Archiwum Kryminologii (Archives of Criminology)

7-22

Authors: Anna Kossowska

"Social control" is one of thę most fundamental concepts in sociology. Nevertheless, the meaning of that term has changed, parallel with the development of sociology as an academic discipline. Originally, the idea of social control was the focal idea in studies of the organization and growth of industrial societies, and formed the basis of investigations of the various elements constituting law and order. Nowadays, the dominant trend is to narrow the meaning of the term „social control" to defining the process of conformism to the rules of society. It is this second meaning that is used in criminology today. There is a basic difference betwęen the theory of social control and other criminological theories. This difference consists in the fact that this theory, unlike other ones, tries to explain why people do not break the law, why they behave according to the rules of society, why they fall in with the group - in other words, why they are conformist in their attitude towards the rules and norms, as well as to the values generally accepted by society. The other theories try to find out what makes people go against the social norm. The basic principle of the theory of social control is the recognition that human beings must learn social behaviour through a process of socialisation. The aim of socialisation is to lead people to absorb the norms and values held in esteem by a given society. The process whereby the individual absorbs social norms and values depends mainly on the character of his links with the primary social groups, on the cohesion of the system of social norms, and on how far conformily with those norms will offer him the advantages he looks for. A survey of the criminological literature dealing with the question of the effect of social control on deviant behaviour reveals that several theoretical approaches exist, each of them emphasizing different elements of such control. These elements are: the social bonds, the system of norms and yalues and the course and results of socialisation. These three theoretical approaches are not mutually exclusive. They are undoubtedly complementary. We can distinguish three theoretical approaches to social control: a) the socialisation approach, b) the sociar bond approach, and c) the normative system approach. In the first of these approaches, attempts are made above all to explain how socialisation takes place, and what results it leads to. The chief representatives of this approach may be said to be W. Reckless, I. Nye, and A. Reiss. Recklessr is the author of the containment theory, in which he distinguishes the following elements of social control: We have outer containment when external pressure is exerted on the individualn by the group, or by society, in order to bring about behaviour approved by the group. This kind of pressure is exerted through training the individual to carry out socially approved roles, through his affiliation to tradition and the community in which he lives, and through direct control. We have inner containment when, through socialisation, the individual develops self-control, that is, what we sometimes call his conscience. Five elements developed in the course of socialisation go to make up inner containment: a favorable self-concept, goal orientation, a realistic,aspiration level, adequate frustration tolerance, and commitment to socially accepted norms and values. These two mechanisms - outer containment and inner containment - function either together or soparately. In some cases they reinforce each other, while in other cases they are complementary. On the whole, inner containment regulates behaviour based on a person's internal pressures whereas outer containment is used when factors in the environment favour criminal behaviour. But there are also frequent situations where, when inner containment fails, behaviour is modified by exteinal controlling factors; and conversely, it sometimes happens that in situations where control by the social group or social institutions is ineffective, self-control is the regulating mechanism. Nye is of the opinion that the role of social control in society is that it strengthens our motivation towards conformist behaviour. It is a factor that increases our conformism, whereas lack of it encourages anti-social behaviour. Nye sees four types of social control: Internal control occurs when, in the course of socialisation the individual Internalises the norms and values generally accepted in the given society, so that they become components of this conscience. Indirect control is based on the emotional links between the child and his parents which cause the child to absorb the rules of behaviour passed on by the parents in the course of socialisation. Direct control is exerted by the social institutions and primary groups; punishments are threatened in the case of nonconformist behaviour. Then we have legitimate need satisfaction, where society guarantees that the emotional needs of the individual will be met if he conforms, but threatens that these needs will not be satisfied if he does not conform. In his well-known paper on the connection between the breakdown of social control and the occurrence of criminal behaviour, A. Reiss3 declares that criminaIity may be defined as behaviour that is the consequence of the failure of personal control and social control, as regards the regulation of human behaviour in keeping with the social norms. According to Reiss, criminal behaviour occurs firstly, when there is a relative lack of internalised norms and rules that would keep behaviour conformist; secondly, when a control mechanism that previously functioned properly breaks down; and thirdly, when the group to which the individual belongs is such that the social principles for inculcating conformist behaviour are on the whole lacking, ( or when there is a split between these social principles). Criminality may be regarded as a function of the relationship between personal control and social control. The second approach to the theory of social control lays emphasis on the social bond. Hirschi is the chief exponent of this approach, according to which the bonds (taken in the wide sense) between the individual and other people are the fundamental instrument of social control. According to Hirschi, the social bond consists of four main elements: 1) personal, emotional links (attachment), 2) a rational commitment to conformist behaviour, along with expectations as to punishment and reward (commitment); 3) a degree of involvement which would leave no room for deviant behaviour (involvement), and 4) beliefs. In the case of personal attachment, the behaviour of the individual will depend on how sensitive he is to the opinions of others, on how far he reckons with their views. The people who matter here are the members of the primary groups to which the given individual belongs, the people whose opinion he respects, the people who will expext him to conform to the norms which they themselves recognize. According to Hirschi, the groups with whom bonds are all important are: the parents, the school, and the peer group. Commitment means that the person absorbs the life style of his environment. A strong commitment to conformist behaviour, with the aim of achieving the kind of goals ranked high by the given culture, means that the person may lose a great deal if he acts contrary to the norms accepted by that culture. At the same time, conformism guarantees as it were that the person's aspirations will be achieved. Strong involvement in conformist behaviour results in the fact that the person spends so much time and energy in keeping to the generally accepted model of behaviour that even "physically" he cannot behave otherwise (e.g. for lack of time). Beliefs affect the acceptance or otherwise of the norms adhered to in a given society. Difference of behaviour between individuals may be due to difference in the degree to which the norms laid down by the law are accepted. By and large Hirschi believes that all four types of social bond act together. Yet he also accepts that the diverse elements separately may each have an independent effect on the person's behaviour. Schrag is one of those who adopt the normative and system approach to the question of the functioning of social control. He examines the functioning of the social control system on two planes; 1) culturally approved ends- culturally approved means, and 2) behaviour expected in a given society (prescriptions) – actual behaviour (performance). The cultural goals (prescribed ends) are values such as: freedom, justice, equality, happiness, security, Means that are approved by society (prescribed means) are such norms as: the law, beliefs, legal codes, regulations, agreements. Goals which may actually be achieved (performed ends) are goals such as influence, social status, prestige, education, reputation, money. The means actually used to attain these goals (performed means) are practices such as. customs, traditions, conventions of behaviour, innovations in existing customs. A social system works well when all its constituent elements work well together. In such circumstances there are no disruptions in the functioning of social control. But if the various elements of the system clash, social control ceases to function efficiently, that is, it ceases to regulate human behaviour effectively. There is always a danger that the connections between the various elements of the system will become looser. This danger may take at least six forms: the accepted norms may not be able to protect the group values; goals may be beyond the reach of practical action; ways of behaving may be at odds with the sopially accepted norms; goals may be in conflict with the generally accepted values; there may also be a contradiction between values and practices, and between goals and norms. If the system is to work well, it is essential that there should be no basis divergence between formal (= legal) norms, and informal (= moral) norms. If the legal norms are rejected by the group because they do not fit in with the group's values, social control will not work. According to Schrag, the causes of crime should be sought not so much in the individual as in the social system and the way it functions. To sum up, one may present the sociological theory of social control as follows. It asks what makes people ready to subscribe to the norms and values accepted in a given society. Three basic types of answer may be given to this question. Answers of the first type stress the course and the effectiveness of socialisation processes. Answers of the second type emphasize the role of social bonds in the shaping of conformist behaviour. Answers of the third type draw attention to the importance of cohesion in the system of norms and values in a given society. On the whole, socialisation is a process that takes place within the primary groups. Its aim is to make the individual adopt society's norms and values. The optimum situation is where these norms become internalised, that is, they become an integral part of the person's internal mental and moral structure. If this happens, we can say that inner control governs behaviour - that is, the person’s own conscience keeps him from behaviour that does not fit the generally accepted patterns. This goal can be achieved when there are strong bonds of affection between an individual and his parents, and also when the individual finds emotional support in other primary groups. The role of the primary groups is not only to provide good personal models to imitate, or to help the inaividual to adopt the generally accepted norms, but also to exercise direct control over tbe individual' behaviour by inducing him to conform. If the individual is to absorb a sociaily approved system of norms and values, that system should be a well integrated one, the rules should be clearly stated, and behaviour at odds with the approved norm should encounter expected social sanctions. Social control is most effective when three basic factors play a role: when socialisation follows its undisturbed course, when the individual finds support in the group and the group is able to control the behaviour of the individual, and thirdly when the system of social norms and values is cohesive and clear. In times of social unrest, when bonds are weaker, and the individual does not know what to expect from society, social control will be unable to exert effective control over the individual’s behaviour.

