Bad Boys--and Men

Professor Sheldon Glueck of Harvard Law School and his scholarly wife Eleanor know plenty about bad boys. They have studied bad boys--1,000 of them--for 15 years in Boston. By 1934, the Gluecks were ready to explain why the boys went wrong. This week they made a second report, Juvenile Delinquents Grown Up (Commonwealth Fund; $2.50).

The 1,000 delinquents were boys sent to the Judge Baker Guidance Center by Boston's Juvenile Court between 1917 and 1922. Most of them were the sons of Boston's immigrant poor-- Italian or Irish Roman Catholics. They had been arrested for stealing, gambling, truancy, fighting. Their average age was 13 1/2. The judges before whom they were haled tried various remedies: putting them on probation, fining them, sending them to correctional schools, reformatories, jails, institutions for the feebleminded. Results:

> Only one-tenth went straight.

> In the next five years, four out of five were arrested (an average of more than three times apiece), nearly half served time.

> After 15 years, six out of ten were still getting arrested, three out of ten were hardened criminals.

The Gluecks found that boys treated gently by judges got into trouble as often as those treated roughly, concluded that probation and parole are no cures for crime. But they learned two encouraging facts: as their group grew older, 1) one man in three reformed, 2) the crimes of the rest became less obnoxious (stealing decreased, drunkenness increased). The Gluecks learned that most criminal careers, like the sands in an hourglass, run out in a definite period (usually ten to 15 years). Their explanation: most boys eventually grow up. But bad boys often do not mature before 30 or 35.

The Gluecks' next step was to examine the records of boys who reformed, pick out their prevailing characteristics. They found that boys with more intelligence and a more favorable home environment were most likely to straighten out. Eventually they found that the most reliable signs were: 1) parents' nationality and religion, 2) the age at which a boy committed his first offense. Most likely to reform, say the Gluecks, is a boy who did not misbehave until he was 13 and is the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia, Poland or Lithuania. Least likely is a boy who misbehaved before he was nine, is the son of native U. S. citizens of mixed religion.

The Gluecks made similar tables from their findings on what kind of treatment offers the best chance of reforming a delinquent. Some tips:

> A Russian father's son who has been well disciplined by his parents and got along well at school will do best under probation.

> A German's or Irishman's son whose parents quarrel, who has not misbehaved in school and who belongs to a gang had better go to a reformatory.

> A son of uneducated, delinquent parents of mixed religion, living in a bad neighborhood, should join the Army or Navy.

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