Delinquency and Psychiatry A Statistical Study of 434 Resident Patients Admitted to the State of New Jersey Diagnostic Center, Menlo Park, for Psychiatric Evaluation During the Period July 1, 1960 – June 30, 1961

Introduction. Juvenile delinquency exists all over the world. It varies only in nature and degree. Nowhere, however, have its causes, characteristics, and scope been examined in such detail as in the United States. Delinquency is a term of convenience including or omitting as much as the person who defines it wishes to include or omit. According to Adelaide M. Johnson, in her chapter Juvenile Delinquency” in the American Handbook of Psychiatry, when we use the term delinquency”: We refer to that behavior which is opposed to those tenets held by society and the law in our particular culture. The major offenses are stealing, truancy, fire setting, vandalism, and cruelty of all degrees up to murder. Juvenile delinquency as a legal term varies in definition from state to state. In general, it applies to an offense committed by a child under a specified age—usually eighteen—which, in the case of an older person would be considered a felony or any one of a specified list of misdemeanors. The critical legal element is not the act itself but the age of the person who commits the act. Figure 1 shows graphically how confusing our definitions of delinquency are. This figure was taken from Lowell Carr’s book, Delinquency Control