55-85

Authors: Irena Rzeplińska

1.The 1969 Penal Code introduced a new system of sanctions for offences committed by habitual criminals in special circumstances. Two new categories of special recidivism are here introduced: special basic recidivism (Art. 60, § 1 of the Penal Code), and special multi-recidivism (Art. 60, § 2 of the Penal Code). The legal consequences of a conviction under Art. 60, § 1 or § 2 are as follows: 1) longer terms of imprisonment, 2)the application of special measures: protective supervison and commitment to a social readaptation centre, These measures take effect after the prison sentence has been served. Under the protective supervision system, the habitual offender is free, but supervised for a period of 3-5 years. The readaptation centre is a closed institution. The habitual offender is sent there for a minimum period of two years, up to a maximum of five years. After two years the penitentiary court may free the recidivist if it thinks he is unlikely to commit another crime after regaining his freedom. The conditions under which a person is sent to a readaptation centre differ, according to whether he or she was sentenced under Art. 60, §1 or Art. 60, § 2 of the Penal Code. A recidivist may be sent to a readaptation centre by either the criminal court or the penitentiary courts. The decision to apply these measures may be taken at diverse stages of the juridical and penitentiary process: 1) when the sentence is pronounced (by the criminal court), 2) towards the end of the prison sentence (penitentiary court), or 3) during the period of protective supervision (penitentiary court). In the first of the three stages mentioned above, the recidivist senrenced under Art. 60, § 1 of the Penal Code may or may not be put under protective supervison. It is not obligatory. In the case of a person sentenced under § 2 of Art. 60 of the Penal Code, it is obligatory either to put him under protecive supervision or to send him to a social readaptation centre. The decision to send a recidivist to a social readaptation centre (a more severe measure) is taken only if the court is of the opinion that protective supervision would be insufficient io prevent a return to crime. In the second of the three stages mentioned above, towards the end of the recidivists's sentence the penitentiary court takes the following decisions: 1) it may put the habitual criminal under protective supervision if that was not done in the sentence of the criminal court; 2) it may alter the decision of the criminal court and put the offender under a protective supervision order instead of sending him to a social readaptation centre. The third and last stage in which decisions are taken about the application of special measures, is when the offender is actually under the supervision of a Probation Officer. If the supervision is not working out satisfactorily, the recidivist may be sent to a social readaptation centre. 2.The habitual offender is supervised by a Probation Officer after he has served his prison sentence. No person who is under protective supervision may change his place of residence without the consent of the court. He is obliged to appear in court if summoned, and to carry out the court's recommendations (Art. 63 of the Penal Code). The court may order the recidivists: 1. to perform an obligation incumbent on the sentenced person to provide support for another person; 2. to perform specified work for a social purpose; 3. to perform remunerated work, pursuing an education or preparing for an occupation; 4. to refrain from abusing alcohol; 5. to submit to medical treatment; 6. to refrain from frequenting specified surroundings or places; 7. other appropriated behaviour in the period of protective supervision, if it may prevent the commission again of an offense. During the protective supervision period, the court may issue orders, or extend or alter those already given. During the protective supervision period the recidivist comes under the supervision of a Probation Officer appointed by the court, who at the same time is responsible for organizing the resocialization of the person being supervised. Protective supervision ceases: 1 when the appointed period of probation is at an end, and when probation has been successful, 2) Or aerlier, if the person being supervised fails to carry out the orders and obligations placed on him, or if he makes it impossible or difficult for the purpose of the protective supervison order to be attained (e.g. by committing a crime when under supervision, which means that the supervision was unsuccessful, 3) owing to causes which bring supervision to an end (e.g. death of the supervised person). 3. The study reported here dealt with one of the two special measures mentioned above - protective supervision. The main problem examined is the effectiveness of protective supervision. Protective supervision is a system which has two goals: one is to keep the supervised person from committing another crime (here we may speak of the restraining function of supervision), while the other is to resocialise the person on supervision (in this case we may speak of the resocialising function of probation). The key question asked by anyone who examines the effectiveness of some penal measure is: whether, and to what extent, does it attain its aims? With this definition in mind, the effectiveness of probation was examined in two fields. In the first (narrower) field, the author asked if there had been a juridical improvement in the behaviour of persons put under supervision. In the second (wider) field, success was measured by the extent of the supervised persons resocialisation - that is, an attempt was made to find out how the supervised person functioned in society, that is, whether he kept to the basic social norms that society expects,of its members. In both fields, the moment of time when effectiveness of supervision was assessed was that at which supervision ceased. Those who successfully completed their period of probation were checked again at the end of 38 months, to see whether or not they had reverted to crime. The group studied here consisted of all male recidivists in Warsaw who were put under a protective supervision order in 1971-1972. There were 232 persons in the group. Two research techniques were used. ln the first, the relevant documents were studied (documents concerning previous criminal caces, prison documents, records of the course of protective supervision, data, about previous convictions, as well as about periods spent in penal institutions and in remand). In the second, the recidivist was interviewed on the basis of a questionnaire. 4. Out of the 232 persons investigated, 43.1 % completed the supervision period successfully, 53.3% failed to do so, and in 3.4% of the cases death intervened. In this group of recidivists who had been put under supervision the author differentiated three groups: Group I - taken as having been resocialised during the supervision period, and as having successfully completed their supervision. This group consisted of 57 men (26% of the total number studied). Group II – regarded as not having been resocialised, but that completed the probation period successfully, without ill consequences for themselves. Group II consisted of 43 men (19% of the total). Group III, consisting of men who were not resocialised, and who as a result suffered the additional ill effect of being isolated in the social readaptation centre; this group failed to complete their supervision successfully. In this group were 124 men (55% of the total). Some of the unresocialised men in Group III did not carry out any of the duties or orders given them. Some reverted to crime even although for a time they carried out their duties and orders. Some did not carry out their duties and orders, and reverted to crime. In this group the supervision system failed to fulfil the functions expected of it. With regard to those who did not carry out their obligations and orders it failed in its resocialisation function, while with regard to the others, who committed a crime while under supervision, it failed in both its functions: restraint and resocialisation. The following characteristics were found in Groups I, II and III. Group I consisted mostly of the youngest men (only one-eighth of the group were over 40). They were educated at least up to elementary school standard (approx. age 14-15). During the probation period they carried out work that called for skills. They were physically healthy. In their case the supervision period was one in which their lives were financially more stable (they had paid jobs). They also had stable family lives, and started their own a families. Of all the groups, they had the fewest convictions up to the time the probation period began. They had mainly committed offences against property, but a significant number had been gauilty of crimes of a predominantly aggressive nature. Drunkenness was not noted among them during the supervision period. The men in this group declared that after they had come out of prison and been put under protective supervision they had no special trouble in beginning life again in freedom. They also said they were pleased with life. Group II consisted of men who, judged from the formal point of view, completed their supervision period successfully. But their behaviour during supervision, and above all their heavy drinking, does not justify us in regarding them as having been resocialised. These were habitual criminals who when put under supervision were older (mostly over the age of thirty), as compared witn the men in Group I. As many as a quarter of the men in Group II were habitual criminals aged forty and over. Compared with the men in Group I, they were less well educated, and worse qualified for jobs. Among them various types of physical complaints were found, possibly because they were older, and possibly also because they had a longer career of crime. Fewer of them were married. They seemed to make little effort to achieve financial stability. During the supervision period they frequently changed their job - often because of some infringement of discipline, or because they arbitrarily threw up their job. When they began probation, they had more convictions behind them than the men in Group I. Group II had the lowest number of men who had committed serious crimes against property, or serious aggressive crimes. They were guilty mostly of petty crimes. Above all the habitual criminals in this group are the most awkward ones from the social point of view. They were the ones who mostly said they were dissatisfied with their lives. While on supervision they did not give up heavy drinking. Moreover, although ordered to take a "drying-out" cure , they did not go for treatment at all, or did so irregularly. Before their conviction they had worked irregularly, with gaps in between jobs, but during the whole supervision period they worked. Groups III: protective supervision was a failure with group. As compared with the other groups the men in this one had more previous convictions - the average number of previous convictions being nearly six. More of them, as compared with the men in the other groups, went in mainly for crimes against property; the minority went in for crimes of a predominantly aggressive character and crimes of diverse types. Half of the men in Group II came into the 21-30 age group when ,they began supervision, while the other half were older (moreover, one-seventh were habitual criminals aged over forty). Even at the beginning of supervision the men in this group were in a worse situation than the others - especially as compared with the men in Group II, for they were worse educated, and worse prepared for earning living. The majority of the men in this group were single. Only one in five was married. Their health was noticeably poorer than that of the men in the other groups. Most of the men in this group drank heavilly during the supervision period. The men here confessed that immediately after getting out of prison they had trouble in getting back to a normal life. The main obstacles were lack of money, and the difficulty in finding a job. When questioned they said that on the whole they were not happy about their lives. The majority (72.6%) had reverted to crime while on supervision. The others had been taken out of supervision because they did not carry out their obligations ot the orders or the probation officer. 6. In this study of men put under protective supervision, one in every four is reckoned to have been a success. it was noted that during the supervision period factors that made for success were: setting up a family, having a regular skilled job, and avoidance of heavy drinking. In view of the above, it is the youngest habitual criminals who have the best chance of completing their supervision period successfultry. Age is in their favour, they have a better chance of a stable family life, they are better educated, better fitted for a job, they do not show the symptoms of social degradation associated with alcoholism, Because of these factors they are more likely to be able to return to a normal life. 7. During a period of 38 months from the end of the each man's supervision period, a check was kept on whether or not these men had further convictions. The men covered by this part of the study were those in Groups I and II, that is, those who successfully completed their probation. Thirteen men from Group I and twelve men from Group II (that is, twenty-five men altogether), had subsequent convictions. They constituted 25% of the two groups. It may therefore be stated that the majority (three-quarters) of the men in Groups I and II had no convictions during the thirty-eight months following the end of their supervision period. 8. In the supervised groups studied here, we took one quarter as having been resocialised by the end of supervision, one-fifth as having at most improved formally, and over a half as not having been resocialised - in their case supervision ended in failure. On the basis of this study it may be stated that the chief criterion on which the man on supervision was judged (and on which the success of the supervision proces was judged) was whether or not he carried out the instruction to have a paid job. This was due to two reasons: in the first place, if the man was in paid employment, it mean that he was fulfilling at least the minimum of the demands made on him during the supervision period (this minimum was: to earn his own living). Secondly, it was easy for both the Probation Officer and for the man he was supervising to check whether this order was being carried out, and how. The implementation of their instructions was treated as being of less importance. The main one was to have paid employment. If the man being supervised was in a job, but failed to carry out other instructions given to him, the Probation Officers did not ask for him to be taken off supervision. At the present moment, when reform of the criminal law in Poland is under discussion, one of the problems being examined is that of the penal liability of people who revert to crime, and the question of what legal penalties should be imposed on them. It has been pointed out during this discussion that the severe legal penalties imposed on habitual criminals during the last ten years have not been effective. Consequently the question still remains open: whether we should not apply the special measures described above - protective supervision or commitment to a social readaptation centre after the prison sentence is served. What we have learned from the use of a closed institution such as a social readaptation centre shows that it is completely ineffective. As for protective supervision, it has been postulated that this way of controlling the behaviour of habitual criminals should be transferred from the sphere of penal measures to the sphere of social security measures. It has been suggested that within the framework of post penitentiary care, specific medsures to help, which would be carried out by the probation officers, would be available to habitual criminals after coming out of prison.

