Blueprint for Delinquents

Brought up in the same tenement, one boy ends in the electric chair, another in the governor's mansion. Why? For more than three decades, the mystery has been probed by Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck, Harvard Law School's famed husband-and-wife criminologist team. The Glueck (rhymes with look) team has published three near classics on the subject: 500 Criminal Careers, One Thousand Juvenile Delinquents, Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency. Last week the Gluecks published their latest study: Predicting Delinquency and Crime (Harvard University; $6.50). Its startling premise: criminal behavior can be forecast almost as accurately as an insurance company figures the odds on accident and death.

Root of the Glueck system is indeed an actuarial method. After gathering elaborate statistics on thousands of criminals, the Gluecks have isolated key factors that tip off the future behavior of men, women or children with a criminal bent. Result: with the Gluecks' "prediction tables," judges, policemen and social workers have "a promising path through the dense forest of guesswork, hunch and vague speculation concerning theories of criminal behavior."

Indifferent Family. According to the Gluecks, it is no harder to spot delinquents long before they erupt (usually at about eight) than it is to tell which adult offenders will be repeaters. The Gluecks are not theorizing. Already their tables have been matched against the actual later behavior of some 2,000 delinquents, found to be 90% effective by the New York City Youth Board and other agencies.

The tables have also been tried in France and Japan, where early results indicate that they are just as useful in different cultures.

To spot a potentially delinquent boy years before he lands in court the Gluecks mainly pinpoint what they call the "five highly decisive" factors in family life: father's discipline, mother's supervision, father's affection toward his son, mother's affection, cohesiveness of the family. In turn, each factor is measured by degrees.

The Gluecks' "almost perfect" candidate for delinquency: "Johnny is always harshly disciplined by his father. The mother generally leaves him to his own devices, letting him run around the streets and usually not knowing what he does or where he goes. The father dislikes the boy. The mother is indifferent to her son, expressing little warmth of feeling, or she is downright hostile to him. The family is unintegrated because, for example, the mother spends most of the day away from home, giving little if any thought to the doings of the children, and the father, a heavy drinker, spends most of his leisure time in bars and cafes, ignoring his family."

Cut the Odds. Johnny is slated for serious trouble, no matter what his intelligence, skin color or family income. His chances of becoming delinquent: nine out of ten. To head him off, the best efforts of school, church or social workers must be extraordinary. They can be successful, the Gluecks hope, if even two of the five highly decisive factors are altered, so that Johnny's delinquency chances are reduced to six out of ten. "For instance, if the efforts of the social worker were to change the father's typical discipline of the boy from 'overstrict' or 'erratic' to 'firm but kindly,' and the mother's supervision from 'unsuitable' to 'suitable,' the resultant delinquency probability would be cut." Johnny might then be on the way to the best guarantee against delinquency--firm and friendly parents who get along well with each other and with their son.

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