THE DELINQUENT CHILD

Chapter 22

THE DELINQUENT CHILD

The Chapter at a Glance

Delinquent children are economic burden.

Causes of delinquent behavior.

Juvenile delinquency and the school.

Retardation and backwardness.

Poor scholarship and failure.

Truancy and juvenile delinquency.

General attitude towards school.

Suggestions for the teacher.

Need for prevention of delinquency.

            Minor anomalies and oddities of behavior, if left unnoticed and un-remedied during early infancy, are liable to develop into serious anti-social and delinquent habits and traits in later life. How easy it is to uproot early behavioral deviations and set the child on the road to balanced and healthy adulthood! How irksome and difficult it is to rehabilitate the unguided grown up who has hardened himself into delinquency and crime!

Delinquent Children are Economic Burden

            From the economic point of view and from the larger con­siderations of general welfare too, the presence of the untreated delinquents in a state is not only a serious social danger but also a great burden on the exchequer. Just think of the huge amount of money that a state is obliged to spend on the main­tenance of its police, courts and various detention and penal institutions. And above all the disappointing factor remains, that with all this complicated bother and this huge expenditure on elaborate administrative machinery, society seldom succeeds in diminishing the number of its delinquents.

            Prevention, therefore, is decidedly far better and sounder than cure. The right time for the prevention of problem ten­dencies from developing into serious delinquent and criminal acts is childhood. One of the most suitable places for such a preventive program to start is the school.

Causes of Delinquent Behavior

            A scientific preventive program is always based on the knowledge of causes. In order to contribute his due share to the prevention of juvenile delinquency a teacher should, therefore, possess an adequate knowledge of the causes of such a socially exceptional behavior.

            Juvenile delinquency is a phenomenon of multiple causations, i.e., not one but many causes are responsible for the production of delinquent behavior. The main categories of causative factors are:—

            (1)      Hereditary conditions.

            (2)      Environmental factors centering round the physical atmosphere of home, and

                         out of home, conditions.

            (3)      Physical factors including defective bodily structure,

                        defective functioning, disease, etc.

            (4)      Emotional causes, e.g., anxiety, tension, insecurity, frustration and similar other

                         factors present in the child, his parents or the environment.

            (5)      Intellectual conditions like low intelligence, back­wardness, dullness, even superior

                         ability, etc.

            (6)      Social factors, e.g., the undesirable influences of the street, play-mates, society,

                         etc.

            It has been unanimously agreed upon that the emotional factors are the most common and the most vital group of causa­tive factors responsible for delinquency among the children.

Juvenile Delinquency and the School

            The school plays a gigantic role both in the production as well as in the prevention and treatment of delinquent behavior. For a general consideration of the role of the school in the prevention and control of delinquency, therefore, a number of factors connected with school-life will have to be examined.

Character and Personality Training

            It is a blatant truth that the most effective and permanent contribution that a school can make towards the prevention of delinquency is the provision of a sound basic character and personality training program. It hardly needs to be em­phasized that a healthy personality and a sound character serve as unfailing antidotes to all delinquent and anti-social tempta­tions. A child, who is rude to teachers, does not get along with school-mates, is abnormally aggressive, over-possessive, lies ex­cessively, etc., is more liable to cross the borderline into delin­quency than a child whose behavior towards school authority and class-mates is healthy and balanced on the whole.

            It is very sad to note that this vital aspect of life should have been ignored in our educational system. As the passing of an examination has become the sole criterion with us to deter­mine the efficiency of both the teacher and the taught, nobody bothers to check whether a student did in fact develop those desirable traits of personality and character which are indispens­able for healthy citizenship. Those gifted teachers in some of our schools who do put some value on the higher and funda­mental values of life are doing a real service to the nation by turning out adolescents with sound characters and personalities. Unfortunately, however, the number of such worthy teachers and institutions is hopelessly meager.

