The Criminal Man; 17; Crime Under Twenty-one

What is the relationship of juvenile delinquency to the whole problem of crime? Can we contain it? Here are answers to these and similar questions. The criminal man, the series of television studies of how and why people commit crimes and of what to do about it. Your guide for these studies of the criminal man is Dr. Douglas M. Kelly, professor of Criminology at the University of California. This session of our series, Dr. Kelly will discuss juvenile delinquency and its relationship

to the whole problem of criminal behavior. He calls the study crime under 21. These young people are typical of millions of American age teenagers. The youth of our land, who in a near future will make our adult population, and yet there are many gloomy people who look on them with considerable suspicion and skepticism, even fear. They call this new generation a lost or beat generation, conceived in an era of war and violence and infused with violence, brutality and immorality. To some people, all of them are delinquents, breaking traffic laws, drinking, using narcotics, stealing, fighting, defying their parents and authority. This attitude is, of course, ridiculous.

Young people today are like young people of all ages, active, curious, eager and bright. They do things. They're out, busy. They accomplish a great deal, and like young people of all ages, they get into trouble. What they do, good or bad, is usually a reflection of what their parents do. All in all, our juvenile populations are generally pretty sound, pretty representative of a generation which will make good adults in time to come. But what about the pessimists, the individuals who have grave reservations, the individuals who feel constantly that society is going to the dogs? Is there a problem of serious juvenile delinquency? Of course there is. We have juveniles who commit crimes and whenever a crime is committed. There is a problem. And in the juvenile problem of crime, there are lots. But the key question should probably be reworded.

What a question of, is there juvenile delinquency, but rather, is juvenile delinquency actually increasing? In order to evaluate this problem, we have to fall back on statistics. The statistics show that there certainly are more crimes committed by juveniles in pro-rate to the increasing population than here to fall. What are these statistics accurate? Take a look at the statistics. First we have to realize that one of the real problems is that up until the last five or ten years there weren't any statistics with which we could compare present-day trends. After all, statistical evaluation of juvenile delinquency is relatively new. And so if you get a great increase in a problem which has never been counted before, you can't just say for sure that the problem is increasing. Maybe it's just accounting that's going up.

Then a second factor that's even more important is the fact that police are picking up more juveniles as they're picking up more adults. As adult crime increases, juvenile crime tends to parallel. The third factor which is most important is that police are arresting people today for the kind of crime which wasn't even considered a crime and days gone by. Let's take a look at a couple of examples of this sort of thing. Me, I got a bad deal at home. My old man was always riding me about going out and going to work and getting more money to help out. My mother? Well, she was alright, I guess. She kept after me too about my grades in school, so I just took off. I was going to go to Florida someplace like that to join the army. Even if I am only 17, I figured I could get in. Well, I started hitching and I got some rides and I was about 200 miles away from my home when I was picked up.

It seemed like every cop in the country was out after me. Everybody was treating me like I'd done something terrible. This boy and I were going around for about three years. We talked about marriage and our folks laughed at first, but then they got sore about it. He was called into the army and, and night before he left, we got carried away and made love. Well, I had a baby. My parents treated me like I was a criminal or had done something dirty. Then my boyfriend got picked up and jailed on statutory rape. I was 16 and he was 19. Cases of this kind are very frequently seen in any police station. If we take a look at these two problems, we see that here's a boy, age 17, takes off to join the army and we call him a runaway at juvenile problem. But I wonder if we haven't forgotten the judge Washington at 17 was an officer in the

army well on his way to the career which later led to his being the president of the United States. And in the case of the girl, I wonder if we haven't forgotten that our great-grandmother's perhaps, 15 and 16, were already married, settled down with homes and children of their own. And so we find one of the problems in the statistics of crime is in the changing cultural attitude. For example, today, a great many crimes are the result of stealing cars, car thefts. This couldn't have been a crime 50 years ago when there were no automobiles. And so we find again statistics varying depending with changing cultural patterns. Today, a great many children are sent to police station for simple problems. I recall one case where a girl in an argument where their dad threatened to leave home and the police were called in.