7-24

Authors: Zofia Ostrihanska

The editor-in-chief of „Archiwum Kryminologii”, professor Stanisław Batawia, full member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Professor of Warsaw University and of the Institute of State and Law of the Polish Academy of Sciences, died on April 21, 1980. His personality, publications and activities exerted great influence on criminology and the fight against crime in our country, and were of consequence in our attitudes towards different categories of people exhibiting deviant behavior, particularly offenders and alcoholics. Professor Batawia was born in 1898 in Łódź. He received the degree of Doctor of Medical Sciences in 1929, and the degree of Doctor of Law in 1931. From 1929 until the outbreak of the war in 1939 he worked at Warsaw University as senior assistant of the Department of Criminology. At the same time, he worked as a physician, first in the Nervous Diseases Clinic of Warsaw University, then on Psychiatric Ward of the Hospital of the Centre for Sanitary Training, and on the Children’s Neuropsychiatry Ward of the Institute for Mental Hygiene in Warsaw. He also worked as physician-psychologist in the Stefan Batory Grammar School in Warsaw. From 1935 he was an expert in forensic psychiatry. He took part in the military operations in 1939 as a doctor; during the German occupation of Poland, in the years 1940-44, he worked in a health service centre in a village near Warsaw. In August 1945 he was qualified as assistant professor in criminology on the basis of his thesis Niepoprawność przestępców w świetle badań nad bliźniętami kryminalnymi (Incorrigibility of Offenders in the Light of Studies of Delinquent Twins), which he had presented to the Board of the Faculty of Law, Warsaw University, as early as in 1939. In 1946 he was made associate professor at Lódź University where he was also the Head of the newly-organized Department of Criminology. At the same time he lectured on criminology and forensic psychiatry at Warsaw University. In 1949 he was transferred to the Department of Criminology of Warsaw University. In 1958 he received the degree of Professor. From 1953 he also conducted (apart from his activities at the University) criminological studies in the Department of Criminology of the Institute of Legal Sciences at the Polish Academy of Sciences. He was also closely connected with the Department and its works after his retirement in 1969, acting as consultant of its proceedings up until the last days of his life. In 1965 he was appointed correspondent member, and in 1969 full member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Apart from his work in the field of criminology, Professor Batawia was also active in the field of psychiatry and studies on alcoholism. In the years 1951-54 he was national specialist of the Ministry of Health in the field of forensic psychiatry, and in the years 1954-62 a consultant of the Forensic Psychiatry Ward at the Psychoneurological Institute; he also collaborated with the Scientific Research Centre of Social Anti-alcoholism Committee from the beginning of its existence. He was a member of the Team of Specialists of the Permanent Commission of the Council of Ministers for Fighting Alcoholism. He participated as an expert in the work of Parliamentary Commissions on the Law against Alcoholism and the draft of the law on the prevention and combating of juvenile delinquency, and in other legislative works connected with the subject of criminology and psychiatry. The International Criminological Society appointed Stanisław Batawia its representative in Poland. He was also the Polish correspondent of the Committee in Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders of the United Nations Secretariate. The entire scientific activity of Professor Batawia was influenced by his medical and legal education. His research work was closely connected with his educational and medical practice, and also his extensive social work. Professor Batawia was the founder of Polish criminology. His ideas and methods exerted a great influence on the present shape of criminology in our country. He tended to practise empirical criminology where generalized statements were supported by profound evidence and hypotheses were always subject to empirical verification. He was of the opinion that the results of criminological research, enabling a thorough understanding of criminological problems in Poland, should be the basis for legislative work. He tried to make the range of empirical studies undertaken by the Department of Criminology broad enough to include systematic gathering of statistical data on crime in Poland, macrosocial determinants of crime, prediction studies, and sociological analyses of the ecology of crime. He himself, however, concentrated his interest mostly on the problems of clinical criminology, on the etiology of crime as seen in individual cases. He thus concentrated on individual case studies, on the problems of the careers, environment and biopsychic attributes of individual offenders and persons manifesting grave behavior disturbances. However, while tackling the problems from the, point of view of clinical criminology, he by no means lost .sight of their broad social background. He emphasized even in his pre-war works the importance of the fact that offenders were mainly recruited from the least priviledged social classes. In his book Wstęp do nauki o przestępcy (An Introduction to the Study of the Offender), he carried out a keen analysis of the process of demoralization of children from such classes. „The typical theft perpetrated by a poor child is the result of all the circumstances of his upbringing and of the environmental influences which affected him from his earliest days of childhood. The divergence between the status of a young manual worker and the living conditions of these socially priviledged, of which the poor child is acutely conscious, constitutes a serious factor in the etiology of juvenile delinquency. The children are also frequently led into delinquency by peers who have repeatedly managed to steal without being apprehended and who thanks to this can afford various entertainments. The youth learn how to acquire money by illegal means from newspapers and the cinema which show offenders with a great deal of tolerance, even sympathetically, and where the victims of criminal activities are often significantly morally inferior to the offenders (...). The fact of theft alone does not in the least indicate an antisocial attitude. Had the needs of the child been adequately understood at home, had the society enabled him to enjoy the values which is almost impossible to do without at a certain stage of development, we would not have witnessed a significant majority of the thefts committed by children (...). It is only in prison and in a typical corrective institution where the individual who has infringed certain rules of the law develops criminal attitudes through remaining in a criminal environment”. Professor Batawia declared himself against those criminologists who concentrated on sociological or psychological problems only, as this could lead to one-sided conclusions. Although he was a psychiatrist himself, he criticized the one-sidedness of research work caused before the war by the monopolization of criminological studies by psychiatrists. Criminology is an interdisciplinary science; what is therefore necessary is a comprehensive approach to the studies of crime and offenders. A research group engaged in such studies should include a lawyer as well as a sociologist, psychiatrist and psychologist; (this view is well illustrated by the choice of staff at the Department of Criminology, amongst which representatives of all the branches mentioned above are to be found). The notion of interdisciplinary character of criminology is also evident in the themes and concepts of Professor Batawia’s researches, in the methods applied by him, in the elaboration of the results and in the consequent conclusions which take into account the entire complexity of the problems discussed. In his book published in 1939, Professor Batawia severly criticised the one-sidedness of theoretical approach. He radically disposed of the arguments of the anthropological school in criminology. The book ended with, the following words: „The problem of chronic criminality can only be solved by means of social reform and reforms of criminal policy. Don’t let us make biology responsible for sociological phenomena”. He also stated before that crime was a social phenomenon par excellence, and thus an offender could not be considered apart from his social background. He expressed his „criticism towards the authors who wanted to reduce various attributes of an offender to the common denominator of pathology”. He particularly criticised the notion of psychopathy as vague and very unprecise, falsely identified in certain works with social harmfulness and asocial or antisocial behavior. At the same time he attached great importance to the problems of psychopathology, which allow to understand deviant behavior of offenders with personality disorders. He considered it necessary to take into account the psychiatric perspective to assume a proper attitude towards a number of essential criminological problems, in particular to that of recidivism. Professor Batawia considered it inappropriate to base criminological studies on very general concept of „offender”, which denotes different individuals „who were given the common name only because ' they had been united by the most general qualification of the Penal Code”. The offenders are by no means an homogenous category of persons whose behavior could be explained by one adequate theory. Criminology should seek etiological explanations concerning different categories of offenders. This principle was strictly observed in his studies. It resulted not only from his scientific experience and opinions, but also from his entire attitude towards man, in particular towards the offender: he assumed the need for an individual approach and treatment, for considering various individual problems of the examined persons, as those problems never repeated themselves „in the whole of their pattern in other cases, even in the most similar ones”. In clinical research, according to Professor Batawia, the problems under examinations should be approached genetically and not statically; one should go back in one’s studies, not confining oneself to the facts revealed during the investigation, „Only a genetic point of view can reveal a real face of an offender and show the actual background of thousand of common offences, committed most frequently by people whose life conditions have led them to crime and then connected them with it strongly, and who, offenders as they were, did not cease to be individuals similar to others from the same social environment”. The studies conducted by Professor Batawia tended not only to reveal the determinants of antisocial attitudes of the examined persons which had occured since their childhood. Also their subsequent social development and further fate were followed covering the period of many years (10 and more). Such longitudinal studies, introduced by Professor Batawia into Polish criminology, enabled the proper estimation of the persistence of criminal careers and of the efficiency of the measures taken against the offenders. The methodological attitude of Professor Batawia was characterized by great criticism. He himself formulated the conclusions of his studies with extreme caution, criticising severly inconsiderate generalizations in some criminological studies as well as improper methods employed in others. He was of the opinion that „when beginning an investigation, one should forget in a way that it is an offender who is to be examined, and try to study him quite apart from the delinquent act itself, and thus to prevent the crime from influencing one’s judgment”. He considered it wrong to restrict the studies to offenders in prisons and corrective institutions only (as it was often the case in the early criminological studies), and postulated the examination of an offender in his own natural environment; in the case of prisoners, he advised particular prudence in generalization of the results on other categories of offenders. In criminological research, Professor Batawia attached great importance to the method of obtaining information and to its critical appraisal. He pointed out the great - and often underestimated - importance of the reliability and validity of