Role of Extra Curricular Programs

            Yet how pleasant and how easy it is to make adequate arrangements for basic character development at school level if only one adopts the right course of action! Children are not very amenable to the influence of exhortations and sermons. But they are always fascinated by interesting activities, projects and programs. If this basic demand of theirs is fulfilled in an organized and well-planned manner they not only get pleasure and satisfaction out of it but are also immensely influenced by the socializing effect of such activities.

            Debates, discussions, contests, sports, scouting, guiding and other indoor and outdoor recreations in the school should be so organized that instead of becoming the monopoly of a select few, each child feels encouraged to participate in them. If organized thoughtfully such extra-curricular programs provide extremely healthy outlets for the aggressive and many other undesirable tendencies in the children. It is through the media of these activities that the child gets accustomed to a cheerful and democratic way of thinking and behaving. The author has come across cases of delinquents whose primary motive in their initial delinquent episodes was just to 'get fun' and pleasure. If the school authorities undertake to provide organized and healthy modes of getting recreation and 'fun' for each child, many a wayward child and a potential delinquent would be towed in time to safety.

            Let us now turn to an examination of some specific factors in the school program that are related to the genesis of delin­quent behavior. Most of the contemporary research in the field points to the fact that a multiplicity of unwholesome, unsatisfactory, unhappy and frustrating situations in school life predisposes the child towards delinquency. A brief account of these factors may be of extreme help to any individual or agency interested in the organization of a treatment or a prophylactic program for juvenile delinquency.

Retardation and Education Backwardness

            Retardation and educational backwardness have been usual­ly found to be of abnormally high recurrence among delinquents.

Some Contemporary Research

            The findings of some recent research on the subject are given below: —

(1) The Passiac study conducted by Dr. William C. Kvaraceus* showed that 4.45% of the 661 delinquents had re­peated one term (half year) or more in 2 semi-annual promotions             system.

(2) Fenton's figures for retarded boys in his delinquent group are 47.5% as against the              2.5% who got accelerated.

(3) Figures reported by the New Jersey Delinquency Com­mission of 1938 show that 55%             of the delinquents were retarded by one or more years and 33% by two or more years.

(4) Hurt considers educational backwardness as the most 'startling' feature in             delinquents, most of whom he found to be "ignorant alike in the narrower aspect of the             simpler scholastic subjects—reading, writing and arithmetic—and in all the wider             spheres of ordinary information and culture."

            Summarizing the findings of his London study Burt* maintains:

"Thus the majority of criminal children, though not to be branded as defective or subnormal, are nevertheless indubitably backward. The educational ratio of the average juvenile delinquent is only 81 per cent. This means that at the age of 10 his attainments are those of a child of 8, equivalent to a meager Standard 2. At every stage he is far more behind his knowledge than in capacity; and tends, all through his school career, to be a year or more beneath even the low standard of scholastic work, to which, with his intelligence, he should at least attain. Of those who are old enough to have left school already, more than half are under the level of Standard 5."

(5) Out of the 85 delinquent boys studied by Mercer, 56% were retarded in their school placement.

(6) The highest figures have been reported by the Gluecks. 84.5% of their 935 delinquents were retarded at some time in their school history.

(7) The co-relation between school retardation and juvenile delinquency was more methodically and exhaustively examined by the same investigators in their later and epoch-making study. Their figures reveal that twice as many delinquents as non-delin­quents (41%: 21.2%) were two or more years behind the grade proper for their age. Excessive retardation in school work among delinquents is further shown by the fact that twice as many of them (21.4%: 10%) were placed in special classes for retarded children during their school career.

(8) Though comparable figures are not available in Pakistan, yet the general observations made by the author at Lahore Borstal and the local Juvenile courts tend to support the Western evidence that retardation and juvenile delinquency are positively and highly co-related.

The Dynamics of Retardation

            It is not very difficult for an observant teacher to understand the dynamics of retardation. A retarded child, who is repeatedly kept back with younger children, is most likely to develop feelings of inferiority and insecurity which might extend to a dislike for the entire school program.

