrace for the family and especially for her mother.
A close-up of the feuding within the home may suggest that the
mother is gaining some satisfaction from her daughter's misdeeds.
In one case familiar to the author, the investigating policewoman
said the mother greeted the girl the morning after each date with
the taunting question, "Are you still a virgin?" Who was suggesting
what to whom?
Responding to so provocative a combination of nagging and
suspicion, the girl clutches the suggestive signs of sophistication,
and uses them to goad her mother. There may be no laws against
make-up and clothing fads, but smoking and drinking are obvious
next moves. Almost inevitably, she gives substance to what once
were groundless suspicions. She may stay out all night, or even
run away. In either case there are almost certain to be sex episodes,
and often promiscuity. In one way or another the mother learns
of what is happening. The notation on the official papers may be
"ungovernable behavior," "incorrigibility," "truancy from home,"
or "immoral behavior."
The hopeful thing about this pattern is the ease with which it
can be corrected by good counseling or good social casework. As
distinguished from the patterns earlier described, in this one the
family conditions are still active. In many instances, either the
mother, the daughter, or both may be helped to achieve insight.
Such cases lie within the domain of the social worker rather than that
of the psychologist. If the latter enters the picture at all it is to do
some testing.
NEUROTIC DELINQUENCY
There are some cases where an inner conflict finds expression in

delinquent acts. The existence of such situations is most readily
recognized in suburbs and in middle-class neighborhoods. Where
homes and family life are likely to be good, where there is little
poverty, and few children are delinquent, the reasons for the bulk
of delinquency no longer operate. Then it is easy to face the pos-
sibility that a young person's behavior satisfies unconscious moti-
vations. The number of specific combinations is so great as to defy
cataloguing. Not only but even people familiar with the field
that,
are forever being figuratively floored by unexpected patterns. For
this reason we shall give only a sample of illustrations.
Now and again one encounters a very "good" boy who has
been apprehended in a burglary. He readily confesses to a whole
series; checking his story the police find the loot from a dozen or
more "jobs" hidden in a closet or an attic. When they come to
the police station or detention home the parents are flabbergasted
by his attitude; rather than being remorseful or shamefaced, he
seems relieved. If psychological treatment is given it is soon ascer-
tained that the boy had a feeling he was wicked. His reputation
253
for being good — until the began this was objectively justi-
thefts
fied — he regarded as deception. Trying to shed his reputation and
to obtain the punishment his inexplicable guilt demanded, he began
to steal and to pave the way for discovery and retribution.
More familiar, and less devious in their operation, are the ways
in which a young man who doubts his masculinity may resolve
his feelings of inadequacy. He can go in for sexual conquest; he
can provoke fights to prove his toughness; he can drive recklessly.
Another not infrequent chain is built around the fact that to
many young people of both sexes, one sign of being loved is to
have possessions. (Grownups often bring gifts to a child they like;
therefore, a child who has plenty of things must be a loved child.)
Fearing they are not loved — and indeed many truly are neglected
— they give themselves a counterfeit affection. They steal.
It would be possible to fill this book with case illustrations of
delinquents whose acts had neurotic origin. However, the three
rather commonplace examples cited above will suffice. Having
read them, a tough-minded doubting Thomas will have decided
that the author is another wacky psychologist; a trained psycholo-
gist or psychiatrist will start muttering about oversimplification.
The essence of the situation lies in exactly that contradiction.
The link between and purposes is so involved and intricate as
act
to seem incredible, and yet it defies simple summary. Even while
doubting, the layman will talk of kleptomania, pyromania, and
nymphomania; the psychologists and psychiatrists wince when
they hear the words because they feel they can do little by label-
ing conduct.
Psychologists, along with psychiatrists, are called upon to deal
with the "neurotic" delinquents most frequently when the offense
seems senseless. As one veteran police officer put it, "I always try
to place myself in the position of the kid, and figure out what made
him do what he did. If I can't come up with a good answer then
I guess maybe he's cracked and bring him to the clinic." Essen-
tially, this represents good judgment; the only problem is that
some youngsters whose offenses may seem understandable really

need clinic service.
Generally, in this type of case, psychologists enter the picture
by establishing the fact of emotional upset and by finding clues
such as the Rorschach inkblots,
as to its nature. Projective tests,
the various theme-evoking pictures, and incomplete sentences are
used. Interviews with the parents and the young person are held
by either a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or a social worker. Case
conferences pull together the evidence. If a psychiatrist is available
he is the one usually called upon to establish the diagnosis, but he
usually relies heavily on the material gathered by his colleagues.
If, indeed, there are significant neurotic overtones to the delin-
quency, psychotherapy of some type is required. Who conducts
treatment is a matter differently decided in specific cases. Tech-
province of the psychiatrist. In public clinics,
nically, this is the
psychologists and social workers do the actual work under the
supervision of the psychiatrist, who
any medical treatment
gives
required. If a juvenile court is large enough to have a full clinic
staff, the role of the clinic in giving treatment depends upon the
volume of work. Priority is generally given to preparing recom-

mendations on cases coming before the judge and the referees. In
few cases is a backlog tolerated at this point. Accordingly, only if
the clinic staff is caught up with this aspect of its function will it
undertake treatment.
The type of psychotherapy required in undoing any neurosis
is usually lengthy. What evidence we have shows that in cases
where a child or a parent is seen only two or three times little is
accomplished. One usually has to think of a program involving one

or more sessions a week and extending over months or years. The
exigencies of a court clinic render this prohibitive; accordingly,
the tendency is to refer cases to a child guidance clinic or to a
private psychiatrist.
MIXED PATTERNS
As stated earlier, the patterns of interaction described are far

from and create a deceptively simple impression.
a complete listing,
Human beings do not fall into any simple classification scheme;
whenever anyone divides children or adults into types, he quickly
discovers that very few conform purely to any single type. Most
combine characteristics of several descriptions. So it is with young
people picked up by the police.
Among boys who are in gangs, for example, some carry a load
of aggression, some are pathetic guys" who feel comfortable
"fall
being "dopey," a few may be genuinely inclined toward homo-

sexuality, and so it goes. Among girls picked up for promiscuity,
some may be feeble-minded victims of exploiters, some may be
PSYCHOLOGISTS AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY • 255
seeking to satisfy dependency needs, some may be daughters cold-

bloodedly imitating prostitute mothers, and some may be finding
pure physical pleasure. And it is not uncommon to find instances
where a given individual's conduct serves several functions in his
life.
Enough has been said now to make it clear why people who
study delinquency regard it complicated phenomenon. In a
as a
particular child's life a significant role may be played by his intel-
ligence, his physique, his body chemistry, his parents, his school,
his church, his friends, his neighborhood, and all the social services
and communication networks we call a community. To understand
him fully we may need to tap the knowledge of a physician, a
psychologist, a sociologist, a psychiatrist, or more probably a team
composed of all. Once we understand him, if we are to help him
we need to bring to bear the talents of policemen, teachers, judges,
probation officers, social workers, psychologists, group leaders,
clergymen, psychiatrists, parents —a task force tailored to his prob-
lems. If these people are ever to become more effective they need
the knowledge discovered by research workers from many dis-
ciplines, explained and inculcated through all the media by which
knowledge is spread among intelligent people.
In this massive, complex, endeavor no one profession, no one
if
science, no one category of specialist can go it alone. All must

work together well and bring to bear the tools of thinking and
operating in which each is best trained. The jobs of the psycholo-
gist are significant ones: to gather knowledge through research on
personality dynamics, to provide verifiable information as to the
and personality structure of individuals, to make rec-
intelligence
ommendations as to program, and to conduct certain forms of
treatment.
PSYCHOLOGISTS IN THE
JUVENILE COURT
Figuratively, the juvenile court is a species of parent. The "de-

linquent" boy or girl who appears in the court is there to be pro-
tected and re-educated rather than to be judged and punished.
Although the precise situation varies from state to state, juvenile
courts are in the tradition of that aspect of British legal institutions
administering to the helpless.
The juvenile court may embrace other functions as well as han-
dling juvenile offenders. It may act as guardian for neglected chil-
dren. It may oversee processes of adoption. The formality around
which many courts function in respect to delinquents may be in
this spirit: The court hears a petition that the young person be
declared a delinquent and, therefore, a responsibility of the court.
In essence, the parents having been unable to provide suitable char-
acter formation, the court steps in either to strengthen the hand
of the parents or to entrust the child's future to other persons.
The relationship between theory and actuality varies widely.
Some juvenile court judges comport themselves as would a magis-
trate hearing criminal cases. They think of themselves as dispens-
ing punishment; the youngsters are expected to, and usually do,
regard the court's dispositions as sentences. In other instances,
the court functions much as would a mammoth and very complex
social service agency. The judge may act as administrator for an
establishment which operates home, a supervision ser-
a detention
vice for boarding homes, a child placement agency, a clinic, a
family counseling center, and cottages for dependent children. In
such instances most of the courtroom duties may be delegated to
referees. A boy or girl coming before the latter type of court may
be the object of a complex processing designed not so much to
determine guilt or innocence as to work out a program calculated
to find the causes of his difficulties and place in operation corrective
or rehabilitative measures. Should some penalty be levied, it is im-
posed because this procedure is felt most suitable.
It is in a juvenile court which assumes almost a medical attitude
that psychological services are most fruitfully utilized. Therefore,
this section will be mainly concerned with what happens in such
a context.
Intake
A juvenile, as defined in terms of chronological age by state
statute, is generally brought to the attention of a juvenile court
by the police. However, parents, schools or any interested citizen
may file the requisite petition. If delinquency is at issue, the be-
havior so considered has been a matter for legislative enactment.
Usually a juvenile code embraces all offenses covered by statute
or ordinance and, in addition, specifies certain conduct felt to be
a bad omen on the part of a young person. In the latter category
may be placed disobedience, smoking, drinking, incorrigibility,
PSYCHOLOGISTS AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY • 257
associating withimmoral persons, frequenting forbidden establish-

ments, and truancy from home or school.
Usually the first step taken by the court is to assign a case for
preliminary investigation to one of its personnel. In some cases
there may be an intake official empowered to accept or reject
cases. The decision on this matter is based upon court policies; the
person designated is usually a social worker, a probation officer, or
a legally trained referee.
Waiving Jurisdiction
Where the offense committed by very serious the
a juvenile is
first question the court may be asked to decide is whether or not

to waive jurisdiction. Many juvenile codes set a minimum age
above which the prosecuting attorney may ask to have a boy or
girl placed on trial as an adult. The juvenile court judge must de-
cide what to do. There are several highly justifiable grounds for
waiving jurisdiction:
1. The nature of the offense and the possibility of repetition
are such that the protection of society demands the offender be
kept out of circulation beyond the age where the jurisdiction of
the juvenile court ends. Waivers are frequently granted where the
juvenile is accused of homicide, forcible rape, armed robbery, or
aggravated assault.
2. Even though the offense is not quite so dramatic, the young
person has a very long juvenile record and all the resources avail-
able to a juvenile court have been exhausted in vain. Not only
has the youth failed to respond, but it is almost certain he will
continue to do so. In addition, his or her presence in a training
school might be corrupting to other young people.
3. The offender requires permanent institutionalization, prob-
ably lifelong, of a type not available to a juvenile court.
The extent to which psychologists are consulted in respect to
the first two reasons varies with court policy. In most cases, the
factual record and the opinion of the probation officers with first-
hand knowledge are all the court requires for action. However, a
number of judges insist upon a psychological evaluation. They
regard a waiver as in effect a declaration that the youth's person-
ality development is either substantially completed or else that the
distortion is of a nature beyond reach of any facility the court can
bring to bear. In medical gobbledygook, "The prognosis is bad."
Before making such a judgment, the court may require that its
clinic make a thorough investigation. This usually means the psy-
chologists will administer tests of personality structure; a psychi-
atric consultant will weigh the evidence.
In some cases it will be clear that the young man or woman is,
in effect, an adult criminal.A young man may be a cool, calculat-

ing burglar; a young woman, a thoroughly professional prostitute.
Their behavior is motivated by the attitudes we find in adult crimi-
nals. In other instances, the investigation reveals that the young
person is psychopathic in the sense that he or she has a very weak

conscience (super-ego) and therefore feels no guilt or anxiety. At
the present time, the outlook for successful treatment for this type
of defective personality is poor. (See Chapter 12.) Accordingly,
from the viewpoint of broad social policy, the only hope is to set
in motion the dual program of adult criminal courts: temporarily
protect society by sequestering the offender and, by this demon-
stration of punishment, convince him that crime does not pay. In
effect, psychological science says to the juvenile court judge, "Your
honor, we give up. The personality of this young man or woman
is such that this court can do nothing constructive. Maybe the
criminal courts can do better; at least, they can protect society."
By contrast, there may
be cases where, despite the nature of the
offense, the young person may well respond to treatment within
the time limits available to the juvenile court. For instance, a juven-
ilemay have set a fire which resulted in a death. The clinic of the
court may be reasonably certain that the emotional disturbance
which led to the act is of a type in which currently known methods
of psychotherapy will be successful. Both the psychologist and the
psychiatric consultants look at the individual rather than at the
offense. They utilize skill in evaluating personality and bring to
bear the results of research which provide predictive indices. If
these indicate that the young person can be straightened out, the
psychiatrist or the psychologist advises the judge, "Your honor, we
can save this boy or girl. He or she can be treated successfully. If
you order the proper disposition we will not only protect society
but add to it one more good citizen."
The third situation which may arise occurs where the offender
is suffering from a serious psychiatric disorder but there is a prob-
lem in finding an appropriate institution in which to place him. A
concrete illustration is provided by a boy who brutally murdered
a little girl. It was soon established that, because of an early attack
of encephalitis, he suffered from brain damage. Tests and psychi-
259
atric study indicated that, when subjected to heavy frustration, he

could readily go into ungovernable rages and that his condition
could be expected to grow worse. He needed to be institutional-
ized; unless some miraculous discovery is made, his stay will be
permanent. None of the child-treatment facilities in his state were
equipped to handle a patient so dangerous to others. None of the
regular mental hospitals would accept him. The only place he
could be sent was a hospital for the criminally insane, to which the
juvenile court was not authorized to make commitments. There-
fore, the juvenile court judge waived jurisdiction; he was tried in
a criminal court, and sent to the appropriate hospital. In other in-
stances, psychological testing and psychiatric evaluation will reveal
psychotic conditions and point to probability of violence. When
he has this finding, the action of the judge guided by
is his knowl-
edge of facilities, of their admission procedures, and of legal tech-
nicalities.
As indicated above, both psychological testing and psychiatric

evaluation go hand in hand. Most court clinics have full-time psy-
chologists. Psychiatrists are in short supply and command high
salaries. Some court clinics have a full-time psychiatrist; usually,
he is the clinic director. In other cases, psychiatric consultants are
employed on a part-time basis, and a psychologist is the clinic di-
rector. The process by which the clinic arrives at the type of rec-
ommendation one involving teamwork. Usually a social worker
is
gathers family information through interviews, a psychologist gives

and interprets tests, and a psychiatrist coordinates this information
along with any medical data. Where commitment is at issue, there
may be a legal requirement that one or more psychiatrists sign the
recommendation. In other instances, a psychologist may make the
presentation.
Unofficial Action
Year after year the statistics gathered by the United States Chil-
dren's Bureau reveal that about half of all cases accepted by juven-
ile courts in the United States are handled on an unofficial basis.
This means that an acceptable program for a given youngster was
worked out and put into operation without a formal court hearing.
Neither an official finding of delinquency nor a court order was
required to put it into effect.
What has happened is this: The preliminary investigation re-
vealed that the youngster's behavior resulted from either a situation
or a psychological condition which could be corrected. Possibly

the parents showed a clear willingness to take voluntary action.
In other instances, a social agency of one sort or another either
was ready to enter the situation or else was already active. The
cooperation volunteered by the parents, the program being under-
taken by the agency, or both, appeared sufficient to take care of
matters. The fact that the case was in the court gave everyone a
feeling of urgency. If this works, nothing more may be in order.
The basic procedure in unofficial cases is highly informal. Usu-
ally there is much telephone communication. Often, the closest
approach to formality is a case conference at which court person-
nel and representatives of the various agencies which have dealt
with or are likely to deal with the young offender and the family
share information, ideas, and opinions. The goal is agreement upon
a plan of action. It is understood that, if the agreement is approved
by the court personnel, the court will back the plan.
Unless this backing requires a court hearing, the last step, as far
as the court is concerned, is for someone connected with the court
to interview the parents to make sure that they are willing to take
whatever steps would constitute cooperation. In some instances a
promise is exacted from them. This may be accompanied by either
an implied or open ultimatum that "next time" more drastic action
may be taken. With this, for the time being, the case is considered
closed as far as the court is concerned.
To illustrate this process, here are two cases in which unofficial
action was taken:
A girlwas reported as having run away from home. She was
found in a clubhouse maintained by a group of boys; immoral ac-
tions were charged. Routine showed she was
intelligence tests
feeble-minded. In a conference with a social worker from the clinic
the mother revealed that, although application had been made to
place the girl in a home for the mentally retarded, she had hesitated
to put her daughter in an institution. With the discovery that the
girl could be easily victimized the mother began to realize that she
could not provide the protection that a good institution offered.
Accordingly, arrangements were made to place the girl in such
an institution; acceptance by the institution was verified. When
notification that the girl had actually entered was received, the file
was closed.
A boy was picked up for breaking school windows. His mother,
tl widow with two other chidren (both girls), seemed sincerely
PSYCHOLOGISTS AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY 261
upset and offered to do whatever she could. A chaplain connected

with the court reported that the boy's pastor had said the family
was a good one and raised the possibility of help from a Big
Brother organization of the boy's faith. Evaluation by the court
clinic and consultation with the professional workers at the Big
Brother office indicated that assignment of a Big Brother might
work well. The mother had offered to pay for the damage. At a
conference, the Big Brothers agreed to accept the boy; a repre-
sentative of the school district declared he was satisfied with the
arrangement; the court chaplain showed his approval; the court
worker agreed to talk to the mother. The mother
clinic's social
said she would welcome the Big Brother, said she had sent a check
to the school board, and expressed gratitude that she would not
have to appear in court.
In essence, the misconduct of a young person brings to light a
situation in which corrective action is both necessary and feasible.
The fact that the young person is in the hands of a court symbolizes
the seriousness of the situation. Parents and any professional per-
sonnel may be spurred to more intensive efforts. With court work-
ers acting as catalysts, an agreement is reached as to who will do
what. Frequently, there are reasonable grounds for believing either
that a solution has been reached or, at the very least, that the pro-
posal offers enough promise so that it should be given a chance
before resorting to more drastic measures. For the time being, the
formal powers of the court are held in reserve.
Psychologists enter the highly informal processes of unofficial
action inmany ways. As the person, usually a probation worker,
making the preliminary investigation begins to size up the situation
and holds the initial discussions, he starts to think in terms of action
and finds he needs a psychological appraisal of the youngster in-
volved. Once he has this, he may want the opinion of the psycholo-
gist on the proposed solution. In other instances, where a youngster
was immediately referred for psychological testing, the court's
psychological services may see a possible solution and take the
initiative in developing the arrangements.
Almost invariably, when case conferences are held, psychologists
are present; in some convened by the
courts, these conferences are
court clinic and held under its auspices. Official position, however,
has little to do with the weight given to opinions and suggestions
made in free give-and-take. If a psychologist is regarded as an im-
practical screwball or a pompous fool, his opinion will be largely
ignored, or considered only in order to reduce the nuisance value
of his opposition. Where a psychologist's relationships with other
personnel are good and where there is confidence in the soundness
of his judgments, his contribution may be decisive.
In sum, in unofficial court action, psychological knowledge and
understanding can be at a premium. Whether advanced by a
trained psychologist or by someone with a different title, facts and
theories as to the causes of behavior and ways of altering behavior,
and as to corrective measures, are essen-
as to personality structure,
tial ingredients in the development of specific plans. The focus
here is on the education or re-education of a young person; be-

havior is taken into account mainly to the extent that it tells about
the person.
The term "unofficial" may give a false impression of the signifi-
cance of this aspect of the work of juvenile courts and of work
with juvenile delinquents. We
cannot emphasize too strongly that
unofficial handling accounts for half the volume of juvenile court
activity. Observers familiar with the field tend to believe that this
half is the more effective one.
Official Dispositions
In the vast majority of formal court hearings the young people

acknowledge the actions of which they stand accused. In contrast
to adult trials, the fundamental issue in juvenile court cases heard
by judges or referees is what should be done with or for the person
in court. Accordingly, it is rare to see an attorney, except where
a request for waiver is being heard.
In some states, should a youngster declare he is not guilty of the
charges, he has the right to request that a jury hear the evidence.
For even where the juvenile court has its own court-
this reason,
room one will see an occasional jury box. Court attendants wait
for years in vain to see it occupied.
From the above it United States
will be recognized that in the
juvenile courts have earned a reputation for fairness and for living
up to their purpose. These are courts which serve and protect
youth; they are not courts from which young people must be
protected.
The first order of business before an official juvenile court ses-
sion, of course, is to ascertain the facts and circumstances of re-
ported offenses. This done, the main concern is choice of dispo-
sition. There are a number of things the judge or his representative
PSYCHOLOGISTS AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY *
263
may do: dismiss the case, remand the child to custody of parent or
guardian, administer a lecture, place the young person on proba-
tion, commit him to a mental hospital or home for the mentally
retarded, place him in a boarding home, send him to a rehabilita-
tive facility operated under religious or private (philanthropic)
auspices, or commit him to a publicly operated training school.
Many judges extend the official range of dispositions by attaching
conditions either to probation or to "suspended sentences" to
training schools. This extended range may include restitution, clinic
treatment, psychiatric evaluation or treatment of a parent, place-
ment of the child with a relative, enrollment in a private school
or in a character-building agency, family cooperation with a social
casework agency, change in the family's living arrangements, and
medical treatment.
Because of the complex issues which may be involved, some
states have established "youth authorities" which relieve local
courts of some decisions, especially those requiring any form of
commitment. If the court decides a young person warrants being
removed from his home it orders him into custody of the youth
authority. This has available as wide an assortment of camps, clin-
ics, and institutions as can be managed. (See Chapter 14.)
In the more usual case, however, the judge or referee is the one
who makes the disposition. Accordingly, at the time the formal
hearing is held he must have at hand all the material he may need.
This usually will include any report or recommendations made by
the clinic, the court's psychological services, or individual psy-
chologists. In the hearing, the judge or referee will seek to elicit
any additional information he feels he needs. On occasion he may
find that he needs more material. Should this be the case, he can
always continue the hearing at a later time. Thus it is not unex-
pected for a decision to be withheld pending psychological testing
or psychiatric evaluation, if either was not part of the records, or
if either should appear more relevant after the hearing than it
appeared before.
The judge or his representative is limited in his dispositions by
the requirements of the establishment to which he might want to
send young people. In a number of instances the judge can exer-
cise persuasion but cannot issue orders. Religious institutions, pri-
vately operated rehabilitative facilities, and individuals operating
boarding homes retain liberties upon which the court cannot in-
fringe. Mental hospitals, homes for the mentally retarded, and even
training schoolsmay be operated by public agencies completely
independent of the court.
The directors and superintendents of various facilities frequently
limit intake so as to increase the success of their programs. (Some,
of course, less defensibly, simply protect their own ease and that
of their staffs.) A particular organization or institution may justi-
fiably refuse to accept mental defectives, schizophrenics, psycho-

paths, homosexuals, or some other category of youth who would
either disrupt their program or require precautions which would
add prohibitive costs or nullify other efforts. For this reason, the
juvenile court must be able to convince the institutions' intake
officials that a given youth meets their requirements. Thus, when a
judge or a referee hears a case he looks at psychological reports

not only to decide what is the wisest disposition, but to decide
whether he can make that disposition with some assurance that it
can be put into effect.

The results of intelligence tests are almost always included in
the psychologists' reports. If these show a boy or girl to be men-
tally retarded, placement in a special institution is called for. On
the other hand, psychotherapy is usually contraindicated; many
rehabilitative institutions feel they can be of little use to a boy or
girl of low mentality.
Usually there is also personality testing; projective instruments,
such as the well-known Rorschach inkblots, are utilized in many
courts. If these indicate a psychotic condition, especially schizo-
phrenia, evaluation by a psychiatric consultant is in order. Should
the diagnosis be confirmed, the court will generally see that the
youngster is sent to a mental institution or treatment home, unless
the condition is so mild that the child can be treated while at his
own home. Almost all rehabilitative agencies refuse even to at-
tempt working with psychotic children.

The psychologist is also expected to pick up evidence that there
may be brain damage. A suspicion of it will lead to a neurological
examination. If severe brain damage is established, the court will
place the young person either in a home for the retarded or in a
mental depending upon local practice. Schools and re-
institution,
habilitative agencies are only rarely equipped to be of aid where
brain damage has produced uncontrolled behavior.
If the psychological examination uncovers neurotic motivation,
the scope of possibilities widens. Such youngsters may be treated
in clinics, residential treatment homes, or rehabilitative agencies
265
with psychological services. The disposition will usually be recom-

mended in the psychological report.
Especially in the last-mentioned instance, considerable informal
activity may accompany the preparation of the recommendations.
The court's psychologists can be expected to have easy access to
any psychologists employed at mental hospitals and rehabilitative
institutions. They will know what and what data
are the policies
are likely to be decisive in completing placement. They will be
able to interest their counterparts in special aspects of a particular
boy or girl. Often the report placed in the hands of judge or referee
will declare a preliminary agreement that a given facility will ac-
cept the child if the court orders his placement.
Summary
If it is remembered that the juvenile court is a publicly provided
parent, that it acts as a father for young people whose natural
parents have been unable to prevent delinquency, the role of psy-
chologists is simplified. The court turns to psychology for help in
making decisions as would There is no
a wise father or mother.
restriction on the use of this branch of science beyond that im-
posed by judgment. The court can and often does ask the psy-
chologist to uncover whatever information will define difficulties
and then to suggest courses of action.
PSYCHOLOGISTS IN TREATMENT
INSTITUTIONS
More and more, psychologists are included in the personnel of

treatment homes and rehabilitative institutions. Traditionally, they
are on the staffs of child guidance clinics, homes for the mentally
retarded, and mental hospitals. Primarily, these men and women
perform service functions within the institutional setting: they give
the tests upon the basis of which young people are admitted, they
help to specify the program to which young people are assigned,
and they serve as counselors and therapists. They often take part
in the informal agreements with court personnel, and influence
the development of other facilities.
Institutional workers tend to be also trained in research. They
are likely to set up and carry through research. As will be recog-
nized by the listings in Psychological Abstracts, there is a tendency
for this research to concentrate upon experimentation with new
types of treatment or variations upon accepted programs.
Here we are concerned with the effect of all this on the develop-
ment of facilities for working with delinquents. First, as psycholo-
gists engage in studies of the predictive type, many agencies and
institutions become more humble in their goalsand more selective
as to intake. Inevitably this means that other programs must be
developed to care for those excluded.
A concrete illustration can be given in the case of a treatment
home which must be nameless. Originally it was built around self-
government by delinquent boys and was staffed largely by men
rescued from Skid Row by a religious mission. It would take any
boy referred by any court. A new director brought in psycholo-
who quickly pointed out that the program was often wrecked
gists,
by boys who proved to be either schizophrenic or of very low IQ.

Also, as an experiment, the psychologists tried out group therapy.
At was altered to boys who were of normal intelli-
this time, intake
gence and free from psychosis. Follow-up studies made by psycho-
logists next revealed that boys who had been gang members usually
were not influenced by the program. Meanwhile, a higher level of
staff personnel was attracted. The director decided to experi-
ment with special, remedial educational classes. The psychologists
worked with the teachers in diagnosing scholastic difficulties and
developing remedial procedures. Individual counseling is grad-
ually replacing the group therapy sessions. The institution now per-
forms a highly specialized function for a rather selected group. It
is more successful, as indicated by recidivism rates. Other institu-
tions, some of them new, are taking the boys it rejects and have
had to develop special programs.
In larger organizations this same tendency to tailor programs to
individual needs, or to restrict intake to individuals likely to adjust
to a program, may be handled by running a number of programs
side by side, and using a classification type of orientation at intake.
A special situation is developing in respect to preventive programs

in school systems. In a number of school systems efforts are made
to detect predelinquents. School psychologists are often involved
in studying the high-risk children and working out programs
for them.
267
OTHER ACTIVITIES OF
PSYCHOLOGISTS
Although the most direct use of psychological science in dealing

with delinquency is personalized in the court psychologist, or in
the trained personnel employed in treatment agencies, there are
other ways in which psychology can enter the picture.
In a few locations, police departments utilize psychological con-
sultant services in connection with their delinquency programs. As
a rule, focus is likely to be on selection of officers for youth work.
The psychologist gives tests and interprets their import for this type
of assignment. A more extensive arrangement was established in
Detroit in 1945, when Dr. Howard Lane was employed by the Po-
lice Department and asked to work as adviser to the then recently
established Crime Prevention Bureau, which eventually developed

into a Youth Bureau. This bureau over a period of fifteen years has
engaged in cooperative research programs with psychologists on the
staff of Wayne State University.
It is in the area of research that psychologists play their most in-
fluential role in thebroad social attack on juvenile crime. As has
previously been made clear, delinquency is the product of multiple
causation. Research has tended to concentrate either upon the social
conditions which produce geographic areas of high delinquency
rates or upon the genesis of personality attributes of individual
boys and girls. As far as thorough training in research techniques
is concerned, highly developed be found mainly
skill is likely to
among sociologists and psychologists. Social workers and psychia-
trists are attracted mostly by case-study types of activity.
The main contributions of psychologists at present seem to be
concentrated in three main streams:
1. There good deal of interest in studying the cause-and-
is a
effect patterns which lead to delinquency; the type of cluster or
syndrome description given earlier in this chapter is an example of
objective reporting and pinning down of observations stemming
from psychiatric theory but cast into more "scientific" mold by
psychologists. In addition there has been much work on the potent
aspects of parent-child interaction.
2. The second major line of psychological research has been in
the development and use of instruments for the appraisal of the
personality structure and psychological attributes of individual de-
linquents. In some cases, the tests are designed primarily for study
of delinquency, as in the Kvaraceus Delinquency Proneness Scales.
In other instances, devices such as the Rorschach inkblots, the Rosen-
zweig Picture-Frustration, the Bender Gestalt, or other standard
instruments are tested for efficiency in selecting or predicting. (See
Chapter 10.)
3. The third main line is the development and testing of treat-
ment programs. Here, for instance, we may find a psychologist
active in setting up a project to utilize group therapy. His contrib-
ution may be not only in the invention of a technique, but in the
screening of individuals to go into the program as well as the experi-
mental evaluation of the results.
SUMMARY
Juvenile delinquency is not a simple problem. Rather, it is a
series of complex patterns of behavior, each of which has to be
tackled somewhat differently. To be truly effective any program
must be geared to differences among individuals and communities.
In any over-all attack on the interrelated problems, the skills of
many differently trained people will be required. We must utilize
and respect the contributions which can be made by the clergyman
and the social worker, the police officer and the psychiatrist, the
judge and the teacher, the probation officer and the sociologist. To
the diligent and inspired teamwork that is essential, the psycholo-
gist can bring concern about individuals, skills in appraising them,
and training in establishing factual relationships.
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Cohen, Frank J. Children in trouble. New York: Norton, 1953, Chap. 6.
DavidorT, Eugene, & Elinor S. Joetzel. The child guidance approach to
juvenile delinquency. New York: Child Care Publications, 1951.
Doshay, Lewis J. The boy sex offender and his later career. New York:
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269
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Fine, Benjamin. 1,000,000 delinquents. Cleveland: World Publishing Co.,
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United Nations. Comparative survey on juvenile delinquency. Part I:
North America. New York: United Nations, 1952, Chap. 3.
Willemse, W. A. Constitution-types in delinquency. London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul, 1932. Chaps. 1, 3, 5-7.
ALBERT I. RABIN
Psychopathic (Sociopathic)
Personalities
THE CASE OF ROGER HAYES *

Prior to the hearings by the Parole Board, the prison psychiatrist
interviewed the inmate. His report reads in part as follows:
He is entirely without insight, feels that the law-enforcing agencies

have persecuted him He has been a definite problem in the com-
munity and certainly has made little constructive effort, during his
incarceration, toward self -improvement. This man presents a sociopathic
personality disturbance, is a chronically antisocial person who does not
profit from experience and who still shows marked emotional immaturity,
lack of judgment, and a tendency to rationalize. In my book, he is a
very unpredictable type of person. While he is not psychotic, he is the
same unstable individual as at the time of admission; he is merely doing
time, day by day, and has no goals for the future. He is very apt to
return to his former pattern of behavior upon release.
The dismal diagnostic and prognostic picture drawn above is that

of Roger Hayes, age twenty-seven, an inmate of the state prison
who has been serving a four-year sentence for "larceny from a build-
,,
ing and for breaking and entering in the nighttime. The reasons
for the doctor's pessimism regarding Roger will become apparent
when we examine his past history in some detail.
Roger was born on July 7, 1932, in a fair-size midwestern city.
He is an only child. Father has been working at a semiskilled job
in a local factory and mother has been operating a small laundry.
Both parents have been working ever since he was born. He was
brought up in part by a maternal grandmother with whom the
parents resided until he was five years old.
1 All the facts in this illustration are taken from an actual case, except the
name "Roger Hayes," which is fictitious.
271
Birth and early development were quite normal. However, there
was a good deal of inconsistency in his early relations. Grandmother
was fairly strict with the child; mother, when she was around, cud-
dled him and overprotected him. Father ignored him entirely most
of the time, except when Roger would do something that displeased
him. Then his temper was uncontrollable and he would punish the
boy severely; sometimes beat him "within an inch of his life."
The child began having difficulties in school as early as the second
grade. He was extremely aggressive, disobeyed the teachers, threw
objects at them, truanted frequently, and was expelled from three
different schools by the time he was twelve years old. His school-
work was very poor despite his average intelligence.
Some religious training was also attempted. Roger attended Sun-
day school for about two years, between 1944 and 1946. He was a
disciplinary problem during the first year. The second year ended
when he threatened to throw a paper cutter through the window of
the principal's office. When the teacher tried to intervene and take
the cutter away from him, he sustained such a severe injury to his
hand that it required surgery.
After assaulting the eighth-grade teacher physically and after fre-
quent truancies, Roger was finally expelled from the city school
system in the spring of 1946. His parents placed him in a private
school for problem boys. He lasted only two weeks at this insti-
tution. Upon admission he had been placed temporarily in the "very
best cottage." On themorning following his arrival he tried
first
to run away, but the other boys prevented him from doing so. "His
housemother laid her hand on his shoulder and started to explain to
him that things like that are not done at this school; he whirled
around and struck her with his fist. She turned him around and told
him to please look at her and he started pummeling her so that the
boys refused to have him in their cottage." He was placed in another
cottage but ran away ten days later and hitchhiked home.
Several months later he was placed in the Boys Republic. Here he
made a marginal adjustment, fought frequently with the other boys,
truanted often, and finally did not return after 2 /2 months of
1
inter-
mittent residence. Then he began to get involved in a variety of
criminal and antisocial activities in the community at large. On Au-
gust 20, 1948, Roger came to the attention of the juvenile court
authorities for "Breaking and Entering, and Theft." He was then
committed to the Boys Vocational School, a state institution for
PSYCHOPATHIC (SOCIOPATHIC) PERSONALITIES • 273
delinquent boys. At this school he remained under fairly rigid dis-

cipline for about seven months. He was subsequently placed on
parole and returned to his home community.
The subsequent seven years in this boy's life are marked by re-
peated delinquency and criminality and consequent encounters with
the law-enforcement authorities. He never worked at any job for
more than two months, not being able to hold onto the job because
of his constantly getting in trouble with the police. A partial list
of offenses and arrests, culminating in incarceration at the state

prison, follows.
August 28, 1949 — Simple larceny (fine and costs)
October 30, 1949 — Drunk and disorderly; assault of an officer
(fine and one-year probation)
November 8, 1949 — Robbery, unarmed (reduced to simple as-
sault; fine)
December 3, 1949— Assault and battery (fine)
December 28, 1949 — Violation of probation (60 days, county
jail)
May 29, 1950 — Drunk; resisting arrest (60 days, county jail)
September 2, 1950 — Assault of
officer; disorderly conduct and
assault and battery (180 days)
February 5, 1951 —Violation of probation (90 days)
June 28, 1951— Illegal possession of beer; drunk (90 days sus-
pended sentence; to leave town for five years)
July 18, 1951— Drunk and disorderly (same as above) (In an-
other community)
September 1, 1951 —Investigation of unlawful operation of an
Army vehicle (Returned to home community)
September 29, 1951 —Bench warrant (270 days, county jail)
May 24, 1952 — Drunk (fine and two years' probation)
August 3, 1952 — Frequents taverns (fine)
April 2, 1953 — Drunk and violation of probation (fine and 90
days)
August 12, 1953 —Violation of probation (60 days)
February 24, 1954 — Breaking and entering, two charges
April 5, 1954 — Breaking and entering, warrant
September 8, 1954 — Resisting arrest (on bail)
February 18, 1955 —Breaking and entering — nighttime; larceny
from a building (5 to 15 years)
This is only a "partial" list, for other delinquents and criminals
have indicated his participation in crimes which are not listed above
and for which he was not arrested. The sentencing judge made the
following statement regarding Roger:
There are very few individuals who, in my opinion, do not have any
good qualities whatsoever, but if this man has anything good about
him I have never discovered it. I do not believe, therefore, that there
is any chance of rehabilitating him by any appeal to his better nature.
I would strongly recommend that his confinement be made as rugged as

possible In my opinion there is an excellent chance that this man
will end up murdering someone or being killed by a policeman's bullet.
The doctor's report, quoted, in part, at the beginning of this nar-

rative, appeared to be amply justified. However, Roger was paroled
from prison December, 1959. Following violation of parole due
in
to a severe assault on a man in a tavern (breaking his jaw), he was
returned to prison in March, 1960. Upon being asked by one of the
prison officials why he came back as a parole violator, he said, "It
was just one of those things. Just made a mistake like everyone else
does."
The history of this psychopathic (sociopathic) personality indi-
cates that this an impulsive, uncontrollable individual, antisocial
is
in his behavior, with no stability in his occupational life and with

no plans for the future. He is incapable of conducting himself in
a way that would permit him to remain in free society. He is a
menace to his fellow men and demonstrates a life-long pattern of
hostility, aggression, and antisocial behavior which appears unmodi-
fiable. His numerous experiences and various punishments were
apparently ineffective; he did not learn from those experiences or

gain insight into his behavior. The pattern remains unaltered.
THE TERM "PSYCHOPATHIC" OR

"SOCIOPATHIC PERSONALITY"
One of the most interesting, yet baffling, psychological disorders

is what has been termed for a long time "psychopathic personality."
More recently the term "sociopathic personality disturbance" has
been introduced and is considered preferable, for it contains the
emphasis on social maladjustment. The most recent Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual: Mental Disorders (1952), published by the Amer-
ican Psychiatric Association, replaces "sociopathic" for the old "psy-
chopathic" personality. According to this manual, "Individuals to
be placed in this category are ill primarily in terms of society and

of conformity with the prevailing cultural milieu, and not only in
terms of personal discomfort and relations with other individuals."
However, in much of the professional literature as well as in actual
usage in diagnosis, the two terms — sociopathic and psychopathic
personalty — are employed interchangeably.
The diagnosis of psychopathic personality has often been made
negatively: by eliminating a variety of other mental disorders, the
diagnostician was left with the category of psychopathic personality
as a last resort. As a result of this frequent and traditional procedure,
this diagnostic classification became a "catchall" or "wastebasket"
diagnostic category.
PSYCHOSIS AND NEUROSIS