information from which the results are to be obtained. It is of particular importance in the case of information gathered through the interviews. Professor Batawia considered it advisable to verify the data as far as possible by the means of information obtained from various sources. The studies he conducted were never restricted to interviewing the offenders alone: also interviews with their families were carried on, as well as the use was made of data from their criminal records, from court and prison files, and, if necessary, opinions were obtained from schools and employers, as well as data from sobering-up stations and medical and psychological records. In the case of any discrepancies of information from various sources, it rested with the researcher to decide which to consider valid, as it was he who took care of the whole of the study and was in personal contact with the examined person. In criminological studies, according, to Professor Batawia, the data should be gathered by persons properly prepared to the task, that is those who know the problem to be investigated, have been instructed as to the actual study (that is, as to its object, methods and the notional apparatus), who have the easiness of coming into contact with the examined persons and of interviewing them. He himself gave an example of such skills, experience and infallible intuition which allow one to perceive the problems most vital for the given individual; he also gave an example of an attitude of kindness and confidence in man which induces even social outcasts and rebels to frank statements. The scientific worker who is to conduct an empirical research study in the field of criminology, should - according to Professor Batawia - not only be the author of the project of the study, its manager and organizer, but should also participate in it personally. It is only an active personal participation that lets one perceive the whole of the vital problems connected with the given issue. He himself acted in this way, taking part personally in the majority of the studies conducted by the Department of Criminology, going, sometimes in spite of his bad state of health, to juvenile delinquent institutions or to prisons and carrying on personally the psychiatric examination of offenders. Besides, personal participation, the contact with the person under observation, and interest in his problems were indispensable to the Professor himself, too, as his outlook on life was first of all that of a clinician. The research was for him never the collecting of scientific data alone: he induced in it the elements of psychotherapy and, if necessary, of actual assistance. One could learn a great deal assisting the psychiatric examination conducted by him. Personal participation in the study served still another purpose: that of training of scientific researchers in the field of criminology. The conception of training of scientific staff, as realized by Professor Batawia, assumed the teaching of methods of research through active participation in the study, through attendance to examinations carried out by the Professor himself, through group discussions on the results of individual investigations and on the theoretical problems related to them. In instructing his personnel, Professor Batawia was exacting, conscientious as to the reliability, precision and detailed recording of the data they gathered, as well as to the exact formulation of results. It was a hard school, and yet the students were always cheered up by the Professor’s great kindness towards them, his warm interest in their problems, and his readiness to assist them. Professor Batawia was connected with „Archiwum Kryminologii” in a singular way: as the editor, back in the pre-war period (since 1933) of „Archiwum Kryminologiczne”, a publication of the Department of Criminology of Warsaw University, and as the founder and editor-in-chief of „Archiwum Kryminologii” from the very beginning of its existence after the war (the first volume was published in 1960) until the present volume, appearing after his death, and yet prepared by him personally. Professor Batawia created the editorial of „Archiwum Kryminologii”, a publication to present the results of empirical studies initiated by the Department of Criminology. He also prompted the subject matter of works published in „Archiwum Kryminologii”. In the volumes published so far, the total of 41 works have been inserted. The subject matter of the research studies conducted by Professor Batawia was broad. It included the problems of juvenile and young adult delinquency as well as that of socially maladjusted children. It also included the problem of recidivism which had not been previously much studied in Poland, the problem of mentally abnormal offenders and the question of alcoholism, as well as the phenomenon of hooligan offences which is closely related to that of alcoholism. Professor Batawia dealt also with drug addiction and toxicomania among the youth, and with the problems of forensic-psychiatric expertise. In the years 1946-48 he examined in prisons the German war criminals convicted in Poland for crimes committed during the Nazi occupation, among them he examined Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of the concentration camp in Auschwitz. The results of these studies supplied sociological and psychological material of great importance, which enabled to understand how a socially harmless individual became one of the major war criminals under the influence of historical events, social environment and the ideology of national socialism. The discussed results are an important document, a serious warning against the dangers of the Fascist ideology. Until 1951 Professor Batawia was member of the Praesidium of the Main Commission for Studies of Nazi Crimes in Poland and the editor of 7 volumes of „Bulletin” published by the Commission, which contained records on the crimes committed by the Nazi occupants. Many of his studies - both conducted before and after the war - were devoted to social maladjustment and delinquency of juveniles, which is a serious social problem, playing often an important part in the genesis of adult delinquency and recidivism. The social destructiveness of juvenile delinquency does not lie in the damage caused by the offences commited by the juveniles but in their social maladjustment and demoralization often accompanying their offences. A lot of children steal because their various needs have not been satisfied. When considering their thefts, one should also take into account the phase of their mental development. As it is the case with many juveniles brought before the court, they are in the period of puberty when the child’s mental balance is upset, and the lack of experience and critical judgement accompanied by openness to various influences, exuberance of impulses and birth of new needs can together - in a particular complex of social relations - contribute to the child’s committing of an offence. It is the period of entering new wider social circles: peer groups, school and even professional circles, the period of confrontation of the hitherto existing outlook on life with what one sees around. It is thus the period of arising conflicts which are usually met without understanding by the closest environment. All of this points to the importance of the keen analysis of the situation and features of a juvenile delinquent and of the educational and not penal character of the measures adopted towards him. „One must not attach any particular importance to the mere fact of occasional theft committed by a child (...). The essential problem is if and how is that theft accompanied by other symptoms of disorders in the entire behavior of that juvenile”. Those disturbances in the whole of the juvenile’s behavior (also defined as social maladjustment) require as early as possible a social interference of a protective, educational and also - if necessary – therapeutical nature. The need for early interference in the case of the category of socially deprived children, and also in the case of children brought up in the conditions which endanger their normal development, was an important conclusion of the studies of juvenile delinquency conducted by Professor Batawia. The studies pointed to the fact that juvenile delinquents were frequently brought up in socially deprived families, and that the process of their demoralization, going on for a long time before the action in court, had not met with any sensible counteraction. Particularly grave is the problem of delinquency of younger juveniles, as it has repercussions on recidivism, and as such calls for a keen investigation. In the prevention of the process of demoralization, the school should play an important role, with the methods of work so modified that „the care of this category of children were regarded not only as a particular duty, but also as a matter of special social importance”. The school should co-operate in this field with the sufficiently extended net of psychological and educational centres which would make inquiries into the conditions of life and the personality of the child before the proper measures were adopted towards it. It is also essential to organize a large enough number of part-time boarding; schools. In the discussion on the draft of the act on fighting juvenile delinquency which was to supplement the regulations of the new Penal Code, Professor Batawia took a strong line in the question: since in our conditions juvenile courts should be the authorities having jurisdiction over juvenile delinquents, they would be protective and educational of character, and they had already gained a large output and a qualified staff in our country. He argued that the matters of so important social effects must not be transferred to social commissions, institutions yet to be organized, lacking any tradition whatever in our country, the members of which - willing as they might be - would have limited power and authority. According to Professor Batawia, the demand for adopting educational measures and correctional treatment only should be valid regarding young adult offenders. Young adults are not as yet mature and are in the period of settling out of an outlook on life and a moral sense, as well as that of a large susceptibility to environmental influences. The sanctions adjudicated towards young adults should not be connected with the deprivation of liberty; a small category of young adults, socially demoralized to a large extent and revealing tendencies to rapid recidivism, should be treated in special institutions of rehabilitative and correctional character only. When Professor Batawia stipulated for such treatment of young adults, the Polish Penal Code did not provide for any separate measures for this category of offenders. „Until we change thoroughly our system of sanctions towards young adult offenders, our struggle against the chronic delinquency will be fated to fail” – he wrote as early as in 1937. Professor Batawia also pointed to the fact that the work of approved schools, a weak point in the whole of the problem of juvenile delinquency, should be based on the idea that „delinquent acts should be regarded as symptoms of inability to social adaptation and deficiencies of character, and these very features should constitute the matter of interest of the tutor”. The problems caused by the youth in an approved corrective school shoul not be regarded as a mere lack of discipline or mischievous insubordination and treated as such by means of frequent punishment as the only remedial measure. From the pre-war period, the problem of recidivism was also the subject of the Professor’s studies: juvenile, adolescent and young adult recidivists, those revealing pathological mental characteristics, and the so-called incorrigible criminals, which was a notion included in the Penal Code of 1932. Professor Batawia criticised it in his pre-war works, considering no one entitled to use the term „incorrigible offender”. In spite of the appearances of incorrigibility, the chronic offenders can - as the studies prove - cease to commit offences. Also, independently of the genesis of their first thefts and of the process of demoralization, „the subsequent delinquency and incorrigibility of such an offender is closely related to our attiude towards the phenomenon and to the faults of the criminal and penal policy. Professor pointed also to the fact that from the criminological point of view the notions „recidivism” and „recidivists” had a very broad denotation: an individual