            Just imagine what may be going on in the mind of the un­fortunate child who is denied any legitimate satisfaction at school. Being the oldest, and usually the biggest, pupil in the class, the repeater is naturally forced to adopt various aggressive and antagonistic patterns of behavior to demonstrate some kind of superiority or to bring some satisfaction to his injured ego. His behavior, therefore, is most likely to bring him into clash with the school and the state authorities.

Poor Scholarship and Failure

            Most of the studies tend to establish that low marks, poor scholarships, adverse school reports and failures have an im­mensely undesirable effect on the feeling tone and general behavior of the child. These adverse factors might, drag the child into delinquency.

Undue Emphasis on Examination Results

            Unfortunately, teachers and parents all over the world place unduly great emphasis on marks, divisions, the report cards, etc. The dissatisfaction and frustration which accompany such reports are very likely to result in aggressive and delinquent behavior. This undesirable situation will most probably remain unchanged so long as teachers and parents continue to attach undue signi­ficance to marks and divisions at the cost of paying a due regard to the fundamental qualities of human behavior which a child should normally acquire during school years.

Factors Unfavorable to Scholastic Studies

            It may also be noted that certain unfavorable factors in the physical, socio-cultural and economic environment of the child might also interfere with his academic pursuits at school. These other factors, added the load of his frustration in his school work, might predispose him towards rebellion and flight from the class­room, eventually culminating in delinquent pursuits.

Truancy and Juvenile Delinquency

            Glueck's study reveals that the majority of delinquents (94.8%) had truanted at one time or another during their school career, as against only 10.8% of the non-delinquents having played truant, and that too only occasionally.

The Psychology of Truancy

            Truancy is said to be the "kindergarten of delinquency Data in most of the research point to the fact that, if delinquents tend often to retreat from school, it is because they have much from which to seek refuge. Truancy is the common result of antagonism and rebellion on the part of those  school children who either aim at retaliating against stiff and unsympathetic school authorities or seek an escape from an unbearably, frust­rating, terrifying and demoralizing situation.

Dynamics of the Relationship

            The dynamics of the relationship between truancy and juvenile delinquency is very easy to grasp. Children who play truant from school generally prefer to roam about in the streets, parks, and public places till the closing hours of the school, predominantly because of fear of punishment from their parents if they went home. During their vagrant and truant episodes they come across many undesirable children and anti-social adults. Such unhealthy associations generally succeed in push­ing even the most naive child to the frontiers of delinquency and crime.

General Attitude towards School

That most delinquents dislike their school is confirmed by the reports of the teachers.

Some Enlightening Research

            The statements and revelations made to the investigating psychologists by the delinquents themselves also point in the same direction. The gist of some of the findings is given below:

(1) In 1938, the New Jersey Juvenile Delinquency Commis­sion interviewed 1,600 inmates of New Jersey penal and correc­tional institutions. 155 or 9.9% ascribed their delinquencies to dislike of school.

(2) Some of the typical tensions, frustrations and antagon­isms which the school had created in the inmates of a prison are reported by Johnson as follows:—

(a)   "The teacher tried to make we wear better clothes like other children. I finally told her

      to go to hell and walked out. I swore then that I would have better clothes if I had to steal them and I did”.

  

(b)            "I had a stutter. I was put in a class with a lot of screwballs. My pals kidded me and I

      quit".

(c) "My mother was going nuts and I was worried about her. One day the teacher called me

      crazy too. I never went to school regularly after that".

(d) "I was fired from school because I would not study my history. When they brought        

        me back and tried to make me study history again, I started to skip school".

(e)            "I just could not recite in class. The teacher nagged at me and to avoid trouble I left

       school".

(f)  "I do not know why I ran away from school. I could not get along in a crowd, that

        is all.''

(g) "I was put in a class with a lot of dumb clucks. It was too much for me and I quit".

(h)  "One day, I got to school late and was told that if I could not get there on time, not

          to come at all, just to spoil the class record. I took them at their word".

(3) 25.8% of the 400 delinquents studied by Fenton had a dislike for school.

