A NEW PROFESSION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23231, 28 December 1938, Page 3

A NEW PROFESSION

STUDY OF CRIMINOLOGY UNIVERSITY COURSE INTEREST OF WOMEN Although 6ome of the best detective stories in modern fiction have - been written by women, it still remains somewhat unusual to find women among serious students of criminology, states a writer in the Sydney Morning Herald. When Dr. Anita Mulil, of San Diego, California, distinguished scientist, passed through Sydney en route lo Melbourne, she mentioned that she proposed to include criminology among the subjects in the curriculum which she is to initiate at Melbourne Universitv next year. Remarking that the common idea of a criminal type is thoroughly oldfashioned, Dr. Mulil explained that the basis of her criminology course would be a study of the criminal, not as such, but as a human being who has got into difficulties with the law, commencing with the child who commits a petty crime, and working through to the adult. This implies not only a study of personality, but of environment and of sociai conditions generally, and so has" a close relation to the work of the psychiatrist in the solving of behaviour problems of all kinds. It also involves a study of work done in prisons and "so-called ' and of methods of crime detection and apprehension in different countries. In the United States, Dr. Muhl said, criminology offered a definite field of work for the social worker, both men and women. . . . "Three or four of our universities are now giving courses which cover four vears and conclude with a special degree of Bachelor of Police Procedure," sho explained. "The prime mover in tliis development has been August Vollner, formerly Chief of Police of Berkeley, California, and with an international reputation as a criminologist. He was professor of police administration at North-Western University, Chicago, for a number of years, and is now at the State College at San Jose. I spent a day there with him this year, and found it intensely interesting. "The students taking this course must have a background of good education, and while they are there at their academic work nt the university, which includes psychology and the study of personality development and public speaking, they also do practical work with the police force. When they have finished they start 'from the ground up,' working as patrolmen in the streets and gradually moving up into executive positions."