qualified as recidivist on the grounds of the law may prove a casual offender, and even among multiple recidivists a variety of criminal types are to be found whose tendencies are asocial rather than antisocial. Most recidivists have been socially maladjusted to a considerable degree since their childhood, have been regularly drinking excessively from their early age, often with symptoms of alcoholism already, and many of them reveal personality disorders. Thus the problem of juvenile and young adult delinquency and recidivism and an early proper intervention are essential, if still underestimated. As a prolonged isolation of recidivists proves ineffective, freedom or semi-freedom measures should be more often applied, as well as release on probation with the subsequent aftercare which would make the later readaptation easier. On account of personality of some young adult recidivists, and of their alcoholism, one should be prepared for the fact that the sanctions adjudicated may often not produce an entire change of their social attitude. An obligatory automatic increase of penalty for committing a new offence is groundless. The Code should provide for the possibility of substantial and not only formal estimation of the recidivist’s improvement. Those postulates were reflected by the introduction of Art. 61 into the new Penal Code. Professor Batawia also gave attention in his works to the problem of alcoholism and regular excessive drinking, and their relation to delinquency. The relation is twofold: on the one hand, it consists in the negative role of the alcoholic’s family and the psychological problems it creates in the genesis of the process of his social maladjustment; on the other hand, it lies in the significance of excessive drinking in the etiology of some kinds of offences and in the increase of the proces of demoralization. At the same time, the most important effects of regular excessive drinking lie not in delinquency but in all the problems caused by alcoholism in everyday life and in the life of families. Studies of juvenile delinquency, often revealing alcoholism in the families of the examined juveniles, tended to put foreward the demands metioned above. They called for an early intervention in the case of such children and their families and of extension of the protective and educational possibilities hitherto existing in our country. The work by Professor Batawia Społeczne skutki nałogowego alkoholizmu (Social Effects of Alcoholism), published in 1951, initiated this kind of research in Polish alcohology, revealing the social aspects of alcoholics’ personality. It also exhibited the tragic situation of the families of those alkoholics who had not yet been put in hospital, though they should have been sent there long before, and who still had a clean record in spite of the fact that they kept ill-treating their wives and children and depriving their families of various goods and money in order to buy themselves alcohol. The postulate enclosed in this work aimed in two directions. One was the fight against the „common phenomenon of regular excessive drinking among hundreds of thousand of citizens, many of whom gradually turn into alcoholics”. This fight should assume the range of a broad social action, well-planned, energetic and supported by the law. It was the Professor’s persistent reasoning and his art of gaining over others to this cause, that led to the involvement of various people in social organizations and institutions, and subsequently to the resolution by the Seym of one of the best laws on combating alcoholism in the world. The second line of the Professor’s postulates (also reflected in the purview of the law) concerned alcoholics who should be treated therapeutically, and the diagnosis of alcoholism should result in compulsory treatment; thus the development of specialists health service is necessary, in particular, the establishment of a proper- number of clinics for alcoholics. In his later works, Professor Batawia fixed his attention on the problem of particular social importance, that of excessive drinking among the youth and the need for early recognition of the outset of alcoholism which now occurs much earlier than it was the case years ago; what is more, among a certain category of young adults who early became heavy drinkers, the course of alcoholism is often rapid and severe. Professor Batawia devoted his last study to the problem of young adult alcoholics subjected to compulsory treatment, whose intensity of drinking and deviant behavior had been particularly high, both processes having begun in their early youth. The study is unique of character, as it concerns the age (up to 25) when alcoholism is extremely rarely revealed. The treatment of this category of alcoholics should also be therapeutical. Also prevention is of a special importance here, the activation of teachers and tutors of all schools in the field of identification, protection and proper guidance of the large category of children with initial symptoms of social maladjustment and those from alcoholic families. Even if regular excessive drinking is first of all determined by the social cultural factors, therapeutic medical intervention should be undertaken towards the young people who drink repeatedly and often get intoxicated (that is those who repeatedly visit detoxification centres, are apprehended as drunk by the police, have been several times convicted by the Penal Administrative Commission for offences committed in the state of intoxication). It is important to increase the number of detoxification centres where drunk people would be treated as patients in hospital; such centres would also diagnose their patients. It is also important to enlarge the number of institutions for withdrawal treatment and guidance centres for the youth, as well as to introduce the industrial health service into the system of withdrawal treatment and to synchronize the activities of various institutions dealing with alcoholics in their everyday practice. When planning such a system, one should, however, take into account the entire complexity of problems connected with alcoholism and regular excessive drinking as well as the fact that the phenomenon of regular excessive drinking, causing negative effects in those drinking themselves and in their environment, is not in the least irreversible. It is, a complicated problem, requiring prolonged research, the results of which may allow a proper evaluation of this phenomenon. It was first of all the social consequences, and the practical importance of the problems, that constituted the criterion for the choice of the subjects in the studies conducted by Professor Batawia. Among them there was also the problem of „social parasitism”, much absorbing the social opinion, and the draft of the possible act to control it. Professor Batawia confronted the motion of „social parasitism”, vague and susceptible of various interpretations as it is, with the empirical data which indicate that the majority of those „shirking work” are heavy drinkers or alcoholics. Young adults less than 21 years of age shirking work but not drinking excessively often lack elementary education and professional training and are socially maladjusted; however, they must not be identified with those demoralized and committing offences. The change of their social attitudes cannot be achieved by repressive measures only. „It is indispensable to separate distinctly the tasks of socialization of such individuals from the functions of the common penalties inflicted on them for committing offences or contraventions”. The yet another problem studied by Professor Batawia was that of drug addiction among the youth, which he considered – refering to the results of various Polish studies - a minor problem in our country. In a very heterogenous population of young people taking drugs, two categories can be distinguished: that of young adults who take drugs only once or twice, which is a majority, and that of those taking drugs regularly, who are very few. Regarding this last category of individuals who narcotize themselves regularly and thus become drug addicts, the priority of medical treatment should be obligatory. The Professor’s works are also of great importance to forensic psychiatry. Among other things, he called attention to the necessity of including into medico-legal certification, apart from the normal state of inebriation and the state of pathological inebriation, also the motion of the so-called state of inebriation on pathological grounds, where certain features of the defendant’s personality could have significantly increased the effects of inebriation. He also studied the problem of reactive disorders often wrongly recognized by the prison staff as simulation, which actually require early diagnosis and treatment. He postulated the increase of psychiatrists’ participation in the works connected with the problems of readaptation of offenders, particularly in the diagnosis and treatment in the penitentiaries. The results of studies and their practical conclusions presented above reveal the essential trends of the Professor’s attitude towards the measures that should be adopted to the different categories of offenders and individuals with severe deviant behavior. It resulted from his profound humanism in his attitude towards man. He pointed to the need for individualization and adoption of measures which carry no discrimination nor the isolation from the normal social group, but which tend towards the readaptation (and, if necessary, medical treatment) of the individual exposed to them. He criticised the principle of general prevention. He pointed to the inefficacy and harmfulness of imprisonment which, if possible, should be restricted. He postulated a radical revision of the assumption which constitute the base of criminal and penitentiary policy towards a considerable number of recidivists. Without such a revision, the imprisonment would only contribute to the increase of antisocial attitudes. In the works concerning various criminological problems, Professor Batawia emphasized the importance of prevention and early intervention in the case of children and young people from socially deprived environment or revealing personality disorders. He declared himself against the therapeutical nihilism as regard both alcoholics and those offenders who were recognized as incorrigible. He was of the opinion that „the beliefs about the inefficacy of any treatment of alcoholics are wrong (...), it is groundless to abandon the treatment of young adults after the first therapeutical defeats”. He considered that the negative results of the measures adopted towards the offenders „should induce one to intense activities in the field of criminal policy reform”. He realized the difficulties connected with implementing those demands, as well as the need for the education and training of those who would properly conduct the readapting and therapeutical activities. He also realized that the problems of criminology were very complicated, and that our knowledge of various items, still insufficient, called for further laborious scientific research. And yet, seeing the entire complexity of the problems and the sometimes distant prospects of realization of some demands, Professor Batawia was not deterred from aiming at their introduction into practice with exceptional persistence, commitment and passion; at the same time, he took into account the instructions of practical realism, reckoning with the possibilities created by present circumstances. To the last days of his life, he considered it his duty as an educator to hand down to the others his opinions of the reforms and of practical solutions of criminological problems, which he did on various occasions: at conferences, during discussions on doctors theses and examinations qualifying for associate professor. It was alien to him to remain indifferent to the opinions, demands and activities which he considered wrong. The theoretical views which he enclosed in his works half a century ago now strike with their progressiveness, accuracy and immediate interest. Professor Batawia maintained an astounding unity of his opinions. He announced them with exceptional courage also when he was alone in his views - that is, on the turn of the 40’s and the 50’s, when Polish criminology was to suffer eradication, unjustly attacked from ideological positions. He was distinguished by his inflexibility, intransigence and his moral and civic attitude which constitute the example for all of us.