(4) In their control group study of delinquents and non-delinquents Healy and Bronner* discovered that about 40% of their delinquents expressed marked dislike for school in general and 13% marked dislike for some teachers. As compared to this only 4% of the controls felt any such dislike.

(5) Kvaraceus found that 67% of his total cases gave some expression which pointed out to a strong dislike for the school, the school principal, or a particular teacher.

(6) The Gluecks made a searching analysis of the attitudes of delinquents and non-delinquent children towards their school. They found that only about one-tenth (11.5%) of delinquents readily accepted schooling as compared with two-third (65.6%) of the controls; while as many as 61.5% of the delinquents were very resistant to school and expressed violent dislike for it whereas only 1/10 (10.3%) of the non-delinquents reacted in such an unfavorable manner.

Causes of Dislike for the School

            Dislike for the school might be due to a number of factors. Gluecks consider that "the reasons offered by the delinquents for their marked dislike of the school appear to be largely re­flective of the temperamental and emotional differences between the delinquents and the non-delinquents".

            A fairly large number of the delinquents mentioned the following reasons for their marked dislike of the school:—

            (a) Inability to learn.

            (b) Feeling of inferiority.

            (c) Resentment   to   school   discipline,   restriction   and routine.

            (d) Lack of interest.

            (e) Miscellaneous factors, e.g., teacher's criticism.

            The Gluecks further found that the delinquents manifested the following types of misbehavior and undesirable traits very frequently:

            Disobedience, lack of interest in school work, unreliability, inattention, carelessness in work, laziness, untruthfulness, tardi­ness, attracting attention, disorderliness in class, stealing, rest­lessness, smoking, easy discouragement, stubbornness, cheating, unhappiness, depression, dreaminess, defiance, suggestibility, nervousness, resentfulness, temper tantrums, sullenness, unsociability, whispering, impudence, rudeness, thoughtlessness, obscene talk and notes, shyness, quarrelsomeness, sensitiveness, physical cowardice, selfishness, suspiciousness, cruelty, bully­ing, destruction of school materials, domineering, imaginative lying, profanity, fearlessness, interrupting, sex misconduct, etc.

            The significance and necessity of treating such manifestation of undesirable modes of behavior during the early years at school is obvious.

The Miscellaneous Factors

             Juvenile delinquency thus has many causes as well as many minor and major modes of manifestations.

            Besides the foregoing factors a number of other variables directly or indirectly connected with the school might independently or in conjunction with other forces, become responsible for dragging a child to delinquency. The school might be situated in a carcinogenic zone or an unhealthy locality, its material and moral tone might be undesirable, the child's schooling might be affected by too many strikes, transfers and resignations of the teaching staff, etc.

Breaks and Irregularities in Schooling

            In addition to these factors, economic motives and service requirements of the parents might oblige the child to change schools in quick succession. Such unavoidable breaks and irre­gularities in schooling might affect his educational and social interests adversely and thus open the door for anti-social and delinquent behavior in and out of the school.

Suggestions for the Teachers

            It is evident that the various factors involved in the pro­duction of delinquent behavior should become the serious con­cern not only of the school authorities but also of the community and the state. Prophylactic and therapeutic measures to com­bat the undesirable effects of these factors should, therefore, be launched immediately by all those who are interested in child reclamation. It would be ideal if an anti-delinquency crusade could be organized under the joint leadership of psychologist, school teacher, parent and social worker.

            However, some suggestions that might help a school to make this proposed drive against delinquency more effective and more successful are as follows:—

            (1) Reorganization of curricula.

            (2) Better planning of school sports.

            (3) Opening of guidance clinics.

            (4) Training courses in guidance.

            (5) Parent-teacher associations.

            (6) Specialized training for institutional teachers.

(1) Reorganization of Curricula:

            The curricula and syllabi in vogue at our schools are mostly boring. Their enrichment by inclusion of interesting subjects of study is imperative. Introduction of appropriate vocational bias is also very much needed in our school instruction.