Severe mental disorders have long ago been recognized by laymen
as well as by professionals. "Possession by evil spirits," "lunacy,"
and "insanity" are some of the older names for behavior that is
irrational, deviant, and often dangerous to the person affected or to
those in his environment. Insane persons were also those who, de-
spite previous adequate capacity, were no longer able to conduct
themselves or their affairs with "ordinary prudence." This defective
adjustment, which did not exist at birth or in infancy but usually
became manifest in adult life, was attributed to the malfunctioning
of the psyche or the mind. Hence, the modern, medical-sounding
term for insanity is psychosis — the disease or disorder of the mind.
Another major group of psychological disturbances has been espe-
cially recognized, described, and treated during the past fifty years.
These disorders do not exhibit the grossly irrational behavior charac-
teristic of the psychoses. They do exhibit, however, such symptoms
as fears, anxiety, compulsive behavior, and a variety of somatic

(bodily) aberrations which are "irrational" in the sense that there
does not appear to be any good reason or obvious cause for their
existence. Persons who suffer from neuroses are not usually incapaci-
tated as are those who suffer from psychosis; neither do they ordi-
narily endanger themselves or others. The most outstanding aspects
involve their own feelings of well-being; they are unhappy, uncom-
fortable, fear-and guilt-ridden people.
These two major categories of mental disorder — psychosis and
neurosis — are very broad classifications. Because of the variety of
symptoms, causes, and behavioral manifestations, there are many sub-
classifications under both. A detailed discussion of these would lead
us too far afield. This general background will help us, however, to
understand the negative diagnosis or diagnosis by exclusion which
often underlies the name and description of psychopathic per-
sonality.
PSYCHOPATHIC PERSONALITY
Often, behavior was observed and symptoms were noted in people

who were not readily classifiable in the two major divisions of dis-
order just discussed. Although their behavior may have been called
deviant and even irrational, it could not be categorized as psychotic.
The condition did not have the incapacitating characteristics and
confusion of a psychosis. On the other hand, compulsive activity
and other neurotic-like symptoms may have been present, yet unac-
companied by the underlying anxiety and guilt so characteristic of
this category of disorders. The behavior of these people and their
attitudes to their behavior made it impossible to fit them into the
available categories. Thus a new dimension and a new category were
introduced in the field — psychopathic personality. This procedure
of exclusion from the major subdivisions of psychological disorder
dictated the placement into the remaining "wastebasket" class of
psychopathic personalities.
Yet we cannot merely say what psychopathic personality is not.
We must attempt a description and definition of the term. Only then
can we see more clearly how a person of a given set of behavior
characteristics may be properly excluded from the other categories
and placed into this one. The following pages will be devoted to
this task as well as to a discussion of the several theories concerned
with the genesis of this disorder which looms importantly in the
field of criminal psychology.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT

OF PSYCHOPATHIC PERSONALITY
The great French physician and humanitarian, Philippe Pinel, who

was a pioneer of the modern era of diagnosis and treatment of men-
tal disorders (end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth
century) early recognized the paradox from which the concept of
psychopathic personality emerged. He referred to a form of disorder
PSYCHOPATHIC (SOCIOPATHIC) PERSONALITIES •
277
call la folie raisonante, madness or mental illness in which the reason

or intellectual processes were relatively unaffected or not involved.
Somewhat later, Jean Esquirol, another outstanding investigator in
the field of mental disorder, spoke of manic sans delire — mental ill-
ness without confusion (Zilboorg, 1941). Thus, the phenomenon of

extremely deviant behavior, combined with unimpaired intelligence
and efficient mental functioning, was observed and described a long
time ago.
It was not until 1835, when the English medical psychologist
Pritchard published his Treatise on Insanity and Other Disorders Af-
fecting the Mind, that we got a look at a category of disorders which
was the immediate predecessor of our present concept of psycho-
pathic personality. Pritchard introduced the terms "moral imbecil-
ity" or "moral insanity." Here we see the emphasis on abnormality
in a particular sphere of human personality and behavior — the area
of moral judgment and conscience. He described this disorder of
"moral insanity" "madness consisting in a morbid perversion of
as
the natural feelings, affections, inclinations, temper, habits, moral
dispositions and natural impulses without any remarkable disorder
or defect in the intellect or knowing and reasoning faculties ." . .
(Pritchard, 1835). The on the inadequate "power

emphasis here is
of self government" which prevents the individual from behaving

with "decency and propriety" in society and in relation to his fel-
low men.
Consonant with the nineteenth-century vogue, the idea of some
hereditary weakness as the basis for the development of this kind
of condition was advanced. As a consequence of this hereditary
theory, the term "constitutional psychopathic inferiority" emerged.
Subsequently, the term "personality" was substituted for "inferior-
evidence for the hereditary basis for the dis-
ity." Also, since the
order was far from satisfactory, the word "constitutional" was
omitted.
MODERN STATUS OF CONCEPT

What is meant by psychopathic personality? What are the traits
and characteristics of this personality type? We shall try to list in
detail the main features that may be attributed to the personality
constellation involved, as well as some of the more detailed conse-
quences that express these characteristics in everyday behavior and
interpersonal relations.
The
following represents an attempt at a picture based on a variety
of sources (Cleckley, 1955; Henderson, 1939; Preu, 1944) including
the author's clinical experience. Of the afore-mentioned sources,
perhaps the most interesting and readable presentation, especially
because of the case histories, is Cleckley's volume, The Mask of
Sanity.
Conscience Absent or Inadequate

We noted above that Pritchard used the expression "moral sanity"
and "moral imbecility." What he meant by this is a severe disturb-
ance or virtual absence of moral judgment. This principle is still a
major ingredient of any description of psychopathic personality
today.
There are two major related aspects to this notion of defective
conscience or, what is termed in psychoanalysis, superego. The first
aspect is represented in the inability of the psychopath to apply the
moral standards of society to his behavior; he cheats, lies, steals,
does not keep promises, and so on. He has not absorbed the "thou
shalts" and the "thou shalt nots" of his society and cultural milieu.
The second aspect is an important
that of absence of guilt. Guilt is
part of any well-developed conscience. When a normal person vio-

lates the moral code he feels guilty; he feels unhappy and blames
himself for the transgression. Aside from this emotional experience,
guilt performs a warning function or a preventive function. People
try not to transgress the moral code, for if they do they will feel
guilty and unhappy —a painful experience to be avoided. Guilt is
an unknown experience for the psychopathic personality with no

superego. There none of this automatic self -punishment that goes
is
along with the commission of immoral and unethical acts. The psy-
chopath continues to behave irresponsibly, untruthfully, insincerely,
and antisocially without a shred of shame, remorse, or guilt. He may
sometimes express regret and remorse for the actions and crimes
which he may have perpetrated; however, these are usually mere
words, spoken for the effect, but not really and sincerely felt.
The absence of guilt and remorse permits the psychopath to con-
tinue indefinitely his antisocial behavior unless people in his environ-
ment or the authorities decide to exercise some control. When con-
fronted with his lies and dishonesties he will often try to rationalize
them and give some plausible reasons for his behavior. However,
these are for the most part good and, frequently, persuasive reasons,
but not the true ones.
Roger Hayes, whose case we have described above, by constantly
getting into difficulty with the law illustrates the notion that guilt
was not a deterrent to his behavior. Moreover, he is ready with
rationalization. "Everybody makes mistakes" was his explanation for
parole violation.
Emotionally Immature— Egocentric

The young infant or small child is almost entirely concerned
with himself, with his own wants and needs — come what may. He
is egocentric — he is in the center of his own world; all that counts
is the satisfaction and gratification of his desires. If frustrated he
reacts impulsively to his environment. He may even lash out at the

persons closest to him for their failure to grant his immediate wants.
When the child grows up, he gradually becomes "socialized"; he"
learns how to adapt himself in a world full of people; learns to
postpone his gratification and becomes aware of the needs of other
people which, sometimes, may conflict with his own. He learns to
make compromises and realizes that he cannot forever remain in
the center of the world. The needs and feelings of others must also
be considered; he learns to obey some rules which evolved in his
society for the sake of its smooth functioning. He realizes what the
consequences may be if everyone remains egocentric — pulling in his
own direction. Thus, the egocentricity is more
relinquished and a
sociocentric orientation takes place as part of the process of grow-
ing up.
The psychopath never grows up in this respect. He grows up
physically and is often well developed and attractive in appearance;
he grows up intellectually inasmuch as he acquires many of the
perceptual, motor, and conceptual skills which are necessary for the
manipulation of the environment. However, he never grows up emo-
tionally. He remains egocentric; that is — he is solely concerned with
the fulfillment of his own needs and wishes immediately. Since, like
the small child, he can suffer no delay or postponement, he becomes
extremely frustrated when his desires are thwarted by the environ-
ment. Likewise, he proceeds impulsively to do and get what he
wishes without consideration for others. And, when he does, as we
noted above, there are no pangs of conscience to bother him.
Unlike the young child, however, the psychopath has developed
and matured physically and has acquired many important skills
which he can employ in the manipulation of his environment. Thus,
he may bring many of these aspects of maturity to the service of
his childish needs and impulse satisfaction; or, in the case of frus-
tration, he may use them against other people who are in his way.
Such situations often constitute the dangers to society and to ordered
living that are embodied in the psychopath.
It should be added that, like the child, the psychopath has a de-
fective self-control apparatus. The ordinary person, as a result of
the socialization process, has developed the capacity of self-control.
In instances in which he transgresses the social code he gets punished;
him in other instances, so that trans-
this experience usually alerts
gression and consequent punishment are avoided. The psychopath,
however, cannot learn from his experiences, for the capacity of self-
control has never developed properly. Thus he may go on commit-
ting the very acts for which he was punished on one or more oc-
casions previously. Past experience somehow does not affect his
future behavior. The infantile needs are strong, the control apparatus
isweak; the result is that behavior remains governed by the former,
unguided by the latter.
Absence of Life Plan

In the previous section we pointed out that the psychopath essen-
tially lives in the present — in the "here and now"; he wants what
he wants when he wants it — immediately; he is unable to postpone
gratification for the future or anticipate it. He is essentially also
incapable of visualizing the future or planning for it. Since he lives
in the presentand is primarily preoccupied with it, he shows little
evidence of any life plan, or of making any preparation for the
future.
Life, for the psychopath, is a hit-or-miss affair. It consists of a
series of episodes of impulsive acts which are not instrumental in
long-range planning for a career, in the achievement of socially
desirable goals, or in the attainment of stability of social, economic,
and emotional status. Although he may at times resolve to follow
a certain plan for his future, he fails in the actual realization of such
a program. Too many immediate and temporary lures dissuade him
from his chosen long-range goal; he never gets where he allegedly
wishes to go, for the gratification of the immediate need and the
impulsive reactions hinder such achievements. In this sense he re-
mains self-defeating and can be described as a drifter —a boat with-
out moorings on a turbulent sea.
The psychopath, therefore, moves about. He does not hold onto
a job for any length of time, although he may be quite successful
at it. Sudden outbursts against fellow workers, manager, boss, cus-

tomers; flagrant manipulation of the truth and other kinds of dis-
honesty; unreliability and lack of a sense of responsibility are all part
of the picture of an unstable and shifting employment history. This
is a further illustration of the inability and lack of capacity to select,
maintain, and follow some consistent life plan.
Lack of Capacity for Love and Emotional Involvement

The fourth and major characteristic of the psychopath is his
last
inability to establish and maintain genuine afTectional ties and inter-

personal relationships. As we mentioned earlier, emotionally he is
an egocentric and impulsive child. He is concerned chiefly with his
own needs and their satisfaction. He is in the center of his own
world and cannot allow someone else to share the limelight. Being
so concerned with and engrossed in himself, he has little genuine
interest left for others. Other people are important to him insofar
as they can be used by him, insofar as they are instrumental to his
supreme end — self-gratification.

True friendship is not within the psychopath's experience. Al-
though people may give him a great deal of love and affection, tol-
erate many of his vagaries, and exhibit nothing but good will toward
him, he will not respond at all nor have in the least a similar con-
sideration for them. He may betray them at the first opportunity
and exploit their trust in him if it suits his purposes. He is incapable
of making any sacrifices for or concessions to others, although oth-
ers have made them in his behalf. The capacity for empathy and
identification is lacking; he cannot place himself in the other fellow's
shoes and imagine another person's feelings and emotional experi-
ence. Callousness and insensitivity to other people are characteristic.
The same holds true for love. He is incapable of genuine love and
afTectional involvement with another person. To be sure, he gets
involved in sex and sexual relationships, but such alliances are devoid
of depth and genuineness. There is little stability in such relation-
ships, and promiscuity is the rule. He may profess true and undying
love, just as he may exhibit the external appearances of friendship.
However, sham and not genuine, for he flits from one "true
it is all
love" to another with few qualms and no remorse. The protesta-

tions of love and friendship may be accompanied by a great deal of
outward display of emotion, ecstasy, and affection, but it is not the
genuine article; it is superficial and employed as a device to gain
certain selfish ends — trust, support, or sexual gratification.
Sex for the psychopath is primarily a matter of physical contact,
uncomplicated by the emotion of love. Sexual activities are casual
affairs without emotional involvement. Cleckley (1955) states: "One
gets the impression that their amativeness is little more than a simple
itch and that even the itch is seldom, if ever, particularly intense."
Let us now assay a brief summary of the major characteristics of
the psychopathic personality. This statement will be positive in the
sense that it will indicate what conditions must be met for a diag-
nosis of psychopatic personality to be made; it will deal with what
it is, not with what it is not.
A psychopath is a person without a conscience, without the ca-

pacity to experience guilt, who is incapable of adhering to the rules
and mores of society, who is impulsive and emotionally immature
and egocentric, who is incapable of genuine interpersonal relation-
ships, and whose pattern of life and life style is devoid of long-
range planning and considered anticipation of the future.
PSYCHOPATHIC PERSONALITY
AND CRIMINALITY
When we consider the set of characteristics which describe the
individual with psychopathic personality we can readily expect
him to get in trouble with the law. Anyone who is impulsive, does
not learn from experience, is incapable of affection for others,
and is lacking in an internalized value system or conscience is apt
to run afoul of the laws set up for governing society. It is true
then that many habitual criminals are psychopaths. Many a crime
is being committed, often repeatedly, by persons who have a
strong revenge motive, who "act out" repressed hostility, and so
on. These may be largely neurotic reasons rather than stemming
from the basic personality defect we call psychopathic personality.
There are no precise figures on the relative proportion of psy-
chopaths in the criminal population nor in the population at large.
Precise diagnoses in the criminal prison population are hard to
come by. The situation in the general population is, of course,
even more difficult. One of the largest surveys of nearly 10,000
convicted cases at the New York Court of General Sessions, de-
scribed by Bromberg and Thompson (1937), reports 6.9 percent
of psychopaths. Similar percentages have been reported by others
on adult criminal populations.
But the terms "psychopathic personality" and "criminality"

are far from synonymous. As we noted above, the vast majority of
the criminal population is nonpsychopathic. Also, there are many
psychopaths in the general population who manage to stay out of
the clutches of the law. Cleckley (1955) has presented a number
of fascinating descriptions of the psychopath as a businessman, as
a gentleman, as a scientist, as a physician, and as a psychiatrist, all
of whom maintained themselves with varying degrees of precarious-

ness in "normal" society.
Even more dramatic is the instance of the psychopath who is
catapulted into a position of political leadership and prominence.

Such man was "Herman Goering:
a amiable psychopath," Hitler's
right-hand man and one of the top leaders of the German Nazi
movement. G. M. Gilbert (1948), who was prison psychologist
at Nurenberg, gave a detailed description of this case.
THEORIES OF CAUSATION
The Constitutional Hypothesis
At the end of the past century the tremendous influence of

biology and the idea of somatic causation has extended markedly
to the realm of mental disorder. A number of and par-
disorders,
ticularly that of psychopathic personality, were considered to have
a hereditary or constitutional origin. The belief was that there was
some defective genetic factor which was the cause of constitutional
inferiority, which, in turn, produced the behavior defects repre-
sented by psychopathic personality. However, this theory did not
progress much beyond the realm of belief, for scientific proof for
its support was lacking. Although there are still some people who
cherish this notion, in the absence of adequate evidence, most

workers in the field have abandoned it.
The "Abnormal Brain" Hypothesis

Observation of children and adults following brain injury or
disease affecting the brain showed certain changes in their behavior.
The patients become more aggressive, overactive, emotional, ir-
ritable, and, often, antisocial. Since this pattern of behavior re-
sembles the symptoms subsumed under the concept of psychopathic
personality, the hypothesis was advanced that brain injury, disease,
or abnormality may be the underlying cause of psychopathic per-
sonality. However, gross neurological findings, of the kind obtained
in an examination of the various reflexes, were usually negative.
The belief persisted that the abnormality may lie in the areas of
the brain which have no effect on the usual reflexes but which have
to do with emotional control and "the higher mental processes."
During the past several decades scientists have developed a new
diagnostic technique for the detection of brain damage or abnormali-
ty. This method isknown as the electroencephalogram, or in its
abbreviated form — the EEG. Popularly, the tracings or the electro-
encephalographic recordings of this technique are also called "brain
waves." Essentially this is a graphic recording of the electrical
activity of the outer part of the brain known as the cortex.
The usual procedure in obtaining an electroencephalogram is to
attach electrodes to the scalp and connect them with an amplifier.
The electrical activity of the cortex is then transmitted to the
electrodes, amplifier, and the recording apparatus, which registers
the fluctuations in the electrical potential (the brain waves).
There waves which are considered important
are several types of
diagnostically. The alpha waves, which appear at the rate of 8-13
per second, are ordinarily found in normal adults. The faster beta
and gamma waves have also been found in normal adults. However,
the extremely slow delta waves, of less than 8 per second, are
particularly found in the records of young children and patho-
logical adults (Lindsley, 1944).
Abnormal EEG records are usually obtained in the convulsive
disorders (epilepsies) and in a variety of other brain disorders,
tumors, cell degeneration, and so on. It is not a perfect diagnostic
tool: around 20 to 30 percent of normally functioning persons
show abnormalities in their brain waves. Occasionally it is found that
a brain disorder discovered during surgery or upon autopsy has
eluded the electroencephalographer.
Be may, some investigators have obtained a rather high
that as it
percentage of abnormal EEG's with groups of subjects diagnosed as

psychopaths. Earlier, children with behavior disorders were re-
ported to show EEG abnormalities in 70-90 percent of the cases.
However, there is some evidence that these abnormalities are of a
temporary nature and tend to decrease with age (Secunda and
Finley, 1942). As far as adults are concerned, Simons and Diethelm
(1946) found that "psychopathic personalities with poor ethical
standards and resulting social difficulties" all had abnormal records
characterized by a slow wave (delta) rhythm. However, several
other groups of psychopaths considered in the same study did not

yield such consistent results. Most of those had normal records.
Gottlieb et (1946) reported that 58 percent of their psycho-
al.
paths showed "electrocortical abnormality"; such percentages are

significantly greater than those found in normals. However, among
their conclusions the authors also state that the "proportion of
patientsshowing electroencephalographic abnormality appears to
be greater when the mothers were judged maladjusted or alco-
holic. ..." Thus it is suggested that certain hereditary or early en-
vironmental influences ("maladjusted mothers") may be a factor in
the production of abnormal electrocortical activity and psycho-
pathic personality.
In a critical review of many investigations on the incidence of
EEG abnormality among with mental disorders, Ellingson
patients
(1954) gives us a pithy summary which puts the whole issue of
the relationship between psychopathy and abnormal electrocortical
activity in a nutshell. His survey indicates that "EEG abnormality
among psychopaths has been found with remarkable regularity"
in 47 to 58 percent of the cases. He points out that this fact is not
helpful in distinguishing psychopathy from other mental disorders,
for a high incidence of abnormal EEG's is also found in a large
variety of psychiatric diagnostic groups. Ellingson's conclusion is
quite cogent. He states that "beyond differentiating the few organic

cases which will be found, the EEG is of no value in the differential
diagnosis of mental disorders or in personality assessment at the
present time."
We must conclude that there is some electroencephalographic
evidence of abnormal cortical activity in many psychopaths. This
condition, however, also prevails in many other disorders. Many
psychopaths show "normal" electrocortical activity and a sizable
percentage of normals show abnormal brain-wave patterns. A
statistical differentiation may be made, but no valid conclusion re-
garding cortical abnormality in psychopaths can be reached. The
EEG is too imperfect an instrument for the purposes of finer dis-
crimination and for determination of individual diagnosis. Moreover,
the basis for such abnormalities as are foundis not clear. Are they
due to developmental retardation, to cortical damage, or to a

combination of psychological and physiological effects? Or, is a
combination of all these factors to be considered? No reliable an-
swer can be given to these questions at the present state of our
knowledge.
In closing this section a final comment is in order. Criteria for the
diagnosis of psychopathic personality often differ markedly from
one investigation to another. Consequently it is very questionable
whether the reported results with the EGG
relate to a unitary,
homogeneous group of persons exhibiting the same syndrome and
the same psychosocial difficulties. This issue, of course, is not solely
of concern in EEG studies but in the entire area under our purview.
The Psychological Hypothesis

The psychological hypothesis concerning the causation of psy-
chopathic personality is essentially a genetic-developmental one.
Basically it proposes that certain experiences in childhood, especially
in infancy, affect permanently the course of character formation
which results in what is known as the psychopathic adult. The
questions that one would raise immediately are as follows: What
are the processes involved in the effects of early childhood ex-
periences on later personality development? What, specifically, are
those alleged experiences that make for the differences in the de-
velopment of the normal and the psychopathic personality? In
the sections that follow we shall attempt to answer these funda-
mental questions in the hope of elucidating the psychological
hypothesis.
The human neonate, unlike the newborn of other species in
the animal kingdom, remains relatively helpless for a long period
following birth. In order to survive he needs constant care and
attention, physical as well as psychological. No one will question
the need of the infant for food, for protection against disease,
and for physical comfort. However, in recent years the importance
of "mothering" by the biological mother or her substitute has been
emphasized. Mothering does not refer to the mere care for the
child's physical needs which are usually the concern of a mother,
but also to the psychological security which is provided by a
mother; to the close and constant physical contact; to the readiness
of the mother to minimize frustrations; to oral and sound responses
which are reassuring, pacifying, and soothing to the infant; as
well as to a constant and consistent relationship with a loving adult.
This early relationship between mother and child is most significant
for it serves as a prototype for interpersonal relationship in adult-
hood. This is the source from which the capacity to receive and
feel affection, to experience genuine love, empathy, and considera-
tion for others, evolves.
Another principle of paramount importance in early personality

development is that of identification. Under the usual circumstances
the growing child imitates the behavior of his parents and subse-
quently adheres to the demands they make upon him. The parents
are all-powerful in the infant's and child's immediate experience.
By acting like them he can therefore feel that he somehow becomes
powerful himself. Besides, even in very young children the pen-
chant for imitation is well known. As the child grows older, the
parents ordinarily confront him with a number of "dos" and
"don'ts," a number of obligations and prohibitions which further
fashion his behavior. These dicta of behavior communicated by
the parents are, of course, generally the transmitted standards and
codes of behavior of their society or culture.
Implicit in parental demands, expectations, and prohibitions is
also punishment in case they are not obeyed. The child feels the
threat of withdrawal of love if he does not comply. Anticipation of
parental disapproval is, according to some theories, a devastating

experience for the child which he wishes to avoid at all cost. At
any rate, he learns what he must do, or how he must behave — he
becomes socialized, in order to avoid punishment and parental
disapproval.
As the child grows older and continues to identify with his parents,
he not only imitates their overt behavior but also begins to accept
their verbal communications — the demands and prohibitions — as
his own. It is said that the child "internalizes" parental standards via
his experiences at home and via the process of identification. The
parental demands no longer are experienced from outside himself,
but become his own, a part of himself — his conscience. What had
previously been "I must" has now become "I ought" (or I must not,
or I ought not).
Not only do the parental demands become part of the child in
the form of his conscience; the threat of punishment is part of
the process as well. Now if an infraction of the internalized code
occurs, "pangs of conscience" follow — an uneasy and anxious feel-
ing which one would rather avoid (like loss of approval of the
by the conscience for doing what
parents). These pains inflicted
one "ought not," or for not doing what one "ought" or should,
are known under the name of guilt.
In the previous paragraphs we have sketched briefly the course
of childhood development with respect to the earlier experiences
via mothering, socialization, and identification. We have shown the
origins of early interpersonal relationships and the sources of moral
judgment, conscience, and feelings of guilt. We shall now address
ourselves to the question, What goes wrong in this process in the
childhood of the psychopath? This is the essential question of the
theory of psychological causation, or of the "psychological hypo-
thesis."
In a comprehensive review of a large number of studies that
have been amassed during the past several decades, the British psy-
chiatrist Bowlby (1951) presents quite consistent evidence con-
cerning the effects of early maternal deprivation upon later person-
ality development:
"(a) Lack of any opportunity for forming an attachment to a
mother-figure during the first three years."
(b) deprivation of 3-6 months (sudden separation from mother)
during the first few years of life.
(c) changes of mother-figures during the first few years of life.

Any one of the conditions listed above, according to Bowlby,
"can produce the affectionless and psychopathic character."
Let us now return to our previous description of the mothering
process and see how the absence of mothering, its interruption dur-
ing the crucial years of infancy, or the lack of consistency in the
mother-figure may bring about the abnormal development which
results in the psychopathic personality.
If we consider the array of evidence summarized by Bowlby we
can reconstruct the infantile experience under various conditions
of maternal deprivation. Mothering, as described for the usual "nor-
mal" conditions, does not take place at all or, at least, not con-
sistently. The infant is thus deprived of the opportunity to develop
a close reciprocal affectional relationship with another human being.
He grows up lacking the early model after which he can pattern
his subsequent interpersonal relationships and contacts. Moreover,
maternal deprivation is also of paramount importance in interfering
with the normal identification process and with the formation of
a superego or a conscience.
In the absence of a positive affectional relationship with an adult
there is motivation to imitate the adult or to "be like"
usually little
him. Even of more crucial importance is the fact that the absence
of an aflectional relationship with one (mother) parent interferes
with the capacity to develop a similar relationship with the other
(father). Thus, the socialization process and the internalization of
parental standards, which is the foundation of the conscience, are
hampered and distorted. Parental disapproval has little emotional

meaning to the child. He
cannot lose parental love, for he never had
obtained it. He has "nothing to lose." Consequently, he may often
obey for reasons of physical punishment or for other external
circumstances, but he does not make the required standards his
own. Hewatches out for himself and tries to avoid punishment,
but is not concerned with pleasing his parents nor with being like
them, for he does not use them as a model. Thus he ends by obey-
ing some "musts" but has no feeling of "ought" nor the pangs of
conscience or feelings of guilt which accompany infractions — real
or imaginary.
The psychological hypothesis, then, evolves a detailed develop-
mental explanation as to how
"psychopaths are made." It addresses
itself to the genesis of the basic psychopathic traits we have detailed
above — lack of capacity for love, lack of conscience and feelings

of guilt, and so on.
McCord and McCord (1956), as a result of their extensive re-
view of the have suggested certain reservations with
literature,
respect to the linkage between deprivation experience and psy-
chopathic personality. They point out that although the evidence
overwhelmingly attests to the fact that psychopaths have suffered
from familial deprivation, not all children who are deprived turn
into psychopaths. The nub of the matter is the amount and extent
of deprivation. Severe deprivation or rejection by the parents seems
to be the precondition for psychopathy. In milder situations the
outcome of psychopathy is not inevitable.
The same authors also suggest a neurosocial theory of causation.
They propose that a combination of some neurological anomalies, of
the kind discussed in a previous section, and mild or not severe
deprivation can produce the psychopathic condition. In the ab-
sence of the neurological abnormalities the outcome may be more
favorable despite a not too severe deprivation or rejection. This
hypothesis has some merit, for it helps to explain issues that have
remained unclear. However, more research and empirical investi-
gation would be necessary in order to test its validity. Also, the
question of what constitutes severe or mild deprivation and rejection
remains unanswered.
There an increasing tendency among workers in the field to
is
advance what might be called a "psychosomatic hypothesis." By

that we mean a theory involving the interplay between psychological
and constitutional factors. To state it concretely, the amount of
frustration due to deprivation and rejection the child may be able
to tolerate may depend upon his constitution and his central nervous
system. Thus, severe and mild deprivation may be considered in
relation to the capacity of the organism to cope with frustration.
TREATMENT OF THE PSYCHOPATH

After a survey of the nature and possible causes of psychopathy,
as well as the problems with which it confronts society, the question
arises, Whatcan be done about it? Can this condition be cured,
modified, or changed? By and large the answers to these questions
have been quite pessimistic. Now and then a few rays of hope
do appear.
Imprisonment of the psychopathic criminal has not aided in
rehabilitation. The overwhelming evidence points to the fact that
violation of parole and recidivism are the rule with these persons,
rather than the exception. Other modes of temporary isolation from
the community at large have been similarly unsuccessful. Hospitali-
zation in state hospitals and other psychiatric institutions is usually
of brief duration. Quite often the psychopaths shuttle back and forth
from penal institutions to psychiatric institutions until paroled or
discharged, to resume their misbehavior or criminality for which
they were originally incarcerated. Frequently the prison authorities
feel that these prisoners have psychological problems which should
be treated in the state hospital setting. The psychiatric institutions
return them to the prison, for past experience has shown that the
ordinary hospital regime, including some psychotherapy or group
therapy as well as the various ancillary methods of treatment, is
of little value in attempting to change the psychopath.

Even more programs of individual
intensive psychotherapeutic
psychotherapy, including psychoanalysis, have been marked by
considerable failure. McCord and McCord (1956) have reviewed
some of the material in detail. Some success with hypnoanalysis,
however, has been reported by Lindner (1944). In his book Rebel
ivithout a Cause, Lindner presented verbatim reports of a series
of interviews with a psychopathic prisoner under hypnosis. Dur-
ing these sessions the patient brought up a great deal of material
dating back to early childhood and even infancy, which unearthed
the basis for his continuous rebellion against society. The basic theme
of hatred for his father and incestuous wishes for the mother, how-
ever, very similar to the underlying psychoanalytic dynamics

is
in neurosis. The question may be raised whether Lindner actually

was dealing with a psychopath of the kind described in the preceding
pages.
A major obstacle to psychotherapy with the psychopath is that
of lack of cooperation. Although the psychopath may go through
the motions of "cooperating" with the therapist, they are for the
most part mere sham and deception. Often he does not even pre-
tend; he resists the therapist. Unless there is a genuine desire for
personality change, some anxiety and guilt of which the psychopath
is incapable, psychotherapy is of no avail. "You can bring a horse to
water, but you can't make him drink it."

Cleckley (1955) concludes his book with some programmatic
suggestions with respect to the treatment of psychopathic person-
alities. He feels that the treatment of psychopaths has not been
given an adequate chance, for they were always regarded as be-
longing to some twilight zone between normality or sanity and
abnormality. His proposal is that the psychopath be regarded as
the psychotic is — an
incompetent in the business of managing his
life. Like the psychotic he should be hospitalized in special insti-
tutions or in special wards of existing institutions for intensive treat-

ment and resocialization for as long as it is deemed necessary.
A therapeutic program somewhat consonant with the suggestions
of Cleckley has been undertaken in England. Jones and his co-
workers (1953) have reported on the Therapeutic Community,
which consists of hospital units treating a variety of chronic con-
ditions including psychopaths. In these "communities" made up
of staff and patients, the inmates work in the shops, participate in
discussion groups, are given vocational guidance and are absorbed
into the Unit community which has developed "a culture of its
own." These conditions, according to the report, are effective in
resocializing the patients and in preparing them for rehabilitation
in the "normal" society. Although there are no definite figures on
the therapeutic success with psychopaths, there seems to be some
basis for a measure of optimism.
In a sense this approach may be characterized as the group and
milieu kind of therapy. The emphasis is away from individual
psychotherapy and the individual patient-therapist relationship in
the direction of structuring or creating an environment which is
conducive to change of attitudes in the interpersonal sphere. "Milieu
therapy" has become particularly popular in the treatment of de-
linquents and young psychopaths in the United Some
States. of
this work has received its impetus from the pioneering work of
Aichhorn (1935) in Austria. Some outstanding examples of this
type of approach are the Pioneer House in Detroit and the Wilt-
wyck School for Boys near New York. There is some evidence
that working with younger psychopaths who may be able to form
some new identifications (with staff members), with consequent
attitude and character change, is more rewarding and is perhaps
a deterrent to the formation of hardened adult psychopathy.
SUMMARY
The disorder of psychopathic (or sociopathic) personality has
been recognized long ago as "moral imbecility" or "moral insanity."
It is a nonpsychotic, nonneurotic condition in persons of about
average intelligence or better. The main characteristics of the

psychopath are described as follows: He is "an asocial, aggressive,
highly impulsive person, who feels little or no guilt and is unable
to form lasting bonds of affection with other human beings" (Mc-
Cord and McCord, 1956).
There is some evidence of brain abnormality in many psychopaths.
The hypothesis that early maternal deprivation and family condi-
tions which interfere with adequate socialization and identification
are responsible for the development of psychopathic personalities
has received a great deal of support from many investigators.
Somewhat less than 10 percent of convicted criminals are true
psychopaths. This is the extent of the linkage between psychopathy
and criminality. Many psychopaths manage to remain in society
with varying degrees of social and material achievement — their
number cannot even be estimated.
Individual psychotherapy with psychopaths has produced very
little favorable results. More recently developed group settings such
as "milieu therapy" and the "therapeutic community" hold out

greater hope in the treatment of psychopathic personalities, especial-
ly in the younger age brackets.
References
Aichhorn, A. Wayward youth. New York: Viking, 1935.

Bowlby, J. Maternal care and mental health. Geneva: World Health
Organization, 1951.
Bromberg, W., & Thompson, C. B. The relation of psychosis, mental
defect and personality types to crime. /. crim. Law Criminol., 1937,
28, 70-89.
Cleckley, H. The mask of V. Mosby Co., 1955.
sanity. St. Louis: C.
Diagnostic and statistical manual: Mental disorders. Washington, D. C:
American Psychiatric Ass., 1952.
East, N. Society and the criminal. London: His Majesty's Stationery
Office, 1949.
Ellingson, R. The
incidence of
I. EEG
abnormality among patients with
mental disorders of apparently nonorganic origin: critical review. A
Amer. J. Psychiat., 1954, 111, 263-275.
Fenichel, O. The psychoanalytic theory of neurosis. New York: Norton,
1945.
Gilbert, G. M. Herman Goering: Amiable psychopath. /. abnorm. soc.
Psychol., 1948, 43, 211.
Gottlieb,J. S., Ashby, M. C. & Knott, R. J. Primary behavior disorders
and psychopathic personality. Arch. Neurol. Psychiat., 1946, 56, 380-
399.
Henderson, D. K. Psychopathic states. New York: Norton, 1939.

Jones, M., et al. The therapeutic community: A new treatment method
in psychiatry. New York: Basic Books, 1953.
Karpman, B. Conscience in the psychopath: Another version. Amer. J.
Orthopsychiat., 1948, 18, 455-491.
Lindner, R. Rebel without a cause. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1944.
Lindsley, D. B. Electroencephalography. In J. McV. Hunt (Ed.), Per-
sonality and the behavior disorders. New
York: Ronald, 1944.
McCord, W., & McCord, Joan. Psychopathy and delinquency. New
York: Grune & Stratton, 1956.
Preu, P. W. The concept of psychopathic personality. In J. McV. Hunt
(Ed.), Personality and the behavior disorders. New York: Ronald,
1944.
Pritchard,J. C. A treatise on insanity and other disorders affecting the
mind. London: Gilbert and Piper, 1835.
Secunda, L., & Finley, K. H. Electroencephalographic studies in children
presenting behavior disorders. New Eng. J. Med., 1942, 226, 850-854.
Simons, D. J., & Diethelm, O. Electroencephalographic studies of psycho-
pathic personalities. Arch. Neurol. & Psychiat., 1946, 55, 619-626.
White, R. W. The abnormal personality. New York: Ronald, 1956.
Zilboorg, G. A history of medical psychology. New York: Norton, 1941.
ALFRED C. SCHNUR
Current Practices in
13 Correction: A Critique
Correction is concerned with the management of the offender

from the instant of his conviction to the instant of his release from
all legal supervision. The generally professed goal of correction
is to protect society by preparing men as rapidly and economically
as possible to become useful, law-abiding, self-supporting, self-
sufficient,independent citizens — men who obey the law because
they want to and not because they are afraid not to.
This objective is not being very well attained. "At least 55 to 60
percent of the prisoners leaving prison today will return within five
years." In some places, "the recidivist rate exceeds 70 percent"
(Bennett, 1954, p. 10). Seventy percent of the fingerprints received
by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Identification Division are
of persons who
have records of previous arrests (Hoover, 1957,
p. 45). Reliable figures regarding the recidivism of probationers
and parolees are also disappointingly high.
Although correction is handicapped in achieving its goal by not
knowing enough about how to achieve it, the record could be
better if agencies were allowed to apply what is already known
about correcting convicted law violators. 1 Unrealistic legal con-
straints imposed by legislatures and the failure of legislatures to
implement knowledge already accumulated make it impossible
for correctional agencies to achieve the maximum results that
even contemporary knowledge and resources make possible.
Failure of legislatures to make effective correctional work pos-
sible and the failure of correctional agencies to achieve better results
are, of course, partially explained by the interests, the values,
the understanding, and the misunderstanding of the people in a
iThe need for better knowledge is not developed in this chapter. For a
detailed statement, see Alfred C. Schnur, Some reflections on the role of cor-
rectional research, Law and contemp. Probs., 1958, 23, 772-783.
294
CURRENT PRACTICES IN CORRECTION: A CRITIQUE 295
democracy. The people do not seem to know either what they really
want done with criminals or what objectives they actually want
served in dealing with them. Except for being apparently satisfied
with measures short of extermination or life quarantine for almost all
offenders, the people lack agreement on clear-cut objectives and
means to achieve them. Almost all the objectives ever stated and al-
most all the measures ever applied in dealing with nonconformists
since the beginning of recorded time are still employed in the
management of law violators. Many different and often incom-
patible objectives are served at the same time, and many different
and conflicting things are simultaneously done to, with, and for
the lawbreaker. Procedures followed are frequently unrelated to the
professed objectives; indeed, they are often related to other ob-
jectives. This is frequently true even when the actions are executed
with the intent of serving the particular objective professed.
Although society does not know exactly what it wants accom-
plished or just how it wants its criminals handled, correctional
agencies are obliged to make these decisions for society. Criminals
are delivered to them for determinate periods of time. Correctional
agencies are obliged to do something. They do do something. Both
by their action and inaction — since failure to act is as much a deci-
sion as action — the correctional agencies define the objectives and
the means of attaining those objectives with the resources provided
them by society and within the constraints imposed upon them by
society.
Consequently, confusion and inconsistency, lack of tested knowl-
edge, and implementing objectives are all factors
vacillation in
which characterize the management of convicted law violators
while they are subject to the correctional processes. An example
is the conclusion of some officials that the administration of justice
should be a system wherein, at minimum cost, ( 1 ) men are made to
be sorry that they committed crimes, but (2) are glad, or at least
contented, that they were processed (fined, placed on probation,
imprisoned, or the like) and (3) as a consequence refrain from all
all further crimes so that (4) through the example of their experi-
ence they serve as a perfect deterrent for all potential criminals.

