Psychologist’s Classification Of Adolescent Delinquents

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28542, 22 March 1958, Page 12

Psychologist’s Classification Of Adolescent Delinquents

(New Zea Lana Press Association)

WELLINGTON, March 21.

“Non-conforming adolescents” could be sorted into three general groups—larrikins, gangsters and the sexually promiscuous,” said Mr J. G. Caughey, chief psychologist to the Justice Department, in the final address to the department’s conference of psychologists today. Though the groups overlapped to some extent they could be classified by the habits and behaviour of their members, he said.

The larrikin group—the type known in America as “corner boys”—gave the most trouble, but they were the least dangerous. In the main, their activities were mischievous rather than criminal.

“They are usually labourers with big wages,” he said. “They don’t know how to use their leisure, and are usually leaderless, just waiting for something to happen.” Not usually sexually promiscuous, the larrikins kept just within the law, and their trouble was basically due to idleness. They had no uniform way of dressing.

The “gangster” groups, on the contrary, were vicious and aggressive, though their groups were much smaller, never more than three or four in a gang.

Often an isolated individual of this type joined a "corner” gang to exploit it for his own purposes, and made it into an antisocial group, Mr Caughey said. The gangster type usually had a poor emotional background and had no real loyalities or gang instinct. Most were unwilling to work. They expected a “comer” gang to support them or sometimes had women to whom they looked for economic independence rather than physical satisfaction. They were not promiscuous and were unable to establish relationships of any kind.. The third group—the sexually promiscuous—were more a moral than a legal problem. Though , there were occasional cases of rape, they usually kept within the law and the male members were hard to detect The girls, who lived promiscuously, were more easily picked up for being idle and disorderly. ‘ "Sometimes they form gangs with their- own initiation ceremonies, but there really isn’t any cult. Once members find a ‘steady’ they pair off, and the gang disintegrates.” It was quitfe wrong to give each group the same type of treatment when they came before th* Courts. Members of the larrikin ■ group were usually placed on probation for first offences, and if they continued to be a nuisance they required a deterrent rather than treatment.

The gangster type was a menace to society and needed to be kept in gaol for a longer time. But, as well as a deterrent, they required treatment of some kind. The third group rarely came before the Courts for promiscuity and were more a moral than a psychological problem.