151-190

Authors: Irena Rzeplińska, Barbara Szamota

The Penal Code of 1969 introduced in Chapter VIII a complex of regulations defining the criminal liability tfor offences committed in the conditions of special recidivism. Two categories of special recidivism were introduced: basic recidivism (Art. 60 § 1 of the Penal Code) and multiple recidivism (Art. 60 § 2 of the Penal Code). To assume the first category, the following criteria are required: 1) commission of an intentional offence similar to the previous one, 2) execution of at least 6 months of imprisonment, 3) commission of a new offence within 5 years after discharge from prison. To impute the offender the commission of an offence coming under the second category of recidivism, the following conditions are necessary: 1) conviction for at least the fourth time, in this twice under the conditions of basic special recidivism, 2) repeated commision of an intentional offence to profit financially or of hooligan character, 3) total imprisonment of at least one year, 4) commission of a new offence within 5 years after the last imprisonment. For each of those two categories of recidivism, the principles of aggravated criminal liability are fixed by the Code, and they refer to less - serious - offences only. Towards persons coming under Art. 60 § 1 and 2, imprisonment within the raised limits is adjudicated. Towards such persons, absolute suppression of suspension of the execution of penalty was formulated. The strictness of these regulations is partly diminished by Art. 61 of the Penal Code, which created the possibility to depart from the aggravation of penalty as expressed in Art. 60, in "particularly justified cases, when even the lowest penalty inflicted on the basis of Art. 60 § 1 and 2 of the Penal Code, would be incommensurably severe". The Code fights special recidivism also by providing special measures against special recidivists coming under Art. 69 § 1 and 2: protective supervision (called "supervision" further on) and social readaptation centre (called "centre" further on). The first of them - supervision - is a non isolating measure, consisting in the control of behavior of the supervised person in the conditions of liberty. It is adjudicated for a period of 3 to 5 years (Art. 63 § 1 of the Penal Code). The second measure - centre - is of isolating character. The duration of stay in the centre is not appointed beforehand in the sentence: it is at least 2 years, at most 5 years long. After 2 years, the recidivist may be discharged by the execution of penalty court if there are good reasons to presume that he will not commit any offence after discharge (Art. 65 of the Penal Code). Special measures are executed after the sentence has been served. The principles of application of the special measures differ as regards both categories of recidivists: those coming under Art. 60 § 1 of the Penal Code (called "common recidivists" further on) and those coming under Art. 60 § 2 (called further "multiple recidivists"). The organs authorized to adjudge these measures are the criminal and execution of penalty courts. Their decision as to adjudgement of them may be taken at various stages of legal and executive proceedings: in the sentence (criminal court), in the latter part of imprisonment (execution of penalty court), and during the supervision (execution of penalty court). The principles of application of the special measures by the court which is to pass judgement in the case are stated in Art. 62 of the Penal Code. According to § 1, the application of supervision is optional towards the offenders coming under Art. 60 § 1. The court is here at liberty to decide as to the possible measures, as no premises to adjudge supervision are specified by the regulation. As to the recidivists coming under Art. 60 § 2, the adjudgement of one of the two special measures is obligatory, that of supervision as a rule. The adjudgement of the centre takes place only if the court recognizes supervision insufficient to prevent recidivism (Art. 62 § 2 of the Penal Code). The second instance when decisions are taken as to the application of the special measures is the close of imprisonment of the recidivists. The rulings of the execution of penalty taken at this stage of the proceedings modify those taken previously - that is, in the sentence - as regards the application of the special measures. In the case of common recidivists, these modifications may consist in adjudgement of supervision if it was not adjudicated in the sentence (Art. 91 of the Code of Execution of Penalties), or - if the recidivist is released on probation - in the specific conditional simulation of the supervision adjudicated in the sentence (Art. 98 § 1 of the Penal Code). If the release on probation is not cancelled by the court, the adjudgement of supervision loses effect (Art. 98 § 2 of the Penal Code). In the case of multiple recidivists, the modifications which may take place in the latter part of imprisonment as regards the adjudication of the special measures always consist in substitution of a strict measure by a milder one: the penitentiary court may replace the adjudgement of the centre with supervision (Art. 103 of the Code of Execution of Penalties) or release multiple recidivists on probation. The third closing stage of proceedings when the decisions on application of special measures are taken is the execution of supervision. In this stage, the position of recidivists coming under Art. 60 § 1 and 2 of the Penal Code is identical: they can both be sent to the centre in consequence of failure of the supervision (Art. 64 of the Penal Code). Thus the adjudgement of the centre in consequence of failure of supervision serves here as a measure to discipline the execution of supervision. The present study was based on the data from criminal records of the Criminal Register and the Central Files of Convicted and Temporarily Arrested Persons. The material from these records enables one to notice the differences, as regards the data they include, between the groups of recidivists distinguished in respect of the special measure adjudicated towards them, and thus, to define initially the criteria for application of these measures. As a conclusion, an attempt was made to define the general range of adjudgement of the special measures towards recidivists regardless of the stage of proceedings in which it took place. The research was of cross-sectional character. The examined population consisted of recidivists (coming under Art. 60) from the entire country and selected to 3 random samples: the first sample included all recidivists whose sentences had become valid within the period from March 1 till April 30, 1979 (1181 persons), the second sample included all recidivists discharged from prison within the period from February 1 till March 31, 1979 (874 persons), and the third one - all recidivists whose supervision had been completed within the period from April 1 till May 31, 1979 (544 persons). There were the total of 2599 cases, from which 72 cases had been excluded because of the lack of complete data in the Criminal Register. The final populations of the separate samples were thus as follows: I - 1146 persons, II - 869 persons, III - 512 persons (the total of 2 527 persons). The collected material was then analysed, that is, the groups of persons were compared, distinguished on the grounds of the type of the special measure adjudicated towards them, for instance the group of multiple recidivists towards whom supervision had been adjudicated was compared with the group sent to the centre. The above comparisons were made for each sample separately, and within the sample - separately as regards the common and multiple recidivists. The method of representing the results reflects , the analysis scheme: each sample has been represented in a separate part of the present paper. The study is summed un by an attempt to estimate the general range of adjudgement of the special measures towards recidivists. The results of the estimation indicate that the application of the special measures towards recidivists is of a very broad range. As many an approximately a half of the common recidivists had been subjected to supervision; failure occurred as regards 40 per cent of the supervised persons, which makes about 1/5 of all common recidivists, and these persons came under the regulation providing the adjudgement of the centre in consequence of the failure of supervision. In 40 per cent of the cases the cause of the unsuccessful termination of supervision was the non-compliance with orders and duties by the supervised person, and in 60 per cent - commission of a new offence. As regards multiple recidivists, there were as few as 14 per cent of them towards whom no special measure whatever had been adjudicated, owing to adjudgements of the execution of penalty courts. Approximately 27 per cent of the multiple recidivists had been sent to the centre immediately from prison, while approximately 59 per cent had been subjected to supervision. In over a half of these cases supervision was unsuccessful, which makes about 1/3 of the multiple recidivists. The cause of the unsuccessful termination of supervision was in 2/3 of the cases commission of a new offence, and in 1/3 of the cases non-compliance with orders and duties.