These ends bear the same relationship to each other as the expecta-
tion that a machine will operate without an energy source.
SUBSTITUTE GOALS
For some people, punishment, deterrence, vengeance, retribution,

expiation, and the like, have become sufficient ends in themselves.
A collection of vague themes included under an umbrella called
"the protection of society" adds to the confusion because these
vague themes are used both as rationalizations for pursuing sub-
stitute goals and as reasons for adopting scientific techniques to
abolish crime.
The most popular, dangerous, and blinding substitute goal today-
is punishment. Punishment is advocated by many both as a goal
in itself and as a way of protecting society.
Can One Get Even for Crime?
Although we with whether or not punish-

are primarily concerned
ment reduces crime, some of the other reasons used by the cham-
pions of punishment will be considered first. One reason given
is that one gets even through punishment. Such use of punishment
is often as futile as kicking with his already sore toe the chair
one has stumbled over. One can never really get even. What is
done is done and cannot be undone. Punishment does not restore
life to the murdered, health to the assaulted victim, or property
to the loser. Bootless attempts to get even through punishment,

however, do often sacrifice the future welfare of others.
Do Criminals Deserve Punishment?
There are those who would punish because they feel that the
criminal deserves pain for what he did. Everyone
aware of crim-
is
inals whose crimes so outraged the community that no one seems

capable of devising a punishment horrible enough and painful
enough to satisfy an outraged society and the injured parties. Every-
one is also aware of other criminals whose life experiences have
been so filled with unpleasantness and misfortune that they arouse
more sympathy than censure. When the correction specialist deals
with such criminals, his only concern with the conditions producing
the community's reactions is with the ways in which such condi-
tions affect the possibility of future crime. In other words, the
treatment accorded the criminal depends not on whether he makes
CURRENT PRACTICES IN CORRECTION: A CRITIQUE • 297
people "mad" or "sad" but upon what will help to end a career in
crime. As one consequence, although the one who makes us "sad"
may suffer more than the one who makes us "mad," the objective
in both cases would be the same —
the ending of crime. Techniques
effective in eliminating crime should be applied. Humanitarian con-
siderations need not be referred to by the criminologist as the basis
for his decision to discard punishment for its own sake, although it is
patently clear that such considerations, particularly those relating
to the dignity of man, would immediately rebel at the new lows
reached in so many places today.
Does Punishment Deter?

Punishment is also frequently advocated as a basis for deterring
others from the commission of similar crimes. History is replete
with examples of the absurdity of this position. At one time pick-
pockets were publicly hanged in England. While the pickpockets
were being disposed of, the police had to be constantly on the alert
to prevent other pickpockets from taking advantage of these public
gatherings.
Punishment does not even deter persons from committing further
misdeeds while they are being punished. The use of the lash at one
southern prison offers evidence. The necessity of beating the same
man again and again at frequent intervals casts doubt upon its ef-
fectiveness. Crimes occur even in places for punishment. Prison riots
throughout the country document this. Newspapers record crimes
in our prisons that are committed by inmates and civilian employees
alike. Punishment is ineffective as a means for ending all crime be-
cause some of man's behavior is not controlled by logic. Witness

the great campaigns of the insurance companies and others against
overweight. Full-page advertisements and other means of mass com-
munication recount the dangers of obesity. How many people reach
for another sweet as they read these advertisements? The horrible
consequences of smoking tobacco and consuming alcohol are painted
in lurid detail. The "drys" do their best to make everyone aware
of the consequences of drink. But even in one so-called dry state,
where counterpropaganda by the "wets" is at a minimum, there are
hundreds of federal wholesale and retail liquor licenses, and the
revenue received by the state black-market tax collector is con-
siderable. This state also boasts one of the largest hospitals for alco-
holics in the nation. If men were ruled exclusively by logic would
the above statements be true? Would there be so many parking vio-
lationsand so many red lights and stop signs being ignored? Would
there be so much smoking in bed? One needs but to look at his own
behavior to add countless illustrations of actions taken that were
not ruled by the known consequences.
This does not mean that punishment never works. It does work
under some circumstances. But to rush a convicted criminal to
standard punishment immediately is as absurd as rushing for a bot-
tle of aspirin for every ache and pain. Sometimes it works, and
sometimes it does not.

Punishment for punishment's sake is a moral issue. Punishment for
treatment's sake is a scientific matter. Such investigations of punish-
ment's relationship to abolishing crime as have been made, although
not conclusive, suggest that its crime-stopping value decreases as
criminal behavior becomes more complex; that is, as it involves more
and more of the personality. Use of punishment as a standard tech-
nique for abolishing all crime can in no way be defended.
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
Does this mean that the criminal should simply have his wrist
slapped, be told he is a bad boy, and then be turned loose to con-
tinue his activity? Obviously, this would not profit society. The
criminal is neither deterred nor cured. Should the criminal be made
supposed to have
to suffer in an effort to balance the pleasure he is
had in committing the crime with the pain society can give? This
does not profit society either. He is still a criminal, albeit a suffer-
ing one.
Criminology neither condones nor condemns the criminal but
recognizes him for what he is — an unwanted product of society.
(See Chapter 9.) "In this sense, if the criminal is a product — we
don't need to hate people any more" (Taft, 1950, p. 304). When
conviction is secured, search should be made for explanations for the
criminal's behavior and for ways of changing these conditions.
The denial of individual responsibility for crime implies that
many outside influences are responsible for crime, but it in no
way implies either the excusing of crime or the coddling of the
criminal. No matter how he became criminal, he is dangerous to
the law-abiding people and must be treated in such a way that the
law abiding need fear him no more. If treatment is now impossible
the criminal should be quarantined for life or until such time as the
CURRENT PRACTICES IN CORRECTION: A CRITIQUE •
'
299
kind of treatment is feasible that will make it possible to return

him to free society. Correctional treatment for crime should in one
limited sense resemble medical treatment. Medical treatment for
pneumonia does not depend on whether the illness was a conse-
quence of a drunken spree or of overwork. Cure is the important
thing.
Recognition that many outside influences operating through indi-
viduals produce crime implies a recognition that other controlled
outside influences operating through the same individuals can elimi-
nate crime. Because crime is caused by experiences from birth on-
ward, society should concern itself with these experiences and elim-
inate those inciting to crime through crime-prevention programs
operated at least as vigorously as the programs for apprehending
offenders. These crime-inciting experiences over which developing
criminals have no control, and not the helpless developing child,
should arouse society's wrath and indignation. Such experiences are
the sources of crime.
The adult criminal should be viewed with at least the same charity
that is now
accorded juvenile delinquents (see Chapter 11); the adult
criminal is but a juvenile grown older who has not been reached soon
enough. Perhaps the adult should arouse more compassion than a
child, since the adult has suffered longer at society's hands. Although
it is more difficult, it is never too late to try to make the adult
criminal into a substantial citizen. Society will find it is more eco-
nomical to prevent criminality than to cure criminals.
TREATMENT BY TIME CLOCK

As we have already noted, correctional agencies are handicapped
in achieving their objectives because they are not allowed to apply
what we know about correcting offenders. Nonrealistic legal con-
straints upon correction begin with sentencing statutes that deny
personnel involved in the process the opportunity to utilize contem-
porary criminological and correctional knowledge to best advan-
tage. Nowhere country are the courts or correctional
in this
personnel allowed the discretion necessary for the proper application
of treatment.
Upon conviction of the law violator, the court must first deter-
mine the kind of sentence. The court's discretion is often severely
limited by statutes. Age, previous criminal record, and present of-
fense are frequent curbs upon the choice of sentences. Depending
upon jurisdiction and upon the limits set by statute, a judge may use
one or combine several of the following possible kinds of sentences. 2
A sentence of death may be imposed. A price list established by the
legislature may be used to fine the criminal. This monetary penalty
may be combined with incarceration in an institution. Jail confine-
ments are usually for less than a year, but jail time may last beyond
a year if the fine is not paid. Penitentiary, prison, reformatory, or
correctional institution sentences are usually for a year or more.
Under appropriate conditions, institutional sentences can be sus-
pended. If a sentence is suspended and the judge concludes that the
offender has behaved properly for a stipulated time, the judge may
discharge the offender. The offender will then be considered as hav-
ing "paid his debt to society" without serving a day in an institution
and without paying one cent to the state. He cannot again be sen-
tenced for this crime from which he has been discharged. Suspended
sentences take various forms. Some suspended sentences include pro-
bation and some do not. (Probation will be discussed later in this
chapter.) Should the court conclude, after a time, that the convicted
offender is not behaving properly, the suspended sentence may be
revoked. What happens at this point depends upon whether the
court originally suspended the execution or the imposition of sen-
tence. If the execution of sentence was suspended, the original sen-
tence automatically becomes operative and the offender is delivered
to the institution for the duration of his sentence. However, if the
imposition was suspended, the court has the same discretion in im-
posing sentence that had before placing the offender on probation.
it
The court can, for example, take into account the offender's be-
havior on probation.
After the judge has first considered and decided upon the kind of
sentence (from among the variations available), he considers the
amount of sentence. Here we shall be concerned only with the
length of sentence. The judge must set the time clock for treatment.
The treatment time clock is variously set by three types of sen-
tences: Absolute determinate (definite, flat), limited indeterminate,
and absolute indeterminate. Different degrees of discretion are af-
forded treatment personnel by these three general varieties of sen-

tencing practice. The ideal relationship between time and treatment
is provided by the absolute indeterminate sentence. No minimum
or maximum amount of time is predetermined. All sentences, in ef-
fect, are from no time to life quarantine. The law violator can be
2 All of the sentencing possibilities and variations are not discussed here.
Only the most frequently used sentences are presented.
passed from one kind of treatment to another according to his and

society's needs. He can be released from all treatment at the optimum
time — when his probabilities for lawful behavior are at their peak
and when it is reasonably certain that he will not again engage in
crime. On the other hand, with this type of sentence the man need
never be released if his probabilities for continuing his career in
crime are excessive.
Nowhere United States does the absolute indeterminate
in the
sentence exist. The closest approximation occurs in those jurisdic-
tions with the lowest minimums and the highest maximums wherein
the judge, by setting the lowest minimums and the highest maximums
possible under the statutes, in effect delegates all the discretion avail-
able to him to the correctional authorities. This represents the best
possible use of the limited indeterminate sentence compatible with
the treatment and discharge objectives of correction. The worst
possible use is seen in the sentences of judges whominimums close
set
to maximums or maximums close to minimums. Even this, of course,
is a little better than the absolute determinate (definite, flat) sen-
tence. Jurisdictions using such sentences in effect set up a fair-trade
price list without discounts for all crimes. The price is expressed in
so many days, weeks, months, years, or in life or death. Upon the
determination of guilt, the judge is obliged to consult the legisla-
ture's price and impose the scheduled price. Such sentences take
list
account only of the crime and previous criminal record, but at the
same time prohibit the judge from taking account of the man, his
needs, and his probabilities for lawful behavior under a variety of
treatment conditions. One variation is found in some jurisdictions
in which the judge has a limited range of time available to him but
is obliged neverthless to impose a sentence that is specific in amount
of time.
Both the absolute determinate and the limited indeterminate sen-
tences share the same fatal defect in varying degree. Both have the
effect of setting for each man a date beyond which he cannot be
detained and before which he cannot be released, no matter how
imperfectly this date correlates with a man's potential for lawful
behavior. The absolute determinate sentence is the deadliest to cor-
rectional treatment because it accords treatment personnel the nar-
rowest range of discretion.
The treatment time clock set by the absolute and limited indeter-
minate sentence can be advanced only slightly by institutional au-
thorities through the award of good time and extra-good time.
ADVERSE EFFECTS OF TREATMENT

BY TIME CLOCK
The time-clock concept of corrections not good for proba-

is
tioners, prisoners, or parolees. Under the time-clock concept they

know that they are going to be through with correction as of such
a date, no matter what they do, short of committing a new crime.
They know that their behavior can have only a limited effect upon
the timing of their release. This encourages them to behave just well
enough to accomplish this purpose — but no better. They see nothing
to be gained they behave any better. Correctional treatment con-
if
sequently tends to be measured by inmates, not in terms of changes

for the better produced in them, but by crossing out the days re-
maining before discharge on their calendars and time charts: 1,017
days to go, 1,016, 1,015, and so on until the final hour. A new day
is heralded not for the opportunities that it presents but rather for
the fact that it will soon be over — another day will be behind them,
and can be X'd out. Time has little other real meaning for inmates.
They tend to lose their perspective and live in a highly selected past
or unrealistic future, but not in the present. Under the time-clock
system, the most significant thing to an inmate about a day is that
it has passed.
The time-clock concept has at least another bad effect upon the
inmate and the society that is to be re-entered. It helps inmates to
feel that their "debt to society" has been concept
paid. This latter
may encourage them to run up a new account. Some may even feel
that not only has their debt been paid; society now owes them some-
thing — and then they proceed to collect it upon their release.
For some men the period of supervision is too short for any treat-
ment to have an effect. Others have terms so long that not only is
treatment impeded but whatever positive effect treatment has had
is nullified. To secure maximum protection for society at minimum
cost, the kind and length of supervised treatment should depend
upon adjustment in a treatment situation in relation to a pattern of
factors that indicate successful adjustment to a free life, rather than
upon the kind and amount of punishment that will pay a supposed
"debt" to society and retaliate for crime.
Treatment by the time-clock method wastes the resources of
society and fails to protect society. First, the supervision of men
who no longer need correction requires the wasteful expenditure
of limited resources that could better be used on men who still need
correction. Presently, when treatment resources are insufficient, this
is poor use of them. Second, society is not protected
a particularly
by the required but premature release of uncorrected men.
Treatment time clocks prevent parole boards from doing the best
they can with their present resources. Some parole boards have more
discretion than others, but no releasing authority now has sufficient
discretion in the timing of parole. All are prohibited from paroling
men until the time clock says the men are eligible. The best time for
parole may already have passed: the time remaining between release
on parole and discharge from parole may be too short to help a
man bridge the gap between imprisonment and unrestricted free-
dom. On the other hand, a man may be obliged to remain on parole
either for the rest of his life or for periods beyond his successful
correction. This, too, waste of correction's limited resources.
is a
Preset time clocks impinge upon correction at other points. Some
states provide no credit on the sentence for the time spent in jail
between conviction and delivery to an institution. In some states

no account of the time spent under probation supervision is taken
in case of probation revocation and subsequent incarceration. No
time is credited for parole supervision that ends in revocation and
reconfinement. The words "concurrent" and "consecutive" make a
significant difference in a sentence. If several sentences are imposed
concurrently they all are served at the same time. If they are imposed
consecutively, they are served in turn until the full time is com-
pleted. The words "consecutive" and "concurrent" also affect the
quantity of good time. It is usually better to get one ten-year sen-
tence than two five-year consecutive sentences. More good time
off the sentence is granted in the second year than in the first, in the
third than in the second, and so on. After completing one consecu-
tive sentence a man usually begins all over again at the minimum
first-year good-time rate. 3
Criminals tend to have a very formal concept of justice — a feeling
that all men who engaged in the same objectively observable behav-
ior should receive exactly the same penalty. This would be as poor
a policy, of course, as the present policy which produces the dis-
One inmate I knew had the nickname "85" because seventeen consecutive
3
five-year sentences had been imposed upon him. Had he been given one eighty-
five-year sentence, he could be released several years earlier, as well as be
eligible for parole. His multiple sentences, although the first he had ever re-
ceived, classified him as a repeater and made him ineligible for parole consid-
eration.
parity in sentencing that can be better explained by studying judges
than by studying criminals. Contemporary correctional objectives
are incompatible with both ways of disposing of cases. It is not
suggested here that sentences should be equalized for what appear
to be the same crimes, but it is suggested that treatment should be
prescribed, irrespective of time, to meet the needs of society and of
the total man. Such a dispositions program, of course, may yield
even greater apparent discrepancies for what appear to be the same
crime, since the length and type of treatment will depend on differ-
ences in the needs of the men being treated and not on differences
in sentencing practices or judges. This should focus the criminal's
attention upon his own readjustment and readiness for release instead
of upon some relatively rigid release date set by a man who could
not anticipate the offender's response to treatment. With the treat-
ment time clock turned off, treatment by deadline ends, and
treatment compatible with correctional objectives can begin.
PROBATION: THE FIRST PHASE OF

CORRECTIONAL TREATMENT
For some men correctional treatment commences with probation.

Probation is designed for men who are safe to have loose in the
community and for men who do not need the treatment resources
of a correctional institution. When the above criteria are met and
the granting of probation does not contravene the public's attitude
toward the offense and the offender and thus jeopardize the whole
probation service, probation is indicated.
Best practice obligates the court to secure and study a presentence
investigation report for every guilty man. Ideally, the presentence
investigation conducted by a probation officer (counselor) who
is
knows the variables of crime well enough to know what to look for,
who knows the significance of what he sees, and who knows what
to do about all of it. A presentence investigation represents a thor-
ough diagnostic case study of the subject and a prognosis in relation
to correctional and other resources.
In consultation with the probation officer after considering the
report, the judge may choose whatever disposition he wishes within
the statutory limits. Some states prohibit the granting of probation
to men who have committed particular crimes and have particular
kinds of previous criminal records. There is tremendous variation
in this throughout the country.
CURRENT PRACTICES IN CORRECTION: A CRITIQUE •
305
Should the judge elect probation, the sentence suspended upon is
condition of observing the rules established by the state and by the

court. To help the probationer solve his problems and make a law-
abiding adjustment, a probation officer is assigned to him. The officer
has the additional responsibility of reporting to the court progress

in adjustment and any rule violations. The rules that a probationer
must observe vary considerably from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
In some areas they are so restrictive that a law-abiding man would
be hard put to observe all of them. More is expected of the proba-
tioner than of the free citizen. If the behavior is unsatisfactory,
upon review of the record the court may choose to revoke pro-
bation and the suspended sentence and commit the man to a correc-
tional institution, the second phase of correction, according to the
sentencing practices of his jurisdiction.
CRITIQUE OF CURRENT PROBATION

PRACTICES
Probation really remains to be applied in the United States. Much

of what is called probation shares only the name with the real thing.
An unfortunate consequence is that real probation suffers the dis-
credit produced by imitation.
Although all states have probation laws, the probation laws are
not always realistic. Moreover, probation is not properly used in
some states with good laws. In some jurisdictions men are on pro-
bation who should be in prison and men are in prison who should
be on probation. Either error is expensive and destroys the efficient
and effective attainment of correction objectives.
Many of our probation officers are not prepared for the responsi-
bility of their assignment. They do not know what to do nor how
to do it. Those officers who are qualified are ineffective and
frustrated because their case loads are so excessive that they do not
have the opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills.
Proper probation has not advanced as rapidly as it should because
it has been judged by inadequately implemented substitutes for the
real thing. One rather widely accepted standard of service is that

an officer's maximum load should consist of no more than ten pre-
sentence investigations a month or the supervision of fifty cases.
Rare is the officer whose work load is that light. In the case of un-
qualified officers, it is perhaps just as well that the loads are so ex-
cessive that they can only shuffle paper.
Should the probationer behave appropriately for the proper length
of time, the time clock stops and the court discharges the offender.
When he is discharged from the sentence he cannot again be re-
strained with more time for that offense. Indirectly it may affect
him if he commits another crime: the price for the second crime
is higher in some states than that for the first, and up to a certain
point each subsequent crime costs the offender more. In the event
the probation is revoked, the offender enters a correctional insti-
tution, the second phase of correction.
INSTITUTIONS: THE SECOND PHASE OF

For some men confinement is their first experience with correc-

tion.For others it is the second phase because they arrived indi-
rectly as a consequence of violating probation. Still others are
returning to institutions from correction's third phase for violating
their paroles. Many men who are confined in institutions should be
either on probation or on parole. Institutions should be reserved for
men whose freedom must be thus restricted in order to protect
society and for men who can benefit from institutional treatment.
If the correctional objective is accepted, there is no other legitimate
reason for confinement.
The institutional experience is not conducive to treatment. Treat-
ment accomplished within institutions in spite of the situation and
is
not because of it. Confinement is necessary for some men to protect

society from them; yet confinement cannot be justified as a desirable
treatment medium. Its necessity for societal protection is its only
reason for existence. Much of what is called treatment in prison and
parole is actually concerned with undoing the fact of prison. More
time and resources are expended in undoing the destructive effects
of incarceration than are expended in making a constructive impact.
This presentation is concerned with some of the more common
things that happen in prison which can have an effect upon post-
release behavior; it does not explore the total problem of institu-
tional operation, or the means of preventing escape and maintaining
good order.
Arrival at the institution is a formidable experience for the inmate-
to-be. Rarely is he prepared to accept the prison experience, par-
ticularly if he is a first offender.
In the reception area, a thorough strip-search of the new prisoner

is conducted to make certain that no contraband is entering the
institution. After being dispossessed of his clothing he is obliged to
bathe, and he is issued institutional clothing and supplies, and finger-
printed, photographed, and assigned an institution identification
number. Some prisons immediately merge the new arrival into the
general inmate population with an "orientation lecture" of the fol-
lowing type as his only preparation for prison:
You are here. Weare here to see you stay. Let's make it as easy on
each other as possible. You don't cause us any trouble and we won't cause
you any. You can have just as easy or just as hard a time as you want to
make it. Don't be mad at us. We
didn't have anything to do with your
getting here, but we have everything to do with the kind of time you do
here. Go easy on us. We'll go easy on you. The way to get on here is
to do what you are told to do and keep your nose clean and your mouth
shut. The less you have to do with others the better. Don't go getting
too friendly. Don't get any bright ideas. We
can make it harder on you
than you can make it on us.
Best practice, however, requires that the new prisoner be housed

in an admission-orientation unit, reception center, diagnostic depot,
quarantine section, or isolation unit for diagnosis and instruction.
Such programs usually require several weeks. During this time, the
classification personnel learn as much as they can about the offender
by studying him and accumulating data from outside sources.
Whether the man is studied or not, he cannot be merged into the
general institutional population until medical personnel can certify
that he has no communicable disease and is ready at least for general
duty. Clues as to his custodial classification are also collected and
analyzed. Until sufficient data are secured and studied to determine
how safe or unsafe he and whether he needs special housing and
is
supervision because he has sex problems or other difficulties, it must

be assumed that he requires close custody.
While institutional personnel are learning about him, the prisoner
is also learning about the institution. He is oriented to the place. He
finds out what is expected of him and what he can expect of the
institution. He what facilities for improvement the insti-
finds out
tution has and how he can make use of them. During this period,
he may receive a handbook and letters of advice and information
from the institution's head. Institutional personnel lecture the
inmate and answer his questions. They may take him on a guided
tour of the institution. He may see slides or motion pictures to help
him understand the institution and his place in it.
The institutional treatment person whose role most closely re-
sembles that of the probation and parole counselor is the classifi-
cation officer. He is also variously titled a counselor, guidance
officer, institutional parole officer or agent, psychologist, sociologist,
social worker, correctional classification officer, case-worker,
and so on. Whatever his title may be, all institutions which make
any pretense at individualization through classification have a man
who, in effect, is a treatment manager.
The treatment manager has the responsibility for mobilizing the
institution's resources in diagnosis and treatment. He is charged with
seeing that a treatment plan is carried out according to staff deci-
sions. He notes progress, and recommends alterations when they
are needed. He is continuously involved in diagnosis and treatment,
and its revision. Through him the inmate makes contact with the
treatment forces of the institution. To him the inmate is presumed
to look when he needs help, advice, and counsel.
Preparation for the man's release begins as soon as he arrives.
Every activity should be focused on making him fit for release. This
post-release function begins during the reception process when the
treatment manager schedules the newly arrived inmate for diagnosis
by the available experts in human behavior. Sometimes the treat-
ment manager is alone in performing the diagnosis. He may have
psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, chaplains, physicians, den-
tists, vocational educators, academic educators, vocational specialists,
and the like, available to carry out the diagnoses peculiar to their
professions and to recommendations for treatment. When
make their
the available experts have completed their diagnoses and prognoses
and made their recommendations for treatment, he has the responsi-
bility for pooling and organizing all the information secured from
the local experts, from the outside sources, and from his own obser-
vations into an admission summary with recommendations regarding
how the available resources can best be used to produce the greatest
positive change in the subject. This admission summary is circulated
to the diagnostic staff, administrative representative, industrial repre-
sentative, and the heads of custody and of treatment (or their dele-
gated agents) sufficiently in advance of staffing the case in a classi-
fication committee meeting that all members of the committee can
familiarize themselves with the content before the meeting. At the
meeting the case is presented and discussed; decisions are made as
to the ingredients of the main treatment program which the treat-
ment manager will be expected to implement. Unfortunately, such
decisions all too frequently are made on the basis of blind hunch,
whim, dramatic circumstance, anecdote, and so-called
faith, intuition,
common sense, when they should be made on the basis of the un-
common sense that emerges from scientific analysis.
The man is given a custodial classification of maximum, close,
medium, or minimum which affects his housing, work assignment,
movements, and supervision. His job placement is determined. De-
cisions are reached regarding the prisoner's educational program.
Provisions are made for religious participation and counseling if
available. Vocational training may be a part of the job assignment

or an independent activity. Recreation and library programs are
determined. Plans are made regarding individual therapy; medical
and dental treatment; participation in Alcoholics Anonymous, Dale
Carnegie clubs, social education, group psychotherapy, writers'
clubs, and similar activities.
Following the decision of the first classification committee meet-
ing or a reclassification committee, the inmate sometimes can appear
before the committee to learn about his program and have an oppor-
tunity to make constructive criticism of it in the event that there
may yet be some significant factors that the committee has not con-
sidered. This does not mean that inmates have a veto power over
the treatment plan. They brought before the committee simply to
are
assure that as little as possible is overlooked in developing a program.
Whenever alternatives in a man's program are available, the classi-
fication committee makes the decision. It is through classification
that the prison program is individualized and in a real sense the
prison experience made different for every man. The committee's
decisions on treatment are never fixed and final because a treatment
program is only a tentative thing. When there seems to be sufficient
reason to consider a revision in the program, the man is reclassified
by the classification committee.
The implementation of the treatment program varies. Profes-
sional staff members are never available in sufficient numbers. In
some institutions, treatment facilities are nonexistent or embryonic;
in they are fairly well developed. A few prisons may
others
appear to have reached the zenith in correction, but, in fact, all
our prisons have a long, long way to go before they do what
should be done. For many men in many prisons the prison experi-
ence amounts to little more than being counted in at the beginning
of the sentence and being counted out at the end. The time between
is often either a blank or a totally unpleasant memory.
JOB PLACEMENT -CROSS-PURPOSES
Job placement is considered first because in many prisons it is the

dominant factor, with all else secondary. Extreme confusion and
cross-purpose are typical of the work assignments of prisoners.
According to the treatment purposes of classification, a man should
be assigned to a job when such an assignment constitutes the most
constructive use of his time in relation to his post-release behavior.
The particular job that he gets should serve his needs.
It is unfortunate that some institutions focus on maximum pro-
duction at any cost — at
any cost to the inmate. A consequence is
that the production of goods rather than the production of men
becomes the chief end of industrial and agricultural operations.
Employment is often rationalized in one way or another, after the
fact, in terms of treatment objectives. This may be no more than
congenial self-deception. Neither treatment goals nor production
goals are effectively and efficiently served. The program is not right
for the man; the man is not right for the program.
A favorite rationalization for a job assignment that has little or
no treatment implications is that "it teaches good work habits."
This is not supported when the per capita production efficiency
of an inmate is compared with that of a free employee. Inmates are
often "taught" sloth, habits of evasion, how to "soldier" on the job,
how to give the appearance of working, and similar habits.
Another favorite doing what industry wants done
justification for
anyway is to call work "on-the-job training." At one time, the
expression had both humorous and tragic implications in a southern
prison. No matter what work the inmate did before he came, no
matter where he came from or where he was going upon release,
no matter whether he liked it or not or whether he had seen cotton
before or not, each man was given "on-the-job training" in cotton
growing. Southern hands who had worked in cotton fields for
field
years "learned" all about cotton; northern transients who had never
seen cotton before learned all about it. For what purpose? Many
prison work assignments utilize men who know all there is to know
about the assignment and have nothing to gain from the job except
keeping their hands in and not losing whatever skills may be in-
volved. Some men know nothing about the assignment and care
even less because it no conceivable value for them upon
will have
release. Such production programs as have merit should be corre-
lated with a realistic analysis of the labor market.
Even the from such industry as are

fullest possible benefits availa-
ble are frequently ignored. By occupying a man with the same assign-
ment continuously, productive efficiencymaximized; but the man
is
becomes too specialized. In the interests of the man, he should be

rotated periodically in order to achieve the maximum training
benefits that can accrue.
The equipment used for the limited production programs in some
institutions is commonly obsolete so far as competitive industry is
concerned. Working with such equipment does not particularly
benefit a man in seeking employment upon release. The industrial
world has passed by both him and the prison. The values of such
work for post-release adjustment are minimal.
Abandonment of various production programs, such as the man-
ufacture of binder twine, when they become too unprofitable offers
proof to the lie that theywere ever intended for rehabilitation of
the offenders. If they were good programs to begin with, their fail-
ure to make an adequate profit is not particularly pertinent to the
problem of continuing or abandoning them. Some production pro-
grams which may produce the greatest long-range profit to society
may mean a loss in actual operation.
Many people concerned with correctional institutions are pri-
marily concerned with operating them at minimum cost, irrespective
of consequences. Making things to sell or to consume locally is one
way of reducing cost. Institutional administrators cater to these
interests and boast about how much the men have produced. This
is, of course, shortsighted. The larger social interest in lawful be-
havior after release means that the only relevance of what goes
on during institutional confinement impact on post-release
is its
behavior. Contemporary institutional production operations serve

neither the public interest nor production goals well. Analysis of
production, in terms of the prison labor supply and its cost of main-
tenance, indicates that such operations suffer in comparison with
production outside prison. In spite of having a labor supply for
which the state has to pay only room, board, security, token wages,
and the cost of the amenities, prisons are not self-supporting. This
failure to measure up well with competitive productive enterprise
is often excused in terms of the character of the labor supply, or
explained away by saying that, after all, the men are being treated.
In actual fact, treatment and other activities are usually subordi-
nated to prison industry. Prison production is usually in the driver's
seat. Other must be organized around it rather
activities usually
than its being organized around them. Once prison industry has
swallowed up what it can, the other programs are free to compete
for the man's time.
Idleness is one of the things most feared by prison administrators.
Treatment has probably made more rapid headway because of this
fear — helped by restrictive legislation and business and union pres-
sures on production activities — than because of the belief of the
administration in the importance of treatment itself for post-release
behavior. This can be seen in the featherbedding of jobs in an insti-
tution. When industrial operations in prison were cut back because
of elimination of markets through restrictive legislation, treatment
began to make headway: it occupied inmates' time. "Keep them
busy at something — just anything — and they are less liable to cause
trouble" is the philosophy of some administrations.
One way of determining whether or not there is correlation be-
tween public relations correctional philosophy and operating cor-
rectional philosophy is to note the emphases and the priorities when
the institution is explained to the visiting public. The measure of a
prison should be the quality of the men released and not how many
tomatoes and string beans were canned, how many manure spread-
ers were made, how many pounds of cotton were picked, or how
many license plates were manufactured. Our prisons are failures
both as industries and as treatment centers. The goals of neither are
being served. If treatment is to be abandoned for industry, our
prisons require much improvement to accomplish industrial objec-
tives to any meaningful degree.
TREATMENT IS AN ISLAND
Treatment is typically what is done after the institution's self-

interest in other activities has been attended to. Inmates can utilize
the treatment resources when their activities do not conflict with

other institutional assignments or with the prison routine.
The treatment manager and his fellow diagnosticians are usually
too overloaded with sheer numbers of clients to prepare adequate
diagnostic and prognostic statements. The number of cases to be
disposed of at the classification and reclassification meetings is gen-
erally too large to permit proper consideration and disposition. The
classification officer ordinarily is responsible for implementing the
treatment programs for too many inmates to do it adequately. Treat-
ment is a compromise all the way with what correction people know
should be done.
One consequence is that often more time is spent manipulating

paper routine involving inmates than is spent in face-to-face or mind-
to-mind relationships with inmates. Paper inmates get treated while
the real inmates get lost in the regimen of the institution.
Treatment personnel customarily must perform in a hostile at-
mosphere generated by inmates and noninmates alike. Treatment
personnel, popularly known as "head shrinkers" or by other appel-
lations intended to degrade or belittle them and their role, are re-
garded as intruders upon an otherwise well-disciplined order. Their
wanting to do things differently at the expense of upsetting
smoothly running routine is considered, at the least, bothersome.
Undesirable relationships are sometimes generated by the hostility
directed toward treatment personnel by other staff and inmates.
These two populations may define treatment personnel as people
who help the inmate do what he wants to do in the institution or
help him to secure a premature release. Inmates who seek out classi-
fication personnel may become suspect as stool pigeons (rats, squeal-
ers) who try to join the administration against the rest of the in-
mates, unless they have prepared the onlookers to believe that they
are trying only "to work" the treatment man they see. They fre-
quently protect their prestige by denouncing the treatment man as
unfair or foolish. Generally, they cannot take the risk of publicly
acknowledging that anything really worth while occurs during
treatment, even though they may feel they were helped and would
like to return for more treatment. Treatment must proceed against
such a backdrop.
Frequently, custodial personnel resent the presence of the treat-
ment men and find satisfaction in egging inmates on to negative
definitions of treatment. Inmates play the angles with susceptible
personnel by playing one staff member against another. This is only
one of the serious consequences of the typical schism between cus-'
tody and treatment.
Treatment is not supported in many institutions that profess to
have treatment, since custody is entrusted with the veto power over
treatment activities. Custody can usually succeed in exercising such
vetoes without reasonable explanations. Custody is not required to
expand on the usual reason that "it is not wise for the safety and
security of the institution." Institutional treatment personnel are
tremendously outnumbered by custodial personnel and others who
are employed to prevent escapes, to keep good order, and to do the
necessary institutional housekeeping and maintenance. The vision of
nontreatment personnel is likely to be shortsighted.
Some prisons maintain a treatment staff of sorts for window dress-
ing. It is then that treatment is really considered a joke by inmates
and other staff alike. The administrator looks upon treatment as part
of those things necessary to keep do-gooders off his back, to placate
the relatives, and to make believe he has the interest of the men at
heart. In these institutions, treatment staff are neutralized by having
their time consumed by nontreatment activities, public-relations
assignments, paper work, and other trivia.
Significant results cannot be expected from the employment of
treatment personnel they alone, of all the personnel, are concerned
if
with treatment. Every employee should reinforce by his actions the

objectives that the treatment personnel are trying to accomplish.
Treatment personnel in some institutions are looked upon as liv-
ing lies by most of the inmates because they are more concerned
over getting along with their fellow employees than they are with
treating inmates. One result is that they often outdo custody in
restricting inmates.
The classification officer's role should include helping the inmate
to understand himself, helping the institution personnel to under-
stand the inmate, and helping the inmate to make constructive use
of his time and of the institution's facilities to the end that he be-
comes ready for release.
Religion
Religious representatives have long been affiliated with correc-
tional institutions. They have not always had an opportunity to use
religious experiences for rehabilitation. Historically,and currently
to a lesser degree, prison chaplains are called upon to perform dual
roles and to fill the gaps caused by unimplemented ideas. Their time
often was — and is — so consumed in trying to fill nonreligious
deficiencies that they often have little opportunity to do that for
which they are prepared. Prisons would have been longer without
educational programs, libraries, recreational programs, and other
meaningful prison activities if chaplains had not taken charge of
these programs.
Church services are provided in prison, and some religious
counseling is available, but chaplains are usually expected to spread
themselves too thinly. In a sense they have the choice of doing a
little for many or much for the few.
CURRENT PRACTICES IN CORRECTION: A CRITIQUE « 315
Education
Meaningful educational programs provide a foundation upon
which rehabilitation can be built. Although prisons are not consid-
ered complete without an educational program, too many institu-
tions are satisfied with having just enough of an educational pro-
gram to enable them to say that they are doing something in this
area. Institutions which have the facilities usually require that a man
remain in the educational program until he has achieved functional
literacy.
Many prisons enlist the better-educated inmates to instruct the
less educated. Inmate teachers need not be used unless it is impos-
sible to have civilian instructors. The only excuse for such an edu-
cational program is that otherwise nothing would be done. Educa-
tional programs, although often better implemented than other
treatment programs, are not operated with adequate facilities or
sufficient personnel. Those prisons which have outstanding educa-
tionalprograms are the exception rather than the rule.
Customarily inmates must inconvenience themselves to take ad-
vantage of whatever educational opportunities exist. Securing an
education is usually made difficult for the prisoner rather than at-
tractive to him.
Libraries
Only the mind is relatively free in prison. Through well-planned
libraries, treatment personnel can take advantage of this fact by
helping inmates to make constructive use of some of their time.
This resource is important, since men left to themselves often turn
to vices.
Professional librarians are rarely employed and book collections
are seldom planned. Too often the available books were received
through donations and book drives. To be sure, these are ways to
secure books, but they are not necessarily the ways of getting the
right books. The resulting collection is usually almost useless, out-
dated, and unsuitable for rehabilitation purposes. Better planning,
better book acquisition, and better utilization of this treatment re-
source are needed if it is to have a meaningful impact. Even well-
equipped libraries provide treatment for a pittance when compared
with the cost of other programs.
Recreation
Inmates are granted some time to use for recreational purposes.
Often time is all that is given. Guards are frequently used to operate
recreational programs. Few prisons employ men who are profes-

sionally trained in recreation leadership.
Planned recreation often amounts to little more than the compe-
tition of various prison sports teams with teams from the outside.
This provides limited opportunities for sports participation for the
few who are team members but only spectator sports for the rest.
Prisons vary tremendously in their recreation programs. A few
are well equipped to provide recreation opportunities for the men
that want them and to encourage others to make use of them. Typ-
however, this is another area in
ically, which the full potential for
growth is not even approximated.
Group Therapy
A relatively recent admission to the prison is a trend toward
group programs variously known as group therapy, group psycho-
therapy, guided group interaction, "group," and the like. Although
some prisons have professionally operated programs, most do not.
In such instances, the only contribution of the group-program
seems to be the presence of a civilian in the type of "bull session"
prisoners have been having since the advent of prisons.
Self-Improvement Activities
Various interest groups that have both a recreational character
and a self-improvement character are allowed to operate in some
institutions. Alcoholics Anonymousprobably the most prevalent.
is
Dale Carnegie Clubs, writers' clubs, drama groups, bands and or-
chestras, choruses, hobbyists, and the like are also found in many
prisons. This permits men to occupy their time pleasantly and re-
duces the administration's fear of idle men.
Psychiatric services are rarely available to an institution. When
psychiatrists are available, they are not usually involved in treat-
ment. They are typically concerned only with emergencies.
PAROLE: THIRD AND FINAL PHASE OF

The relationship between the parolee and the parole officer is

very much the same as that between the probationer and the pro-
bation officer. The conditions of parole and probation are very simi-
lar and are intended to serve the same purpose. Failure to live up
to the conditions results in confinement.
The decision to use parole or to return a parolee to an institution
ismade, of course, by a different authority — the parole board in-
stead of a court. The decision is a group decision instead of the
decision of one man. The parole decision is made by people much
more familiar with institutions than are the judges.
Just as the court is restricted in the use of probation and in sen-
by statute, the parole board has similar restrictions. A certain
tencing
minimum amount of institutional time must have been served before
an inmate comes under the releasing jurisdiction of the board. If he
has committed particular crimes or has a previous record the parole
board may never be able to release him.
Just as best probation practice requires that a thorough case study
known as a presentence investigation precede a decision to use pro-
bation, best parole practice requires that a preparole investigation
be conducted to ascertain fitness for release and adequacy of plans
for after-release. This, along with the accumulated institutional case
records and the presentence investigation, is considered by the board
prior to its decision.
Although approved employment is usually required both as a
condition of release on parole and as a condition of continuation on
parole, such opportunities tend to be very limited.
Best practice also requires that the inmate appear before the board.
Parole is indicated when the board concludes that it is reasonably
safe for him to be released, when he is peak in readiness for
at his
release (more likely to be a success if paroled now than later, or
released at his maximum discharge date), and when he can no longer

benefit from institutional incarceration.
Should the decision be for release, the man on parole is then
handled much as a probationer is. Often parole supervision is no
more than record keeping and surveillance. Seeing that a parolee
stays out of trouble is not enough. He should be helped to stay out
of trouble. Simply checking up on a parolee and making certain
that hismonthly report sheets are in on time develops into a cat-
and-mouse game between the parolee and the officer.
The amount of time on parole is dependent upon the parolee's
minimum and maximum sentences. Some states require that he serve
the difference between his release date and his minimum sentence.
Others make the man serve until the maximum. Still others keep the
man on parole for the rest of his In a few states, a parolee who
life.
makes a satisfactory adjustment may

be discharged from his parole
previous to its expiration. Every parolee must be discharged when
his maximum sentence expires.
Parole not used to best advantage. Parole board members are
is
inclined to play it very safe because they have so often been the
scapegoats whenever an active parolee or a one-time discharged pa-
rolee commits a new crime. Then the agencies of mass communication
feel it their public duty to point an accusing finger at the parole
boards. "This would not have happened if it had not been for those
naive soft-hearted sentimentalists who are easy prey for every hard
luck story." The pressureand in the interests of the parole
is real,
process, the parole board must be realistically aware of how the

public will react to its decision to release. Self -inflamed presses have
often been responsible for the increase in the restrictions imposed
on parole. A significant point often easily ignored by such news-
papers and other self-appointed guardians of the public order is that
nearly every parolee who commits a crime would have been released
without supervision at a later date. With parole there was at least
some hope that he would be a better citizen because of parole super-
vision than he would have been without it, with a simple discharge
at the expiration of his sentence when the time clock had run out.
This kind of destructive activity has helped to keep parole from
reaching its objective, in part by causing parole boards to release
men on parole who do not need it — who would be law abiding no
matter how released — and to refrain from releasing men who really
need the supervision, but with whom the parole board is unwilling
to take the risk. Parole boards are obliged to play it safe, and some
may play it entirely too safe.
The parole process is often handicapped in the same way that

probation is handicapped with unqualified board members and offi-
cers. Case loads, too, are excessive.