Another sort of thing really isn't a crime. A boy hitchhiking, something a ride, could be a criminal because this is prohibited by most statutes. And so in our evaluation of the statistics, we have to remember that first of all, the police are much more active. Juvenile divisions are increasing in size and number. And then most important, a great many things that years ago were considered merely as local problems for the family now have become police problems, hence included in the statistics. If we believe then that the statistics aren't too important, the next question of course is, is there really a problem? And to this, the answer is definitely yes. There certainly is a problem because there's no question that there are certain kinds of crimes which are increasing. In these programs, we've been primarily concerned with the problems of criminal activity directed against persons or their property.

We do find today that gang kinds of crimes are on the increase. Gangs of course are not new, and then gangs in history of criminality for many years. But there's no doubt today there are more gangs and more activity of gangs in criminality by juveniles. The second factor is perhaps more worrying and more important because this is the problem of the kind of crime. And here we find that the kind of crimes of violence are definitely on the increase. Gangs of juveniles will burn a lie, old men, just to watch them scream or kick a citizen to death just to see what happens. And so we see that we are getting a genuine problem in the type of crime and in the gang structure of crime which we didn't have in the past, a factor which is unfortunately not equated in the statistics.

In evaluating a problem of juvenile crime, we should also consider the fact that we found an adults that some of our criminals are mentally ill. This sort of thing happens with some juvenile crimes. And some of our individuals who are adults committing crimes are perfectly normal. And normal people make up a large percentage of our juvenile social offenders. Then finally a percentage of our so-called criminal criminals, the persons who are repetitive criminals, adults are psychopaths. And we find that the psychopath also exists. A character defect can be shown early in the juvenile criminal. So we find juvenile crime pretty well paralleling adult crime. Nothing spectacular in itself, but rather focused upon because the individual happens to be a juvenile.

The real problem of course is why? Why do juveniles commit crimes? And here the problem is as complicated as the problem of adult criminality. There are no real specific causes for why juveniles commit crimes. There are reasons why this juvenile commits that crime and that juvenile commits this crime. But if we look at the problem in generalities we can find certain overall patterns. In our consideration of the causality of the criminal man, we've studied at some considerable length the problem of personality development. And we found that a failure to develop certain kinds of breaks, blockages, controls within the person, results in a character defect to maybe come an adult criminal. And we find as we evaluate our juveniles, the fixation in the narcissistic area, a lack of capacity to learn to control the basic flow of hate, a lack of capacity to direct outward.

The basic flow of love, these are just as prominent in the child as in the adult and will yield criminal behavior. In the juvenile however there is another factor I think that's quite important. This is a factor strangely enough of the results of medical science improving the longevity of the human rights. If we go back in our history we find that at the time of Christ, the time of the ancient Greeks, the average person lived about 30 to 40 years. He was considered an adult by 14 or 15 because already 50% of his lifespan had passed. As man, span increased, as he grew older before he died, the ratio of childishness to adult patterns was decreased a little to about a third.

So that today when the span roughly approximates 60, we consider our youth as children until about 20 or 21. As a matter of fact, in most states it's 21. Of course there are some special exceptions in California for illustration. If a girl gets married, she can be an adult 18 or a husband still has to be 21. I suppose this is because marriage ages women so much more rapidly than males. The important thing to consider though is the fact that as the child develops he's kept childish longer and I have a fear that if medicine progresses and people live for example until, let us say, 80 to 100 is the standard lifespan then we'll keep them with children until perhaps they're maybe 30 or 40. Now this sort of an idea seems superficially silly but it is important I think because we keep finding that people maintained his children too long, tend to stay children permanently.

And I have a very definite belief that the earlier we treat a child as an adult, the earlier he is apt to act like one. And so we find certain basic causes of delinquency, inherent in social change. We label delinquency things that before we would. Next we find as a causality a tendency to prolong the infantile period, to fix the child in the narcissistic phase. And then as we pointed out before in our discussions of character defects, broken homes, the lack of parental training or care, the lack of anybody to develop controls and get the child into adult behavior patterns, to teach him to direct his love outward and control his basic hate, these are some of the general causes of delinquency. The next problem of course is what do you do about it, well again in order to treat a

problem you have to know something of its causality. And then it is better to treat the cause than the symptom in the individual. Too often we become upset by what he does and forget to treat the root cause, the reason why he did this sort of thing. One of the simplest things that I have suggested in a somewhat whimsical way, the discussions of peace officers was that perhaps we might declare him an adult at 18. You see right away we'd almost do away with juvenile delinquency because a great deal of delinquency occurs between 18 and 21 and if we labeled him an adult at 18 and we'd have a big boost in adult crime but a real drop in juvenile delinquency. The real point I have in mind in this suggestion however is that if we maintain him to be a child until 21, the average parent doesn't very very much about his development until he gets about 18, after all it's three years away we've got lots of time.