233-270

Authors: Halina Janowska

The study contains the results of an empirical research carried out in Poland devoted to the macro- and microsocial conditions of family orphanhood. In the first stage (1978), 97% of the population of all children’s homes, inhabited at the time of the study by 24,000 persons, were examined, and in the second stage (1980), 2.1% of this population were examined (520 persons, which made the sample representative of the country). The notion of family orphanhood was introduced in the study to describe the situation of children who are under care of State institutions due to the lack of care in their own families. The notion of social orphanhood is thus limited - in this formulation - to the situation when the State, in spite of negligence of basic parental duties by the parents, has not yet taken over the care of the child. The extent of social orphanhood in Poland is rated at approximately 10% of the population of children and young people aged 0-17. The extent of family orphanhood is rated at approximately 5 promile in the age group 4-18. The growth of family orphanhood shows the triple increase of the phenomenon during the last 20 years. At the time of the study, 58% of family orphans were in State; children's homes. From the point of view of the research tasks, this group of children and young persons was considered the most representative, as the principles of placing children under other forms of care (that is, for instance, foster homes, family children's homes, centres for school education and special educational institutions for socially maladjusted children and young people) are based on particular criteria of selection. Below a summary of the results of the study is presented. The greatest intensity of family orphanhood and crime can be found in the western and northern regions of Poland. As revealed by the statistical analysis, the intensity of these phenomena in various parts of the country is significantly correlated. Their joint source are the by-products of social changes. In the social conditions promoting the phenomenon of anomy, the group patterns of deviant behavior may reach broader social circles; the tendency to perceive that behavior as contradictory to the norms diminishes then. This tendency concerns criminal behavior to a much greater extent than the behavior from which the family orphanhood results. Thus the growth of social orphanhood measured indirectly (for instance, by the rate of care and protection cases in courts), seems to be more diagnostic as a ratio of increase of pathogenic social phenomena than as an index of reported crime. The growth of pathogenic social phenomena can be studied indirectly by means of a structure analysis of attributes of the population selected in a particular way. The structure of particular attributes of the population of institutions for children and juveniles varies significantly according to the intensity of the pathogenic social phenomena in different parts of the country. In the voivodships where this intensity is greater, a higher percentage of children under psychiatric care or those whose parents have been deprived of their parental rights, is to be found significantly more frequently; the distributions of frequency in the separate age groups are random in the examined population. In the voivodships where the ratio of pathogenic social phenomena is lower, the most numerous age group is that of 13-15, which means that - more often than in the remaining voivodships - the important reason for sending children to institutions are their educational problems connected with puberty, and not a generally worse situation of the families which would cause sending children to institutions regardless of their age. On the microsocial scale, the main cause of family orphanhood is the disorganization of the family related to the individual and social characteristics of the parents. Taking into account the level of disorders in the social behavior and that of disturbances in emotional relations between the members of the family, 4 categories of families were distinguished in the population examined. The majority are the families disturbed both in their social functions and in emotional relations; there were as many as 78.2% of them among 5200 families. The families which, however undisturbed, were educationally inefficient for other objective reasons (financial problems, housing problems, illness, disability, death of one parent were 7.1% of the cases. There were also 8.5% of the families with only emotional relations disturbed, and 6.3% of those with only social behavior disturbed. Thus the majority, that is, as much as 84.5% of the children were brought up in criminogenic environment. 75.3% of fathers and 55% of mothers were regularly drinking excessively; alcoholism was found in 55.6% of fathers and 19.6% of mothers; 66.6% of the mothers’ friends who lived together with the family were heavy drinkers. The high percentage of drinking mothers in those families should be noted. Lack of a permanent employment was found among 27.6% of fathers and 41% of mothers. Due to their alcoholism and poor professional training, a considerable part of the children's guardians found it difficult to obtain and keep a job. Until the time of the study, 15% of fathers and 6% of mothers had already been imprisioned; no reliable information was gathered as to their previous criminal records. Professional prostitution was found among 12% of mothers, while sexual promiscuity among as many as 40%. The instability of emotional bonds is a striking feature of the families examined. Only 1/3 of the parents are married. In 53% of the cases, the parents admittedly live together, but one of them is temporarily absent due to imprisonment or stay in a mental hospital, which are the most frequent reasons. 73% of the families live in very difficult financial conditions, 61% have serious housing problems. A very poor state of health (serious chronic diseases) was found in 18% of fathers and 23% of mothers. Health and physical development of children and youths in children’s homes are distinctly worse than the average in the country. Their height in 49,3% of the cases does not reach the age norm, the respective percentage in the case of weight being 42%. A half of the children had suffered from serious diseases, as shown by 48.6% of the cases of hospitalization. In as much as 17% of the children the past or present diseases are connected with damages of the central nervous system or with functional changes which reflect on their mental functions (cerebral concussion, epilepsy, acute neuroses). 17% of the ailments and diseases are immediately related to grave neglect (untreated advanced form of tuberculosis, effects of accidents). Congenital defects are found in 5% of cases. In the group of family orphans, the types of mental deficiency and personality disorders which impede the normal social functions can be found more frequently than in the entire population of children and young people. Only 56% of the children came within the limits of the normal intelligence level. The symptoms of nervousness - more or less intense - were observed among as many as 90% of them. There were only 13% of the children without any disturbances of behavior (that is, inhibition, increased kinetic restlessness, timidity, emotional sensitivity, aggressiveness etc.). Developmental deficiencies were found in as many as 84% of the children; the most frequent were those in the sphere of the development of visual (34.5%) and auditory (22.3%) functions, the least frequent were the disturbances of speech (13.8%). Deviant behavior is more frequent among the concerned population than in the entire population of children and youths in respective age groups. The following three types of behavior proving the threat of demoralization were found: behavior connected with school maladjustment, with environmental maladjustment against the background of defective emotional relations (excluding the one based on emotional disorders of the passive type, like inhibition, timidity, etc.) and delinquent behavior or that pointing to disturbed socialization. The most frequent are the types of behavior revealing school, maladjustment (41.4%), those revealing distrubances of emotional relations (28%), and the least frequent are types of behavior of deliquent character or pointing to disturbed socialization. It is worthy of notice that the intensity of behavior of the first and third types markedly decreases in the children’s homes, while in the case: of the second type, that is of behavior revealing disturbances of the emotional sphere, the decrease is much less visible. In the conditions of the children’s home the emotional compensation, which is an important problem, is difficult to solve.

291-337

Authors: Anna Kossowska

The object of the study initiated in 1975 in the Department of Criminology of the Polish Academy of Sciences was to get acquainted with the extent of social maladjustment in the families known to be characterised by the cumulation of socially negative factors. They were, called multi-problem families. In on study primary criteria for the selection of families were alcoholism and excessive drinking, which was based on the assumption, proved by many criminological studies, that alcoholism causes the most severe disturbances in the functioning of the family. Other symptoms of social maladjustment, such as crime, prostitution, child neglect, were recognized as the derivatives of alcoholism. 222 families living in the Warsaw district Praga-North were examined, in which at least 2 adult membres were known to the police as regular excessive drinkers. Data about the families examined were gathered by means of interviews with the district constables of the police. On the grounds of the interview a questionnaire was filled in, including such data on all members of the family who were living together, as: regular excessive drinking and behavior related to it, delinquency, trouble-making and threat to the safety of their family and neighbours, attitude towards work, performance of parental duties, prostitution and other symptoms of social maladjustment. They were supplemented by the data from other official sources, among other: court records, registers of the detoxication centres, data from the juvenile section of the police regarding the state of care of the children and their social maladjustment. The majority of the multi-problem families examined inhabit poorly planned areas. The houses are mainly old, neglected, assigned for demolition (and thus not repaired). There are no bathrooms nor WCs. Many of the tenements lack running water. The housing conditions of these families as regards the density of their tenements is considerably poorer than the average of the remaining part of the district and of the entire city. The financial standing of the families, according to the police constables, is “poor” or” very poor” in over a half of the examined cases. The social and professional status of the members is low. 70% of men and 90% of women lack any vocational training. At the time of research, the examined population of 222 families consisted of 437 men and 360 women aged over 17 and 233 children aged 0-16 (over a half of them were small children aged up to 10). The extent of social maladjustment of the entire adult population is as follows: As few as 9% of the men and 37% of the women do not drink excessively. The remaining regularly drink excessively or are alcoholics. It is interesting that a substantial intensity of excessive drinking was found even among the youngest group of the examined adult males, that is those aged 17 - 20. Only 15% of the men in this age group do not drink excessively. The excessive drinking of the persons examined is connected with other symptoms of “problem drinking”. Over 57% of the men and 17% of the women were detained at the detoxication centre more than 3 times. The persons under examination also frequently have cases brought against them in the Penal Administrative Commissions because of breaking of peace when intoxicated. Over 40% of the men had such cases brought against them at least 3 times. More than a half of the men in the multi-problem families are the so-called “persons dangerous to other members of the family when drunk”. This stands for behavior such as making rows at home, beating their wives or other members of the family, turning them into the street, demolishing their flats. The population of the men is also characterized by an improper attitude towards work. Approximately 45% of them do not work though they could. On the basis of the obtained information it can be stated that they either are provided for by the others, or they live on illegal business or various odd jobs, or they profit by illegal means. In the light of the data mentioned above as to the drinking habits of the members of the families examined the question arises if any relationship can be found between their excessive drinking and their staying out of work. Approximately 92% of the men who are known to stay out of work without any reasonable cause can be recognized as alcoholics. The extent of crime in the multi-problem families is significant, with 57% of the men having been convicted at least once, and 32% - 4 times or more. There were also 20% of the women with criminal records. Contrary to expectation, in the structure of crime of the examined population violent offences balance those against property. Among the population of the women from the problem families, 1/5 are suspected of prostitution. When discussing the social maladjustment of the women, the problem of performing maternal duties cannot possibly be ignored. 70% of the mothers of small children do not secure the care for them, and in some cases the child neglect becomes more flagrant. Only about 1/5 of the entire population of the adult members of the families examined reveal none of the symptoms mentioned above, the percentage in the case of men being as low as less than 9%. In the second part of the study an attempt is made to characterize the families from the point of view of the intensity of social maladjustment in the entire family. Among the 222 families there were 39, the members of which had no criminal record, that is, in over 80% of the families there occurs the co-existence of alcoholism and crime. In more than half of the families not even one adult member could be recognized as positive - that is, not drinking excessively, with a clear court record and regularly working. There is one such person in 54 families, 2 such persons in 36 families, and in only 15 families 3 persons were recognized as favourably meeting the above criteria. On the basis of the proceedings employed to define the degree of social maladjustment of each of the families, nearly 1/3 of them were found to reveal a very high intensity of cumulated symptoms of social maladjustment. Such families create a serious social problem to the still greater extent than the others. Analysing the educational situation in the families on the basis of their classification as regards their structure, the situation in question is found particularly unfavorable in the families where the mother regularly drinks excessively or is a prostitute. This applies particularly to the situation of small children. In nearly all the families with small children the sometimes flagrant negligence of the children was found. The mothers did not care for their children, left them without any care, did not secure for them any sufficient food nor clothing, the children having in many cases no other source of assistance. As the children grow up, their neglect and the influence of negative social patterns in the family repeatedly lead to the symptoms of social maladjustment, which increase gradually sometimes reaching very grave forms. Multi-problem families require special care and assistance of the qualified social services. This applies particularly to children who are brought up in exceptionally unfavourable conditions. An early intervention in the situation of those children is vital. It should lead to neutralizing the negative influence of family milieu, which in a great part of the cases requires the isolation of the children by placing them in a children's home. The assistance applied towards the family should also consist in financial and medical aid (including the treatment of early stages of alcoholism).