Release on parole varies from insignificant percentages of the total
number released, to parole releases being almost the only way any-
one is released. Even in such states where parole is the typical release,
however, parole is not always used well because so many of the men
are actually on parole for only a very few weeks. If, at any time,
during the parole period the man does not behave as he is expected
to, he may be reconflned in an institution. In some states he receives
credit off his sentence for parole time. Occasionally he even receives
the same good time deductions that he would have received had he
been in prison. In some states no credit is given for parole time when
the man is reconfined.
In some jurisdictions parole violation is a bar to a man's being
paroled again. In other jurisdictions, such a man may be released
whenever the board feels he may be successful.
Society is usually made less rather than more safe, in the long run,
by the parole board's understandable feeling that itmust cater to
public opinion. Although this has the effect of making the batting
average of parole much higher than it would otherwise be, the bat-
ting average of the correctional process as awhole is lowered: men
who would benefit from the use of parole have been denied it and,
as a consequence, commit more crimes than they would have com-
mitted had correctional authorities felt free to use their resources
to best advantage. The same situation, of course, exists for judges
and their use of probation.
In all three phases of correction the lack of sufficient qualified
personnel often means that the real man is lost, and only paper pro-
bationers, paper inmates, and paper parolees are shuffled about. The
correctional process has been merely an interlude of timed unpleas-
antness that has temporarily postponed and occasionally intensified
the criminal career of its clients.
AFTER CORRECTION, WHAT?
In the beginning of this chapter, the correctional objective was

defined as the protection of society through the act of preparing
offenders for release from legal supervision as rapidly and econom-
ically as possible, as useful, law-abiding, self-supporting, self-suffi-
cient and independent citizens. It was also recognized that this goal
was not being attained.
Just how much can society expect from the correctional proc-
esses? Many of the men have not been long exposed to the inade-
quately implemented processes. 4 Half of the men who are committed
to prison today will be released within twenty-two months. Many
of these men are released not because they have reached the correc-
tional objectives but because their release is required by law.
4 For detailed discussion, see Alfred C. Schnur, The new penology: Fact or
fiction? /. cr'vm. Law, Criminol. Police Set., 1958, 49, 331-334; and Federal
Bureau of Prisons, National prisoner statistics: Personnel in state and federal
institutions, 1958, 1960.
Are the correctional processes a success or a failure? Many of
those released from the correctional processes will continue their
criminal careers. Half of the men who leave prison today will be in
prison again for a new offense within five years. Others will arrive
later. Some will commit crimes and avoid apprehension or con-
viction. Some will refrain from crime.
Who deserves blame or credit for the successes and the failures?
There are at least two ways of looking at this: (1) Whatever suc-
cess there was not to be expected. Were the offenders not failures
is
when they entered the correctional process? It would be natural to

expect them all to continue to be failures. The fact that some suc-
ceeded is a bonus. (2) On the other hand, should any fail after
being exposed to the correctional processes? They are supposed to
have been rehabilitated before release.
In some cases the correctional processes can indeed be held ac-
countable to some extent. It is, however, an oversimplification of
human behavior to give correctional personnel either all the credit
for the successes or all the blame for the failures.
It would not be blame them for all the failures even if
realistic to
the correctional processes were perfectly implemented. After all,
the releases from such a perfect program re-enter an imperfect
society that made criminals out of them originally. These influences
are still in vicious operation. Part of the price for the freedom of
the strong to enjoy their vices is paid by the crimes committed by
the weak. A man released who is highly resistant to crime can often
be expected only to resist so much of the crime-inciting conditions.
His success or failure is affected by the weakness and strengths
of the social conditions into which he is released. A less re-
sistant man released into with more strengths than
conditions
weaknesses may be more successful than the strongly resistant re-
leased into very weakening conditions. The fact is that success or
failure of correctional clients is to be explained by both the correc-
tional process and the experiences in the release situation.
Some sectors of our society expect the correctional processes to
immunize a man from a criminal career for the rest of his life, no
matter how contagious the social situation is. They feel the ineffectu-
ality of the correctional processes is documented whenever a one-
time client commits a new crime, no matter how many years sepa-
rate him from the correctional process. This is expecting more of
correctional treatment than is expected of medical treatment. Phy-
sicians are not called quacks for every recurrent attack of illness.
As long as society refuses to remove the legal impediments to

effective treatment, hesitates to implement contemporary knowl-
edge, neglects to provide for the discovery of additional knowledge,
and fails to control adequately the social and economic conditions
productive of criminal behavior, accountability for recurrent crime
(recidivism) must be shared by society with the correctional
processes.
References
Bennett, James V. Evaluating a prison. Ann. Amer. Acad. pol. soc. Sci.,
1954, 293, 10.
Hoover, J. Edgar. The challenges of crime control. In National Proba-
tion and Parole Association, Parole in principle and practice: A man-
ual and report. New York: The Association, 1957.
Taft, Donald R. Criminology: A cultural interpretation. New York:
Macmillan, 1950.
Recommended Readings
General Correction
Grunhut, Max. Penal reform. New York: Oxford Univer. Press, 1948.
Tappan, Paul. Contemporary correction. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1951.
Probation
Chute, C. L., & Bell, Marjorie. Crime, courts and probation. New York:
Macmillan, 1956.
National Probation and Parole Association. Guides for sentencing.
New York: The Association, 1957.
Institutions
Alexander, M. E. Jail administration. Springfield, 111.: Charles C

Thomas, 1957.
American Correctional Association. Manual of correctional standards.
New York: The Association, 1959.
American Prison Association; Committee on Classification and Case-
work. Handbook on Classification in Correctional Institutions. New
York: The Association, 1947.
American Prison Association, Committee on Classification and Case-
work. Handbook on pre-release preparation in correctional institu-
tions. New York: The Association, 1949.
Clemmer, D. The prison community. Boston: Christopher Press, 1940.
Parole
Giardini, G. I. The Parole Process. Springfield, 111.: Charles C Thomas,
1959.
National Probation and Parole Association. Parole in principle and
practice: A manual and report. New York: The Association, 1957.
ROBERT H. SCOTT
The Youthful Offender:

An Illustration of New
Developments in Correction
The juvenile court is with in Chapter 1 1 of this volume.
fully dealt
It is a protective court, with procedures and services modified to
meet the special needs of children. The stern practices of the crim-
inal court have been relaxed, children are carefully separated from
other offenders, and records are kept from the public. Juvenile
training schools, often operated by Departments of Social Welfare
rather than Corrections, care for the child when committed. This
protection ceases when the upper limits of the court's jurisdiction
are reached. When the child reaches sixteen or seventeen or eighteen
— whatever the limits of that jurisdiction specify — he becomes an
adult offender.
About forty years after the juvenile court movement began in
the United States, a book was published (Harrison and Grant, 1938)
that threw a flicker of light on the 16-21 age group in trouble with
the law. It revealed to some and reminded others that these youths
(most not yet old enough to vote) were subject to the same pro-
cedures most hardened or vicious adult offender. A seventeen-
as the
year-old boy who had wired a car for a joy ride could be in prison
with murders, pimps, and gangsters. Moreover, the stamp of a
felony record and the brand of an ex-convict could follow this
young man for the rest of his life, making jobs difficult to get, mili-
tary service virtually impossible, and casting a shadow over him r
1 The opinions expressed in this chapter are those of the author. They dcr
not necessarily represent the views of the Michigan Department of Corrections*
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Professor John Barker Waite, distin-
guished pioneer in the field of youth correction, for many of the ideas dis-
cussed here. The author is also grateful to the Michigan Corrections Commis-
sion, and to Gus Harrison, Director of the Corrections Department of the
State of Michigan, for having made it possible to put many ideas into practice,
323
his wife, and his children in the normal associations and satisfactions
of life.
Change was difficult, however, in the face of the undeniable fact

that some young "punks" (to borrow a term from another school
of thought) were clearly vicious, hardened, or degenerate. Then and
now stories of brutal, senseless beatings and thrill killings are fre-
quently reported in our press, and youth gangs are known to roam
the streets of our big cities. The public is horrified and threatened
by the crimes of these youngsters, and is indignant over the callous
indifference and calculating affront to decency and humanity they
often show. Charges of "coddling" and cries of "let's get tough!"
are frequent public reactions, in opposition to proposed reforms.
In this context, a committee of the American Law Institute 2
drafted a model Youth Authority Act designed to provide a means
for correcting the youthful offender, the 16-21 age group. The
story of the act and its subsequent applications in various jurisdic-
tions is well told in Five States: A
study of the Youth Authority
Program as Promulgated by the American Law Institute (Beck,
1951.)
It was first applied in California in the early 1940's, and a few years
later in Minnesota. The major provisions of the act may be summar-
ized as follows:
1. It vested in a board, committee, or authority the entire dis-
position of a case after adjudication (the court could no longer
determine whether or not to place the offender on probation, or
decide the length of his sentence, or designate the institution to
which he was to be committed).
2. It provided for reception center facilities to which the offender
would go for diagnosis and a decision as to his disposition. (This
was coupled with a wide range of available institutions and pro-
grams.)
3. provided for the prevention of delinquency and youthful
It
crime as a function of the Authority rather than as a general respon-

sibility of child welfare.
The provisions of the act were not uniformly applied; moreover,
they were considerably modified in various jurisdictions. Compari-
sons are difficult because no two states have identical provisions.
Perhaps the greatest deflection from the original purpose of the act
was the inclusion of the juvenile delinquent group. Indeed, in a
2 William D. Lewis, Director of the Institute, chairman; John Barber Wake,

Professor of Law, University of Michigan, recorder.
NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN CORRECTION • 325
majority of the states which have adopted the act, its provisions are
restricted to the juvenile delinquent and do not cover the youthful

offender for whom the act had been intended. 3 A more traditional
approach to the administration of criminal justice to youthful of-
fenders than is embodied in the Youth Authority Act is presented
by Paul Tappan in his book Crime, Justice, and Correction (1960).
This traditional approach has been recently revived in the Model
Penal Code of the American Law Institute.
CHANGES IN ADULT CORRECTIONS
While the Youth Authority was being developed and applied,

changes were taking place in the treatment of the adult offender.
Some of these have been described in Chapter 1 3 of this volume. For
our purposes, they may be summarized as follows:
1. The development of classification for treatment (as well as

custody)
2. The introduction of psychiatry and psychology as bearing
upon concepts of causation and treatment
3. Emphasis upon education and special programs such as the
chaplaincy, recreation, and activities, Such as radio and television
4. The development of the indeterminate sentence
5. Improved standards of selection and training of personnel
6. Civil service and merit systems
7. Reorganized Departments of Corrections to include probation
and parole services
8. Development of camp programs
9. Introduction of counseling services to institutions
10. Improved standards and greater use of probation
11. Increasing use of presentence investigation to determine
proper disposition
CHANGES IN JUVENILE CORRECTIONS
Corresponding changes had been taking place in juvenile institu-

tions. Traditional concepts of harsh, repressive treatment were being
3 For an excellent analysis of the experience of the act and the various diffi-
culties it has encountered, the reader is again urged to consult Beck (1951),
replaced by modern treatment methods. Public attention was being
concentrated upon this age group, and social-work philosophy and
practice were introduced and integrated. Juvenile court services
were improved and expanded to include trained probation staff and
treatment personnel. The county jail was largely replaced by the
children's detention home to hold children awaiting trial. (For
greater detail, see Chapter 11.)
CHANGES IN POLICE SERVICES
Police departments began to see a need for personnel specially

trained and qualified for work with juveniles. The importance of the
first contact with offenders and the proper use of special legal pro-
cedures for handling juveniles were stressed. Police women tended to
replace police matrons. Closer cooperation between police and social
agencies in particular, and community agencies in general, came into
being. Larger departments established Youth Bureaus consisting of
officers detailed to handle delinquents. Many smaller departments
strove to have at least one police officer especially trained for
this purpose.
In some cases, police departments entered the field of treatment to
a considerable extent. They established or encouraged recreational
programs and summer camps. They undertook the supervision of
delinquents by placing them "on visits" — a kind of informal proba-
tion. In some instances, social agencies were developed under police
auspices in communities where regularly constituted agencies were
too heavily loaded to meet the emergency cases referred to them by
police. Rifle clubs, junior police departments, and similar activities
were seen by police as ways by which the civic responsibilities of
youth could be developed and hostility to the police reduced. Traffic
safety and traffic patrols were fostered by police not only in relation
to their traffic responsibilities, but also because these activities might
have a bearing upon relations with children.
These ventures into treatment drew some criticism from social
agencies, which felt that proper police functions were exceeded.
Police countered by saying that they could not evade the responsi-
bility for helping the troubled child. Probably the whole point of
thiscontroversy should be to see treatment of the delinquent as a
continuing and not a segmented process. The importance of the
police role is undeniable; contact with the juvenile can be construe-
tive or destructive, depending upon the knowledge and attitude of

the police officer.
CORRECTIONS' PROGRAMS FOR THE

YOUTHFUL OFFENDER
This brief background brings us to the treatment of the youthful
offender. The three fields of Corrections — juvenile, youth, and adult
— tend to cross-fertilize each other. This is particularly true of youth
and adult correction, since these two are so closely related. They are,
in fact, in many cases, united; a Youth Division often is part of a
general Department of Corrections. The state of Michigan follows
this planand will furnish us with most of our illustrations. Develop-
ments of Youth Corrections describe many of the changes in adult
correction, for each of these fields borrows from and contributes to
the others.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CRIMINAL

LAW AND CORRECTIONS
The juvenile court and the juvenile correctional field are much
closer together than are criminal courts and adult correction. The
juvenile court, when it does commit an offender to an institution,
does so until he reaches a maximum age (usually nineteen or twenty-
one), not for a definite sentence. The delinquent has not been found
guilty of a particular crime so that treatment can be based much
more on need than on an offense. A treatment philosophy is made
more feasible. The juvenile institution usually has some discretion
in the cases it will accept; an adult correctional institution normally
does not. The continuing philosophy and practice of social work in
the social agencies that prevent or treat delinquency, the juvenile
bureaus of police departments, the juvenile courts that adjudicate the
case,and the juvenile correctional agencies are much more consistent
and continuous than the agencies concerned with youthful or adult
offenders.
Youthful and adult offenders are subject to traditional police pro-
cedures of investigation, arrest, and apprehension, bail or confine-
ment in a county jail awaiting trial, formal public trials, fixed sen-
tences (although some form of indeterminate sentence is coming
into increasing use); and, finally, either probation or sentence to a
correctional institution. The offender receives a record that will
usually follow him for He
stamped as a criminal and probably
life. is
as The language and ritual of condemnation, rejec-

an "ex-convict."
tion, and punishment are very evident. Change is difficult where old
words are used, conveying sterotypes and carrying on traditional
attitudes. Change is also made more difficult by virtue of the fact
that divisions are of very long standing, and have deepened and
widened over the years.
Somejurisdictions, especially California, Minnesota, and the fed-
eral government, have recognized the youthful offender as a separate
legal category, and have developed special court procedures as well
as correctional procedures for his treatment. This is an original
Youth Authority concept. Other states (for example, New York)
have adopted a Youthful Offender statute without accepting the
total Youth Authority concept.
In considering the youthful offender program, one must remember
that there are two distinct, but closely related parts — court proce-
dure and correctional practice. We will be concerned in this chapter
primarily with the latter, but the two are inseparable.
A CONCEPT AND PROGRAM

OF CORRECTIONS
The basic theory of correction, which has already been outlined

in the previous chapter, is that crime is a violation of the com-
munity and that the prevention and the correction of crime are to
be found in restoration to the community. (This must not be inter-
preted as meaning that every offender should be placed at once in
the free community of society. Rather, he must become aware of the
fact that he is, indeed, a responsible member of society with hope and
potential for constructive, socially acceptable conduct.) This theory
is once simple and complex: it seeks to employ the insights and
at
skills of the social and behavior sciences; it utilizes the knowledge and
experience of Corrections administration; it undertakes to recognize

the realities of life aware that some offenders are serious
and is
threats to society, which must be protected from them. On the other

hand, it sees that not all offenders fall into this category and that
many can be restored as useful citizens by means other than maxi-
mum security. Treatment is an individual matter, and begins with
the waypeople are treated. This theory will be applied to various

situations which are illustrated mainly from experiences in Michigan.
INSTITUTIONS
Reception-Diagnostic Procedures
Basic to the Youth Authority concept was the limitation of the
court to a judgment of guilt or innocence. After this point, a central
authority had the guilty offender diagnosed to determine his prob-
lems and potentials. This authority determined, on the basis of its
diagnosis, whether to return the offender to the community on pro-
bation or to commit him to an institution. If the latter, the authority
selected the institution best suited to his needs and society's, and
recommended an appropriate program. The authority set a hearing
date which, if all went well, would be the date of release. Program,
place,and release date could be modified as circumstances warranted.
This implied the development of a wide range of institutions and a
variety of programs.
The underlying purposes of a reception-diagnostic center may be
summarized as follows:
1. To provide a thorough evaluation of the offender's personality,

background, and experience, and of the nature of the problem be-
havior
2. To determine which cases require institutional treatment
3. To release other cases directly to the community on probation
4. If an institution is indicated, to select the one best adapted to
the offender's possibilities and needs, including the degree of security
required
5. To develop a range and variety of institutions and programs
sufficiently flexible to provide, insofar as feasible, for the varying
needs of offenders
6. To
determine the probable date of readiness for return to the
community without the limitation of a minimum sentence
7. To separate the younger, less-hardened offender from the
older, more-hardened offender. (Obviously calendar age is not the
only criterion.)
As has already been indicated, most jurisdictions that have adopted
theYouth Authority program have not fully adopted this principle
of complete disposition. Courts did not view the invasion of their
powers with enthusiasm. Consequently, most courts in states that
follow some form of the Youth Authority program decide whether
or not to place the offender on probation. If the court has not done
so, the authority may do so at the conclusion of the reception diag-
nosis process. In Minnesota, for example, the Youth Conservation
Commission (now a part of a unified Corrections Department) cus-
tomarily releases about 25 percent of incoming youthful offenders
its
directly to the community on probation as soon as the offender has

gone through the reception-diagnostic center. The experience has
been favorable.
In Michigan, one such center, physically located at the State Prison
of Southern Michigan but administratively separate from it, serves
the entire Department of Corrections. All persons sentenced to im-
prisonment are received there for approximately thirty days of diag-
nosis and classification.
The reception center idea has been widely adopted throughout the
United States by adult as well as youthful and juvenile Corrections.
It represents a major trend in the whole field of Corrections. Three
hypothetical cases will provide an illustration of how the center

might function in Michigan.
Joe, nineteen, Pete, twenty, and George, twenty-one, broke into a
filling station at night and took cigarets and small change (this of-
fense could carry a maximum penalty of fifteen years in Michigan)

The defendants all pleaded guilty. The presentence investigation re-
vealed that Joe had once taken a car without permission when he was
fourteen, had been placed on probation by and
the juvenile court,
had not been in trouble since. He might well receive probation. Pete
had a long series of relatively minor offenses, including several small
larcenies, and had been committed to a juvenile training school,
where he had made a good adjustment. George, who had a somewhat
similar record except that he had been involved in a "mugging" (un-
armed robbery), had also been placed in a juvenile training school.
While there he had escaped, stealing a car in the process. The court
might commit both to prison. Pete received a sentence of from one
to fifteen years. George, because of his more serious record and be-
cause he was the ringleader in the present offense, received a sen-
tence of from three to fifteen years. At the reception-diagnostic
center it was found that Pete had an IQ of 110 and possessed good
manual dexterity, but had completed only the eleventh grade. He
was within normal limits, emotionally and mentally. George, on the
other hand, had an IQ of 85 and showed a tendency toward emo-
tional instability. Because of his relatively good record and his edu-
NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN CORRECTION •
331
cational potential, and because he was neither deviated nor disturbed,

Pete was transferred to Cassidy Lake Technical School, which is an
open type of institution for first offenders. It has an academic and
vocational program where he could complete his high school. With
the record of his escape, his relatively low IQ, and his personality
problems, George was transferred to a reformatory for counsel-
ing and assignment to an industrial program.
Institutions for Youthful Offenders
A major goal of correction, insofar as institutions are concerned,

is the development of a wide range of types (with various degrees of
security), with appropriate programs in each designed to meet the

needs of particular offenders. The large industrial institution is out-
moded, although many such fortresses remain as monuments to our
mistakes. The need is for small institutions, organized so as to permit
the inmate to be treated as an individual and to allow him to observe
the institution's interacting parts. A man can become lost in a large
prison where the whole program tends to be restricted by the lowest
common denominator — the difficult and disturbed people who are
a minority of the population of our maximum-security institutions.
The 10 or 15 percent who are troublemakers are largely responsible
for many of the restrictions placed on the other 85 or 90 percent.
Other arrangements are clearly necessary. Some of the institutions
for youthful offenders and the programs furnished for them follow.
Reformatories. Reformatories represent the attempt of the past
century to separate young offenders from older men. They have
generally become traditional institutions with little to distinguish
them from prisons except the age of the inmates.
For the youthful offender in Michigan this presented a special
problem. When the Youth Division was established by the Correc-
tions Act of 1953, there were only two institutions primarily for the
young offender. One was Ionia Reformatory, which then housed
about 1,200 inmates between fifteen and twenty-five years of age.
It was virtually a maximum-security institution in that it had a wall,
towers, and cell blocks. Its program included industrial shops, and
academic and vocational education programs. The other institution
was Cassidy Lake Technical School which was operated as a satellite
of the Reformatory (although seventy-five miles away). It is of the
open campus type, with no fences or towers, and is designed for
selected first offenders. Inmates are on a trusty basis and are housed
in nine-man living units. The program emphasizes education. (Cas-
1

sidy Lake Technical School has since been separated from the Re-
formatory, has been enlarged to 250, and its program has been
expanded.)
The picture clearly was out of proportion with the need for hous-
ing young offenders. Of Michigan's then approximately 8,500 in-
mates of all ages, some
were maintained in camps, farms,
35 percent
and trusty barracks. Of the total, over 2,500 were young of-
fenders between fifteen and twenty-five years. Of these 2,500 young
men, only 1 80 were not in prison. This meant that only 6 percent of
the young offenders as compared with 35 percent of the general
group received a type of treatment generally considered to be more
beneficial and less repressive.
It seemed desirable to expand outside facilities for young offenders
and to use the opportunity to experiment with program concepts

and methods.
Camps. Camps for youthful offenders are not a new idea. Cali-
fornia and Minnesota are among the leaders in this movement. Older
readers will recall the Civilian Conservation Corp Camps, the "CCC
Camps" of Depression days. While not for the correction of of-
fenders, the camps provided valuable lessons in program and admin-
istration. Incidentally, interest in these CCC camps is being currently
revived as a place for school drop-outs and youth not yet in trouble
with the law but in need of constructive outlets and development
of skills.
Before discussing Michigan youth camps, we must deal briefly with

the generalcamp program of the Corrections Department. A joint
Corrections-Conservation camp was established in 1948. The Conser-
vation Department supplied forestry projects, equipment, and fore-
men. The Corrections Department built the camps, housed, fed, and
clothed the men and generally administered and supplied them. In-
mates were carefully screened for suitability for trusty status. From
the first, the partnership was successful and the program expanded
rapidly as a humane, economical way of caring for inmates, provid-
ing an efficient source of labor for important conservation projects.
From the first, the tradition was "no guns." A
very low walk-away
rate attested to the care of selection and of administration.
Now a total of thirteen camps housing more than twelve hundred
men are operated in Michigan by the Camp Program of the Correc-
tions Department.
Younger men were, for the most part, excluded from these for-
estry camps, and Cassidy Lake Technical School remained the only
outside placement. It had been thought that young men would not
work out well in camp situations, that they were unstable in behavior
and lacked work skills. Earlier attempts to mix them with older of-
fenders had not been entirely successful. The younger group had
tended to be, in the eyes of the older inmates, a disrupting and dis-
turbing factor. In secure institutions younger offenders were often
regarded as more difficult to handle than older men and as requiring
stricter discipline. In spite of these obstacles, the Corrections Com-
mission decided to push ahead.
It should be stated at this point that our directions were not yet
clear to us. There were certain fundamental ideas that we wanted to
try: treating individuals as individuals, accepting the offender as a
person, and involving him in his own recovery or restoration. We
were need
also conscious of the reality factors in the situation: the
for careful selection of inmates (the difficult and disturbed did not
belong here); very limited resources and personnel; and the sur-
rounding community, which was hostile.
Our thinking was much influenced by Dr. Maxwell Jones's book,
The Therapeutic Community (1953). This English psychiatrist had
developed a residential treatment center for mentally and emotion-
ally disturbed "industrial casualties." The center's program was built
around the concept of the conscious cooperation of all elements
within it for the welfare and development of the patient.
It was decided that group counseling would be a keystone of our
program. There would be small groups — from six to eight members

— nondirective, with freedom to talk about whatever the members
wished, and with anonymity outside the group. What the individual
said would not be held against him. The group counseling was not to
be an artificial appendage, like an ornament on a Christmas tree, but
hopefully an organic part of the whole camp program. It was here
that a community concept could be brought into focus. The role of
the group leader would be merely to keep the discussion within
bounds, to see that it moved in the direction that the group desired
and that its purposes and accomplishments were interpreted to the
group.
We had discussed the pros and cons of voluntary versus involun-
tary group counseling sessions. To require the campers to attend
would be one more irritating rule and might hinder the individual's
necessary inward involvement. On the other hand, to seek volunteers
would expose them to the charge of being "front-office men." Be-
sides, the men who most needed help might well resist the idea. So
we on a compromise. We would require all campers to attend
hit
twelve weekly sessions of one hour each. After that, they would be
free to attend or not as they chose.
Basic to the program of group counseling were the "after ses-
sions." For each hour of meeting with the group, we required the
leaders to attend a similar session for leaders to discuss developments
in the groups. We
were careful not to mention group members'
names in connection with anything that was said. We worked hard
to maintain anonymity and to assure the camper that his confidence
would be respected. We made only one exception — matters vitally
affecting the security of the camp.
We stressed the need for sincerity on the part of the group leader
and the importance of not pretending to know everything. We men-
tioned the testing process by which our acceptance was examined by
the group. The avoidance of preaching and moralism was underlined.
These and the simpler dynamics of the group situation were
explained.
We learned a great deal in our initial ventures.For instance, one
night, early in my own experience, in a group with which I was
working we were talking about getting jobs after release. A member
of the group commented on negative public attitudes toward hiring
criminals. Another camper asked me, "Would you hire a man with a
criminal record?" Without a moment's hesitation I said, "Sure!" He
thought a minute. "Well," he said, "suppose you had ten men work-
ing for you. One had a record, the others didn't. Let's say some
money was missing from the cash register. Would you suspect the
man with the record quicker than you would the rest?"
That stopped me. I know perfectly well I would suspect him first.
Yet if I said so, the group members would see my inconsistency and
I would lose them. At that moment, the whole group counseling
program seemed to be challenged, if not lost. If I said that I would

not suspect the ex-convict first, I would be dishonest with them and
myself. Neat evasions or rationalizations seemed out of place. With
sinking heart, I said, "Fellows, you've got me, I'm not proud of it,
but I would suspect him first." A lot of better things might have
been said, but I didn't have the wit to say them. I felt miserable. But
the group wasn't lost — we went ahead several strides in our relation-
ship. Later, it seemed to me that the group sensed and honored my
attempt to be honest, even though the members may not have agreed
with me.
Some members of some groups hardly spoke at all and the leaders
often wondered about the value of the experience for the silent. Yet
we carefully avoided putting the silent member "on the spot." If he
did not want to say anything beyond "Hello" and "Good-by," we
did not try to make him. After all, the privilege of speaking is also
the privilege of silence. And every once in awhile we were pleasantly
surprised. A boy who hadn't said a word all evening would walk
back to the mess hall with his leader and, on the way, would pour
his heart out.
What would establish a relationship puzzled us. One night, I asked
a group if we might record the session on tape for training purposes.
I explained to them that we would not do so if anyone objected and
that, in any case, we would play back the tape at the end to make
sure that no one could be identified. If identification was possible, we
would erase either part or all of the tape, as they preferred. One boy
objected. It was George — a He
had come from the Re-
"hard case."
formatory, to which he had been returned as a parole violator. His
offense, as I recall, was unarmed robbery. He was tough, cynical, and
bitter, and he didn't try to hide his feelings. In the group he had been
silent and suspicious in previous sessions. "That's okay, forget it," I
said. "Well," he explained, "I got caught on one of these things once
and I don't want it to happen again." I didn't press the point, but said
that it made no difference, really. "Wait a minute," he said. "Did you
tell us we could listen to the tape and then erase it if we didn't like
it?" I replied, "That's right." He thought awhile and said, "Let's

try it."
We did. The group quickly forgot initial self-consciousness and

its
the session went well. We stopped a little early to listen to the tape.
When George heard his own me?"
voice he was fascinated. "Is that
he asked. By this time some of the other groups were breaking up
and he yelled to several of his friends, "Hey, you guys! Get a load
of this!" I don't think George would have let me erase that tape if
I had wanted to.
From that point, George's attitude seemed to change. He appeared

less bitter and resistant. Not long afterward I went with my wife and
our eleven-year-old son to the Christmas party at the camp. My son

soon became restless and wanted to explore outdoors. He asked per-
mission. I hesitated, feeling a little uneasy (I apologize for the feel-
ing) George heard what was happening and came over to me. "Let
.
him go with me," he said. "He'll be okay." So I did, without a mo-

ment's further concern. George and I had come to know and trust
each other.
CASE MANAGEMENT
Implied in correction is the necessity for individual treatment. The
inmate needs to be seen as a person in terms of his problems and pos-
sibilities. The purpose of the reception center was to enable assign-
ments to be made to place and program. This process needs to be

continuous and to persist throughout the institutional experience.
The primary responsibility of the counselor is But
to coordinate it.
the results of observation and experience should be communicated

cated to all persons responsible for the inmate's development.
This principle has particular application in institutions small
enough to permit staff to know and observe inmates throughly. In
our first camp a device was used to get pertinent information to all
staff, including Conservation Department crew foremen. The Youth
Division staff psychologist prepared a short report on each camper.

This report contained two headings: "Treatment Goals," and "Be-
havior to Expect." Terse, nontechnical language was used. For ex-
ample, a report might state that Ed was easily discouraged, lacked
the experience of success, and needed to discover the proper role of
a man. The Ed
be given encouragement for
sheet might suggest that
any progress made on a job. The advice would tend to head off any
accidental discouragements for Ed caused by sharp or unthinking
criticism for mistakes. Any camper might pose such a problem.
Another goal should be the which members of
case conference at
the staff outline a man's progress and development. The outcome of
the conference should be interpreted to the camper by his counselor.
Staff shortages and personnel pressures (we have a staff of only five
for round-the-clock coverage of a camp) make it difficult to achieve
these goals.
A CONCEPT OF REMEDIAL THERAPY
To us, a therapeutic community (Jones, 1953) meant a situation in

which all efforts were related to therapeutic goals, and in which in-
dividual inmates reacted to those experiences in interacting with staff
and with other inmates. Treatment is often superimposed upon cus-
tody by the administration. The result can be a split. At our camp,
custody and administration were to be a part of treatment, and vice
versa. One symbol and implement of this concept was the officer-
counselor. Staff shortages had compelled us to consolidate both roles
in one man. To some the roles seemed antithetical. We

were fortu-
nate in our choice of men to fill this job, for they have combined the
duties successfully.
Treatment personnel need to recognize their custodial respon-
sibilities and to cooperate with custody and administration. These
are a part of the "givenness" of a correctional situation. Custodial

and administrative personnel need to recognize the treatment and
corrective goals of the institution and to cooperate toward these
ends. Corrections officers and Conservation crew foremen can be a
powerful influence upon men. The work of a psychotherapist can be
undone in a moment by the thoughtless comment of a guard. To-
gether they can constitute a powerful treatment team. This does not
require extensive technical knowledge of human behavior on the part
of the officer. It does involve a positive attitude toward inmates and
an understanding of how the performance of his job affects them. By
encouraging Ed when he made a small success, the Conservation fore-
man was contributing to Ed's treatment. In helping Joe control his
impulsiveness, the Corrections officer is being an important part of
the treatment team. Neither instance requires technical knowledge.
The experience of a lifetime powerful teacher. (For a fuller dis-
is a
cussion of this principle, see Vinter and Janowitz, 1959.)
Attitudes of the larger community surrounding the camp are also
important. Volunteer lay group leaders can be valuable symbols of
the community's interest and acceptance.
Another powerful source of influence is the inmate body itself.
There are two cultures existing side by side in an institution. (For a
full discussion of this point, see Sykes, 1958.) One is the culture of
the administration, shared by employees and made up of the for-
its
mal goals and methods of any Corrections Department. In a large

institution this may be divided into two or more parts. The first of
these is the formal administrative hierachy with its echelons of com-
mand. The other is the informal group which takes its flavor and
direction from the preferences, feelings, and perceptions of its mem-
bers. Its channels of communication are the car pool, the coffee
break, and the locker room.
The second major influence is the "culture of the yard." It is made
up of and by the inmate body with its attitudes, unwritten rules, and
penalties. Often it tends to resist the goals of the formal administra-
tive culture. One may speculate on the reasons for this. Perhaps it is
a desire to retain as much independence as possible. Perhaps it is a
way of saying, "They can't do this to me." The resistance is seldom
open and active. It is usually concealed and passive. But it is a pow-
erful defense against attitude change. Inmate leaders tend to derive
their leadership from the ability to thwart administrative goals with-
out getting into trouble ("playing it cool").
At our camp, Camp Brighton, our goal was to involve inmates in
their own treatment, to enlist the inmate culture in the task of posi-
tive attitude change. Part of this lay in the group counseling, part in
the integration of the total program, but another important part lay in
convincing inmates that we all shared the same goal — to get a man
out and to keep him out. Once convinced of this, inmates tend to
accept the goal and participate in their own recovery.
I remember Willie, an undersized, timid-looking youngster who
will certainly never be a college president. Willie was suddenly
transferred "back to the walls" one day. The reason given was that
he was a sex offender. His formal charge had been burglary, but
somewhere in the file there was a notation that Willie had been in-
volved in rape. The camp investigated and it appeared that the case
involved a girl his own age, and that there had been no element of
force. Indeed, it was questionable whether an act had taken place at
all: there was only the girl's story, and she had gone to a mental
hospital soon after. The prosecutor had recommended no prosecu-

tion. There was never even a formal charge, but Willie was "behind
the walls" by this time. The camp staff made these facts known and
followed through on the task of getting Willie back. He was not a
spectacular success at the camp but he managed to get along. The
campers learned from this and other incidents that some people were
concerned about them and would try to get them a "fair shake." At
any study showed that those identified in sociograms as
rate, a later
being regarded as leaders by other inmates tended to support the
formal goals of the camp.
THE CAMP AND THE NEARBY COMMUNITY

Soon camp's youth program was started, a petition was
after the
circulated in neighboring communities for the camp's removal. The
director of the Corrections Department and some of his staff ap-
peared at a hearing of the County Board of Supervisors to explain
the program and the safeguards used in the selection of campers. The
Director suggested a community relations committee. On the first
night that the committee came to the camp, the members talked in
the mess hall before the meeting. One man suggested, "Why not put
up on the road saying, 'Danger, Prison Area. Do not pick up

signs
hitchhikers' "? Another added, "If there's an escape, why not notify
the neighbors so they can put on the yard light and lock the doors?"
The first item on the evening's program was a tour of the camp,
two by two, one guest to one camper. The second item was the
regular group meetings with committee members divided among the
groups (the campers had previously requested this chance). When
the committee held its formal meeting later, there was no more talk
about security, only about the program and how the story could be
told to the neighboring towns. This community committee has been
a great help in spreading understanding of the camp. It is a visible
symbol, too, to the camp, of acceptance by the community.
Furloughs and Passes

On Easter Sunday, an unusual experiment began. Five
1959,
families came to the camp, bringing dress clothes. Each left with a
camper, returning at eight in the evening, having gone anywhere
within a radius of fifty miles. Since then, every Sunday and holiday
has seen a repetition of this event and all the men have returned.
None have been in trouble. When parole is approved, campers may
be given a 7 2 -hour furlough to get used to the idea before the formal
papers come through.
PROBATION
Probation is a constructive program for the supervision and treat-

ment of selected offenders. It is described in more detail in Chapter
13. Comments here will be restricted to points particularly applicable
to the youthful offender.
The percentage of offenders placed on probation varies consider-
ably. In Michigan, the figure approximates 52 percent. In most states,
it is lower; in a few states, higher. Generally the scale is weighted
in favor of younger offenders because of their age and lack of experi-

ence, particularly of criminal experience.
In another sense, a part of the youthful offender group is disadvan-
taged by age and inexperience. Few are married; many have never
held down a steady job. Most live at home; many have never com-
pleted high school and lack vocational Some are fortunate in
skills.
their home background; some are not. Where home conditions were
bad, associations highly undesirable, and work habits and skills lack-
ing, the outlook for success on probation was dubious. Courts were
faced with the alternative of probation under unfavorable circum-
stances (even the best probation officer would find it difficult to
supply these lacks) or commitment to a correctional institution. In
such cases, even though the youth was otherwise potential probation
material, he was at a disadvantage.
Some new attempts to solve this problem have been made by
California and Michigan. A discussion of the latter's plan follows.
The Probation-Recovery Camp in Michigan
Legislation had been enacted in the early 1930's, as the result of a

recommendation by Circuit Court Judge Parm C. Gilbert. His suc-
cessor, Judge Earl C. Pugsley, carried the project into reality twenty-
five years later. The Probation-Recovery Camp is named in Judge
Pugsley's honor.
Camp Pugsley provides a place to which youthful offenders (not
over twenty-two years of age when sentenced) can be committed
for up to one year. The offender remains a probationer, under the
control of the committing court, during his stay and after his return
to the community. The young man comes directly to the camp with-
out going through the Reception-Diagnostic Center and he cannot
be transferred to any other correctional institution (except by re-
turn to the court as a probation violator or for the commission of
a new offense). The Corrections Department, however, has author-
ity to screen offenders to ensure their suitability for an open insti-
tution which has no provision for the care of the difficult or the
treatment of the seriously disturbed.
The program of the Probation-RecoveryCamp is similar in many
respects to that of Camp Brighton. In fact, many of the ideas tested
at the latter camp were applied at the new one. One particularly
valuable concept was put into effect by the Corrections Commis-
sion before the camp was opened. Leading citizens from neighboring
communities were invited to a meeting at which the philosophy,
plans, and program of the camp were presented and comments and
questions were invited. Community acceptance was expressed and
later made evident in substantial ways.
One of these ways was a cooperative program with the public
schools of Traverse City, Michigan, which was made possible by
a grant from the McGregor Fund of Detroit. A vocational-
counselor-coordinator was employed. Incoming probationers were
screened to determine aptitudes. A secondhand school bus was
purchased to transport probationers from camp to school four
nights a week. Several vocational courses were offered.
Another offer of help came from the community. The Purvis

brothers, who operated a welding shop in Traverse City, offered
to teach probationers. Coffee and doughnuts went with the instruc-
tion.Welding soon became a very popular course, leading to good
jobs for many. A local service club gave the tools for the camp
workshop. Men from neighboring churches became lay leaders for
the group counseling program. One leading member of the com-
munity donated funds to build a beautiful nondenominational chapel.
The foundation grant made it possible to furnish scholarships to
interns from Central Michigan University. These students taught
remedial classes, helped with recreation programs, and gave elemen-
tary counseling to probationers. An evaluation of the vocational
program made under the grant pointed out its usefulness, especially
when combined with other features of the program. The furlough
and pass plan, later established at Camp Brighton, began at Camp
Pugsley, where the probationers' excellent record for responsible
behavior on pass made this extension possible.
Special Community Probation Programs

Many youthful probationers lack the skills requisite for reward-
ing employment. In the Van Dyke public schools, the director of
vocational training speculated on a constructive use for shops and
teachers that were idle during the summer months. He discussed
this matter with a state probation officer who had a case load
of youthful offenders (another experiment). Out of this discussion
came a new idea — a summer training program for youthful proba-
tioners. The sum of three thousand dollars appropriated by the
Macomb County Board of Supervisors was augmented by state aid.
Some twenty young probationers came to the course. Instructors,
skeptical at first, grew enthusiastic about attitudes and potential
skills. One teacher opened his own home to a probationer who
would otherwise have had to drop from the course. "Duck cuts"
were gradually replaced by normal haircuts. "Hey, teach!" as a
form of address came to be replaced by "Mister ." All of this
. . .
took place by persuasion and without pressure.

