Looked at as a matter wherein the welfare of society is the chief
concern, one most difficult point in the problem of mental defect grows
more readily soluble. I speak of those cases in which evidence of
feeblemindedness, although distinct, especially if studied by means of
tests, is minor in degree as compared with the ethical defect present.
These form a class of offenders most difficult to deal with because
so frequently, on account of good development of language ability,
they pass in the world in general, and in courts in particular, as
practically normal individuals. This type has been designated by
various terms. Anton has recently published a symposium monograph
on the subject showing that the consensus of opinion is that there
certainly exists a distinct group in which moral defect is out of
proportion to the amount of mental subnormality. The recent report of
the Massachusetts commission on the increase of criminals emphasizes
this very point. To those who doubt the existence of mental defect in
such cases I commend the use of psychological tests. Better study of
the individual will, in any case, give some indication of that most
important point for the welfare of society, namely, whether or not the
crime will be repeated.
Turning in the interests of society to the study of the individual
offender, especially the recidivist, we shall at once be led by
practical considerations into an attempt to decipher the causative
factors of his career. The great value of such intelligent study can be
shown in many types of cases, but nowhere is it more evident than when
the offenders are mentally defective. The recent work of Miss Moore for
the Public Education Association of New York shows the after-records of
some children formerly in the subnormal rooms in the New York public
schools and also of some of the feebleminded men who were paroled from
the Elmira Reformatory to New York. The financial and moral cost to the
community has been very great from such sources. We ourselves have many
such records, showing the terrible burden a criminalistic defective is
to the community. Dozens of times, indeed up to a hundred times in the
police stations, is the record of even some of the younger members of
this group, as we have observed them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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