Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency

How definitive is the Schuessler-Cressey study of criminal personality characteristics published seventeen years ago? In examining ninety-four further studies in this area, the authors found that seventy-six (81 per cent) reported statistically signifi cant differences between a criminal or delinquent group and matched controls or standardized norms. Objective tests were found far more discriminating than projective ones, with the Pd scale of the MMPI and Gough's So scale the most consistent in this respect. Although the results are an improvement over those reported in the Schuessler-Cressey study, the same types of prob lems and criticisms generally prevailed.

The decision-making process in corrections has seldom been examined. Drawing upon data compiled during the National Institute of Mental Health's San Francisco Project, this study examines some aspects of decision-making at the presentence level. Some factors taken into consideration in this analysis are the order in which data are collected; the significance of various data (offense, prior record, plea, etc.) in reaching a decision; whether certain data are significant in confirming, modifying, or rejecting decisions; and variations among the decision-making styles of individual probation and parole officers.

Seventy Minnesota probation officers handling juvenile offend ers were asked to rank each section of the prehearing report according to (1) its relative usefulness to them in arriving at appropriate or accurate recommendations of dispositions, and (2) their anticipation of its use by the court. The findings were re lated to biographical characteristics of the probation officers: age, education, professional journals subscribed to and read, opinions regarding the importance of psychological tests and psychiatric examination, job satisfaction, and amount of workload exclusive ly with juvenile offenders. Since a sizable minority (27.2 per cent) did not show significant agreement between their ranking of the report sections in terms of these two considerations, the differ ences in professional identification between two subgroups of the officers were examined for implications of communication and supervision. The majority group, evidencing significant agree ment in ranking the report sections from the two approaches, tended to have a primary professional identification as a proba tion officer ; the smaller subgroup identified professionally with the wider field of social casework.

Do social-control agencies base decisions concerning the hand ling of offenders upon sex, ethnic background, and socio economic status? This study, utilizing a universe of juvenile offenses (N=9,023) in a single community during a five-year period, tests long-accepted hypotheses relating each of these variables to the severity of disposition accorded juvenile offen ders by (1) the police, (2) the probation department, and (3) the juvenile court. Each hypothesis was rejected at each stage of the process. The findings indicate the need for greater caution in assessing the functions of control agencies and for further inten sive research to explicate the complex factors involved.

Is a lack of identification with social institutions important in the etiology of delinquency? Guttman scales were developed to measure six dimensions of the adolescent's identification with educational institutions: Capacity to Learn, Value of Education, Legitimacy, Teachers—General, Teachers—Personal, and Teach ers—Academic. The findings indicate delinquents are less likely to identify with the school than are nondelinquents and specify the dimensions along which identification is particularly absent. No differences between delinquent and nondelinquent boys were found in two dimensions, Value of Education and Attitude to ward Teachers—Academic.

Analyses of thematic stories applied to selected pictures by delinquent and nondelinquent adolescent boys reveal that the delinquents apparently are more concerned with interpersonal relationships. This concern is primarily hostile (either moving against or protecting oneself from people). Delinquents also rarely see authority figures as passively cooperative. This suggests that delinquents may develop a cognitive awareness and sensi tivity to people with many adaptive aspects. This may reflect the object hunger and desire for relationships, hostility and fear of such relationships, and the intense need to manipulate others in order to obtain gratification, all of which have been found to be delinquent characteristics.

Long-term inmates in two Norwegian prisons were inter viewed as they returned from furlough. Major benefits ascribed to furloughs by inmates include restoration of human relation ships and the building of bonds with outsiders, the testing of community acceptance, relief from the strains and discomforts of imprisonment, improvement in mental health, tasting of routine civilian life, renewal of hope and future perspective, opportunity for making practical arrangements for return to the community, and an increase in self-confidence. The principal liabilities of the furlough experience as seen by the inmate relate to the return to prison and the problems of readjustment after return.

This study attempts to determine whether the act of volun teering by an inmate for a constructive prison program was a discriminative factor in his postinstitutional behavior. Two paradoxical assumptions underlying volunteering are described: (1) that the volunteer is more highly motivated to change than the nonvolunteer; (2) that the volunteer in a correctional setting is not more highly motivated to change. A scale was developed to measure the postrelease success of parolees and expiration-of- sentence releasees. Results support the hypothesis that volunteers tend to identify with a noncriminal reference group in the be ginning and terminal phases of incarceration. During the middle phase of imprisonment, the significant inverse relationship be tween volunteering and postrelease success suggests these volun teers identify with the values of a criminogenic reference group.