Graduation was celebrated one year by a "cook-out" at the home
of an instructor. Another year a canoe trip down the Ausable River
was a high point of the course.
Skill are not the only goal. Attitudes are even more important.
To help change feelings of bitterness and defeat to positive ap-
proaches to self and society, lay group counseling was employed.
Members from the local Kiwanis Club furnished the leadership (and
it has since been recommended as a service program by the interna-
tional headquarters of those clubs)
Today many of the graduates of that first class are successful
men. One has just graduated from college with an engineering
degree; another is with a large automobile
a highly paid designer
manufacturer; yet another, at this writing, is on an important and
responsible assignment at White Sands. Some have returned to the
wrong road, but the program has paid for itself many times over,
not only in money but in terms of lives that might otherwise have
been wasted.
GROUP COUNSELING FOR YOUTHFUL

PROBATIONERS AND PAROLEES
From the vocational classroom was a short step to group coun-

it
seling for youthful probationers. This program promises to be a use-

ful tool for probation officers in appropriate cases.
A further step remained to be taken — group counseling for young
men Some experts believe that the con-
paroled from institutions.
tinuing supportive effects of a group would be an asset to the young
man released from an institution. The pressures and anxieties accom-
panying new freedom might be eased by the knowledge that others
have met them successfully. Dangers might be avoided by the shared
experience of others. Attitudes could be changed by the corrective
of a peer group. Other responsible experts feel that association
among parolees dangerous and must be avoided.
is
The successful experience of Alcoholics Anonymous in dealing

with parolees encouraged experimentation. A small, carefully safe-
guarded experiment in group counseling for parolees was recently
begun. A community Services Council has involved its Volunteer
Bureau as a source of lay leaders, the YWCA
and the YMCA have
made meeting rooms available. If the experiment is as successful as a
similar venture, the Restoration Club in Iowa, it will prove worth
while.
GROUP COUNSELING FOR YOUTH

IN COUNTY JAILS
County have not offered much treatment to the men and

jails
women confined there. The recent emphasis has been upon humane,
secure treatment with segregation of offenders, but something re-
343
mains to be done by way of a program to make this short-term

experience as constructive as possible.
An experimental beginning has been made in two counties in
Michigan. Group counseling for youthful offenders has been insti-
tuted by lay leaders from the community with assistance and super-
vision from probation officers. The results have been encouraging.
Many possibilities exist here for constructive, inexpensive programs.
FOSTER FAMILY CARE FOR PROBATIONERS

AND PAROLEES
Foster family placement has not been developed on any syste-
matic basis for the youthful probationer or parolee. These methods
are applied to the juvenile delinquent and to mental patients, but
not to the offender. Often young men have been committed to the
probation camp or have even been sentenced to prison in large part
because of their living circumstances. After they are returned to
the community, it is usually to no better circumstances than before.
An been
alternative has a cheap hotel. But four bare walls and too
much time to waste are not good therapy for energetic young men
who have learned poor methods of occupying themselves.
In Michigan a recent grant from a foundation has made possible
a small experimental project in foster family care. This experiment
will tell us something of the value of such a program for offenders
(especially the youthful ones) and the ways in which these re-
sources can be handled effectively. Again the community will take
a direct share in the treatment of offenders — an important element
in the process of recovery.
THE COMMUNITY'S ROLE IN

CRIME PREVENTION
It is cheaper to prevent crime and delinquency than to treat them.

A major school of thought leans heavily in the direction of general
child welfare as the best over-all answer to the problem of pre-
vention. The close relationship of dependency and neglect to delin-
quency argues for this, as does the fact that many social agencies,
with actual or potential delin-
in providing services, are confronted
quents. Another school of thought points out that, as a large pro-
portion of resources are expended upon the well child, the serious
delinquent may be deprived of the necessary attention and services.
There seems to be a tendency for individual agencies to concen-
trate so heavily upon the area for which each is responsible as to
lose sight of the coordination of efforts. The individual can get lost
in this process and fall between agency services.
into the gap
No satisfactory answer has been found to this dilemma. But the
tensions imposed by it have kept each position aware of the other
and forced a merger of interests. Programs like the Chicago Area
Project and the community work of the Illinois Youth Commission,
which grew out of it, have brought the two positions closer together.
New movements, such as the detached worker and services to the
hard core of multi-problem families, tend to bridge the gap. Pro-
need more attention, and the means
tective services to children al-
ready developed in some areas must be extended.

Future efforts need to be directed at the coordination of services.
In this process probation and parole staff can take an important
part.
COMMUNITY SERVICES BY PROBATION

AND PAROLE IN MICHIGAN
In Michigan, the Corrections Department has been given the
responsibility to cooperate with federal, state,
and local agencies in
the prevention of crime. Crime prevention must have strong roots in
the local community, and parole and probation officers are a part
of those roots. Probation and parole staffs are therefore taking an
increasing part in the coordination of community services. In a
number of communities Corrections staff are catalysts in the solving
of local problems.
Along with the involvement of professional personnel should come
the active participation by members of the general community. Lay-
men are too often regarded as "hewers of wood and drawers of
water" in human welfare activities. Lay participation is often re-
stricted to board membership, fund raising, errand running, and in-
fluencing public opinion. There is little direct lay involvement in the
actual treatment process. Some notable exceptions exist. The work
of the Grey Ladies is one example, the Big Brother program is an-
other. I urge that greater attention be paid to the genuine involve-
ment in appropriate ways of lay people in the direct helping process.
Dr. Menninger has written brilliantly of the "therapy of friendship."
Something of the sort needs to be extended and applied in more
general terms to the community. Separation and isolation typify our

fragmented culture. The signs of desire for genuine community are
evident on all sides. The rediscovery of community may hold the
seeds of an answer to the violation of community, which is crime.
SOME CLOSING WORDS ON

INSTITUTIONS
In this chapter considerable stress has been laid on minimum-

security institutions, especially camps. This emphasis may lead to
the erroneous conclusion that camps are believed to be the answer
to institutional treatment. This is not the case. A wide range of
institutions is needed to provide a wide variety of treatment facili-
tiesand programs. The trend today is toward smaller units, per-
mitting greater variety and specialization, coupled with the oppor-
tunity for more personal knowledge and observation of inmates.
Sometimes these institutions are arranged in satellite constellations
to permit the economy of general services (professional staff as well
as physical facilities such as laundry, power plant, and hospital). In
planning such facilities, care is used to maintain flexibility — that is,
to avoid highly specialized institutions so rigid as to prevent changes

to meet future needs.
Another requisite is provision for the more difficult cases that
constitute aproblem for the general population of institutions. Too
often such cases are placed in isolation, with excessive restrictions,
and with little opportunity for program. California has established
adjustment centers within its larger youth institutions. These centers
are, in effect, complete institutions within larger institutions. A full
range of treatment and activity programs is provided, but security
measures are increased. New York State has converted one of its
institutions for older men into a center for more difficult younger
cases. Not only are the inmates sent to the center benefited by the
program provided there, but the general population is not restricted
or threatened by the presence of difficult cases.
In Michigan original emphasis was laid upon minimum-security
camps to bring the institutional picture into proportion, since most
of the existing institutions provided only maximum security. Two
years ago, however, a medium-security institution was partially
completed. When finished, the new unit will provide space and
program for six hundred young men.
PSYCHIATRIC AND PSYCHOLOGICAL

SERVICES
been said in this chapter about the contribution of

Little has
psychiatry and psychology to the correctional process. Clearly the
insights and techniques of the behavorial sciences play an important
and indispensable role. In screening and evaluating cases, for ex-
ample, the psychiatric team is of incalculable value. Provisions are
made for the psychotic and neurotic in clinics provided for that
purpose.
In the treatment of all offenders the psychological component is
well-nigh indispensable. Progress should be evaluated continuously.

If psychological services seem to have been placed in the back-
ground, only to emphasize the need of an integrated approach
it is
to correction which seeks to utilize all elements of the process and
involve all persons in contact with the inmate, including lay persons
and the inmates themselves. Outside the institution, the hope is to
bring the total community into awareness of the destructive ele-
ments in the socializing process so that these elements may be con-
verted toward positive aims, thus to restore to community those who
are separated from it, whether inside or outside the boundaries of
an institution.
CONCLUSION
1. The treatment of all offenders — juvenile, youthful, and adult —

should be a continuum in which the community, its social agen-
cies, and its police, judicial, and correctional agencies play an ap-
propriate and necessary role.
Developments in the treatment of youthful offenders borrow
2.
from and contribute to the treatment of juvenile and adult offenders.

3. The most means of treatment are to be found in the
effective
coordination of institutional services and forces into a community
approach that involves offenders in the process of their own
treatment.
4. A variety of institutions and services is required in order to
make treatment adaptable to individual needs.
5. Lay persons have an effective role in the direct treatment of
offenders and in the prevention of crime.
347
6. Imaginative approaches can be developed that enhance existing

resources and inspire new ones.
7. Crime is a violation of community and its prevention and

treatment lie development of and restoration to community. This
in
process is both simple and complex, naive and sophisticated.
References
Beck, B. A. Fivestates: A Study of the Youth Authority Program as

promulgated by the American Law Institute. Philadelphia: American
Law Institute, 1951.
Ellington, J. R. Protecting our children from criminal careers. Engle-

wood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1948.
Harrison, L. V., & Grant, P. M. Youth in the toils. New York: Mac-
millan, 1938.
Honts, M. From arrest to release. Springfield, 111.: Charles C Thomas,
1958.
Jones, M. The therapeutic community. New York: Basic Books, 1953.
Sykes, G. M. The society of captives. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
Tappan, P. Crime, justice, and correction. New York: McGraw Hill,
1960.
United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Social
Security Administration, Children's Bureau. Police services for
juveniles. Washington, D. C: U. S. Government Printing Office,
1954.
United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Social
Security Admnstration, Children's Bureau. Administration and staff
training in institutions for juvenile delinquents. Washington, D. C. f
U. Government Printing Office, 1959.
S.
Vinter, R., Janowitz, M. Effective institutions for juvenile delinquents:

A research statement. Soc. Ser. Rev. 1959, 33, 118 ff.
Waite, J. B. The Youth Authority Act. Law and contemp. Probs. 1942,
60, 600 ff.
Part III
Special Problems in
Criminal Psychology
HANS TOCH
Introductory Note
Drug addicts, alcoholics,and persons whose sex habits differ from

those of other people tend to create problems for themselves and
their associates. That is why such persons are discussed in treatises
on social adjustment. Why should "criminal psychology" concern
itself with these same people? And why, further, should they be
placed under a common heading?

The obvious answer is that, although addiction and deviation as
such are not our concerns as students of crime, actions taken by
addicts and deviates sometimes come to our attention. For instance,
although we are not interested in people's drinking habits, we must
become concerned with persons who provoke fights or steal cars
under the influence of alcohol. We may admit that someone's love
life is his private domain, but we become involved when he recruits
young people into unorthodox sexual practices. Similarly, if a drug

addict maintains his habit through shoplifting, his addiction becomes
of consequence to us.
Unfortunately, the matter is not quite that simple. Traditionally,
the line between an offense and an unconventional act, between
public disapproval and public retribution, between the enforcement
of order and the enforcement of conformity, is a very narrow line.
In Puritan England, in 1606, a law was passed against alcoholic in-
toxication, which started by describing the condition in the follow-
ing terms:
Whereas the loathsome and odious sin of Drunkenness is of late grown

intocommon Use within this Realm, being the Root and Foundation of
many Sins, as Bloodshed, Murder, Swearing, Fornication, Adultery and
such like, to the great Dishonour of God, and of our Nation, and the
Overthrow of many good Arts and manual Trades, the Disabling of
Divers Workmen, and the general Impoverishment of many good Sub-
jects, abusively wasting the good Creatures of God, we decree [Yale, . . .
1924, p. 302]
This language makes it clear that sixteenth-century legislators

not only saw a close link between alcoholism and conventional
351
352 • SPECIAL PROBLEMS IN CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY
criminality, but also took a dim view of alcoholic intoxication as

such. Three hundred years later, an organization comprising a quar-
ter of a million women collected a room full of signatures to a pe-
tition which beseeched "Honored rulers, representatives and broth-
ers" in governments around the world to
raise the standard of the law to that of Christian morals, to strip away
the safeguards and sanctions of the State from the drink traffic and the
opium trade, and to protect our homes by the total prohibition of these
curses of civilization throughout the territory over which your Govern-
ment extends. [Gordon, 1945, p. 71.]
A pamphlet published in 1912 by another group, mainly composed

of members of the clergy, described taverns as follows:
The saloon is responsible for most of the 60,000 girls who go astray
into immoral lives every year.
The saloon and the brothel are twin evils, and every man who votes
for the liquor traffic is indirectly voting to create conditions which feed
the social evil.
The saloon is responsible for more vice, degradation, sorrow, tears,
heartaches, and deaths than any other cause tolerated by Government.
[Odegard, 1928, pp. 43-44.]
Partly as a result of such feelings as these, national prohibition

was voted by Congress on December 17, 1917. The amendment be-
came operative January 16, 1920. Drinking became a crime the next
day, and remained so for thirteen years, creating the most crime-
ridden period in American history.
In 1914, Congress passed the Harrison Narcotic Act, which in its
application outlawed the purchase and possession of narcotics. As a
result, "all drug users not under medical supervision became crimi-
nals overnight, not only nominally by the Narcotic Act, but in many
instances actually. Instead of going to his neighborhood pharmacy
for his supply, the user now had to consort with the underworld to
get it" (Wilson, 1951, p. 328). According to one estimate an increase
of some 1,500 percent took place in the addiction to opiates between
1914 and 1918 alone. Most states have emulated the federal govern-
ment, and passed laws patterned after the Uniform Narcotic Drug
Act (Howe, 1953, p. 7).
Sex has traditionally been subjected to regulation in Western cul-
ture: "Only in marriage," Judge Ploscowe writes, "is sex expres-
sion socially and legally acceptable. The jailer and the social censor
cast their shadow across non-marital and extra-marital sexual be-
havior." Legislation of sex is in the tradition of ascetic Christianity,
INTRODUCTORY NOTE • 353
since "sex was evil to the early Christian, while the absence of sexual
and chastity were great goods. All forms of sexual
activity, virginity
relationsbetween unmarried persons were mortal sin. Even sexual
thoughts unaccompanied by external acts were sinful" (Ploscowe,
1951, p. 1).
Most persons are filled with revulsion and disgust by some habit
that they would like to be able to eradicate. One way in which they
can do so is by pressing the passage of laws forbidding the habit.
The next step is a legislatively fixed severe sentence that judges
are forced to impose. A Michigan statute which
case in point is a
prescribes a twenty-year minimum prison term for anyone convicted
of selling narcotics. The following scene in Detroit Recorders Court
illustrates the result:
The prisoner, Robert Doster, dropped to his knees before Judge John
P. O'Hara and begged for mercy.
tearfully
Doster, who had no criminal record, was convicted of selling a match-
box full of marijuana to a police informer. He is an unemployed auto-
mobile worker.
"In our state and federal constitutions there are provisions which pro-
hibit cruel and unusual punishments," Judge O'Hara said. "While I have
no sympathy for dope peddlers, I think that in this case the supreme
court should review the mandatory 20-year sentence." He advised Dos-
ter's attorney to appeal to the high court "on the inequity of a law which
gives a judge no discretion in sentencing." [The Spectator, 1958.]
The law can also discriminate against deviants by making excep-

tions in the care it usually exercises in protecting the civil rights of
suspects. Narcotics bureaus and vice squads indulge in permissive
practices of search and seizure; these organizations also make exten-
sive use of informers (sometimes referred to as "special employes"),
who resort to all manner of underhanded stratagems to trap persons.
It is also not uncommon for drunks, homosexuals, and other social
deviants to find themselves in jail without the customary legal ameni-
having been observed.
ties
Almost everyone involved in the legal and correctional process

may reflect public feelings against deviants. Juries, for instance, have
been known to take the personal habits of defendants into account
in determining guilt or assessing the severity of offenses. Parole
boards are traditionally sensitive to public opinion. What, for in-
stance, if a paroled homosexual were to be found soliciting a minor?
What if a paroled drug addict were spied vending opiates near a
school? Considerations such as these can enhance the tendency to
defer or to rescind parole.
How does the public exercise pressure?

have already illus- We
trated that a most convincing means is to exaggerate wildly the
social harm done by deviants. The unfavorable image of the alco-
holic painted by advocates of abstinence, for instance, helped lay
the groundwork for prohibition. The opponents of drug addiction
could similarly "demonstrate that the menace of the drug addict is
largely criminal in character" (Korn & McCorkle, 1960, p. 162).
The drug addict is "depicted as a 'dope fiend' — a slavering sex-crazed
sadist — rather than as a sick, disturbed, and maladjusted individual"
(Brown, 1953, p. 270).
The list of fallacies perpetuated about sex offenders covers page
after page in many reports on the problem. Among the most flagrant
misconceptions are that sex offenders are usually oversexed, that less
serious sex deviations tend to degenerate into serious ones, that "sex
fiends" are widely prevalent, that sex offenders are bad parole risks,
that sexual disorders are usually biologically caused or inherited, and
that (paradoxically) these deviations are easily curable by known
means (Hartwell, 1950; New Jersey, 1950). Unfortunately, myths
about sex deviates sometimes are reinforced by relatively authori-
Edgar Hoover, for instance, in an article entitled
tative persons. J.
"How Safe Is Your Daughter?" has written: "The most rapidly
increasing type of crime is that perpetrated by degenerate sex of-
fenders. It is taking its toll at the rate of a criminal assault every
forty-three minutes, day and night, in the United States" (cit. Plos-
1
cowe, 1951, Such a statement can easily provoke groundless
p. 216).
hysteria. The same type of reaction would be appropriate to a text
designed for police candidates (De River, 1958), consisting of lu-
ridly illustrated and unrepresentative case studies. The author groups
under the heading "sexual psychopaths" relatively harmless practices
such as masturbation and voyeurism, on the one hand, and extremely
serious but very infrequent sex crimes, such as sadistic pedophilia
(the erotically motivated torture and murder of children), on the
other. Karpman, in reviewing the literature on the sex offender, has
appropriately indicated that "some articles seem almost deliberately
designed to perpetuate misconceptions and hysteria" (Karpman,
1954, p. 671).
What is the ultimate consequence of public "misconception and
1 Judge Ploscowe points out that Hoover's estimate is based on rapes reported
to the FBI by local police. these incidents are acts of intercourse with
Most of
underage girls who have given their consent without being legally entided to
do so.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE • 355
hysteria", however motivated and perpetuated? Essentially, individ-

uals whose acute personal problems have caused them to retreat
into relatively self-destructive forms of social deviation are further
alienated from society. At best, segregation in prison simply forces
such people into temporary abstinence which leaves their problems
intact. Unless spontaneous recovery occurs (in spite of prison),
the released drug addict relapses into addiction, while his alcoholic
cell mate heads for the nearest bar.
At worst, punishment may create or reinforce the types of reac-
tion on which deviations feed, such as feelings of hopelessness, self-
depreciation, and despair. Weak persons may grow weaker, bitter
persons may find their cynicism multiplied. The human wreck who
peeps into windows because he feels inadequate to more aggressive
ways of sexual satisfaction may face prolonged incarceration under
a law designed to cope with serious sex crimes. As a result of such
(to him) incomprehensible deprivation of liberty, the voyeur's feel-
ings of unhappiness and inadequacy may be increased (Hartwell,
1950, p. 23).
This type of situation implies the acute need for an understanding
of deviant behavior, and of society's reaction to it through the
criminal process. What do we know about the causation of devia-
tions? What social problems do various form of deviation create?
How does society "cope" with these problems? The three chapters
which follow are designed to deal with these questions in relation
to drug addiction, alcoholism, and sex deviations. In each case, the
discussion will take us beyond the current situation, which is in-
variably tragic and muddled. In each case, we shall review thinking
and research which hold glimmers of hope for treatment and pre-
vention and for an increase in public understanding. This in turn
may remove deviants from the pale of criminology and correction,
where they do not really belong.
References
Brown, W. Monkey on my back. New York: Greenberg, 1953.
De River, J. P. Crime and the sexual psychopath. Springfield, 111.: Charles
C Thomas, 1958.
Gordon, Elizabeth P. Women torch hearers. Evanston, 111.: Women's
Christian Temperance Union, 1924.
Hartwell, S. W. A
citizen's handbook of sexual abnormalities and the
mental hygiene approach to their prevention. Committee on Education
of the Governor's Study Commission on the Deviated Sex Offender.
Lansing, Mich.: 1950.
Howe, K. S. Narcotics and youth. West Orange, N. J.: Brooks Founda-

tion, 1953.
Karpman, B. The sexual offender and his offenses. New York: Julian
Press, 1954.
Korn, R. R., & McCorkle, L. W. Criminology and penology. New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960.
New Jersey Commission on the Habitual Sex Offender. The habitual sex
offender: Report and recommendations as formulated by Paul W. Tap-
pan. Trenton: 1950.
Odegard, P. H. Pressure politics: The story of the Anti-Saloon League.
New York: Columbia Univer. Press, 1928.
Ploscowe, M. Sex and the law. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall,
1951.
The Spectator. (State Prison of Southern Michigan, Jackson), September
5, 1958.
Wilson, D. P. My six convicts. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1951.
Yale University, Laboratory of Applied Physiology, School of Alcohol
Studies. Alcohol, science and society. New Haven, Conn.: Quarterly
Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 1945.
CHARLES WINICK
The Drug Addict and

His Treatment
Drug addiction is one of the most complex social problems of our

time. Drug addicts represent a substantial proportion of the case
load of the courts in a number of large American cities, especially
New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Detroit, as well
as in states like Texas and California. Drug addiction is practically
nonexistent in the Middle West, the South, and the Northwest.
Wyoming is the only state reporting no addicts.
Addicts who come to the attention of the authorities are generally
accused of possessing or selling marijuana or heroin. Although there
are a few jurisdictions in which it is a misdemeanor to be a drug
addict, there are no accepted legally binding methods of demon-
strating that a person actually is an addict. Therefore the addict
usually comes to the attention of the authorities because he illegally
has a drug in his possession. The line between selling and using drugs
may be a very thin one because of the considerable extent to which
users will become sellers in order to earn some extra money. The
nonuser seller who is arrested is likely not to be the rich and crafty
smuggler of popular legend, but merely a messenger (a "gopher,"
who goes for the drugs and gives them to the customers).
How many addicts there are ison which there are no
a subject
completely reliable data. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics stated in
February, 1960, that there were 45,391 known drug addicts in the
United States. The bureau's figures are, however, based on drug
users who come to the attention of the law-enforcement authorities;
there may be others who avoid detection and thus enumeration be-
cause their life income is such as to permit them to pur-
situation or
chase drugs without going "on the street" to "make a buy."
Even if there were only 45,391 addicts, the absolute number it-
self is somewhat misleading in terms of the cost to the community of
its addicts. The typical heroin addict in New York (which has 45.7
357
percent of the known addicts) takes two or three "shots" a day,

costing an average of perhaps $10 to $30 daily, or approximately
$70 to $210 weekly. Most male addicts obtain the money to finance
their drug use by stealing. Since the average cash value of stolen
merchandise from a "fence" in the New York area averages 12 per-
cent of its original cost, the typical addict may steal from $580 to
$1,750 worth of merchandise week, or $31,000 to $91,000 a
in a
year. In order to maintain his addiction he becomes a kind oi con-
tinuing one-man crime wave. Since most authorities feel that the
figure of 45,391 addicts represents a minimum, it is obvious that such
a large number of persons who are daily concerned with theft (or
prostitution, if they are women) in the community cannot be treated
lightly in any consideration of antisocial behavior. The figure of
$350 million as the amount spent annually on illegal drugs has been
suggested by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Other estimates have
gone as high as $3 billion.
It can be estimated that perhaps slightly over half of the illegal
narcotics smuggled into the United States is brought in by organized

large rings; the rest is brought in by individual entrepreneurs, such as
merchant seamen. The smuggling of heroin (heroin hydrochloride,
the soluble version of heroin base) is an attractive business and be-
cause of its enormous profit justifies the great risk to those who
engage in it. A kilogram (35 ounces) of pure heroin can be bought
in France or Italy for between $2,000 and $3,000. In the United
States it is immediately worth $8,000 to $9,000. If it is sold by the
ounce it brings approximately $400 an ounce, or $14,000. If it is sold
to the individual addict, it will be diluted ("cut") from 30 to 100
times, and can thus bring from $420,000 to over $1 million.
The individual addict usually buys a glassine packet or a small
gelatin capsule (no. 5 size), which holds about a grain of the heavily
adulterated heroin, from a "pusher" or "connection" (peddler).
The peddler will usually ask for the money first ("up front") and
will then go to his cache ("stash") and get the drugs. In order to
avoid the risk of handling the narcotics himself he may conceal the
drugs en route and tell the purchaser where to pick them up. All
the circumstances surrounding the sale of illegal drugs are designed
to make the task of law-enforcement officers difficult, so difficult
that it is remarkable that they are as successful as they are in making
arrests, especially since they rapidly become known to the drug sales-
men. The narcotics police officers' increasing skill at their jobs as
they get more and more experience is canceled, to a great degree,
by the extent to which they become known to "pushers."
THE DRUG ADDICT AND HIS TREATMENT • 359
DEFINITIONS OF ADDICTION
Definitions of addiction are complicated by the different chemical

actions of drugs which may be used by people make
in order to
themselves feel better. The opiates are the drugs most commonly
used by addicts. Opiates are depressants, and all derive from opium.
The opium poppy is not grown in the United States, and its legal
growth and distribution is controlled by international agreement.
Some 450 tons are produced legally for medicinal purposes, with
another 2,350 tons estimated as going into the illegal trade.
Opium itself is generally smoked with Although it was

a pipe.
popular in the 1920's and 1930's in this country, opium smoking is
now relatively rare, both because the price of opium is extremely
high and because it is relatively difficult to prepare for use without
an expert "chef." Morphine, an opium derivative, has great medicinal
value because of its pain-relieving qualities. Codeine and dilaudid are
also opium derivatives which are often prescribed by physicians for
their analgesic qualities. Other widely used synthetic opiates include
demerol and methadone. Heroin is about twice as potent as morphine
and is the drug of choice of most of today's opiate addicts. It is
completely illegal in this country, so that anyone possessing heroin
is violating at least one law.
During the 1930's, heroin was usually administered by the user
with a hypodermic needle directly into the flesh of the arm or leg.
An ounce of "pure" heroin (about 87 percent pure) used to cost
$25 to $40, and the typical addict would mix one part heroin to two
parts of sugar of milk. With World War II, "pure" heroin became
scarcer and the average purity of heroin dwindled to 1 percent.
(One ounce of this diluted drug costs about $15.) The addicts then
began to inject the heavily diluted heroin directly into a vein ("main
line") in order to maximize its effect. This procedure, which is
comparatively complicated because of difficulties in "hitting" a
vein, has remained in use up to the present day, as the heroin which
is sold becomes continually more diluted.
Another group of sedative drugs, the barbiturates, are widely re-

ferred to as "sleeping pills" and are sold on a prescription basis only.
Until fairly recently, it was thought that barbiturates were not ad-
dicting. Research over the last ten years, however, has demonstrated
that it is possible to become addicted to barbiturates and that this
may be a relatively serious matter.
True addiction can only occur with sedative drugs and is pri-
360 » SPECIAL PROBLEMS IN CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY
marily associated with the continued use of barbiturates and opiates.

Addiction has traditionally been defined as being characterized by-
three separate but related phenomena: tolerance, habituation, and
physical dependence. Tolerance is the diminishing effect of the same
dose of a drug, or the need to increase the dose in order to get an
effect similar to the initial one. Habituation is the emotional or psy-
chological need met by the drug. Dependence is the body's
which is
need to get the drug, without which it characteristically responds

with the abstinence syndrome, which was first measured by Him-
melsbach and Small (1937).
The abstinence syndrome is a characteristic series of involuntary
responses found in regular drug users deprived of drugs. In a mild
form it includes watering of the eyes, perspiration, running nose,
sneezing, and yawning. A moderate response includes pupil dilation,
tremors, gooseflesh, and loss of appetite. In its more marked form
such symptoms as fever, deep breathing, insomnia, blood-pressure
increase, and restlessness are found. Severe abstinence symptoms in-
clude vomiting, diarrhea, and weight loss. A typical heroin addict
will find the effect of his last "shot" beginning to wear off in about
six hours; typical morphine addicts, in perhaps twelve hours; and
a typical opium addict, after twenty-four hours. The abstinence
syndrome manifests itself when the effect of the "shot" wears off.
The typical addict takes from one to four shots a day.

There are drugs that are neither physiologically addicting nor
depressants and that are used by some persons who are considered
addicts by some legal though not by most medical classifications.
These drugs may induce habituation even though they do not induce
the tolerance and dependence caused by opiates. The most widely
used of these stimulant drugs are marijuana, cocaine, Benzedrine,
and peyote. Marijuana, which is both a stimulant and a depressant,
is obtained from the flowers of the cannabis or hemp plant, which
can be and has been grown almost everywhere quite successfully,
even in city back yards. Marijuana is almost never prescribed by
physicians because its action is so erratic. It creates a kind of light-
ness and humorous feeling and a distortion of the sense of passage
of time, along with various unusual bodily sensations. Marijuana
usually releases inhibitions and has been said to improve sexual po-
tency. If he takes a large enough dose, the marijuana user becomes
sluggish and may go to sleep. In one form or another, marijuana is
used by perhaps a quarter of a billion people throughout the world
as an intoxicant.
Cocaine, which is derived from the coca

and the anesthetic
leaf,
qualities of which were partially discovered by Freud, has wide

medical use as a local anesthetic. Addiction-prone persons are likely
to use it as a stimulant. It is not too popular among addicts because
it isvery expensive on the illegal market, its effects are short-lived,
and it may lead to an extreme anxiety reaction when the effects wear
off. Addicts sometimes mix heroin and cocaine into a "speedball,"
which supplies the immediate "kick" of cocaine with the extended

afterglow of heroin. This mixture is often also called a "love affair,"
with one of the drugs called a "boy" and the other called a "girl."
Benzedrine, the trade-marked designation for a drug pharmaco-
logically more likely to be called amphetamine, is a synthetic drug
that is a stimulant. It also reduces appetite. Peyote derives from a
spineless cactus widely grown in Mexico and the Southwest and
which has buttonlike growths. Peyote in its pure form (mescaline)
has been used as a psychotomimetic drug to induce a temporary
psychosis for experimental purposes. In addition to hallucinations,
peyote can also lead to extreme anxiety and great gastric distress.
Some very well-known writers for popular magazines, such as Al-
dous Huxley and Henri Michaux, have reported relatively agreeable
experiences with peyote, but medical opinion would surely regard
their reports with great caution. Physicians would be especially con-
cerned about unsupervised experimentation with a drug such as
peyote, which can induce a psychotic episode.
The last ten years have seen the proliferation of a variety of
"ataraxic" or "tranquilizer" drugs, ranging from relatively mild
drugs such as meprobomates (Miltown is the best-known example),
to stronger drugs such as thorazine and reserpine. The permanent
medical value of these drugs for nonpsychotics still remains to be
confirmed, although they seem to have been very effective in fa-
cilitating the release of psychotic patients from state mental hospitals.
The by drug addicts, unless
tranquilizers are not generally favored
their drug of choice is not available. Tranquilizers do not have the
"kick" of a drug like heroin.
A drug user can only be said to be an addict in terms of the three
criteria of tolerance, physical dependence, and habituation, if he
uses an opiate or barbiturate. Only opiates and barbiturates lead to
this classical three-dimensional response of addiction. Since over four
fifths of the drug users known to the authorities in this country use
heroin, they can clearly be identified as addicts. The persons who
use the drugs which are nonphysically addicting, such as marijuana,
36? • SPECIAL PROBLEMS IN CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY
are often called addiction-prone. The World Health Organization

in 1950 developed a definition of addiction which attempted to
include drugs traditionally used by addicts as well as by addiction-
prone persons. The definition presents drug addiction as a state of
periodic or chronic intoxicationwhich is detrimental to the indi-
vidual and to society and which is produced by the repeated con-
sumption of a natural or synthetic drug.
Some very prominent Americans have been "medical addicts," or
persons whose illnesses were so painful that their physicians regularly
gave them addicting drugs. President Ulysses S. Grant had cancer
of the throat and became addicted during the final stages of his
painful illness. He even wrote a paper praising the pain-killing prop-
erties of cocaine. But there are relatively few medical addicts com-
pared with the large number of persons who have become addicted
for other reasons.
The federal laws make it illegal for a physician to provide drugs
to an addict merely to maintain his addiction. If a patient is physic-
ally and requires drugs, a physician will give him drugs in accord-
ill
ance with the state and federal laws and with the regulations of the
Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Physicians' major problems with drugs
arise with persons who are not physically ill but who take drugs in
order to cope with their problems.
HOW ADDICTS DEVELOP
How do addicts develop, if not for medical reasons? There are a

number of different explanations, which is perhaps to be expected
of such a complex syndrome as addiction. One explanation is socio-
logical and emphasizes the social conditions which give rise to
addiction. War and economic depression seem to be related to the
onset of upsurges in the cycle of addiction. This cycle is almost a
generation long. Thus, addiction reached a peak in the early 1920's,
declined until the late 1930's, and assumed new importance by the
early 1950's. In addition to the general social climate, there is also
reason to believe that addiction is heavily concentrated in specific
areas of a few large cities. Drug use is taught by peers of the new
drug user, but, contrary to popular belief, the experienced user is
often reluctant to "turn on" a nonuser. The first seldom

"shot" is
pleasurable; most people who take one or two "shots" do not go on

to become addicts.
Studies of teen-agers in Chicago suggest that there is a special

addict subculture which has its own values and which is well de-
veloped (Finestone, 1957). The "cat," or juvenile drug user in Chi-
cago, tries to develop a "hustle," or any nonviolent method of mak-
ing money which does not require work. He cultivates his "kick" or
any activity taboo by the larger society which intensifies living,
such as drug use.
Similar studies in New York have reported drug users tend to
that
cluster in cliques on the periphery of gangs (Chein and Rosenfeld,
1957). Both groups of researchers emphasized that the addict sub-
culture is likely to be in those areas of the city which are the most
deprived economically and which seem to have considerable family
disorganization and high mobility, with populations which have
recently arrived in the area and which lack effective adult controls.
Being born in a particular delinquent area in certain big cities would
therefore seem to make a young minority group member such as a
Negro or a Puerto Rican, especially likely to be exposed to drug
addiction. Although they have not been studied as extensively as
teen-age addicts in Chicago and New York, there are more nar-
cotics violators in Los Angeles under twenty-one than in the next
ten high narcotic violation cities combined, including Chicago and
New York City.
The sociological theories of drug addiction stress the social rather
than the individual personality components of the addict. They as-
sume that people learn to be addicts, rather than being predisposed
to addiction by early childhood experiences, Lindesmith has sug-
gested that a drug user becomes an addict only after he has under-
gone withdrawal and realizes that the drug removes withdrawal
distress (1947). Another sociologist who studied marijuana intoxi-
cation found that young people remain marijuana users because of
their going through a specific series of procedures which they come
to associate with the pleasure of smoking marijuana (Becker, 1953).
These sociological explanations of addiction and habituation stress
who assume that addicts have a special personality
that psychiatrists,
make-up, usually study addicts only after they have become ad-
dicted, and they cannot really know, but only speculate on, what
the premorbid personality of the addict may have been like.
The more psychologically oriented explanations of addiction rec-
ognize that a person's milieu has a good deal to do with his exposure
to narcotic drugs, but they note that there are some people in every
epidemic of a contagious disease who do not become contaminated,
while there are some who do get the disease. The psychologist would
attribute the relative immunity of some young people to drug ad-
diction, even though they may be exposed to drugs in their neigh-
borhood, to the relative strength of their personalities, or what the
epidemiologist would call host-resistance. The young people who
do become addicts, in this view, have personalities which are so
disturbed that drug addiction is a symptom of their general mal-
adjustment, and is one way in which they are expressing what is
likely to be a severe character disorder.
In psychoanalytic terms, the typical drug addict would be de-
scribed as "oral-dependent" and "masochistic." This means that the
addict relates to the world primarily through his mouth, and is un-
able to assume adult responsibilities. An oral person wants others
to take care of him. Psychoanalysts have noted that the typical
addict in large cities seems to take narcotics for the first time at
around age sixteen, the age at which adolescents are traditionally
confronted by the challenge of sex, and begin to think about their
choice of a vocation. For some adolescents, the use of a narcotic
drug represents one way of evading the responsibility of relation-
ships with the opposite sex as well as the responsibility of selecting
a career.
Most addicts are so busy seeking drugs and stealing, or engaging
in prostitution if they are women, in order to support their "habit"
that they have neither time nor opportunity to learn a vocation.
The drug replaces the vocational decision, just as it replaces other
decisions. The psychoanalytic view suggests that the typical young
addict comes from a family in which there is a very weak and inef-
fectual father and a relatively strong mother. The mother is likely
and to be rejecting in an over-
to be seductive as well as destructive,
protective way. Such a mother may actually have an unconscious
need to keep her son on drugs, while protesting that she is eager
for him to get off drugs. With a weak and ineffectual father and a
strong mother, the addict would have difficulties in identifying
with an appropriate adult figure of masculinity.
This difficulty in identification is used to explain why addicts gen-
erally have such disturbed sexual functioning. The young male
adolescent does not have any model of a successfully functioning
adult male with whom he can identify, whereas his model of a female
is that of a special kind of aggressive temptress. Perhaps as a partial
reflection of the difficulties in sexual identification related to this
kind of family constellation, the young addict usually uses an opiate
instead of sex, and his descriptions of the effects of heroin often
include statements about being a kind of orgastic sensation, espe-

its
cially in the stomach. It seems to be easier for the addict to buy drugs
and thus have a sex substitute than to develop any relationship with
the opposite sex. Rorschach studies confirm the addict's emotional
constriction and sex difficulties.
Some psychiatrists experienced in working with addicts are not
psychoanalytically oriented and do not subscribe to the theory that
most addicts are "oral-dependent" types (Wikler, 1953). They sug-
gest that addiction is a psychiatric disability, but one which can be
adopted by a number of different kinds of disturbed persons. These
theorists observe that the ingestion of opiates leads to a state in
which such needs as pain, hunger, and sexual urges are substantially
diminished, and that different kinds of people are able to respond
to this method of coping with their primary urges. These students
note that once a person becomes addicted, he can no longer be de-
scribed in terms of his pre-addiction personality, because the use of
the drug creates a new and unique response pattern.
There is disagreement between the way Chicago and New York
investigators describe the juvenile addicts they have studied. This
disagreement has served to highlight the continuing controversy in
the field. The New York investigators subscribe to the psychiatric
approach, and believe that all the addicts they have seen are "se-
verely disturbed," with a weak ego, an inadequate superego, and
poor masculine identification. The Chicago investigators question
whether the addicts they have studied are "sick," and instead suggest
that their drug use is a response to the realization that they will be
denied participation in important activities because they belong to
minorities. They therefore seek distracting activity, like the "kick"
of drugs, as a means of escape.
Thus, sociologists describe addiction in terms of environment and
exposure to a special subcultural way of life; psychoanalysts see
addiction as flowing from oral dependence and specific kinds of
parents; and some investigators see the addict as a person who has
found drug use to be one method of coping with his needs. All three
of these theories enjoy a certain amount of acceptance.
ALCOHOLICS AND DRUG ADDICTS
Alcoholics are also often described by psychoanalysts as being