Supposing we put 18 is the faithful age then they might start demanding adult behavior patterns at 14 or 15. Again is the problem of school, we insist they go to school. We do this partly because we feel it essential but also partly because we don't know what else to do. We used to let him work at jobs. We used to put him out taking ox trains across the continent at 15 to 18. We used to give him a home and a farm at 15 to 18. But now we don't have anything to do with him so we substitute education and he gets bored, he gets fed up and he gets into trouble. For those who can use the education of course it's a splendid outlet but to demand across the board, the equivalent school patterns regardless of the needs of the individual is psychiatrically foolish.

Finally of course in the prevention of delinquency is the use of the family. Here mental health, education, other techniques can help the family help their children to grow up. And the odd thing I think is television. Television has a great value in preventing delinquency because it gets families together. It's quite true that for the first time in their life they're in one room, they're in the dark, they can't talk but they're really together, sometimes the first time they've been together as a family unit in a decade. And this is a tremendous achievement surpassed only by the miracle of television itself. And so we see again that the treatment of delinquency is inherent in the development of the personality. Children need families, they need controls, they need to be taught controls. And if we achieve these things, if we get a child to mature he probably won't be a delinquency.

Then if we permit him to develop along his own lines to seek the sort of thing he feels as he can and wants to do, this will help. Here again is a problem. Parents as older people are constantly projecting their own ideas into the juvenile. They keep saying he ought to do this because this would be good for me. Actually, it wouldn't be good for him because he's an adult, not a juvenile. And so our great many experts have turned to the juveniles for solution to these problems. One of the most interesting of these was in Minnesota, the Governor's Conference, and the Minnesota Teenage Code was developed. This is a code in which a group of teenagers collaborated to form various rules and regulations for their own particular behavior. If we examine these codes, we find oddly enough that they're considerably more harsh with themselves than the average adult would be.

But this I think makes sense because the average teenager would like some guidance. He needs control. Everybody needs controls. And if these controls are set in a reasonable fashion, patterned after the demands of the person who needs them, that is the teenager himself, then they're much more apt to be carried out. But we don't have to discuss this pattern. Let's go down to the corner drugstore and talk to some teenagers and see what they think. I hate to interrupt this program, but I'd like to ask you a few questions. Are you interested in a problem of juvenile delinquency? Pauline, suppose you tell me what you think delinquency means.

What makes a delinquency? What is a delinquency? Well, I think many times the problem for delinquency is misunderstanding in the home and sometimes at school. Well, you think that's what causes it, but what I really wanted to know, Richard, was what is a delinquency? Who is this guy we're talking about? Teenagers, I feel, have got so much energy and they have to release it, but there's so much outside pressure. And when something gives, if it doesn't give them the right direction to them. So the one a teenager blows up if he doesn't blow up in the right direction, then he's a delinquency. John, what do you think causes it? What makes him blow up like this? Well, I think it's mostly the home. The parents would talk to their children like they were more adult than they do, and not scream at them when they make a mistake. They might not try to take it out on somebody else.

Well, that's probably true, after all adults don't scream at each other very often, but they do scream with their kids, don't they? And that seems to be a general feeling with all of you. How about that, Ron? Do you have any ideas to contribute on why is this delinquency? Yeah, well, I go along with Rich on that. I mean, it's a kid's, like he said, they're so energetic, they have to do something all the time. They have to keep moving to bring it up. So one of the problems is they have a lot of energy, they have to do something, and another problem is their parents don't give them the right things to do. Would you say that? Well, I think parents try to help, but just like Pauline said, it's misunderstanding. They try to help, but they don't know how to help, is that right? Darleen, do you think you could tell us maybe how they could help? Well, if the parents put a specific rule like on dating, if they put a specific rule on what time they come home, instead of saying, well, come home anytime you want, they can

say, be home at 12 or 1 o'clock, I think that would be best. So the one thing they might do is to set up some restrictions. Well, I thought one of the problems teenagers were always yelling about, there's too many rules, too many restrictions. How do you feel about that? Well, I think that the adults and the parents are so afraid that their teenagers are going to become juvenile, that they clamp on them and they hold them down, you know, so they're tight, that you want to do something, you know, and you've got to be underground, it's going to be a problem. We should really like our reasonable restrictions, but not overdone. How about you, Dave? Well, I just think about that. Well, I'm inclined to agree with Rich, I think, that reasonable restrictions would be the best thing, and that if the parents would put it in such a way, I know when I can't do something, I'm given three good reasons, and if I still want to go ahead, she lets me, and I usually find out that those three reasons were legitimate reasons and work out.

