It has long been a problem why some children steal and not others, why some play truant, or why some set fires and damage property. Theories have been advanced from time to time to explain these things, but only in the last ten or fifteen years have extensive scientific investigation been carried out on these problems. Officers of the juvenile.
courts, child welfare associations, educational bodies, and mental hygiene clinics have been instrumental in bringing together a vast amount of data concerning juvenile delinquency, from which certain general conclusions may be drawn.
Delinquency itself is socially inadequate adjustment on the part of the individual to difficult situations. The factors which go to make up these difficult situations, together with the mental and physical conditions which influence an individual's capacity to adjust, constitute the causes of delinquency. Each juvenile offense is the outcome of a complexity of causes, some of whose origins date back years before the committal of the offense and others whose origins are more obviously and immediately connected with the act of delinquency. It has been shown that a different set of causes is involved in each individual case. It is impossible therefore to state the group of causes which will invariably result in.
any particular offense.
The factors which operate to turn a child's behavior in one direction rather than another may be very obscure, many as yet are beyond the detection of expert sociologists, psychologists, physiologists and others. It often appears that quite different offenses are the results of the same group of causes, but further investigation shows that still 'This outline grew out of a study of the literature on juvenile delinquency and some experience with actual cases in the Montreal Child Gi'dance Clinic and at the Boys' Farm and Training School, Shawbridge. My indebtedness for valuable information gained from the authors referred to in the bibliography, and from many others not mentioned, is obvious.