            Needless to re-emphasize that many a child develop an adverse attitudes towards studies because of the boring and un-stimulating nature of our school syllabi. The ensuing academic maladjustment provides a strong incentive for social maladjust­ment, leading to truancy and delinquency.

            Educational planners should, therefore, realize the impera­tive need of remedying this undesirable element in our school curricula. However, till such time as the proposed curricula reorganization takes place the teacher should do all he can to introduce life and interest into the existing curriculum by adopt­ing interesting and stimulating teaching methods.

(2) Better Planning of School Sports:

            The unfortunate tendency prevalent in our schools of financing first teams and gifted athletes at the expense of the vast majority of pupils has been discussed in details in a previous chapter on Group Behavior. Suffice it to say, at this point that teachers could effectively help all their pupils and particularly those with tendencies towards delinquency to better social ad­justment and a good deal of sheer enjoyment by reorganizing games and sports on liberal and democratic lines so that practi­cally every child gets a chance to participate in some kind of sport.

(3) Opening of Guidance Clinics:

            As many child guidance clinics as possible should be opened in and around our schools. The school teachers, parents and social workers should join hands with the psychologist and work like a team in the school clinic.

            An effective remedial program must be based on a thorough understanding of the causes of delinquency, in the light of which adequate measures should be adopted to combat this social malady. Such a step is only possible if the school has a well-equipped guidance clinic on its campus.

(4) Training Courses in Guidance:

            Most of our teachers get neither adequate opportunity nor the appropriate facility for getting even an elementary training in guidance. Short and long term training courses in guidance would prove, very useful for teachers and other allied school executives. The knowledge and insight gained at such courses would equip them with the necessary techniques and ability to help maladjusted and other deviant children.

            The main emphases in these courses should centre round the following subjects:—

(a)      Child development.

(b)      Intelligence testing.

(c)       Preparation and maintenance of history sheets and records. 

(d)      Contemporary devices for teaching various school subjects.

(e)      Techniques of organizing leisure pursuits, games, sports on more liberal and democratic

             basis.

(f)       Methods of emphasizing and promoting healthy development of character and

             personality both during the class-room instruction and the play-field activities.

(5) Parent-Teacher Associations:

            Parent-teacher associations should be organized at each school. Such an organization proves very helpful in creating the much needed understanding between parents and the school staff. It serves as an effective instrument in gearing their co­operation for the welfare of a child in need.

(6) Specialized Training for Institutional Teacher:  

            Those delinquent children who clash violently with society are eventually brought to the notice of the law. They are usual­ly sent to Borstals or other institutions specially meant for the detention and reformation of delinquents. The teaching staff working at such institutions must be thoroughly qualified in order to educate and rehabilitate the delinquent properly.

            The difference between the teachers in institutions for delinquents and the teachers of other schools is that the latter deal with children who might become delinquents and hence need preventive discipline and education, whereas the former, on the contrary, handle those children who have actually become delinquents and hence need treatment. The task of the insti­tutional teacher, therefore, is relatively more difficult than that of a teacher of normal children.

            The institutional teacher must have a thorough knowledge of the dynamics of delinquent behavior. Practical training in the contemporary methods of understanding and treating delin­quents is absolutely indispensable for such teachers. As far as their own personality is concerned, institutional teachers must be above-average in such traits as patience, initiative, under­standing, cheerfulness, etc.

Need for Prevention of Delinquency

            A delinquent child is a socially handicapped child. He needs sympathetic understanding and adequate guidance in order to be able to make a healthy social adjustment. If this understanding and guidance is denied to him, he might become hardened into delinquency and crime. Such an undesirable de­velopment might ultimately prove fatal for the individual child as well as for the community and the state.

            In the interest of every one, therefore, suitable steps should be taken to understand, prevent and treat the spread of delin­quent behavior. The school's role in this direction is very signi­ficant. If teachers become alive to the necessity for a scientific approach in analyzing and treating disorders in children's behavior they can help innumerable children from developing into problem and delinquent careers.