"orally fixated." Psychoanalysts assume that different kinds of "oral"
persons are likely to become users of alcohol and opiates. They as-
sume that those persons who become alcoholics experienced prob-

lems at the "oral biting" stage of their development and those who
become drug users experienced problems at the "oral sucking" stage.
The between the two is seen in a comparison of the tradi-
difference
tionally boisterous and aggressive behavior of the alcoholic with the
withdrawn and sleepy tendencies of the opiate addict. As Dr. Law-
rence Kolb has said, the alcoholic will beat his wife, but the addict
will be beaten by her. The drug addict does not have the capacity
for the kind of violent crime with which he is often credited in
tabloid newspapers. He steals, but his crimes are more likely to be
crimes against property than crimes against the person. Thus he is
more likely to be involved in a crime such as pickpocketing or shop-
lifting than in armed robbery. The drug addict is so afraid of his
own aggression that he is (There have,
likely to take drugs to quell it.
however, been cases of gangsters going out to engage in a robbery

who would take a "shot" of heroin in order to bolster themselves
beforehand.) Many opiate users actually have difficulty in knowing
if they are awake or asleep when they have taken drugs, and can
hardly engage in much violent activity.
Students of alcohol addiction have frequently observed that there

are few Jewish alcoholics. This has been explained on the basis of
various cultural and personality factors among Jews. It is difficult
to get accurate data on the number of Jewish drug addicts because
the Federal Bureau of Narcotics does not maintain records of the
religion of addicts. Records of the United States Public Health
Service Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, from 1953 to 1958 show that
approximately 3 percent of the patients were Jews, which is not a
disproportionate number. There is reason to believe, however, that
there is a disproportionately high percentage of Jewish addicts, but
that they are underrepresented at institutions and official hospitals.
—
One possible reason for this is that the weak father strong, overpro-
tective mother pattern often found in addicts' parents is not uncommon
in second-generation Jewish immigrants in America.
Another reason may be the Jew's stereotypical cultural tradition of
unaggressive behavior and verbal mastery over situations, which might
make the soporific qualities of opiates, and their users' special language,
appealing. Another reason might be that drug addition is such a visible
symbol of deviant behavior that the Jewish drug user is expressing
the most extreme symbol of revolt against his or her parents. In much
the same way, studies of Jewish unmarried mothers in YorkNew
have shown that such mothers often have Negro fathers for their
children. Both the unmarried mothers and the drug addicts generally
come from middle-class homes which are not in high-delinquency areas,
so that the children's pathological behavior is clearly an expression
of personality rather than the result of sociological factors.
Although drug users often regard alcoholics with contempt, there

are some drug users who shift from drugs to alcohol and back again,
depending on the availability of drugs. Alcohol is disliked by addicts
not only because of its association with aggression, but because an
alcohol user is likely to pass out after drinking too much. A drug
user almost never passes out after taking an opiate, and can always
maintain some kind of contact with reality.
The same kind of mutual group reinforcement which has proved
to be successful in the treatment programs of Alcoholics Anonymous
has also had limited success in the several chapters of Narcotics
Anonymous which have been established in a number of large
American cities. There is some difficulty in organizing such chapters
because some addicts, rightly or wrongly, believe, because of the
illegality of drug use, that they will be arrested if they appear in a
semipublic place to discuss their addiction. By contrast, it is not
illegal for a person to admit that heis an alcoholic.
There isno doubt that the three to four million Americans who
are alcoholics constitute a more serious public health problem than
do the smaller number of addicts. Alcoholics do not, however, en-
gage in crime in order to maintain their "habit," and there are
many industrial and medical groups engaged in study and research
on alcoholism. Drug addiction, by contrast, gets no research support
from any voluntary or industrial groups, and practically no research
on addiction is supported even by government agencies. (For fur-
ther discussion of alcoholism and its treatment, see Chapter 16.)
CRIME AND THE LIFE CYCLE
There have been many inconclusive discussions, beginning at the

League of Nations in 1930, on whether the typical addict had en-
gaged in criminal activity before he came to the attention of the
law-enforcement authorities for a narcotics violation. The older
addicts studied twenty years ago at the United States Public Health
Service Hospital at Lexington, Kentucky, usually had no criminal
record prior to their going to Lexington. The typical juvenile ad-
dict who came during the 1950's to Riverside Hospital in New York
(the only hospital in the world for juvenile addicts) usually had a
criminal record before admission to the hospital, suggesting that the
kind of person becoming an addict had changed materially between
the 1930's and the 1950's. To refer to the criminal record of addicts,
however, may
be somewhat misleading, because some of the vio-
lations for which they were arrested may have been thefts directly
related to their need for funds with which to buy drugs. If they
were not detected by police as addicts, there would be no way in
which their stealing to keep up with their expenses for drugs would
be anything other than ordinary thefts.
listed as
The juvenile addicts, both in Chicago and in Riverside Hospital
in New York, seem to be members of a delinquent subculture which
is geared to crime and antisocial behavior. The addict subculture in
Chicago seems to be more established and stable than that in New

York. The use of drugs is one of several ways in which these delin-
quents express pathological tendencies. Experience with these
younger addicts suggests that pathology is imbedded so deeply
their
in their personalities that it is difficult to reach them in any kind of
therapeutic situation. Older addicts often seem to be easier to reach
in a therapeutic relationship. Contrary to popular impression, both
younger and older addicts seem to have average intelligence, in the
1930's as well as at the present time.
The bulk who
began to use drugs in the most recent
of the addicts
epidemic since 1950 are young Negroes and Puerto Ricans. Sixty-one
percent of current addicts are Negroes, and Puerto Ricans account
for 5 percent of known addicts. Some may have begun drug use in
order to be like the members of a gang or a social group to which
they aspired, while others may have begun to use drugs in order to
accentuate their individuality and to differentiate themselves from
a gang or a social group. There are differences between the function
served by drug use for a sensitive and shy young man and the func-
tion served by the same drug used by a roistering gang member.
Also, whatever the functions served by drugs at the onset of
addiction, these functions may begin to fall off by the time the
user reaches his late thirties or early forties. There is reason to believe
that there is a kind of "maturing out" of addiction on the part of
many addicts. By the time a drug user reaches early middle age, the
problems of sexual expression, creation of a family, and vocational
choice are likely to be much less pressing. It is possible that the de-
cline in drug use after middle age reflects the decline in the user's
tensions occasioned by the gradual decline, once middle age is
reached, in the possibility of meeting such serious demands of reality
as marriage and a career. As in so many matters related to addiction,
the lack of adequate data makes it necessary to speculate.
WHY TREATMENT?
That many drug users stop using drugs after twenty or twenty-
five years of doing so does not, of course, that we should
mean
assume that there is little to be done while they use drugs. Since the
drug user in our culture is usually a nonfunctioning and predatory
person who has withdrawn from reality, he can hardly be said to
be an admirably functioning and successful human being. Extensive
medical research suggests that the regular use of opiates, when ad-
ministered under medical auspices and in a socially approved situ-
ation, seems to have no deleterious effects on the body. The one
study which came to a different conclusion found that regular opium
users, who got their drugs legitimately on Formosa, died at a much
earlier age than a group of matched nonusers (Tsungming, 1951),
with the opium users dying at the rate of 65.5 per 1,000, while the
rate for non-opium users was 26.1.
Wikler's research suggests that opiates satisfy primary needs, like
sex, hunger, and fear of pain, and that the drug itself ultimately
becomes a primary need. Modern mental hygienists tend to believe
that anything like a drug which diminishes participation in central
human concerns is not desirable as the central focus of an individual's
life. Some recent research suggests that the either-or point of view
on the effect of drugs is oversimplified, and that some people who

take drugs regularly are enabled to function with the drugs, while
others become "dopey" and inactive from drug use. The latter group
has few defenders, but some physicians have said that it is hypo-
critical to give tranquilizers to patients to enable them to feel better
and to refuse to give opiates to those people who can function
with drugs. These physicians note that both the tranquilizer user
and the heroin user take a chemical in order to feel better, but the
first group gets full medical cooperation while the second group
goes to jail.
TREATMENT PROGRAMS
Treatment programs in hospitals for narcotic addicts have had
relatively discouraging results. Some of this may be a reflection of
the understating of the few hospitals devoted to narcotic addicts.
There are 1,500 beds for addicts at the federal hospitals at Lexington,
Kentucky, and Fort Worth, Texas, and both are understaffed. Some
of the failure may reflect the lack of interest in addict patients on
the part of the physician in private practice, who may also fear that
he is violating the law by treating an addict. Addicts are not very
likely to be able to pay for treatment after paying for drugs. An-
other element in the comparative failure of treatment may be the
,
lack of a national citizens or parents' organization to press for re-
search and professional training of specialists. In spite of the enor-
mous cost to the community of addiction, there is practically no
research program of any consequence, except for a laboratory for
pharmacological research at the United States Public Health Service
Hospital in Lexington. Physicians' inability to treat addicts in private
practice means that the normal flow of data from office experience
is not available as a source of new and fresh treatment experi-
mentation.
Perhaps the single most compelling reason for the lack of any
simple and permanently effective treatment for narcotic addiction
is that it is a chronic disease, like tuberculosis or schizophrenia. Like
any chronic disease, it is very and quick
resistant to treatment,
recovery is unlikely. Withdrawal treatment, through which the
addict is gradually withdrawn from opiates, can be routinely ad-
ministered in hospitals, but most hospitals will not admit addicts.
By the end of one or two weeks after withdrawal, the former
drug user's body has adjusted to no longer taking opiates. A few
months of further bodily readjustment are necessary before the
body has completely re-established its pre-opiate equilibrium. Many
addicts have been withdrawn over a period of a few days, without
the methadone which is usually used in hospital treatment. Where
it is necessary to withdraw addicts in a nonhospital setting, tran-
quilizers are generally used. Addicts are often unhappy if they do

not get methadone withdrawal. It is symptomatic of the addict's
greater ability to absorb drugs that he usually can take about three
times the dosage of tranquilizers which a normal person would find
tolerable. After coming off drugs, addicts usually begin eating more
and seem to begin getting colds and other "normal" ailments once
more, for opiates often mask colds and other more serious ailments.
Addicts usually suffer from insomnia for as long as six months
after withdrawal.
The withdrawal treatment from opiate addiction is thus a rela-
tively simple medical procedure. The reason that the treatment of
addiction is difficult is that the great majority of addicts generally
return to drug use and cannot stay away from drugs — they are
"hooked." Estimates of the proportion of opiate addicts who have
been in hospital treatment programs and who return to the use of
opiates after an extended stay in a hospital range from 80 to 90
percent. The reason for the addict's return to drugs would be inter-
preted differently by sociologists, psychologists, and psychoanalysts.
The psychological viewpoint would be that his personality is such
that it prefers to cope with problems by taking drugs rather than

face them directly. Once having which opiates
tested the extent to
provide surcease from daily problems, the addict tends to go back
to drugs as soon as a difficult situation presents itself. Sociologists
would explain this in terms of role behavior, and psychoanalysts
in terms of oral passivity.
The addict's return to drugs is reminiscent of Freud's analogy to
an army advancing into enemy territory. As it advances, small de-
tachments of men and ammunition are left at strategic points on the
terrain along the army's path. When the army faces severe oppo-
from the enemy, it is
sition likely to retreat to the points at which
ammunition has been left. Similarly, the addict has learned that
opiates provide a permanently available method of coping with life
problems. When he is confronted by a difficult situation, he can

always solve it by reverting to the use of drugs, just as the army
faces an enemy advance by retreating to previously prepared po-
sition of strength.
Most addicts who do revert to the use of drugs seem to have
longer and longer periods of abstinence between their return to
drug There are addicts who do not revert to drug use, for
use.
reasons which are not known, because of the lack of adequate re-
search. Only 40 percent of the patients at the hospital at Lexington
come back more than once, although some have come back for as
many as twenty times. Some 14 percent of the patients at Lexington
account for 42 percent of the total admissions. Some patients go to
Lexington to withdraw so that they can re-establish their addiction
at a lower dosage.
Whatever their other disagreements, there is complete unanimity
among all students of addiction that there is not one community in
the United States which has an adequate program of follow-up
services for former drug users who have been through any kind of
treatment or hospital activity, or even who have been in jail. The
former user returns to his old haunts and the old specter of addiction
reappears, since he has no group or agency working with him to
help him withstand the easy road to solving his problems — what
addicts call God's Own
Medicine (G.O.M.). The former drug
user's attempts to learn a trade and to rehabilitate himself in other
ways are not likely to be sympathetically met by the community.
The general disinterest in and unfavorable prognosis for treatment
of addiction can be seen in the refusal of most health insurance plans
to accept addict patients, although they generally provide medical
care for chronic alcoholism. The reason usually given for refusal
to treat addiction is that relapse to the use of drugs is part of the
disease. It is difficult for some health administrators to understand
that relapse may not be discouraging in terms of treatment. A pa-
tient who reports his relapse to a physician may already be beginning
to cope with it. With health rehabilitation difficult if not impossible,
and medical resources closed to them, it may be expected that many
addicts will drift back into their old habit.
CHANGE IN THE KIND OF PERSON

WHO BECOMES ADDICTED
Before the Harrison Act of 1914, opium and opium derivatives

were used freely by approximately 3,000,000 people, without pre-
scription. This act and its subsequent modifications brought opium
derivatives under federal jurisdiction. Prior to 1914, there were
approximately three female opium users to every one male user.
Curiously enough, there are now approximately three male to every
one female user. It is possible that there are actually more female
users than the one third reported, because police generally are less
active in arresting prostitutes than they are in arresting thieves, and
data on the incidence of addiction in women largely derive from
arrests of prostitutes. Data on men addicts derive to a great extent
from arrests of thieves.
Even if the number of women is somewhat understated, there is
no doubt that there are now many more men than women addicts.
Prior to 1914, women took opium almost as casually as they take
cough syrup today. Most of these women stopped taking opium
preparations within a reasonably short period of time, demonstrating
that it is some people to stop taking drugs where there
possible for
is no profound need of the individual being met by the drug.
After (but not necessarily because) the use of opium and its de-
rivatives became illegal, it became a favorite of lower-class whites
THE DRUG ADDICT AND HIS TREATMENT •
373
in the South and in a few big cities. The typical addict of the 1930's
was an itinerant white worker, perhaps thirty-three years old, with
a grade school education. The typical addict of today is fifteen
years younger and is a Negro living in a big city. Opium was smoked
by some persons in the entertainment world and by some relatively
wealthy people in the 1920's and 1930's, but its use has given way
to the more widely used heroin. Another change has been the in-
crease in the number of current addicts who seem to be associated
with various other antisocial activities, as compared with the addicts
of a quarter century ago.
One occupational group has remained fairly consistent in its illegal
use of opiates — physicians. Approximately 1 percent of the perhaps
200,000 practicing physicians are opiate users, and it can be specu-
lated that the same proportion were taking opiates twenty and
thirty years ago. Physicians who take drugs may be the busiest and
most successful practitioners. They clearly do not take drugs
because they are unsuccessful but in order to meet some personality
needs of their own, although many may have some organic ailment
responsible for their addiction. It is possible that one kind of person
who becomes a physician — compulsive and very responsive to
status and goal needs — is likely, under some circumstances, to be
especially aware of possible discrepancies between his self-concept
and his actual achievement, and to take drugs in order to face such
discrepancies or other feelings of personal inadequacy. Physicians'
use of drugs is not necessarily due to their easy access to drugs;
pharmacists have greater access to drugs and there are practically
no pharmacist addicts, probably because the kind of person who
becomes a pharmacist is likely to be quite different from the kind
of person who becomes a physician.
Another occupational group associated with the use of drugs from
the turn of the century consists of jazz musicians. The irregular
working hours, performances in night clubs before semi-intoxicated
audiences, association with the occasionally criminal elements of
the booking and entertainment worlds, the unfinished nature of
every jazz performance, the frequent recurrence of themes of
masochism and sex in jazz music, and the heavily publicized drug
use of some famous jazz musicians — all combine to create an atmos-
phere in which drug use may be accepted as part of the environment.
Jazz has traditionally been a protest music and a vehicle of expression
for musicians who have a dissident statement to make. Since the most
conspicuous symbol of deviant behavior in our culture is the use of
drugs, the jazz musician is thus in a deviant field and is italicizing

his dissidence in taking drugs. Jazz musicians are the occupational
group most heavily overrepresented in the addict population (Win-
ick, 1960).
Most recently, attention has been given to the use of drugs by
some famous "beatnik" writers and artists, who have written quite
openly about their use of drugs. The drugs used by these writers
serve to help keep them on an adolescent level of development, and
clearly symbolize their withdrawal from reality and desire to avoid
adult responsibility. Their formless writing bespeaks the same kind
of nonseriousness. no accident that the heroes of Jack Kerouac's
It is
best-known novel, "On the Road," eat hamburgers and drink malted
milk so frequently: by this excessive interest in the kind of chopped
meat and milk drink traditionally associated with infants, they are
expressing their preoccupation with infantile passive functioning.
They want to be taken care of by society and still be free to scoff
at society, like petulant infants.
The beatniks, the jazz musicians,and the addicts share a special
language. This argot minimizes the expression of feeling and emotion.
It expresses the addict's ambivalence toward the drugs, which both
attract and repel him. Thus, a four-letter synonym for excrement
is his term for heroin. The preferred state is one in which he is
"cool," or detached. When on drugs, he is "stoned" and feels

"crazy." This language expresses the hostility which the addict
represses via the use of drugs. It also expresses the addict's peculiar
values in which words mean the opposite of what they usually mean.
Whether addiction viewed sociologically or anthropologically,
is
the drug user is clearly a person who has withdrawn from reality
and wants to continue forever on an adolescent level, and his lan-
guage helps him to do this.
Wholly apart from the modern pseudo artists and poseurs who
have used drugs because of their lack of any artistic skill, there are
a number of distinguished have taken drugs. Among
artists who
the famous artists who took opiates were Coleridge, De Quincey,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Poe, Baudelaire, and Hans Fallada. The
physician-author of the Sherlock Holmes novels (Dr. A. Conan
Doyle) reported that Holmes averaged three "shots" a day of mor-
phine or cocaine, after each of which he "sank back into the velvet-
lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction." These creative
persons surely did not "tune out on life" as most addicts do with
drugs, but functioned quite successfully in their chosen fields. No
one can tell how they might have functioned without drugs, but
it can be said that they did not become talented because they took
drugs, as many addicts believe, doubtless as a partial rationalization

for their own drug use.
THE DRUG ADDICT IN THE

COURTS AND PRISONS
The drug addiction since 1950 has, in general, led to

increase in
increases in the penalties provided for the possession or sale of drugs,
both on the state and the federal level. The federal Narcotics Control
Act of 1956 provides for a possible death penalty for the sale of
narcotics to minors, and a minimum sentence of five years for sell-
ing narcotics, with no probation or parole possible. About one fifth

of the prisoners in federal institutions for narcotic violations are
marijuana smokers; most of the others use heroin. The proportion
of narcotics violators in the federal prisons has risen every year
(except from 1954 to 1955) during the period from 1946 (7.8 per-
cent) to 1957 (15.5 percent). The average heroin violator in the
federal prisons as of 1957 was serving a sentence of 5.7 years and
the average marijuana violator was serving a sentence of 4.9 years.
Narcotics penalties have steadily increased in New York State
from 1952 to the present. Of the state's 16,982 prisoners in correc-
tional institutions in 1957, 3,432 were classified as regular users, and
the proportion of drug offenders has increased annually. In the same
state, drug offenders were committed at a higher average rate and
placed on probation at a lower average rate than were most other
kinds of offenders. Both on the federal level and in New York State,
which has over 45 percent of the nation's addicts, the increased
penalties have been associated with the arrest of more drug users
each year.
Once in a prison, the drug addict is no longer an addict, since he
is not taking drugs. He is a person who used to take drugs and is
addiction-prone, and who is have some behavior charac-

likely to
teristics associated with his pathology. In federal usage, a drug user
is called an addict until he has stayed off drugs for a year or more.
In current medical usage, a drug user is regarded as no longer an

addict if he has abstained from drug use for a period of five years,
which is the period associated with recovery from any chronic
disease. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics also uses a criterion of
five years: if arecorded drug user has not come to the attention of
the authorities in a period of five years he is no longer listed as a
drug user, on the assumption that he would have come to the atten-
tion of the authorities within this period if he were still using drugs.
A few state correctional institutions have initiated special pro-
grams for former drug users, but none of these has been particularly
successful. Usually, the no special pro-
former drug user engages in
gram or activities while in prison. Few prisons give former drug
users any psychotherapy or otherwise attempt to cope with the
underlying pathology which was probably linked with their com-
mencement of drug use.
DRUG ADDICTION IN THE FUTURE

The last few years have seen narcotics programs which are both
more punitive and less punitive than has been customary, and both
extremes have reported considerable success. A number of vocal
exponents of permitting physicians to supply drugs to addicts at low
cost have aroused considerable sentiment for their point of view
(Lindesmith, 1957). It has been repeatedly urged by various legis-
lative committees that approach be tried on a limited basis, but
this
to date it has not. The employment of such a procedure involves
some ambiguous questions of medical ethics. Physicians have gener-
ally believed, along with the late distinguished narcotics authority,
Dr. Kenneth W. Chapman, that "drugs are not good for anyone
. giving drugs to all addicts is a last resort
. .
" Physicians would
have the responsibility of deciding which addicts were incurable

and what their dosage should be, and whether such a dosage should
be increased if the user wanted more than the amount prescribed
for him.
Another procedure for liberalizing treatment procedures, and one
which has been tried experimentally with limited success, has been
the psychotherapy of addicts on an ambulatory basis, while they
are still on drugs. Such procedures leave the question of cessation of
drug use up to the patient, with no coercion from the psychothera-
pist. Using such procedures, the Musicians' Clinic in New York
reported that all its jazz musician addict patients were off drugs for
an average of thirty months, three years after the commencement
of voluntary out-patient therapy. These patients were given treat-
ment on an ambulatory basis, while still on drugs, and it was up to
THE DRUG ADDICT AND HIS TREATMENT •
377
them to handle the problem of their addiction. The clinic grew out
of the experience of another experiment in voluntary treatment,
the Narcotic Addiction Research Project, which resulted in a work-
ing classification of addicts into two categories: those who function
effectively on drugs, and those who do not function well and want
to get off drugs but are "hooked" (Nyswander, Winick, et al. 1958). y
At the other extreme, there have been a number of proposals

for making more stringent the current practices for coping with
drug addicts. One direction, followed by some states, including New
Jersey, has been to make it a misdemeanor to be a drug addict. New
Jersey requires a convicted narcotics offender to register with the
police and to keep the police posted on changes of address. This
procedure seems to have resulted in an increase in the number of
narcotics arrests, with some addicts going to states with less stringent
penalties. The District of Columbia has made hospitalization for ad-
dicts compulsory and has established a high-security ward for addict
patients.
The city of Oakland in California has experimented with the Nal-
line test for determining whether a person has taken drugs prior to
the administration of the test. In a person who has taken an opiate
in the day or so previous to administration of the synthetic drug
Nalline, there will be a measurable dilation of the pupils as well as
a miniature withdrawal reaction after taking a small dosage of
Nalline. In Oakland the test is used to establish whether a convicted
former drug user is or is not using drugs. Some physicians have
objected to its use on the ground that it is a kind of chemical con-
science, and that this kind of external threat is likely to interfere
with any ongoing therapeutic relationship which a former drug
user may be attempting to establish. Oakland authorities, however,
report not only a decline in addicts but also a sharp decline in crimes
usually associated with addiction, which they feel is related to their
use of the Nalline test. In the three-year period (1955-58) since
they began using Nalline, for example, they report a 21 percent
decline in robberies, a 13 percent drop in burglaries, a 47 percent
falling off in stealing from automobiles, and 25 percent fewer pros-
titution offenses.
The experience of Oakland has renewed interest in a suggestion
made by a number of law-enforcement officials, and especially by
Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger of the Federal Bureau of Nar-
cotics. He has suggested that there be compulsory commitment of
the drug addict (Anslinger, 1957). Such a law, Commissioner An-
slinger notes,"would have to be enacted by state legislatures; it

could not be federal because of the Constitution. ..." The commis-
sioner has documented the extent to which very severe sentences
on peddlers have led to a substantial decline in the number of ad-
dicts arrested in such states as Ohio. He has consistently opposed
providing drugs to addicts on any clinic basis, pointing to his estimate
of one addict in 400 in America before the passage of the Har-
rison Act, whereas there now
one in 3,000. This decline in the
is
proportion of addicts, the commissioner feels, is a reflection of the

efficacy of the Harrison Act and is the best retort to the critics of
his bureau's procedures.
The argument compulsory treatment has received some
for
support from the experience of the New York State Department
of Parole's experimental project for providing close supervision to a
limited number of parolees who had been in prison for narcotic
violations.After three years, 42 percent of this group which re-
ceived the supervision had remained off drugs, suggesting that this
kind of intensive case work in an authoritarian setting may be ef-
fective with some former drug users.
Another development in the enforcement of drug-addiction laws
has been the introduction, in a number of jurisdictions, of legislation
which removes the judge's discretion in issuing sentences to drug
users by providing for mandatory minimum sentences with no pro-
bation. This has raised the question of how police can reward the
informers on whom they must depend for the bulk of arrests of
other narcotics violators, if they cannot promise them a suspended
sentence for cooperating and identifying their source of supply.
Most arrested narcotics users will not cooperate by naming other
users or sellers, but there are some who will. In some cases they may
be encouraged to buy narcotics for their own use, so that police can
watch them making the purchase and so arrest the seller. There have
been cases in which drug-using informers were paid by the police
in drugs, and thus maintained in their addiction.
Although many officials believe that it is unethical for police to
promise anything to an informer, a substantial proportion of nar-
cotics violators are arrested through such procedures. The growing
inability of the police to promise informers a light sentence, because
of the growing tendency toward mandatory minimum sentences,
will surely focus new attention on the ethical and civil liberties
aspects of arrests for drug violations as the question of how in-
formers are to be paid becomes increasingly urgent. Recent court
decisions have questioned the propriety of evidence obtained through

wiretapping and have also raised important questions related to
narcotics enforcement, since many narcotics arrests are based on
wiretaps.
It is a sign of healthy differences in a controversial field that so
many differences of opinion exist on the subject of dealing with
addiction. Available facilities have, however, not kept up with the
interest in discussing the addiction problem. The extent to which
the problem is ignored in practice can be seen in the almost total
lack of beds for adult addicts in the large cities which have the major
problems of addiction. In the municipal hospitals of all three of these
cities (New York, Chicago and Detroit) combined, there are not
even one hundred beds for many thousands of addicts. The poor re-
sults so far obtained with treatment of addicts should not be
discouraging, any more than poor results in schizophrenia or cancer
research are keeping us from an extensive program of research and
treatment in these fields. Unless we can mount the kind of concerted
research and treatment program which ultimately led to the Sabin
and Salk polio vaccines, our treatment of narcotics addiction will
continue to be a rebuke to twentieth-century America.
The growing number of films, novels, and plays on the subject
suggests that the general public becoming more interested in
is
narcotics addiction. Yet in terms of scientific knowledge of the

psychology of addiction, we have not advanced much beyond the
classical investigations of Terry and Pellens (1928) and Dai (1937).
Addiction is so complex that a wide variety of enforcement and
treatment programs should receive experimental attention. No one
approach is quick solution to the problem.
likely to provide a We
know that different kinds of people become addicted and it follows
that they should get differential treatment programs. What can be
done with those addicts who yield to no treatment is a medical
decision that must be squarely faced. Mainly, however, we must
resolutely confront and conquer the general disinclination to give
the addiction problem the research attention it must receive.
References
Anslinger, H. J. Interview in Modern Medicine, Oct. 15, 1957, pp.

170-191; Anslinger, H. J. & Tompkins, W. F. The traffic in narcotics.
New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1953.
Becker, H. S. Becoming a marijuana user. Amer. J. Sociol., 1953, 59,
235-242.
Chein, I., and Rosenfeld, Eva. Juvenile narcotics use. Law and contemp.
Probs, 1957, 22, 52-68.
Dai, B. Opiumaddiction in Chicago. Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1937.
Finestone, H. Cats, kicks and color. Soc. Probs, 1957, 5, 3-13.
Himmelsbach, C. H., & Small, L. F. Clinical studies of drug addiction:
II. Rossium treatment of drug addiction. (Supplement No. 125 to
the Public Health Reports.) Washington, D. C: U. S. Government
Printing Office, 1937.
Lindesmith, A. R. Opiate addiction. Bloomington: Indiana Univer. Press,
1947.
Lindesmith, A. R. The British system of narcotics control. Law and
contemp. Probs. 1957, 22, 138-154.
Nyswander, Marie, Winick, C, et al., The treatment of drug addicts
as voluntary outpatients: A progress report. Amer. J. Orthopsy chiat.,
1958, 28, 714-727.
Terry, C. E., and Pellens, Mildred. The opium problem. New York:
Commission on Drug Addictions, 1928.
Tsungming Tu, Statistical studies on the mortality rates and the causes
of death among opium addicts in Formosa. United Nations Bull, on
Narcotics, 1951, 3, 9-11.
Wikler, A. Opiate addiction. Springfield, 111.: Charles C Thomas, 1953.
Winick, Charles. Narcotic addiction and its treatment. Law and Con-
temp. Probs, 1957, 22, 9-33.
Winick, Charles. The use of drugs by jazz musicians. Soc. Probs, 1960,
7, 240-253.
EARL RUBINGTON
The Alcohol Offender

and His Treatment
Aside from motor vehicle violations, more persons are charged
with drunkenness than with any other offense. The FBI reports
more than a million arrests for drunkenness each year. Since these
reports do not cover all police agencies, there are no doubt many
more. These statistics also do not include other petty offenses
such as vagrancy, disorderly conduct, and offenses against the
family in which excessive drinking may play a role. Adding them to
arrests for drunkenness makes a grand total of a million and a half
persons charged with alcohol offenses.
Of course, the number of persons involved in all these arrests
is considerably less than the number of arrests reported. "Repeaters,"
persons arrested as little as two or three times a year together with

those who are arrested as much as ten or twenty times a year,
shrink the actual number of persons committing petty alcohol
offenses. Here, as with so many other social problems, a few per-
sons have an influence in inverse proportion to their numbers: more
than a third of all persons charged with drunkenness are recidivists
or chronic alcohol offenders.
These offenders are charged more often and serve more sentences
than all other types of offenders. At any given time, between 40
and 60 percent of the prisoners in the more than 3,000 county
jails are serving sentences for drunkenness and/or its sister offenses.
And the bulk of these prisoners are chronic alcohol offenders.

After release,most of them will commit the same offense, only
to get arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced again to the same
jail for another short-term commitment. This policy of processing
alcohol offenders continually in and out of police stations, court-

rooms, and county jails is called the "revolving door." The phrase
describes rather aptly the problems which both drunkenness and
alcoholism pose for the legal apparatus.
381
Chronic alcohol offenders are a small part of the estimated 4 /2 l
million alcoholics in the United States. Persons who experience

difficulties from repeated and prolonged drinking are alcoholics.
Abuse of alcohol over a long span of years results in numerous
somatic, psychological, social, and economic difficulties. Results
of repetitive drinking cumulate whether the alcoholic is aware of
the connection between his drinking and its effects or not. Under
this rather broad definition, the chronic alcohol offender is an
alcoholic.
Yet most alcoholics, despite their other difficulties, manage to
avoid arrest and imprisonment for drunkenness. "Respectable" al-
coholics are less exposed to police action than are typical alcohol
offenders because they are more often "hidden" alcoholics. Al-
cohol offenders, on the other hand, live in or gravitate to areas of
high arrest risk, particularly for drunkenness. In this habitat, in
which there very high tolerance for inebriety, there is also
is a
less pressure to conceal the growing dependence upon alcohol
and the effects of that dependence. And, as that dependence becomes

confirmed, pressures for concealment disappear.
Chronic alcohol offenders act out a career in which excessive de-
pendency and drinking are cause and effect of each other. Increased
frequency of drinking among offenders brings them into contact
with other people and social agencies at an advancing rate and in
relationships which are supportive; before, during, and after drink-
ing bouts, offenders require social support. Ultimately, offenders
forfeit their rights to conventional support when their drinking
causes intensified and increased demands for support which disrupt
everyday life; conventional society finally gives up on the offender
and ostracizes him.
At the point of ostracism, offenders develop a need for even more
support. It is at this point that many offenders gravitate to the places
where they can find joint tolerance of dependence on people and
on alcohol. In the furnished-room districts of small cities, in the
Skid Rows of large cities, they find or create such tolerance as they
need.
Between bouts, offenders require one type of support; before,
during, and after bouts they require another type. Both types of
support increase dependence on people and on alcohol. Jails and
other establishments which serve declasse individuals begin to see
more and more of them: dependence now extends to these agencies.
Increasing arrest among offenders is only one index of the rising
THE ALCOHOL OFFENDER AND HIS TREATMENT • 383
social and economic costs of their maintenance and support. Beyond

maintenance and support, few agencies report any success in break-
ing the pattern of dependency. Jails punish, welfare agencies sup-
port, hospitals treat; yet offenders continue in their dependent style
of life. Drinking becomes only more excessive while dependency
spreads in several directions.
Growth of alcoholism treatment services, rising costs of municipal
administration, and urban redevelopment have once again brought
alcohol offenders to public attention. How to treat them, how to
lower the costs of maintaining them, how to plan for their orderly
relocation are three major problems today. Central to the solution
of these problems is an understanding of how offenders are de-
pendent upon alcohol, people, and agencies.
This chapter takes up the question of how alcohol offenders solve
the problem of their triple dependency and the consequences of
these solutions. It discusses their characteristics, how they drink,
how they come to and live on Skid Row, how their dependence
on alcohol and on people changes, and how their dependency solu-
tions may affect therapeutic efforts.
CHARACTERISTICS OF OFFENDERS
The significant social characteristics of alcohol offenders are partly

consequences of a homeless life and partly preconditions of careers
which culminate in dependency, excessive drinking, and frequent
arrests for public drunkenness. Preconditions include recruitment
from the most disadvantaged social classes, acquisition of numerous
social stigmata, learning of social and technical skills which pre-
dispose to failure, and choice of heavy drinking one adaptation
as
to failure. In turn, these conditions set the stage for dropping out
of conventional society and entering into the Skid Row way of life.
For some, frequent arrests fordrunkenness are antecedent to Skid

Row life; for others, arrests are consequences of Skid Row life.
Generalizations about alcohol offenders and Skid Row require
some caution. The however, permits at least
available literature,
the conclusion that alcohol offenders are all homeless men and
that Skid Row is a locale in which homeless men live and drink
in excess of community drinking norms. The few systematic studies
of alcohol offenders suggest the following portrait. It must be
kept in mind that this portrait is only a tentative one based on
statistical averages and draws on a small number of studies (Bacon,

1944; Pittman and Gordon, 1958; Ullman, 1957). et al.,
In addition to being homeless, alcohol offenders are considerably

older than the general population. While their average age is around
forty-five, a large number of them are over fifty. The bulk of them
are white and native-born. And they can be equally divided into
two groups, one which never married, and another of men formerly
married but now separated from their wives because of death,
divorce, or desertion. Their educational attainment is slightly less
than that of the general population, with older men having had less
education than younger men. The great majority of them are cur-
rently employed, if at all, at unskilled labor; their religious affiliation
is Protestant mainly, though eastern seaboard states have slightly
higher concentrations of Catholics in the offender population. Con-
sidering their career patterns, seems reasonable to find them both
it
geographically and residentially more mobile than the general popu-

lation. With advancing age, of course, there is an increasing tendency
to settle in one locale. Finally, they are drawn almost exclusively
from the lower social classes; their fathers usually had little educa-
tion and low occupational status. (There is a small subgroup whose
members have descended the ladder of social mobility mainly
through excessive drinking. This small group is generally considered
to be the best risk for rehabilitation.)
Offenders are about evenly distributed into three types of criminal
careers. One type has been arrested solely for public drunkenness;
another, for public drunkenness and related offenses, such as va-
grancy and disorderly conduct. The type has been arrested
last
for serious offenses in addition to public drunkenness. It is generally

believed that serious offenses occur earlier in the career, with a
shift to arrests exclusively for drunkenness in later life (Pittman
and Gordon, 1958).
As noted above, many characteristics of alcohol offenders are
stigmata which predispose persons who have them to select deviant
solutions to their problems. However, since many other persons
might have similar stigmata and yet not select excessive drinking
and dependency as solutions to their problems, these stigmata are
neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for recruitment into
the ranks of alcohol offenders. At present, the best guess is that
if a group is available in which drinking is used as a major outlet
for release of tensions, persons with backgrounds similar to that of
the alcohol offender will choose such a solution.
The same reasoning applies to the history of emotional deprivation
which so many offenders display in their early family background.

