The Prevention of Repeated Crime

These two books so different in content and in method nevertheless have a common point of view. Both authors make it transparently clear that our present philosophy of correction, or punishment, is woefully inadequate to meet the problem of modem crime. Both volumes are the work of painstaking and careful scholars who remain calm and objective when their findings cry to heaven for a vigorous and effective advocate. Professor and Mrs. Glueck present the third volume of follow-up studies of 510 offenders, whose activities were previously analyzed in 500 Criminal Careers (1930) and Later Criminal Careers (1937). Each volume covers a five year period. The questions asked in these volumes are the same: "What happens to criminals and why ?" "How do they behave during and after peno-correctional treatment ?" The criminals whose careers have now been followed for fifteen years were all offenders whose sentences to Concord (Mass.) Reformatory expired during 1921 and 1922. Thus this report ends with the year 1937. The task which the authors set up for themselves is both imposing and formidable. It is in a sense an attempt to explain the differential conduct of these offenders. What effect did their reformatory experience have upon their after release conduct? Why did some forswear their evil ways? Why did some continue their criminal behavior? Why did some follow the path of righteousness for a time and relapse into minor criminality and later return to the ways of conformity. A further question of first rate importance to judges, prison administrators and parole authorities revolves around the possibility of intensive analytical studies such as this one contributing information which may be used to select offenders for various types of treatment which offer the greatest value to the offender himself and to society in general. In other words, is it possible by means of this kind of research to predict what types of mentalities, backgrounds, leisure time activities, ages of offenders and so on are positively or negatively correlated with success or failure while undergoing treatment such as probation, parole or institutional confinement? While parole and probation prediction studies have received careful academic attention there is little evidence that either the public or administrators of criminal justice have been particularly enthusiastic. The authors are careful to emphasize that prediction tables are at best aids to, not substitutes for, mature human judgment. In the present volume 439 of the original 510 were investigated as to whereabouts, with whom living, length of time in the community, mobility, home conditions, neighborhood conditions. In general it was found that throughout this third period there was some slight improvement in the environmental conditions of these men. Marital status and conjugal relations, assumption of marital responsibilities, relation to nearest relatives, relation to family, economic conditions,