She talks it over whether it doesn't just make a flat you can't. That's right. She gives me three good reasons, and then I go ahead if I want to, and I usually find out she's always right. Well, that makes pretty good sense. Dick, have you got any contributions to this question? Well, just that we've all been talking about the parents all the time, I'd like to say it was something about the schools. Now, myself, I quit school because it seemed like everybody was getting into one room that wasn't room enough, and there were enough teachers to go around, and you never really get close to your teachers nowadays, so that you can't get anything from them or give anything back. And I lost interest in it because of that, and I think that this is a problem with a lot of teenagers. That you've got to have a relationship with your teachers and with your school because you spend so much time there, as well as with your parents. As well as with your parents. How do you feel about the idea, Dick, of being considered an adult at 18, how does that strike? Well, it's kind of a hard thing because I know a lot of people who certainly are deserving of the title adult at 18, and yet there are a lot who just aren't able to handle it.

I don't think that there's any way you can make an arbitrary line of separation here. There has to be some way to deal with an individual, that's the only way to do it. Well, that's a forty solid point because there are a lot of persons who are twenty-eight or pretty dual, who aren't. And then on the other hand, to get in the armed forces at 18, and maybe driving a jet airplane or something, which really isn't a child, it's not the case. This is true. I think that the present armed services procedure is a fine thing because you take people who are at this age and they get into a situation where they have to become adult or they just don't last. I think that this is really a fine thing if it can gel the way it's doing. I think this falls down, then, if we said, well, let's you try at 18 to be an adult. If you make it fine, it's not, maybe we'll keep you doing a little, a little while. Maybe that's one way to do it. That sounds pretty good, but it'd be pretty complicated. Well, thanks so much, I'm sorry for intruding, but I certainly hope. And so we see that the problem of delinquency, as looked at by the juvenile himself, is

no one here as complex as the adults would make it. To begin with, they would like a little guidance. But as guidance, they would like some intelligent restrictions, not simply arbitrary regulation. And they would like the guidance to continue outside the home. You'll recall that in our discussion of personality development, the associates and teachers are the next important factor to the parents in developing those all so necessary controls. And here I think it's important that the teacher teach the child how to act like an adult as well as teaching the child how to think like one, as well as teaching the child the information necessary in the adult world. Then again, the average teenager is concerned about the parental interrelationship. And here the problem of communication is vital.

There's much misunderstanding. I'm convinced that the parents ordinarily are trying to do the best job they can. They're confused, and so the child becomes confused. If we take a look at it from this viewpoint then, we don't blame the parent. We don't blame the school, and we don't blame the child. We recognize that the development of a human being is a long process, a process of interrelationships between the child and his environment in the home and outside. And that if in this developmental pattern anything goes wrong, if the child is undue, frustrated or more important, if he lacks any opportunity to learn how to be an adult, he probably will never make it. If he doesn't make it, he may vent his energy, his activity, and delinquency. And finally, everybody agrees that teenagers are active.

They have to have something to do. Here if our culture prevails to provide them with adequate outlets, fails to provide them with reasonable, good gang or group structures, then they drift into the evil ways of delinquency. And so if we look at delinquency from these processes, we find it not such a major problem as it is publicized. These aren't concerned, but they are worried about development of normals. But then two normals do cause trouble, and in our next discussion we'll consider the question of the normal, and his relation to the actual problem of the criminal man. The criminal man, series of television studies of the nature and patterns of criminal behavior. Your guide for these studies is Dr. Douglas M. Kelly, professor of criminology at the University

of California, physician, psychiatrist, and police consultant. The appearing entities program were Richard McCarkin, David Mazzetti, Darlene Marty, John McLaughlin, Mike Pritchard, Pauline Legrand, Richard Rico, and Ronald Rose. Duke Box courtesy of Hubert Distributing Company. Assistant producer for the criminal man is Ernest Zunino. This is National Educational Television.