Quite obviously many are products of depriving environments which
include broken homes as well as unstable, disorganized families.
Nevertheless, unless there is access, particularly in adolescence, to a
group which uses alcohol beyond the community norms, products
of such homes are more apt to select from other deviant solutions.
Early backgrounds of offenders predispose them to select deviant
solutions for acute personal problems, but do not guarantee that
excessive drinking will necessarily be the choice.
DRINKING PATTERNS
There are two major categories of alcoholics — addictive alcoholics

and habitual symptomatic excessive drinkers (Jellinek, 1952). Al-
cohol offenders fit into either one or the other of these categories.
The drinking patterns of both types have many features in common.
It is quite easy to confuse one with the other. In fact, many people
believe that all alcoholics are addicts.
The main distinction between the two types of alcoholics is
that at a certain phase in his drinking career, the addictive alcoholic

reaches a point known as the "loss of control." Whenever such an
alcoholic starts to drink, he experiences an imperious demand for
alcohol and cannot stop drinking until he is either intoxicated or too
sick to drink any more. He fights to obtain control over his drinking
by many stratagems, all to little avail. Even when he tries long
periods of abstinence and numerous changes in drinking patterns,
once he starts to drink again, the insatiable craving for alcohol re-
appears and all control on amounts taken is lost.
There are alcoholics, however, in whom this insatiable craving is

absent, and only its presence is a sign of addiction. The habitual
symptomatic excessive drinker, despite his astonishing resemblance
to the addict in all other respects, never loses control. He may drink
daily to relieve symptoms, and there may be a marked effect of pro-
longed drinking on his organism, yet the habitual symptomatic
excessive drinker never becomes addicted. He may endure most of
the difficulties which the addict suffers because of excessive drinking,
but he is not an addict. For he can stop drinking whenever he wants
to, and can regulate the amounts he will consume in any given sit-
ting. This provides him with a slight advantage over the addict:
he does not have to erect elaborate rationalizations about his drink-
ing nor does he lose control of the amount he drinks.
Both addict and habitual symptomatic excessive drinker are po-

tential candidates for the state known as chronic alcoholism. After
many years of prolonged abuse of alcohol, the alcoholic shows cer-
tain changes, some of them irreversible. In general, the physiological
organism and personality have undergone transformation. Adaptation
to the inner stresses of high intake, together with chronic intoxica-
tions, transforms the alcoholic. Usually, at this stage of the drinker's
life cycle, all is subordinate to the drinking pattern. At the same
time, alcohol tolerance has lessened to the point where relatively
small doses induce intoxication.
Given the age structure of the offender population, there is little
doubt that a sizable portion are chronic alcoholics. The older the
offender, the more likely he is a chronic alcoholic. And given the
relationship between advancing age and decreased alcohol tolerance,
it is clear why drunkenness is the "crime of middle age." For as
offenders age, they become intoxicated sooner and arrested for

drunkenness more frequently. Offenders in early and late middle age
also begin to make such as
use of a variety of treatment facilities
emergency rooms and state mental hospitals. This use, however, is

mainly for treatment of acute alcohol intoxication or for severe
withdrawal symptoms. Between treatment and jail periods, alcohol
offenders revert to their pattern of drinking.
Among both addictive alcoholics and habitual symptomatic ex-
cessive drinkers, personalities with underlying psychopathology are
probably distributed at random. At present, at least, there is little
evidence to support the idea of a unique pre-alcoholic personality
(Sutherland et al., 1960; Syme, 1957). On the other hand, there
which appears
are definite signs of a post-alcoholic personality
superimposed upon the variety of personality types who become
symptomatic excessive drink-
either addictive alcoholics or habitual
ers. This personality, which many have regarded as the cause of
excessive drinking because of its pronounced neurotic features, is
actually an aftermath of excessive drinking itself.
ROUTES TO DEPENDENCY
Alcohol offenders have relatively few workable defenses against

punishment, and their excessive drinking exposes them to a host of
punishments. While some are self-inflicted, others are the expressions
of the moral indignation of society. Frequent arrests for drunkenness
are only one of a long series of harassments which mark the offender
as a deviant and give him the self-image of an unworthy person. One

response to punishment is additional drinking which, of course,
only results in more punishment; another is flight. In either case, ex-
cessive drinking continues and punishments mount. The final flight is
into sections of the city where one can drink excessively and avoid
punishments.
Offenders oscillate between periods of sobriety (called "straighten-
ing out") and periods of inebriety (called "going on a drunk"). As
the intervals between these periods narrow, the offenders disrupt
the everyday life of others, particularly by their increased demands
for help and support. Different milieus expel or ostracize them at
different points in their drinking careers; the tolerance of increas-
ingly dependent behavior in these milieus is one of the major factors
determining when the offender will finally seek out Skid Row.
Changes in age, status,and drinking patterns also affect the rate
of descent into dependency on Skid Row. In general, there are three
routes to this dependency: the drop, the slide, and the drift (Suther-
land and Locke, 1936).
The Drop
The precipitous and rapid descent into Skid Row living is ac-
complished by addicts with underlying personality disturbances. In
general, they are persons of middle-class background whose aspira-
tions are far out of line with both their accomplishments and their
abilities. In addition, their own particular milieu exerts strong con-
trols against excessive drinking. A small portion of Skid Row re-

cruits descend from this type of milieu. These recruits are of two
types generally, the irregulars and the regulars.
The irregulars are very often addicts who have merely come onto
the Skid Row scene during the later phases of an extended drinking
bout. In order to obtain anonymity and escape from social punish-
ment, they gravitate to the Skid Row quarter because of its per-
missive drinking norms. Once the drinking bout is over, they leave
Skid Row and return to their original milieu. They may make a
practice of this kind of "moral tourism" over a number of years,
since they regard Skid Row as the safest place to conduct what
they call "serious drinking." In essence, however, they are infrequent
visitors rather than residents of Skid Row, comparable in some ways
to lower-class workingmen who prefer to drink on week ends in
Skid Row taverns.
The regulars are of two subtypes, the short-term resident and
the long-term resident. The short-term resident may remain on Skid
Row around months. During that time he drinks quite heavily,

six
is often a solitary drinker, and maintains himself through casual and
infrequent labor (on Skid Row called "spot jobs"). Ultimately, he

gathers his resources together and often is able to leave Skid Row by
with Alcoholics Anonymous. The other type of regular
affiliating
becomes more permanent resident of Skid Row and drinks with
a
persons of similar social background and drinking pattern.
Both regulars and irregulars are small in number. Their influence
on and off Skid Row, however, is disproportionate to their incidence
in the total Skid Row population. Considerable pathos attaches to
the reports which journalists write about them. They are less apt
to fall into the hands of the police; when they do, some of them have
the shock of recognition, called "reaching one's bottom" in AA
circles. Seeing how low they have fallen, they "surrender," and
renounce alcohol completely.
The Slide
The gradual descent into Skid Row is the path taken mainly
though not exclusively by married men of low economic status.
Through a combination of economic reverse, family instability, and
increased frequency of drinking, the husband leaves the family.
Over time, his position in the family declines until the point of dis-
solution. Divorce, separation, or desertion are the major forms of
rupture which precede the slide. In a few instances, men slide into
Skid Row upon the death of their wives, or of their mothers if they
are unmarried. Once homeless, many men who follow the slide
route attribute their homelessness to drinking, although other fac-
tors sometimes loom more important.
For some, the first arrests for public drunkenness occur just prior
to the family dissolution. These arrests often act as keys opening
the door of Skid Row. For the majority of the sliders, conventional
living has proved increasingly punishing and gradually less reward-
ing; at this point, Skid Row has great attraction because of its per-
missive drinking norms, its anonymity, and its relatively simple de-
mands. In general, the sliders are in their later thirties or early forties.
The Drift
Drifters, for the most part, are younger men, most of whom are
unmarried. Usually in their later twenties or early thirties, they
display many forms of emotional instability. They quit school early
and flee a depriving home environment. They are marked for failure
THE ALCOHOL OFFENDER AND HIS TREATMENT •
389
almost at the outset because they enter the adult working world
several years earlier than most adolescents and with a minimum of
social and technical skills. Rebellious, they turn to low-status adults,
who introduce them to heavy drinking as a way of proving one's
masculinity. To "drink like a man" requires large amounts, which
usually result in intoxication. Thus, these offenders come to the
attention of the police quite early and an arrest record for intoxi-
cation merely adds to their disadvantages in obtaining and holding
jobs.
These offenders are introduced rather early to a round of menial
jobs, transiency, and heavy drinking. In addition, a small percentage
develop quite rapidly into addicts. Soon Skid Row begins to look
attractive. With the romanticism of adolescence, they tend to look
upon it as "experience." Because of their early arrival on Skid Row,
it is doubtful if they ever pass completely through the stages of
adolescence into adult maturity.
THE SKID ROW SUBCULTURE

Men with different social characteristics and drinking patterns
enter Skid Row by way of the drop, slide, or drift. And though they
may enter at different stages of their careers, they face common
problems. Incipient alcohol offenders, for example, are involved in
"role-reversal": if they are to continue their style of life, they re-
quire a subculturewhich stands conventional values on their head.
A subculture which permits continued reversal of roles, excessive
drinking, and some measure of self-esteem can offer them solutions
to their common problems (Rubington, 1958). Skid Row seems
ideally suited to their needs.
Skid Row permits excessive drinking, tolerance of dependency,
and sharing of good fortune. It imparts skills, including ways and
means of obtaining a supply of alcohol, of avoiding social punish-
ment, and of gaining help during alcoholic crises. In addition, its
language communicates the special values of Skid Row. And, per-
haps more important, one can find here a self-image which denies
the failure and the stigma which the conventional social world
attaches to Skid Row outcasts.
In the outside world, excessive drinking only led to massive social
punishments. On Skid Row, it is the source of rewards and accept-
ance among one's fellows. In the conventional world, men are ex-
pected to be independent, self-sustaining, and self-reliant; asking

for help or favors are signs of powerlessness, dependency. On Skid
Row, men on matters per-
are expected to ask for help, particularly
taining to alcohol; and, considering the poverty of most homeless
men, others are expected to give help, to share good fortune. In
the outside world, men are expected to give a good account of them-
selves, to discuss their attainments, to show symbols of achievement.
On Skid Row, men are not expected to be anything except good
drinking companions; a moratorium on discussion of personal trou-
bles and failures is strictly enforced and "personal questions" are
forbidden. Since all have a vested interest in concealment or denial
of past failure, conversations center on the immediate present.
Where the outside world is future-oriented, Skid Row lives in a
timeless present.
In the conventional world, men are expected to do something
about their personal troubles. On Skid Row, men are expected to
drink whenever their troubles weigh heavily on their minds. The
consequence is that many Skid Row men, soon after arrival,
experience a lessening of tension, a feeling of relaxation, all pleas-
ant accompaniments of the cessation of thought.
Quite obviously, Skid Row
an "easy" rather than a "tough"
is
culture. And for outcasts who feel powerless, downtrodden, and

ill-equipped to meet problems of adult life, the solutions Skid Row
offers to their problems appear most with any sub-
sensible. But, as
culture, deviant solutions create additional problems. Consequently,
later on in their Skid Row career, many men become dimly aware
that they have been caught up in a way of life which creates more
problems than it solves. Fully socialized to the Skid Row style of
life by then, many continue to use its techniques for solving their
problems because they now feel there is no escape.
Drinking Groups
Homeless men, whether in furnished-room districts in small cities
or in the Skid Row section of larger cities, distinguish between men
who use alcohol and those who do not. They further distinguish
between moderate and heavy users of alcohol. Among heavy users,
a loose social system of drinking groups exists (Jackson and Con-
nor, 1953; Peterson and Maxwell, 1958; Rubington, 1958). Within
this system men are ranked by the style of their dependence on alco-
hol, on people, and on social agencies.
What appears to conventional society as a disorganized com-
munity is actually one in which manners and morals exist. They

center on how the act of excessive drinking is carried out, and rank
is proportional to performance. Both newcomers and veteran Skid
Row habitues always confront the problem of choice; this they

solve by joining those drinking groups in which their drinking
pattern is accepted. As in any social group, self-images are more
pleasant the higher one's rank. Considering the need to deny failure
and dependency, it is understandable how men on Skid Row might
want to exercise some care in the selection of drinking companions.
Symbols of social differentiation include modes of procurement
of alcohol, beverage of choice (whiskey, inexpensive fortified wine
sometimes called "Sneaky Pete," nonbeverage alcohol), standards
of living, adherence to drinking group codes, use of Skid Row insti-
tutions (furnished rooms, inexpensive workingmen's hotels, flop-
houses, rescue missions, shelters, jails), type and regularity of em-
ployment, and behavior when drinking.
This system of drinking groups requires certain mechanisms of
social support. At the top of the drinking hierarchy one type of
support prevails; at the bottom, another. The system of
top utilizes a
"intensive" dependency; the bottom, one of "extensive" dependency.
The supports of "intensive" dependency recapitulate some fea-
tures of the immediate family. A small group of drinkers associate
closely in obtaining and consuming large supplies of alcohol, then
weathering the alcoholic crises brought on by drinking bouts. These
groups contain dependency in the groups and by so doing foster the
illusion of independence. They believe they are entitled to more re-
spect because of their greater ability to protect each other against
arrest for public drunkenness, and to absorb dependency and other
forms of deviant behavior. They will do all the things other men
on Skid Row do only when forced to, and pride themselves on the
fact that they "do not make a habit of it." They panhandle, drink
wine when "sick" (in hangover), use flophouses and missions only
when they are without resources. They are contemptuous of per-
sons who use all the lesser-ranked Skid Row institutions with greater
frequency. They believe that many men actually "ask for" arrests
for drunkenness because they like being in jail. Finally, when their
self-esteem is threatened severely, they point out that they are not
"as bad" or as "bad ofT" as the men who employ the supports of
"extensive" dependency.
The supports of "extensive" dependency bear a strong resemblance
to the extended family. Men who fit their drinking pattern to this
style of social relationship are acquainted with many more excessive

drinkers and know of more social agencies to exploit between drink-
ing bouts. In the system of extensive dependency, men establish
a wider range of mutual obligations, distributed narrowly over many
persons. In this system a man helps another person out during an
alcoholic crisis and puts him under an obligation to repay the favor
when the roles are reversed. These reciprocities are so widely
distributed that a person always has a number of people to whom he
owes favors and, in turn, a number of people who owe favors to
him. In many an informal system of social
respects, of course, it is
welfare which provides resources for initiating and recuperating

from drinking bouts.
The system provides support on condition that men continue
drinking. The conventional world is willing to provide support
only on condition that men stop excessive drinking. Thus many
men "coming off a drunk" approach other men and ask them for
money for food. At this point the suppliant is anxious to become
sober. His prospective helpers, however, deny him any money for
food but are most eager, anxious, and willing to share their present
supply of alcohol with him. This system has some points in common
with the drug addict subculture (Chapter 15), where some addicts
introduce their friends and acquaintances to the "habit" so as to
ensure another source of supply for themselves.
Orientation to supports varies with position in drinking groups.
Intensive dependency seems oriented to maintaining and supporting
excessive drinkers but makes allowance for ultimate departure from
the system. Extensive dependency is likewise oriented toward main-
taining and supporting excessive drinkers but is always pointed
toward keeping its members within the system. Thus, drinkers in
the system of intensive dependency are more apt to see themselves
as alcoholics, to seek treatment for alcoholism a little more often,
and to think more often of leaving Skid Row. Drinkers in the sy-
stem of extensive dependency, on the other hand, are less likely
to see themselves as alcoholics, much less likely to seek treatment

for alcoholism, and less likely to think of leaving their present way
of life.
Pressure to drink, as a solution to acute personal problems, pro-

vides motives for joining drinking groups. Prolonged abuse of al-
cohol, however, results in movement, in changes in position and
roles within these transitory drinking groups. As people move in
and out of drinking groups, they adopt new attitudes, practices,
and values. The results, in time, are changes in their style of life.
393
Perhaps major factors in the reshuffling of groups and the down-

ward movement of drinkers are arrests for public drunkenness.
Frequent drunkenness disrupt drinking groups; barriers
arrests for
to contact which all groups seek to maintain are broken during
incarceration. Stripped of resources and partners, men accustomed
to intensive dependency come into contact and other insti-
in jails
titutions with men who use the supports of extensive dependency.
In emergencies, manners and morals break down; fraternization
between the ranks takes place. Offenders accustomed to intensive
dependency now find themselves associating with lesser-ranked
heavy drinkers who seem quite willing to defer to them. Finding
themselves in the company of others worse off than themselves is
a mixed blessing. Offenders accustomed to intensive dependency
take comfort from the presence of the admittedly lower-ranked
group. The high status accorded them deflects attention from the
shock of jail punishment. Conversely, the men of low rank draw
comfort from the fact that they are now permitted access to the com-
pany of the higher-ranked. Because of this symbiotic form of inter-
action, both are able to find evidence for denying social stigma,
for not seeing themselves in their immediate situation as the con-
ventional world sees them.
Both groups have strong needs to deny their increasing de-
pendency, their failure in the eyes of the conventional world.
Fraternization between ranks, first established in jails, recurs back
on Skid Row, particularly when both groups face alcoholic crises.
During their "up" periods, both strive to remain apart; during their
"down" periods they come together. Need, more than anything else,
breaks down the barriers between drinking groups and forces many
to associate with persons ordinarily considered to be inferiors.
So long as a person consciously seeks out those "worse off" than
himself, he can buy the drinks and appear the independent, strong
figure. In a career which is literally degrading, this is often the
last defense against the recognition of utter dependency.
TREATMENT OF THE ALCOHOL OFFENDER

All alcoholics motivated to regain sobriety require the support of
a group. Their needs for support strain the bonds of everyday
Only an organization of recovered alcoholics, like Alcoholics
life.
Anonymous, appears equipped at the present time to tolerate these

powerful dependency needs, to accept the alcoholic without moral
judgment, and to help him slowly to regain sobriety through a

supportive relationship.
Moreover, most alcoholics believe that only another alcoholic
can understand them. Barriers to the alcohol offender's making use
of Alcoholics Anonymous are differences in heavy drinking pat-
terns and social class background. Offenders who attend AA meet-
ings do not see any resemblance between themselves and the persons
who "tell their stories" at AA meetings. These people, from the
point of view of offenders, talk, dress, act, and used to drink
differently from the way they themselves do. The support which
AA might extend to offenders is vitiated because of these negative
perceptions.
Many offenders make a virtue of their suffering, believe they had
it tougher than most AA's had, and that they were "tougher"
drinkers. Whether or not this is another variation on the illusion
of independence, it prevents offenders from establishing enduring
contact with Alcoholics Anonymous. Moreover, their greater ex-
perience with jail punishment, coupled with ideas which prevent
them from seeking other kinds of treatment for alcoholism, makes
such people poor treatment risks.
All the problems of treatment and rehabilitation of alcoholics
are only intensified and exaggerated in the case of the homeless
alcohol offender. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous and patients at
alcoholism clinics still have conventional group supports. They
are more often married and regularly employed (Straus and Bacon,
1951). By contrast, the homeless alcohol offender no longer has
a family or regular employment; the only supports he can count
on come from men like himself, but usually on condition that he
drink as they do and when they do. Whenever he makes an attempt
to regain sobriety he suffers loneliness and social isolation. His need
for affiliation propels him to seek out a group; but since the only
groups he knows in which he can be both accepted and comfortable
are drinking groups, he renounces sobriety as the price of ac-
ceptance.
This vicous circle is the force behind the monotonous Skid
Row-Jail-Skid Row pattern. Homeless, penniless, poorly dressed,
on his release from or hospitals the offender has no place to go
jails
but Skid Row. Strangers merely evoke powerful anxieties; alcohol

offenders, like most and see re-
social deviants, are hypersensitive,
jection all about them. These inadequacy feelings can be dissolved
only in the company of a drinking group even when the offender
has no desire to drink at all. And

with advancing age, the offender
not only goes through the doors of the jail more often; he has to
make use of other agencies more often. Yet each time upon his
release he faces the same dilemma. Sobriety means isolation; drink-
ing means company and group support. Here, more than anywhere
else, is the major barrier to effective resocialization of homeless
alcohol offenders.
A new institution for the treatment of offenders, designed to cope
with their acute release problem, has come into being in recent
years. Called a half-way house, it is intended to provide a way station
between Skid Rowand "respectable society." The therapeutic
philosophy of the half-way house is quite simple: It seeks to turn the
offender's group supports away from inebriety toward sobriety.
And it offers to do so by providing a group within the half-way
house which will answer the offender's need for affiliation without
making his acceptance in the group dependent upon excessive
drinking.
The problem which the half-way house sets for itself is to shift
the alcohol offender's triple dependence on alcohol, Skid Row per-
sons, and social agencies onto key persons within the half-way
house. And, in so doing, it seeks to provide its members with the
rewards that may come from "sober" association. Where con-
formity on Skid Row meant excessive drinking, in the half-way
house it means sobriety. In effect, half-way houses attempt to
reverse the manner which many offenders became habituated
in
to alcohol. To cope with depriving environments which they were
unskilled to handle, these offenders turned to groups where they
could obtain release through excessive drinking. The half-way house
obviously is attempting to teach offenders to replace alcohol with
people means of solving their acute personal problems.
as a
At present there are around thirty half-way houses in existence.
Despite considerable variations, these are their common features:
a small group of offenders, usually around twenty-five men, come
together and live in a building which is staffed for the most part
by recovered alcoholics. In this place, members try to maintain
sobriety and to become self-supporting once again. The two most
common techniques for achieving group therapy
sobriety are
(broadly defined) and personal counseling by staff members. To
rebuild their confidence and self-respect, members pay rent or
fees (the average is around $15 a week) and obtain outside em-
ployment. Some form of vocational counseling goes on, official or
otherwise. If there is any fixed period of membership, it is generally

around ninety days.
Half-way houses are a new type of social therapy center which
they are interested in regaining
invite alcohol offenders to join if
their sobriety and breaking their attachments to Skid Row. All
require abstinence, and the major cause of irregular discharge, as
might be expected, is relapse before the period of membership is
over. All seek to afford a protective environment, protecting the
offender against his urges to drink, and against association with
men who are currently drinking. All seek to provide a warm social
climate in which acceptance in the group does not depend upon
drinking. Very much like other forms of treatment and rehabi-
litation, acceptance now
depends upon sobriety.
In many half-way houses, protection and acceptance are ex-
tended even after a member has "graduated." Several half-way
houses have "graduates' clubs" and encourage their "alumni" to
maintain contact after graduation, for they recognize that there is
a serious half-way house release problem. To remain sober, the

erstwhile alcohol offender must continue to associate with sober
persons. Aside from fellow alumni, the only people whom he knows
who are currently sober are in the half-way house, either as staff
or asmembers.
Half-way houses which maintain system of follow-up recording
a
report a 35 percent success rate. Considering the numerous obstacles
to successful treatment and reformation of offenders, this record
is quite impressive: it is not uncommon for members of half-way
houses to get drunk just prior to their "graduation" because depart-
ure from the institution means sobriety and isolation. In addition, as
isprobably well known, to give up drinking is extremely difficult;
and if there are no substitutes for this alternately rewarding and
punishing pattern, relapse is almost inevitable.
Since all half-way houses deal only with a small segment of the
entire alcohol offender population, all utilize some system of selec-
tion in the hope of drawing members who are more strongly
motivated to regain sobriety and who have, in addition, more re-
sources for coping with the difficult transition from excessive drink-
ing to a relatively stable and sober state. Consequently, upper and
lower age limits are set, and attempts to screen out psychotics,
feeble-minded, and physically handicapped persons are made. In
addition, some attempts have been made to develop prognostic
indices that might prove useful in screening candidates for mem-
397
bership. To increase their usefulness, half-way houses need to know

which candidates are most apt to from the experience.
profit
One some
explanation for the fact that men profit from the
experience while others do not has to do with Skid Row drinking
groups and social relationships. Perhaps more than any other
factor, the kinds of social relationships offenders sustained during
their drinking careers determine whether or not they will profit
from a half-way house experience.
While drinking on Skid Row, alcohol offenders made use of
the supports of intensive or extensive dependency. In general,
they solved the problem of choice of drinking groups by electing
one of the two possible systems of supports. This problem of choice
remains for the newcomer to a half-way house. After the initial
period of adjustment, the newcomer may seek out and enter into
a dependent relationship with one of the staff figures, or he can
choose to avoid this kind of relationship with staff and, instead,
enter into more with other half-way
extensive, casual relationships
house members. In either case, the two predominant styles of Skid
Row social relationships recur within the half-way house.
Members who become emotionally involved with staff members
gain the support to which they have become accustomed. Forma-
tion of such a relationship gives the staff person a chance to in-
fluence the member, slowly to change his attitudes toward drinking,
to view it as a problem over which he can exercise some control.
Small group supports of this kind work in the direction of sobriety,
changes in attitude, in behavior, and ultimately in personality.
By contrast, members who avoid these relationships and who
turn to other half-way house members chafe at half-way house
rules, feel that they are being "regimented," and express a need
to be "on their own." Intensive dependent relationships are either
foreign to their nature or abhorrent. They begin to complain that
they are "paying their way," to see themselves as self-supporting,
thus in no need of counsel or advice from the staff. These tensions
mount; for some, because of a vague awareness of their own de-
pendency; for others, because they want to regain their inde-
pendence. Members resolve these mounting tensions by suddenly
"breaking out" (returning to excessive drinking).
Consequently, half-way houses are probably achieving greater
success with alcohol offenders who sustain intensive dependent re-
lationships while drinking, and who find it possible to re-create
these relationships within the half-way house. Offenders who sustain
398 •
SPECIAL PROBLEMS IN CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY
extensive dependent relationships while drinking likewise re-create

these same relationships within the half-way house. Though they
may regain a degree of sobriety, they ultimately relapse when they
feel the need to be independent. The half-way house may serve to
reawaken long-smoldering dependency conflicts which some have
always resolved by heavy drinking. In any case, lacking either skill
or desire for intensive dependent relations, they revert to uncon-
trolled drinking after a short stay in the half-way house.
Half-way houses encourage members to be dependent in order
to reach them. Some members, of course, use the half-way house
only as a "drying out" station between drinking bouts. Others
appear to be quite willing to become dependent upon the insti-
tution. Only those who enter the dependent supportive relationship
with the staff appear to profit in substantial ways from the experi-
ence.
CONCLUSION
The price the alcohol offender pays for his deviant career is
wholesale punishment, of which jail sentences are only one out-

standing example. The rewards he gains are Skid Row solutions to
hisdependency problem. He finds associates who drink as he does,
who help him out in times of crises, and who steer him to social
agencies when he needs even greater support. As the offender ages,
however, his tolerance for alcohol lessens, his dependency in-
creases. Rather than continue in the downward spiral of Skid Row,
some offenders seek a way out. But few channels for
until recently
returning to a niche in conventional society were open.
Recently, such a channel has appeared in the form of the half-way
house, an innovation in the treatment of alcohol offenders. By means
of social therapy, the half-way house seeks to make its members
abstemious and self-supporting. Considering the numerous obstacles,
half-way houses have already established remarkable rate of suc-
a
cess in supplanting the fellowship of inebriety with sober associ-
ations. As more half-way houses appear and as their experience wid-
ens, their success will no doubt increase.
The present discussion, ignoring many of the complexities of the
alcohol offender problem, has examined the career of the offender,
both over time and in cross section. This has enabled us to see that
forms of inebriate fellowship, established in Skid Row drinking
relationships, tend to reappear within the half-way house. If the

form is intensive dependency, half-way house staff appear to be
able to turn good therapeutic account. If the form is extensive
it to
dependency, relapse is more likely. Future work with offenders
must consider how to use extensive-dependency as a means of re-
gaining sobriety.
References
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on Alcohol, 1944, 5, 86-125, 303-339.
Jackson, Joan K. Types of drinking patterns of male alcoholics. Quart.
J. Stud, on Alcohol, 1958, 19, 269-302.
Jackson, Joan K., and Connor, R. The Skid Road alcoholic. Quart. J.
Stud, on Alcohol, 1953, 14, 468-486.
Jellinek, E. M. Phases of alcohol addicton. Quart. J. Stud, on Alcohol,
1952, 13, 673-684.
Keller, M. Alcoholism: Nature and extent of the problem. Ann. Amer.
Acad. pol. soc. Sci., 1958, 315, 1-11. ,
Peterson, W. J., & Maxwell, M. A. The Skid Road "Wino." Soc. Probs,
1958, 5, 308-316.
Pittman, D. J., & Gordon, C. W.
Revolving door: A
study of the chronic
police case inebriate. Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press and Yale Center
of Alcohol Studies, 1958, pp. 154 ff.
Rubington, E. The chronic drunkenness offender. Ann. Amer. Acad.
pol. soc. ScL, 1958, 315, 65-72.
Straus, R., & Bacon, S. D. Alcoholism and social stability. A study of
occupational integration in 2,023 male clinic patients. Quart. J.
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Lippincott, 1936, pp. 207 ff.
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traits and the alcoholic: A
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ALBERT ELLIS
The Sex Offender

and His Treatment
A sex offender is commonly defined as an individual who has
committed a sex act that is legally banned and penalized in a given
jurisdiction and has been apprehended and convicted for the com-
mission of this act. As Kinsey and his associates (1948) indicate,
most technical sex offenders (like most nonsex offenders) are never
arrested or convicted for their legally proscribed sexual activities; if
they were, perhaps 95 percent of the American male populace would

at some time in their lives be jailed. Consequently, the term "sex of-
fender" is generally employed only in connection with convicted
offenders, and it will be used solely in this sense in the remainder
of this chapter.
CLASSIFICATION OF SEX OFFENSES
In spite of the fact that many sex statutes contain a mass of detail
about the acts they ban and are harrowingly specific in many
instances as to what activity constitutes these banned acts (Sherwin,
1961), many statutes listing sex offenses are also, at least in part,
vaguely worded and include such almost undefinable terms as "car-
nal abuse," "open lewdness," and "unnatural practices." These terms
may — and often do — mean almost anything and they vary widely
in meaning from one legislative jurisdiction to another (Ellis and
Brancale, 1956). If we stop to unravel some of the semantic con-
fusion created by the use of such vague terms, we find that the actual
sex acts which are commonly prohibited and penalized tend to be
these:
1. Forcible sexual assault — that is, a male's forcing a female to
submit to advances but stopping short of coitus. Mild
his sexual
sexual assault includes such acts as intent to kiss, to embrace, or to
look under a woman's skirt. Serious sexual assault includes intent
to rape, to force oral-genital contacts, and the like.
400
THE SEX OFFENDER AND HIS TREATMENT • 401
2. Forcible rape — coitus with a female as a result of actual

force or duress. Rape is often held to have been committed even if
complete penetration has not taken place (Traver, 1959).

3. Statutory rape — coitus
with a female under the legal age of
consent (which is usually sixteen to eighteen years) even though it
is engaged in voluntarily, without the use of force or duress.
4. Incest — coitus with a close relative, such as between a father
and daughter, mother and stepson, or brother and sister.

Noncoital sex relations with a minor — noncoital contacts
5.
with an individual under the legal age of consent; or verbal sex acts
with an individual under the legal age of consent (for example,
talking about sex to children, impairing the morals of a minor, and
the like).
6. Exhibitory sex acts — exhibiting the genitals to another indi-
vidual in an active, aggressive manner; masturbating in public; urin-
ating or defecating in public; appearing in public without sufficient
clothing.
7. Obscenity — making indecent or offensive proposals to a
member of the other sex; using improper language in public; dissem-
inating material that is judged to be obscene.
8. Homosexuality — having sex relations with a member of the
same sex.
9. Transvestism — dressing in the clothing of a member of the

other sex and appearing in public so dressed.
10. Voyeurism or peeping — that is, spying on the sex relations
or nudity of others.
11. Sex murder — finding sex arousal or satisfaction in the course
of killing another.
Sodomy — having any kind of "unnatural" sex
12. act, according
to many statutes, including homosexuality, bestiality, or oral-genital
relations between consenting men and women.
13. Adultery — coitus between individuals at least one of whom
is married to another person.
14. Fornication — coitus, or at least habitual coitus, between two
unmarried individuals.
15. Prostitution — engaging in coitus or other sex relations for
monetary gain.
16. Pimping or pandering — soliciting males to patronize a pros-
titute; soliciting girls to work as prostitutes.
17. Brothel-keeping — managing a house of prostitution.

PSYCHOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION
OF SEX OFFENDERS
Sex offenders need not necessarily be sex deviates or perverts and

they may or may not be psychologically disturbed. Statutory rape,
for example, or intercourse between underage individuals, is an
exceptionally common
occurrence in most parts of the world and
is often psychologically normal. If, however, an adult male mainly
or only has coitus with underage females and if he continues to do
so in spite of the real danger of his being detected and legally penal-
ized he is to be strongly suspected of being an emotionally disturbed
person.
between sexually and psychologically
It is useful to differentiate
(or psychiatric ally) deviated offenders (Group for the Advance-
ment of Psychiatry, 1950; Ellis and Brancale, 1956). A sexually
deviated offender is one who commits an offense because he is
fearfully or obsessively-compulsively driven to some kind of sex
behavior (such as homosexuality) which happens to be legally
banned in his community. The fear or hostility which drives him
to his offense is specifically sexual or linked to sex behavior. Thus,
he may be afraid of failing in heterosexual affairs, or he may be
hostile toward women and may therefore become exclusively
homosexual.
A psychologically deviated offender is an individual who commits
any offense, sexual or nonsexual, because he fearfully or rebelliously
is driven to defy some public ordinance. Thus, a psychologically
deviated offender may be afraid that he is weak and "unmanly"
or maybe generally hostile to people and he may therefore resort
to stealing or arson — or to some sex offense, such as rape.
A given offender, therefore, may be either sexually or psycholog-
ically deviated; or he may be deviated in both respects. Some
confirmed delinquents or criminals either are mentally defi-
cient or have serious emotional disturbances, and that is why they

continue to commit offenses which keep placing them in serious
jeopardy. Many sex criminals are disturbed in exactly the same
manner, except that their crime happens to be a sex offense. Many of
them, in fact, commit a considerable number of nonsexual in addition
to sexual offenses (Abrahamsen, 1950; Glueck, 1956; Guttmacher,
1951; Pollens, 1938; Karpman, 1956).
Sex offenders may be divided, therefore, into four main catego-
ries: (1) Normal sex offenders who are not sex deviates or psycho-
logically disturbed (for example, many fornicators or adulterers).
(2) Sexually deviated but psychologically nondeviated offenders
(for example, voyeurs be sexually overshy but who may
who may
not be generally disturbed). (3) Sexually and pschologically devi-
ated offenders (for example, compulsive exhibitionists who have a
specific sex problem and who also are generally hostile and reckless
and keep getting themselves into trouble). (4) Sexually nondeviated
but psychologically deviated offenders (for example, psychotic in-
dividuals who masturbate in public or walk naked in the streets not
because they have a specific sexual deviation but because they are
generally emotionally ill and consequently do all manner of disor-
ganized acts).
SEXUAL OFFENDERS AND

