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What can one conclude about the relationship of intelligence to delinquency?

1. The average intelligence level among delinquents who are apprehended and among institutionalized delinquents is lower than that of unselected school children but approximately the same as the intelligence level of non-delinquents who have the same ethnic and socio-economic background.

2. There are delinquents with very high as well as very low intelligence.

3. The exact relationship between intelligence and delinquency is unknown.

4. It is conceivable that in individual cases low intelligence leads to isolation, a sense of inferiority, and aggressive behavior defined as delinquency.

5. The greater suggestibility in some children of low intelligence because they are less critical may lead to delinquency through the example and persuasion of others. (9)

Metfessel and Lovell, after surveying the relationship between intelligence and crime, especially the incidence of feeble-mindedness and the intelligence test scores of offenders, and reviewing the basic studies of this subject, conclude that intelligence is not considered so important a cause of crime as it was formerly.

There is considerable disagreement as to just how important this correlate is, but studies do, in the main, support placing the delinquent in the dull normal class. Any general statement as to the relative intelligence of offenders and non-offenders is difficult. It appears safe to say that most results show inferiority of the test scores of criminals in comparison to the theoretical distribution of the population (the validity of which is doubtful). Smaller differences have been found between offenders and such samples of the population as the Army draft, but no clear-cut conclusion can be drawn from these, because the representative quality of these non-criminal groups is questionable.

The authors point out, in reviewing the studies of intelligence in relation to the age factor, that intelligence is a more significant factor among juvenile delinquents than among adult prisoners. The influence of intelligence as a factor in crime varies also with the type of crime. (10)

The defective delinquent constitutes a very small proportion of the Juvenile Court case load; indeed it is only 7 per cent of the clinic case records. Published reports show the percentage of delinquency amongst delinquents ranging from smaller figures up to more than 50 per cent. Certainly, in our experience, the defective delinquent, by weight of numbers, is not a serious problem. (11)

The meaning of delinquency alone has been sufficiently perplexing; the addition of mental deficiency to the problem makes it even more distressing. Some have felt that the deficiency itself is the entire cause of the delinquency; some believe that the syndrome is a true biological entity. I find the etiological relationship between deficiency and delinquency confusing if only for the fact that the lower the I.Q. the less the incidence of delinquency. In our cases, and in others, nearly all the children fall into the higher grades of deficiency, namely at the moron and borderline levels. Furthermore, modern methods of psychological study seem to indicate that one cannot place too much reliance on the I.Q. Certainly clinical psychiatric opinion has it, in our group, that a very significant section of the cases are of normal intelligence. (12)

The defective delinquent, in our experience, is a heterogeneous group with many characteristics of a true neurosis affecting behavior and intellectual performance together. Even without psychotherapy they do fairly well within three years in the program described. After routine training primarily as a delinquent there remains a group of resistant cases which probably require long term care as defective delinquents in a special institution.

It is suggested that realistic efforts be made to treat at least a representative number with psychotherapy or special retraining techniques in a clinic environment. The use of locally established schools is recommended as the initial step in the rehabilitation of the defective delinquent who is showing signs of development of a serious behavior problem.

Accordance is expressed with already published views that state schools for defective delinquents be transformed into special psychiatric hospitals for children. (13)

Are all the feeble-minded potential offenders? Such a question implies that the feeble-minded are peculiarly susceptible to crime and delinquency because of suggestibility, lack of foresight, poor judgment, and such influences as may induce either active or passive types of offenses. It does not necessarily mean that the feeble-minded are more aggressively antisocial than the normal person. Such generalizations, moreover, are more applicable to juveniles than to adults.