SEXUAL DEVIATES
There is considerable confusion in the public mind, and sometimes

between sexual offenders and
in the professional literature as well,
sexual deviates or perverts. Often the terms "offender" and "devi-
ate" are used as if they were synonymous. As pointed out previ-
ously in this chapter, this is erroneous usage: An individual may be
a grave sex offender (for example, a brutal rapist) and yet be com-
pletely unperverted. Or he may be extremely deviated (for exam-
ple, he may be a masochist who comes to orgasm only when his
partner whips him) and may never commit a statutory sex offense.
Sexual deviation or perversion could once be clearly defined as
any persistent form of sexual behavior different enough from the
normal of a given society to be judged pathological. Shifting legal,
psychological, and social standards, however, have led to a confused
definitional situation. Today, an individual's sex acts may be called
deviated because they are statistically unusual, legally proscribed,
socially disapproved, biologically nonprocreative, physically harm-
ful, or psychologically self-defeating (Allen, 1949; Bailey, 1956;
Bowman, 1952, 1958; Ellis, 1962; English and English, 1958; Karp-
man, 1956; London and Caprio, 1950).
All but the last two of these criteria for deviation quickly run
into internal inconsistencies and extrinsic illogicalities. Thus, voy-
eurism (peeping) and frotteurism (rubbing aganst clothed members
of the other sex in public places) are generally considered to be devi-
ations — but they are statistically common. At the same time, rape
and having coitus in a squatting position are statistically uncommon

in our society — yet they are rarely considered to be perversions.
Defining sex deviation in terms of legal proscriptions or social
disapproval also leaves much to be desired in the way of consistency
and logic, since although no legal jurisdiction and practically no
social group in the United States would penalize or severely con-
demn an individual who was able to obtain full sex satisfaction only
when he behaved masochistically, and asked his sex partner to beat
or humiliate him, virtually every psychiatric textbook and every
practicing psychotherapist would agree that this kind of masochist
was a full-fledged sex deviate. Again, although practically every
court and every social group in our society would seriously
criticize a common prostitute, almost no psychologist or psychia-
would call her, just because she practiced her trade, a
trist pervert.
As for defining sex deviation in terms of nonprocreative acts (as
several orthodox religious groups still tend to do, although some of
them have recently significantly changed their stand in this respect),
such a concept becomes untenable since, by its standards, every
married individual who regularly copulates with his spouse while
employing contraceptive devices would have to be labeled a sex
deviate.
Because the statistical, legal, social, and procreative methods of
assessing sexual deviation run into serious difficulties, professional
workers have tried to establish more sensible and objective bases for
diagnosing perversion. One such basis may be arrived at if we focus
on the possibility of the individual's defeating his own best ends
and say that a person is sexually deviated when he regularly and
arbitrarily defeats his own sex interests — that is, irrationally harms
himself, physically or psychologically, by fetishistically engaging
in or antifetishistically refraining from certain sex acts. Although
this concept of sex deviation has (like all definitions) some difficul-
ties of its own, and is not accepted by many penologists, sexologists,
or psychologists, it does seem to be becoming more widely accepted

than the previously listed definitions of perversion. In accordance
with this definition, an individual in our society may be considered
sexually perverted if he can, under all circumstances, enjoy only
one special form of sexual activity; or if he is obsessively-compul-
sively fixated on a given mode of sex behavior; or if he is fearfully
and rigidly bound to one or two forms of sexual participation; or
if he persists, in a disorganized and self-defeating manner, in engag-
ing in sex acts which destroy his own well-being (Guze, 1959).
A sex pervert, then, either inappropriately overinhibits himself

and fearfully confines his activities to unusually limited modes of
expression; or else he self-destructively underinhibits himself and
(often with considerable hostility) engages in behavior which lit-
erally carries with it serious legal or personal penalties. Most sexual
perverts are unusually fetishistic or antifetishistic in their range of
sex objects (as sadists are only attracted to those who will submit
to them or as pedophiles are drawn only to young boys). Or they
are repulsed by a certain type of sex participation (as fixed homo-
sexuals are often revolted by the thought of having sex relations with
females). A minority of perverts are not fetishists or antifetishists,
however, but impulsively and/or compulsively engage in several

kinds of sex acts (such as exhibitionism, peeping, and sex relations
with minors) which are socially banned and self-destructive. This
minority is more likely to wind up as sex offenders than the ma-
jority of sex deviates who for years pursue their overinhibited activ-
ities without ever coming to the attention of the authorities.
It is most important that we

between sexual deviation
distinguish
and so-called "unnatural" sex practices — by which is often meant
extravaginal heterosexual relations between consenting adults, which
are included as sex offenses under some omnibus "sodomy" statutes.
Although it is true that any person who only or exclusively enjoys
oral-genital or anal-genital relations and virtually never desires
penile-vaginal copulation even when it is freely available is fetish-
istically fixated on such an extravaginal act and is therefore per-
verted, it is by no means true that anyone who enjoys non vaginal
relations as well as regular intercourse is similarly perverted. In fact,
from a psychological standpoint, it may justifiably be said that some
individuals who only engage in the most common form of inter-
course and who under no circumstances would ever try extravaginal
heterosexual relations are extremely fetishistic and fearful and hence
tend, in a minor sort of way, to be deviated.
It is also important that we distinguish accurately between sub-
clinical tendencies toward deviated behavior, which actually fall well
within the normal range, and clear-cut, overt manifestations of per-
version. Thus, almost all normal human beings have some maso-
chistic and sadistic tendencies; and many of these perfectly healthy
men and women have some difficulty in coming to orgasm unless
they are reasonably aggressive on certain occasions or unless they,
in phantasy or in fact, experience some degree of painful stimulation
on other occasions. Particularly in the case of many individuals who
at times have difficulty achieving climax, sadistic or masochistic

tendencies are well within the range of normal sex behavior.
At the same time, when an individual can reach his or her acme
of sex satisfaction only by resorting to extremely sadistic or maso-
chistic acts — for example, by beating, or being beaten by, his or
her sex partner up to and including the point where blood flows or
physical injury results — there is reason to believe that normal sex
tendencies are then being taken to excessive extremes, and the result
may justifiably be labeled "sex deviation." Similarly, although most
human beings normally have some degree of attraction to members
of their own sex, when such attraction continually, exclusively,
and compulsively leads to overt homosexuality, sex perversion may
accurately be deemed to exist.
Tendencies toward plurisexual participations are the normal bio-
logical inheritance of virtually all human beings. It is only when
these tendencies become overchannelized into specialized outlets or
when they give way to disorganized and self-defeating pansexuality
that we can correctly speak of the existence of sexual deviation
or perversion.
Although most convicted sex offenders are distinctly perverted,
in the sense just defined, many of them, such as those convicted of
statutory rape, are not deviates; and of these nondeviated offenders,
as noted above, some are psychologically normal (though perhaps
at times more than a little rash in their activities) and others are
nonsexually psychologically deviated. In any event, although sex
offenses and sexual deviation significantly overlap, they are by no
means the same thing and should not be indiscriminately lumped
together.
INCIDENCE OF SEX OFFENSES
No highly reliable reports of the incidence of sex offenses have

ever been published because of the difficulties inherent in gathering
the necessary statistics. Most technical offenders, as pointed out
previously, are never arrested; many of those who are arrested are
not convicted in spite of the fact that they clearly committed a
statutory offense; many of those who are convicted are allowed to
plead guilty to a lesser charge (such as loitering, assault and battery,
or disorderly conduct). Consequently, individuals who are finally
convicted of a specific sex offense (and on whom we do have some
THE SEX OFFENDER AND HIS TREATMENT •
407
statistics) represent only a relatively small percentage of those who
actually commit a sex act that isbanned in the jurisdiction
legally
in which they reside (Drummond, 1953; Guttmacher and Weihofen,
1952; Sherwin, 1949; Wolfenden Report, 1957).
Perhaps the best and most detailed study of sex offenses done to
date is that by Radzinowicz and his associates (1957), who made a
thoroughgoing investigation of offenses known to the police in
England and Wales and estimated that in 1954 about 16,000 such
offenses occurred. Of the known sexual offenses, the distribution
of indictable cases was found to be as follows: indecent assault on
females, 50 percent; attempts to commit unnatural offenses and in-
decent assaults on males, 21 percent; indecency with males, 13 per-
cent; defilement of girls between the ages of thirteen and sixteen,
9 percent; unnatural offenses, 7 percent; rape, and the like, 2 per-
cent; incest, 2 percent; and defilement of girls under the age of
twelve, 1 percent.
In the United States there are about 40,000 arrests a year for
major sex offenses and doubtless many more for minor offenses.
The new Jersey State Police adds to its file of known sex offenders
about 800 to 1,000 individuals a year. These offenders and their
offenses are classified as follows: exhibitionism, 18 percent; rape
(including statutory rape), 45 percent; perversion, 14 percent; com-
mercial sex, 7 percent; unclassified, 16 percent (Tappan, 1950).
CHARACTERISTICS OF
SEX OFFENDERS
As virtually all modern authorities on sex offenders have stressed,

there are many existent myths about the overimpulsivity, aggressive-
ness, and recidivism of convicted offenders. Some of the truths in
this connection would seem to be as follows:
1. The majority of convicted offenders are found to be rather
harmless, "minor" deviates rather than dangerous "sex fiends."
2. Only a relatively small proportion (about 20 percent) of sex
offenders uses force or duress upon the victims of the offense.
3. When
they are not psychologically treated, convicted offend-
ers are found to be frequent repeaters of both sexual and nonsexual
offenses, even though their rates of recidivism may be lower than
those of nonsex offenders.
4. Very few offenders may truly be designated "sexual psycho-
paths": most of them, when intensively examined with modern psy-

chological and psychiatric techniques of investigation, are found
to be severely neurotic, borderline psychotic, psychotic, or organ-
ically brain-impaired. Studies at Sing Sing Prison in New
York and
at the New Jersey State Diagnostic Center at Menlo Park show that
the majority of convicted offenders suffer from some type of mental
or emotional disorder, though not usually so pronounced as to meet
the legal definition of mental illness.
5. Aside from those convicted of statutory rape and incestuous

relations, most offenders tend to be sexually inhibited and constricted
rather than overimpulsive and oversexed. The great majority of
them indicate distinct emotional immaturity.
6. Convicted sex offenders tend to show subnormal intelligence
in a higher percentage of the cases, and bright normal or superior
intelligence in a smaller percentage of the cases, than do members
of the general population. Subnormal intelligence is particularly
likely to be found among offenders convicted of statutory rape,
incestuous relations, and bestiality and least frequently found in
those convicted of forcible rape, exhibitory acts, and the dissemi-
nation of "obscene" material.
7. The majority of offenders are quite young, being in their teens
and early twenties. From 50 to 60 percent of sex offenders are un-
married, although others are married, divorced, separated, or wid-
owed. Most of the offenders come from relatively poor educational
and socioeconomic backgrounds.
THE TREATMENT OF
SEX OFFENDERS
Convicted sex offenders, largely because of their propensity to

be arrested and convicted, are usually severely disturbed persons
who cannot or will not confine their activities to legally accepted
practices or who (perhaps more important) refuse to be sufficiently
discreet and privately behaved about their legally proscribed activ-
ities. The mere fact that they are caught, and often caught several
times, in their acts puts them in a distinctly different category from

other technical offenders, such as adulterers and fornicators, who
are rarely apprehended and convicted of any offense. In addition,
many offenders (such as confirmed homosexuals) are, quite apart
from the illegal nature of their offenses, psychologically deviated
because of their own groundless fears and hostilities, and would
require psychological treatment even if their acts were not legally
banned.
The psychological treatment of sex offenders such as these is
quite difficult in most instances (Buckle, 1949; de River, 1949; Ellis,
1956; Foster, 1947; Gurvitz, 1957; Rickles, 1950; Wolfenden Re-

port, 1957). It requires a tackling and an undermining of the of-
fender's general and sexual disturbances; and it involves, in the final
analysis if not in the beginning of psychotherapy, a pronounced
willingness on the part of the offender to work at his own improve-
ment. Sex deviates and sex offenders, however, are notoriously
uncooperative in this respect, and often receive so many neurotic
gains or satisfactions from their aberrations that they have little or
no incentive to work for basic changes in themselves.
Nonetheless, a defeatist attitude toward the treatment of sex of-
fenders is not scientifically warranted. Several investigators, includ-
ing the present writer, have found that sex deviates and offenders
can be successfully treated both in institutions and in private prac-
tice, and that unusually good results can often be obtained if the
therapist employs a highly directive, rational psychotherapeutic ap-

proach that shows the offender what his basic fear- and hostility-
creating philosophies of living are, how they originated, how he is
continually sustaining them in the present, and how he can examine,
question, and challenge them so that they significantly change (Ellis,
1956, 1958, 1959a, 1959b).
As an example of what can be done in the treatment of a sex
offender, we may consider the case of a thirty-two-year-old salesman
who had been discharged from the armed forces for homosexual
activity and had twice been arrested and convicted for picking up
males in public urinals and inviting them to his room. He was not
only exclusively homosexual in his activities but almost always
assumed a feminine role in his relations with other males.
As in the case of many other homosexuals, this patient had an
exceptionally dominating mother and a weak, ineffective father for
whom he had no respect. He had always been afraid to date girls,
although he was exceptionally good looking and had maintained
buddy-buddy friendships with several females. On the single occa-
sion when one of his female friends, who was seriously interested
in marrying him, had encouraged him to have sex relations with
her, he had gone into a panic state at the last moment and had run
out of her apartment.
It was soon determined, after this patient had come for psycho-
therapy at the insistence of lawyer and the probation officer,
his
that the main factors homosexual behavior were
in his pattern of
(1) his hostility against his dominating mother and his enormous
fear of being similarly dominated by another woman; (2) his con-
viction that he was just as inept as his father and that he could never
compete sucessfully in business or social relations; (3) his ardent
desire to identify closely with a strong, butch-type male, who would
take the responsibility for being the active partner in sex affairs
and would care for him, help him, and protect him from the harsh
realities of life; and (4) his general feelings of rebelliousness against
an unkind world that was forcing him to be more commercially

and socially active than he (because of his fear of failure) wanted
to be.
The therapeutic approach that was taken with this patient was
to get him to question his assumption that it was frightful if he
failed at any project or was rejected by someone whose approval
or love he sought. He was forced continually to ask himself the
questions: "Why is it so terrible to fail at anything?" and "What
would happen to me that is so awful if this or that person
really
does not approve of me?" As is invariably true in these cases, he
could give no sensible answers to these questions, since the assumed
terror and horror of failing at a task or of being rejected by some-
one are merely the result of definitions in the head of the assumer
and have little or no objective reality.
Once this patient started to contradict his own self-defeating
philosophies of and to see clearly that there never is anything
life,
objectively dreadful about failure or rejection, he was induced (as

part of the "homework" assignments that are commonly given to
patients in the course of rational psychotherapy) first to become
more aggressive and active in the homosexual relations which he
still continued (though in a more discreet and less dangerous man-
ner). Whereas he previously had only permitted himself to satisfy
his partners sexually, in order to win their approval and protection,
he was now able to be as much or more concerned about his own
satisfaction and to refuse to participate any longer on a one-sided
basis. Instead of the butch type of male he had previously sought,
he began thinking about and going with more effeminate, passive
males who were (because of their own severe emotional disturb-
ances) vitally interested in satisfying him.
The next step was to get the patient to date girls and to make
definite sexual overtures toward them. As is usual in these cases, he

at first had many excuses and rationalizations for not making the
dates or for not making any attempts at physical contacts when he
did make dates. But all of these excuses were ruthlessly revealed
and analyzed by the therapist and invariably the same motive was
disclosed: the patient was still terribly afraid of failure, still mor-
bidly concerned about immediate, guaranteed acceptance. Again
and again his basic philosophies in regard to his dire need of approval
were attacked, until he began truly to see that it did not make that
much difference if he were refused or disapproved. Not only in
the sexual-social area but in the area of his business life as well were
his attitudes toward success and acceptance uncovered and assailed.
Although his strong desire or preference for getting ahead in life
was not attacked, since it appeared to be quite legitimate and real-
istic in the light of his underlying abilities, his translation of this
desire into a grim necessity, and his convincing himself that he
would be an utterly worthless human being
he did not enormously
if
succeed — these assumptions and philosophies were revealed and

seriously challenged.
The breakthrough came on the business front.
first significant
Whereas the patient had previously turned down all offers to bet-
ter his position because he was terribly afraid to assume greater
responsibility (and hence risk greater failure), after he had been in
therapy for four months he learned about a better job opening and
actively went after it, even though there was a good possibility
that his present employer would discover that he was in the market
for a new job and would show distinct disapproval. "Let him find
out!" the patient said to himself and the therapist. "With the way
he's holding me down and paying me so little right now, what have
I got to lose?" "And if he gets angry at you?" asked the therapist.
"So he gets angry! As you have helped me see, that's his problem.
What can he do — kill
me?" "Right. But suppose you don't get this
new job, what then?" "So I won't get it. Can they kill me, either?
And if I don't get that one, I'll keep trying till I get another. I'm
goddam sick of being pushed around, since I now realize that that's
what's been happening. No
one pushes you very far, I see, unless
you let yourself be pushed. So if I don't get this job, I'll jump at
every single opportunity that comes along till I get another."
As might have been expected, the patient did get the job he was
going after — largely because he was so determined to try for it.
Then, a few weeks later, he not only made a date, for the first time,
with a girl he thought was absolutely terrific, and from whom he

would not have dared risk rebuff before, but actually was sexually
forward with her from the beginning. Although at first he got no-
where with her, he persisted until he was having regular and highly
satisfactory sex relations with this girl. After several subsequent
affairs, he finally married and has lost all interest in having homo-
sexual affairs. He has continued to forge ahead in business and has a
few remaining remnants of his pathological passivity but no inclina-
tions to identify with or be subservient to stronger male figures.
Largely as a result of the therapist's getting him to challenge and at-
tack his general philosophies of life, he has overcome his basic neuro-
sis as well as the homosexual symptoms which were derivatives of this
fundamental neurotic pattern of behavior. In the course of
this type of psychotherapy, it is found that there are virtually
no sex problems per se but that so-called sexual disturbances arise
from general fears of failure, feelings of inadequacy, dire needs for
approval, and other irrational philosophies of life.
The successful treatment of sex offenders and sex deviants has also
been reported by a number of clinicians using a variety of other
psychotherapeutic techniques. Practitioners who have successfully
employed orthodox psychoanalytic and psychoanalytically oriented
methods include Allen (1949), Fink (1954), A. Freud (1951), Gur-
vitz (1957), Hadfield (1958), Karpman (1956), Lewinsky (1952),
London and Caprio (1950), Poe (1952), Robertiello (1959), Rubin-
stein (1958), and Shentoub (1957). Practitioners using Adlerian,
Stekelian, deconditioning, and other psychotherapeutic techniques
with sex offenders and deviates have also had a fair amount of suc-
cess, as shown by Buckle (1949), Creadick (1953),
clinical reports of
Deutsch (1954), Foster (1947), Nedoma (1951), Srnec and Freund
(1953), and Stekel (1930). From the increasing number of reports,
such as these just cited, which keep appearing in the professional
literature, it should be obvious that while the treatment of sex of-
fenders is still difficult, it is by no means doomed to failure.
SOCIAL PROPHYLAXIS
On a social level, the prevention and treatment of sex offenses

would be greatly aided if the citizens of any community and their
duly appointed and elected police, judicial, and legislative officials
would take an objective and scientific rather than a traditional bi-

ased and punitive attitude toward offenders. Individuals commit

offenses not because they are blackguards or degenerates but because
they are ignorant, mentally subnormal, or emotionally disturbed;
and because they are often following normal psychophysical urges
or drives which are mistakenly and cruelly limited and banned in
many jurisdictions. If society would see to it that as many as possible
of its members were raised so that they were minimally ignorant
and disturbed and maximally permitted to engage in harmless sex
acts, there would doubtless be a sharp decrease in the existing high
number of sex offenders.
More specifically, for the best kind of prevention of, and treat-
ment for, sex offenses the following general program is suggested:
1. Only those sex acts should be legally proscribed which involve
the use of force or duress, an adult's taking sexual advantage of a
minor, or public acts distasteful to the majority of those in whose
presence they are committed. Sex acts other than these, which are
engaged in private between two competent adults, should not be
subject to legal processes or penalties.
2. All sex laws should be rewritten so that offenses are specifically
and scientifically designated and defined in meaningful, consistent,
nonoverlapping terms.
3. When individuals commit any sex offense that would be an
offense under the two preceding rules, they should, after conviction
but before being sentenced, be given a complete psychological
examination to determine whether they are sexually and/ or psycho-
logically deviated.
4. All sex offenders, and particularly those who are diagnosed as
being sexually or psychologically deviated, should receive psycho-
logical treatment either in their own community while they are
placed on probation, or in a mental hospital or other facility that
affords specialized psychotherapeutic care for sex offenders. If insti-
tutionalization is required, the convicted offender should remain in
protective custody as long as he is regarded as being sufficiently
psychologically deviated to constitute a menace to the rights and
safety of his fellow citizens.
5. Under no circumstances should sex offenders (or, for that
matter, nonsex offenders) be viewed as horrible, villainous criminals
to be harshly punished as an atonement for their sins. Rather, they
should be viewed as relatively normal individuals who are rash
enough to get into occasional difficulty, or as seriously disturbed
persons who are sufficiently disordered to keep getting into legal
difficulties because of their sexual behavior. In either case, education

and treatment, rather than excoriation and punishment, should be
the lot of these already sufficiently unfortunate individuals.
6. It is most necessary, for the prevention and treatment of sex
offenders, that every community favor increasing, and improving
the quality of, general sex education, so that children at an early
age are provided with scientific, objectively stated sex information,
and so that a much more liberal, socially sanctioned heterosexual
participation by young people than now exists is heartily en-
couraged.
References
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Prison. Utica, N. Y.: State Hospitals Press, 1950.
Allen, Clifford. The sexual perversions and abnormalities. New York:
Oxford Univer. Press, 1949.
Bailey, D. (Ed.) Sexual offenders and social punishment. Westmin-
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ister: Church of England Moral Welfare Council and Church In-
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Bowman, K. M. Sexual deviation research. Sacramento: Assembly of
the State of California, 1952.
Bowman, K. M. Too many sex laws. Nation, 1958, 188, 286-289.
Buckle, D. The treatment of sex offenders. Int. J. Sexol., 1949, 31, 1-8.
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severe homosexual problems. /. consult. Psychol., 1956, 20, 191-195.
Ellis, A. How to live with a neurotic. New York: Crown Publishers,
1957.
Ellis, A. Rational psychotherapy. /. gen. Psychol., 1958, 59, 35-49.
Ellis,A. Treatment of a homosexual with rational psychotherapy. /. clin.
Psychol., 1959, 15, 338-343. (a)
A. The treatment of a psychopath with rational psychotherapy.
Ellis,
(In Italian.) Quaderni di criminologuia Clinica, 1959, 2, 173-184.
Also published in /. Psychol, 1961, 51, 141-150. (b)
Ellis, A. The and science of love. New York: Lyle Stuart, 1960. (a)
art
Ellis, A. There is no place for the concept of sin in psychotherapy.
/. counsel. Psychol., 1960, 7, 188-192. (b)
Ellis, A. Coitus. In A. and A. Abarbanel (Eds.), Encyclopedia of
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sexual behavior. New York: Hawthorne Books, 1961.
A. Sexual deviation and anomalies. In
Ellis, Collier's Encyclopedia. New
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Ellis, A. and Brancale, R. The psychology of sex offenders. Springfield,
111.: Charles C Thomas, 1956.
Ellis, A., Doorbar, Ruth R., & Johnson, R., II. Characteristics of con-
victed sex offenders. /. soc. Psychol., 1954, 40, 3-15.
English, H. &
English, A. C.
B. A
comprehensive dictionary of psy-
chological and psychoanalytical terms. New
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Fink, H. K. Long journey. New York: Julian Press, 1954.
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77-80.
Freud, Anna. Clinical observations On the treatment of manifest male
homosexuality. Psy choanal. Quart., 1951, 20, 237-238.
Glueck, B. C. Psychodynamic patterns in the homosexual sex offender.
Amer. J. Psychiat., 1956, 11, 584-590.
Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry. Psychiatric ally deviated
sex offenders. Report No. 9, rev. Topeka, Kans.: 1950.
Gurvitz, M. Sex offenders in private practice: Treatment and outcome.
Paper delivered at the American Psychological Association Annual
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Guttmacher, Manfred S. Sex offenses. New York: Norton, 1951.
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Guze, H. What is sexually normal? Paper delivered at the Second
Annual Conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex,
November 7, 1959.
Hadfield, J. A. The cure of homosexuality. Brit. med. J., 1958, 1,
1323-1326.
Karpman, B. The sexual offender and his offenses. New York: Julian
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Kinsey, A. C, Pomeroy, W. B., & Martin, C. E. Sexual behavior in
the human male. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1948.
Lewinsky, H. Features from a case of homosexuality. Psy choanal. Quart.,
1952, 21, 344-254.
London, L. S., & Caprio, F. S. Sexual deviation. Washington, D. G:

Linacre Press, 1950.
Michigan, State of. Report of the Governor's study commission on the
deviated crimnal sex offender. Lansing: 1951.
Nedoma, K. Homosexuality in sexological practice. Int. J. Sexol., 1951,
4, 219-224.
Poe, J. S. Successful treatment of a forty-year-old passive homosexual.
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Pollens, B. The sex criminal. New York: Macaulay, 1938.
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Rickles, N. K. Exhibitionism. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1950.

Robertiello, C. Voyage from Lesbos. New York: Citadel Press, 1959.
Rubinstein, J. Psychotherapeutic aspects of male homosexuality. Brit.
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Shentoub, S. A. De quelques problemes dans l'homosexualite masculine
active. Rev. franc. Psychanalyse, 1959, 21, 485-534. Excerpta Medica,
1959, 8, 12, 958.
Sherwin, R. V. Sex and the statutory law. New York: Oceana Publica-
tions, 1949.
Sherwin, R. V. Laws on sex crimes. In A. Ellis and A. Abarbanel (Eds.),

Encyclopedia of sexual behavior. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1961.
Srnec, Dr., and Freund, K. Treatment of male homosexuality through
conditioning. Int. J. Sexol., 1953, 7, 92-93.
Stekel, Wilhelm. Sexual aberrations. New York: Liveright, 1930.
Tappan, P. W. The habitual sex offender. Trenton: State of New
Jersey, 1950.
Traver, R. Anatomy of a murder. New York: Dell Books, 1959.
Index
Index
"Abnormal brain" hypothesis, con- Camps, youth, 332-341

cerning causation of psy- community relations and, 338-
chopathic personality, 283- 339
286 furloughs, 339
Adjudicators, law, 31 passes, 339
Adult offenders, treatment of, Capital punishment, 1 72
changes in, 325 Cases (see Civil cases; Criminal
Adultery, 7, 401, 403 cases)
Agencies of law administration, 30 Cassel Group Level of Aspiration
Aggressors, impact of law on, 33 Test, 234
Alcoholic offenders, 351-352, 353, Charging, 12
354, 355, 381-399 Civil cases
characteristics of, 383-385 cross-examination, 91-92
chronic, 381-382 preparing witnesses for, 89-90
dependency of, 382, 386-389 demonstrative evidence, 90-91
drinking patterns, 385-386 direct examination, 84-88
drug addicts compared with, evaluation of, 76-77
365-367 final argument, 92-95
half-way houses and, 395-398 jury selection, 79-81
Skid Row and, 387-393 opening statement to jury, 81-82
treatment, 393-398 order of proof, 82-84
Alcoholics Anonymous, 367, 388, settlement tactics, 77-79
393-394 trial tactics in, 75-95
Anatomy, crime and, 177 witnesses, bad practices in exam-
Appellate courts, 27 ining, 88
Arrest, 10-11 Community relations, youth camps
Attitudes, predisposing, study of, and, 338-339
209-210 Community role in crime preven-
Attorneys, 32 tion, 343-344
defense (see Defense counsel) Competency, of testimony, 61
Conciliation, as legal process, 25-26
Borstal System, 184 Constitutional hypothesis, concern-
Boys, unsocialized aggressive, 245- ing causation of psycho-
247 pathic personality, 283
Brothel-keeping, 401 Correction
Brown v. Bd. of Education, 48 adult, changes in, 325
419
420 INDEX
Correction (continued) Criminal cases (continued)
concept of, 328 final argument, 71-72
current practices in, 294-322 jury selection, 55-58
juvenile, changes in, 325-326 opening statements, 58-60
legal framework for, 181-184 proceedings, nature of, 52-53
new developments in, 323-347 prosecutor in, 53-55
program of, 328-343 trial tactics in, 51-74
psychiatric and psychological Criminal man, Lombroso's theory
services and, 346 of the, 176-177
relationship between criminal Criminal predispositions, 192-242
law and, 327-328 development of, 192-212
time-clock concept of, 299-304 psychoanalytic view, 205-207
trends in, 184-185 sociological view, 201-205
(see also Institutions, correction- gauging of, 213-242
al; Treatment) base-rate problem, 219-220
Counsel (see Attorneys; Defense psychological measures, types
counsel) of, 220-236
Counseling reliability of a predictor, 216-
group (see Group counseling) 217

law as, 24-25 validity of predictor, 217-218
theories of, 196-200
Courtroom, 13-14
Criminal psychology (see Psychol-
divine intervention in, 173-174
ogy, criminal)
psychology and, 19-20
Criminal responsibility, 146-168
Courts (see Appellate courts;
concept of, 146-147
Juvenile courts; Supreme
Court, U.S.)
Durham Rule and, 157-158
historical and social aspects of,
Crime
151-157
anatomy and, 177
McNaghten Formula (see Mc-
causes of, 192-193, 195-201
Naghten Formula)
multiple-factor approach, 200-
New Hampshire Rule and, 154-
201
155, 157
drug addicts and, 367-368
Criminology, 174-176
environment and, 198-199
heredity and, 198-199 Cross-examination
nature of, 193-195 in civil cases, 89-90, 91-92
prevention, community's role in. in criminal cases, 60
343-344 Custom, law and, 36

psychopathic personalities and,
282-283 Death penalty, 5
religious conception of, 173-174 Decisions, judicial, 27-28

Criminal cases basis for, differing views on, 131-
defense counsel in, 53-55
examination and evidence, 60-62 contextual pressures on, 124-127
INDEX 421
Decisions, judicial (continued) Educational programs, in correc-

improving, suggested changes tional institutions, 315
for, 138-142 Electroencephalogram, 284-286
making of, 123-124 Enforcers, law, 30-31
personal characteristics of judges Environment, crime and, 198-199
and, 127-131 Epilepsy as cause of crime, 197
predicting, 138 Evidence, demonstrative, 90-91
Decrees, 27-28 Examination (see Cross-examina-
Defense counsel, 53-55 tion; Direct examination)
final argument, 72 Exhibitory sex acts, 401, 403, 405,
opening statement, 59-60 407, 408

role of, 66-70 Expediters, law, 31
Delinquency Feelings, predisposing, study of,

causes of, 192-193 209-210
criterion of, 214-216 Final argument
juvenile (see Juvenile delin-
in civil cases, 92-95
quency) in criminal cases, 71-72
Demonstrative evidence, 90-91 Forensic psychiatry, 16-18
Desegregation, 36 Fornication, 401, 403
Deviates, sexual (see Sexual de- Frotteurism, 403
viates) Furloughs, youth camps and, 339
Direct examination
Gambling, 6, 10
in civil cases, 84-88
Gangs, 203, 244-245, 324
in criminal cases, 60
Glueck prediction tables, 236-240
Divine intervention, in courtroom, Goodrich Act (Michigan), 4
173-174 Group counseling, youthful of-
Drug addiction fenders and, 333-335, 338,
definition of, 359-362 342-343
future of, 376-379 Group therapy, in correctional in-
Drug addicts, 351, 352, 353, 354, stitutions, 316
355, 357-380
compared with, 365- Half-way houses, 395-398
alcoholics
Harrison Narcotic Act, 352
367
and prisons, 375-376
Hearsay rule, 61
in courts
Hedonism, 174
criminal activities of, 367-368
Heredity, crime and, 198-199
development of, 362-365
Historical influences, 38-39
life cycle and, 368
Homosexuality, 10, 248, 401, 402,
persons who become, change in
405, 406, 408
kind of, 372-375
treatment, 409-412
treatment, 369-372
Drunkenness (see Alcoholic of- Incest, 401, 407, 408
fenders) Influence, legal, social contexts of,
Durham Rule, 157-158 35-37
422 INDEX
Insanity Juries, 13, 31
criminal responsibility and, 146- procedure, suggested reforms in,
168 113-117
irresponsibility due to, 150-151 psychology of, 96-120
Institutions research on, 100-105
correctional, 306-316 selection
educational programs in, 315 in civil cases, 79-81
group therapy in, 316 in criminal cases, 55-58
job placement, 310-312 Jury system, 97-100
libraries in, 315 controversy over, 109-113
psychologists in, 265-266 Juvenile courts, 184, 255-265, 323
reception-diagnostic proced- intake, 256-257
ures, 329-331 juvenile correctional field and,
recreation in, 316 327
religion in, 314 official dispositions, 262-265
self-improvement activities in, unofficial action by, 259-262
316 waiving jurisdiction, 257-259
for youthful offenders, 331- Juvenile delinquency, 5, 179-181,
343, 345 186, 188, 202-205, 209-210
social, law and, 36-37 "accidental," 247-254
Intelligence, 41-44 gangs and, 244-245
Inventories, 220-231 mother-daughter feuds and, 251-
construction of, 222 252
limitations of, 231 neurotic, 252-254
Minnesota Multiphasic Person- psychologists and, 243-270
ality Inventory, 222-231 unsocialized aggressive boys and,
Irresistible impulse doctrine, 156 245-247
Irresponsibility due to insanity, see also Youthful offenders
150-151
Knowledge, 41-44
Job placement, in correctional in- Law

stitutions, 310-312 agencies of, 30
Judges, 13, 31 custom and, 36
career, personal variables in, 127- historical influences, 38-39
131 as an institution, 36-37
decisions and opinions of, 123- intelligence and knowledge and,
136 41-42
good, qualities of, 122 modern problems and, 37
psychology of, 121-145 operations of, 24-29
work of, 122-123 appellate courts, 27
Judgments, 27-28 counseling, 24-25
Judicial decisions {see Decisions, judgments and decrees, 27-28
judicial) negotiation (conciliation), 25-
Juke family, 198-199 26
INDEX 423
Law Man, concept of, as free moral

operations of (continued) agent, 172-173
standards and rules, 28-29 Manipulators (see Attorneys)
trial process, 26-27 Mann Act, 8-9
parties affected by, 33-35 Materiality, of testimony, 61
and social influences, 40
political McNaghten Formula, 17, 18, 69,
psychology and, 22-50 152-156
psychology of, 29-30 Measures, psychological (see Psy-
rules and, 28-29 chological instruments)
social institutions and, 36 Mental illness
spheres of, psychological view as excusing condition, 158-164
of, 24-37 nature of, 158-161
transnational, 37 Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Law adjudicators, 31 Inventory (MMPI), 222-231
Law administration, agencies of, Modern problems, law and, 37
30 Mother-daughter feuds, delin-
Law enforcement, selective, 9-10 quency and, 251-252
Law enforcers, 30-31 Muller v. Oregon, 39
Law expediters, 31
Law manipulators (see Attorneys) Narcotics (see Drug addicts)
Law operatives, 30-34 Narcotics Anonymous, 367
Law promoter-executives, 32 Negotiation, as legal process, 25-26
Lawmakers (see Legislators) Negroes, crime and, 9
Lawmaking, psychology of, 4-5 Neurosis, 275
Lawmaking processes, of interest to New Hampshire Rule, 154-155, 157
psychologist, 29 Noncoital sex relations with minors,
Laws, interpretation of, 6-9 401, 405
Lawyers (see Attorneys)
"Legal fictions," 7 Obscenity, 401
Legal influence, social contexts of, Offenders (see Adult offenders; Al-
35-37 coholic offenders; Criminals;
Legal precedents, 35-36 Sex offenders; Youthful of-
Legal psychology (see Psychology, fenders)
legal) Operatives, law, 30-34
Legislators, 31-32
Pandering, 401
as law transcribers, 5-6
Parole, 182-183, 184, 316-319, 353
Libraries, in correctional institu-
community services and, 344-345
tions, 315
Parolees, youthful, 342-343
Litigants, impact of law on, 34 Passes, youth camps and, 339
Lobbyists, 6 Pd Scale, 223-230
Peeping (see Voyeurism)
Madness, concept of, in ancient Personality, psychopathic (see Psy-
Greece, 151-152 chopathic personality)
424 INDEX
Perverts (see Sex offenders; Sex- Psychological hypothesis, concern-
ual deviates) ing causation of psycho-
Pimping, 401 pathic personality, 286-290
Police power, abuses of, 10-11 Psychological instruments, 220-236
Political influences, 40-41 inventories, 220-231
Porteus Maze Test, 234 tests, 220, 232-236
Precedents, legal, 35-36 Psychologists
Prediction tables, Glueck, 236-240 juvenile courts and, 255-265
Predispositions, criminal (see Crim- juvenile delinquency and, 243-
inal predispositions) 270
Preponderance of evidence, 52 in treatment institutions, 265-266
Pressure groups, 6 Psychology
Presumption of innocence, 52, 72 behavioristic, 42
Prevention of crime, community's courtroom and, 19-20
role in, 343-344 criminal, 171-416
Prisons (see Institutions, correc- alcoholic offenders and, 381-
tional) 399
Probation, 304-306 drug addiction and, 357-380
community programs concerned evolution of, 178
with, 341-342 introduction to, 171-189
community services and, 344-345 as profession, 172
youthful offenders and, 339-342 psychiatric and sociological
Probationers, youthful, 342-343 views of, 178-181
foster family care for, 343 as science, 172
group counseling and, 342 sex offenders and, 400-416
Probation-Recovery Camp (Michi- special problems in, 351-416
gan), 340-341 historical influences, 39
Prohibition, 352, 354 intelligence and knowledge and,
Projective tests, 220, 221, 234-236 42-44
Promoter-executives, 32 of judges, 121-145
Proof beyond reasonable doubt, of juries, 96-120
52, 72 law and, 22-50
Prosecutor, 30, 53-55 of law administration, 29-30
final argument, 71-72 of lawmaking, 4-5
opening statement, 58-59 legal, 3-168
role of, 62-66 defined, 3
Prostitution, 8, 10, 358, 364, 401, as profession, 4
404 as science, 4
Psychiatry political and social influences,

concept of, problems concerning, 40-41
159-161 of testimony, 14-16
forensic, 16-18 Psychopathic (sociopathic) person-
Psychoanalysis, 42, 105-106, 290 ality, 271-293
INDEX 425
Psychopathic (sociopathic) person- Sex offenders, 351, 352, 353, 354,

ality (continued) 355, 416
case history, 271-274 characteristics of, 407-408

causation, theories of, 283-290 classification of offenses, 400-401
characteristics of, 278-282 defined, 400

concept of psychological classification of,
historical development of, 276- 402-403

277 sexual deviates distinguished
modern, 277-282 from, 402, 403-406
criminality and, 282-283 treatment of, 408-412
denned, 282 Sex offenses, 400-401

term, use of, 274-275 incidence of, 406-407
treatment, 290-292 social prophylaxis, 412-414
Psychosis, 275 Sexual assault, forcible, 400

Psychotherapy, 254, 290-291 Sexual deviates, distinguished from
Public, the, impact of law on, 34- sex offenders, 402, 403-406
35 Social influences, 40-41
Punishment, 296-298 Sociopathic personality (see Psy-

chopathic personality)
Sodomy, 401, 405
Rape Standards, legal, 28-29
forcible, 401,408
Statutory rape, 401, 402, 406, 407,
statutory, 401, 402, 406, 407, 408
408
Recreation, in correctional insti-
Street Gestalt Completion Test, 233
tutions, 316
Superego, 278
Reformatories, 331-332
Supreme Court, U. S.
Relevancy, of testimony, 61
convictions under Mann Act,
Religion, in correctional institu-
8-9
tions, 314
Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), 5
Res ipsa loquitur doctrine, 83-84
Suspended sentence, 300
Research, on juries, 100-105
Responsibility
Testimony
criminal (see Criminal responsi-
competency of, 61
bility)
hearsay, 61
types of, 147-150
materiality of, 61
Rorschach Inkblot Test, 235-236
not responsive, 61-62
Rules, law and, 28-29
psychology of, 14-16
relevancy of, 61
Selective sanctions, 9-10 Tests
Self-improvement activities, cor- Cassel Group Level of Aspira-
rectional institutions, 316 tion, 234
Sentencing, 12, 299-301 Porteus Maze, 234
Sex murder, 401 projective, 220, 221, 234-236
426 INDEX
Tests (continued) Uniform Narcotic Drug Act, 352
psychological, 220, 221, 232-234
Rorschach Inkblot, 235-236 Victims of offenses, impact of law
Street Gestalt Completion, 233 on, 33-34
Therapy Voir dire examination, 55-56
group, in correctional institu- Voyeurism, 401, 403, 405
tions, 316
remedial, for youthful offenders, Witnesses, 13-14; see also Testi-
336-343 mony
Third parties, particularly sus-
ceptible, impact of law on, Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), 5
34 Youth Authority Corrections Act,
Transvestism, 401 184
Treatment major provisions of, 324
correctional Youth camps (see Camps, youth)
adult, changes in, 325 Youthful offenders, 184, 323-347
institutions, 306-316 adult corrections, changes in, 325
juvenile, changes in, 325-326 case management, 336
parole, 316-319 corrections' programs for, 327
probation, 304-306 institutions for, 331-343, 345
public and, 186-188 juvenile corrections, changes in,
time-clock method of, 299-304 325-326
adverse effects of, 302-304 new developments in correction,
vested interests and, 188-189 323-347
see also Correction police services dealing with,
Treatment institutions (see Institu- changes in, 326-327
tions, correctional) probation and, 339-342
Trial process, 26-27 psychiatric and psychological
Trial tactics (see Civil cases; Crim- services and, 346
inal cases) remedial therapy and, 336-343
University of
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Legal and criminal psychology

Abraham Blumberg, LL.B.

Jacob Goldstein, D.S.Sc.

Albert I. Rabin, Ph.D.

Robert S. Redmount, LL.B., Ph.D.

Alfred C. Schnur, Ph.D.

HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-12216

Printed in the United States of America

Psychology is many things to many people. "Psychology" in

The present volume carries no such intention.

It would be a mistake to classify this volume as an "interdiscipli-

of interdependent steps. In thespian terms, our "practitioners" pro-

most assuredly These divergences, however, are subordinate to

sights and feelings explicit, no matter how sensitive or controversial

tional and humane practices in the administration of criminal justice

he has received from the contributors to this volume. Almost every

Charles Winick for helpful advice at critical junctures.

East Lansing, Michigan H. T.

Abraham B lumberg is a member of the New York Bar and teaches

Cohen is on the staff of the Subcommittee on Antitrust and

Albert well-known authority on marriage counseling and

Harry A. Gair is past President of the Law Science Academy and

Israel Gerver lectures in Sociology and Anthropology at Brooklyn

Charles Hanley is Associate Professor of Psychology at Michigan

Albert I. Rabin is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Psy-

Earl Rubington is with the Connecticut Com-

Robert H. Scott is Associate Director of Corrections in charge of

Thomas S. Szasz is Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, State

Hans Toch on the faculty of Michigan State University, where

he teaches (among other things) a course in Legal and Criminal

William W. Wattenberg is Professor of Educational Psychology at

known for his writings on juvenile delinquency.

Charles Winick a psychologist with many interests. He teaches

Applied Psychoanalysis at New York University, and has also

About the Contributors xi

PART I • LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY

1. Introduction to Legal Psychology 3

The Psychology of Lawmaking 4

2. Psychology and Law 22

A Psychological View of the Spheres of Law 24

3. Trial Tactics in Criminal Cases 51

Nature of the Proceedings 52

Evaluation of the Case 76

5. The Psychology of Juries 96

How the Jury System Works 97

6. The Psychology of Judges 121

The Judge's Job 122

7. Criminal Responsibility and Psychiatry 146

What is Criminal Responsibility? 146

8. Introduction to Criminal Psychology 171

The Conception of Man Moral Agent

9. The Development of Criminal Predispositions 192

The Nature of "Crime" 193

10. The Gauging of Criminal Predispositions 213

Delinquency as a Criterion 214

Gang Children 244

12. Psychopathic (Sociopathic) Personalities 271