363-388

Authors: Paweł Zakrzewski

In the present study the changes in behavior of young adult drug addicts are described, which occurred as their dependence has developed since the beginning of taking drugs. We regard as scientifically fruitless frequent general statements concerning young adult (as well as adult) drug addicts irrespective of their age and the stage of dependence. The research on which the present study is based was a part of multidisciplinary studies of young adult drug addicts which were conducted by the Department of Mental Health of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Łódź in the years 1974-76. It concerned all patients aged 15-23 registered in the out-patient clinics for young drug addicts and in district out-patient clinics for adults in the city of Łódź because of the repeated taking of narcotic drugs. It is important to note that the discussed population consisted of 102 young adults, of which 23% were girls. Three detailed interviews were carried on in relation to each case: one with the mother of the given boy or girl (in exceptional cases with another adult member of the family), the second one at school with the tutor and the teachers, and the third one with the drug addict himself . The questionnaires on which the interviews were based took into account, to a high degree, the family conditions of the addicts, their behavior at home , from their earliest childhood up to the latest months, their school history, ways of spending their leisure time, the outset and circumstances of taking drugs, the use of alcohol, the peer groups, living problems in the period preceding the taking of drugs and in subsequent years, delinquency etc. Data were also collected concerning the criminal records of the addicts and the history of various diseases treated in different out-patient clinics. The study was conducted by a team of several persons working under supervision of the author of the present paper. Estimation of the degree of dependence was based on medical diagnosis. Among the addicts, the following three stages of dependence were distinguished: the stage of social dependence, that of mental dependence and the stage of physical dependence. The greatest part (50%) of the addicts were in the stage of mental dependence. The addicts were noticed to move to the more advanced stages of dependence in course of time. The mean duration of the period of taking drugs was: with young adults socially dependent 5 months, with those mentally dependent 1 year 5 months, and with those physically dependent 2 years 8 months. There are, however, limitations to this regularity. Some individuals withdrew from talking drugs within the first 12 months of social dependence. Others reached the stage of mental dependence very rapidly, so to say cutting down or even skipping the first stage of dependence. There were also those who remained for a long time in the preliminary stage of the illness, that is, that of mental dependence, revealing no symptoms of physical dependence even after one or two years. It is thus apparent that the progress of dependence and its rapidity are not the derivative of the length of the period of taking drugs only. An important role is also played by the intensity of taking drugs, by their peculiarities and by the individual immunity of the central nervous system of a given person. The notion of the so-called social dependence is controversial to a certain degree and as such used only by some of the authors. However, the results of the present study speak in its favor as the term defining the first, and so to say preliminary stage of dependence, preceding the next stages of dependence in the medical sense. In the present study the notion of social dependence is of a very broad range, i.e., its criteria are not limited to the pressure of the peer group and the boy’s or girl’s eagerness to adjust themselves to this group. On the basis of the collected material, we included in the notion social dependence also the cases in which the addicts communicated with loose society circles, e.g. in cafés, which was accompanied by the predominant trend to adjust themselves to the fashion and customs of such circles, as well as the cases of an influence of individual persons of different sex attracted to each other. The notion of social dependence is worthy of separation, particularly, as the patterns of taking drugs have now become generally accepted among the youth. Taking certain drugs several times, or even once, caused a considerable improvement of mood of the individuals inclined to experience conflicts intensely, who had a low tolerance to frustration and a poor ability to overcome obstacles, if they only happened upon the drug which changed their mental stale favourably from their point of view. Phenmetrazine was good for some of the persons examined to suppress their mental inhibitions, while others used sedatives to suppress states of tension and excitement, still others - morphine and its derivatives to experience something new and to get away from the dullness of the everyday life. The process of social dependence turning into mental dependence among the addicts consisted in the fact that - as they were experimenting with various drugs in the company of others - they soon found that not only the interpersonal ties were hereby fortified, but also their hitherto only poorly tolerated mental state could undergo a favorable change. As this belief grew stronger and proved true in all next instances of taking the drug, they experienced the more and more intense desire to take such drugs whenever the state of tension, discouragement or irritation had reached a considerable degree of intensity. However, after some time the hitherto felt desires were dominated by additional and extremely trying sensations of not only mental but also physical nature which occurred in the periods of the break in drug taking. The addicts tried at any price to get rid of withdrawal symptoms. Most frequent were the complaints about the sensation of irritation, restlessness, inability to concentrate on anything, lack of energy, anxiety, insomnia or nightmares, headache and melalgia, hand tremor and other annoying and exhausting symptoms. The examined persons with these symptoms had already found themselves in the stage of physical dependence. In the diversity and variability of drugs taken by the addicts as their dependence developed, a following essential regularity could be noticed: the comparatively greatest diversity of drugs taken was usually found at the stage of social dependence. In that of mental dependence, morphine and the specimens approximal to it more and more prevailed among the drugs taken by a given individual, thus reducing the role of other drugs. The transition to physical dependence meant further concentration on the opiates (mainly morphine), while other drugs – including alcohol- became substitutes and were taken when the individual did not possess the favorite drug and thus felt withdrawal symptoms. The danger of conversion to morphine and other opiates, with all its consequences, thus grew as the taking of drugs continued. It is a matter of course that, as the individual gradually needed drugs more and more difficult to obtain (that, is, those from the morphine group), which were sold at a higher price, and as he needed more and more of the drug and found it more and more difficult to do without - the ways of obtaining it had to change. A phenomenon occurs which can be called escalation not only of the drugs taken, but also of the means of obtaining them. The means in question become more and more ruthless, one counts less and less both with one’s own hitherto existing line of conduct and ambitions and with the probable reactions of the environment. The means of obtaining drugs grow also more and more absorbing, they engage more and more time and efforts. Simultaneously followed the process of diminution of individual interests and of the disappearance of ambitions in the addicts. It was more and more difficult for them to acquit themselves of the hitherto performed social roles. And thus, for instance, within the range of the role of a pupil, the following symptoms could be found among the addicts beginning from the stage of mental dependence: considerable difficulties of concentration, the slowing down of the run of thought, passiveness and drowsiness during the classes, increasing absence from school, being far away with thought even if physically present at school, regular remiss in doing homework, indifference to school failures, reluctance to undertake efforts to overcome them - that is, greater and greater slackness in the school duties. School, usually quitted in the advanced stages of dependence, gave place to irregular and chance periods of working, which did not in the least lead to any professional promotion of a given individual. All the hitherto existing forms of activity which satisfied their former interests and life plans were - as the dependence developed - replaced by the efforts to obtain every now and again new doses of the longed-for drug. Parallel to this process new specific elements appeared in the life of the addicts: contacts with out-patient clinics, stays in detoxication centres and mental hospitals, which repeated from time to time, and in a considerable number of the cases – court appearances ending more than once with imprisonment. In general, it must be stated that the progress of dependence has led to intense degradation changes in the lives of the addicts. The whole of those changes were composed of the following: increasing problems and failure at school, quitting school, aggravating conflicts at home, participation in youth groups and circles out of control which were characterized by socially negative patterns of behavior, giving up one’s professional ambitions, staying for months in hospitals, undergoing detoxication treatment, gradual limitation of one’s aims and interests to obtaining and taking drugs, court appearances every now and again.

403-445

Authors: Hanna Paszkowska

The new Polish penal legislation of 1969 introduced special rules of criminal liability of young adult offenders' aged 17-20. In 1972 criminological research was undertaken in order to characterize this group of offenders, i.e., its most numerous category - those found guilty of offences against property. The research ended in 1975. In 1980 a follow-up of convictions of the persons, under observation was carried out. The object of the study of young adults found guilty of offences against property was to analyse the psycho-social factors connected with their social maladjustment and demoralization, particularly their family and school environment, personality, extent of drinking and offending. It was also the object of the study to compare two groups of young adult towards whom different measures had been adjudicated. As the most typical offences of young adults are those against property, a group of young adults convicted for this very type of offences was included in the study. There were 100 persons under examination who had been sentenced to immediate imprisonment. This group consisted of all prisoners of two Warsaw prisons in the years 1973-75 (group A). The group of young adults (group B) consisted of 100 persons conviced in 1973 for offences against property and sentenced to fine, limitation of freedom, imprisonment with suspension of execution, or educational-corrective measures. The two groups of convicted persons that were selected for the study, different as regards the adjudicated and executed measures, were compared in many respects in order to ascertain the distinctions between them as regards the degree of intensity of the process of social maladjustment which had been related to the application of various penal measures. Empirical research consisted in gathering detailed information on the persons under scrutiny concerning their previous convictions, their school career and the course of work. Also interviews were carried out with them and separately with their mothers, by means of a detailed questionnaire. Three psychological tests were also employed towards each person, that is Raven’s intelligence test, Eysenck’s questionnaire to measure extroversion and neurotism and Buss-Durkee inventory to measure aggression. 3.1. Offences against property constituted the criterion for selection to the study. The most numerous group were convictions for larceny qualified as “stealing in a particularly audacious manner or by a breaking and entering” (Art. 208 of the Penal Code), though the “audacious theft” was extremely rare as compared with the second choice. 64% of the persons of group A had been convicted for offences described in this article, the percentage as regards group B being 35%. Many persons also committed thefts of social property, while the receiving of stolen goods was the least frequent. Generally, the persons of group A had been active for a longer time than those of group B, and their offences were more frequently qualified as continuous. It should also be emphasized that the mean value of the objects stolen by the persons of group B was considerably lower than it was the case with the young adults of group A. It also happened (16% of cases) that the act of the young adults of group B ended as a mere attempt at committing an offence. To sum up, the offences against property committed by the persons, sentenced to immediate imprisonment were more serious than those committed by the young adults towards whom other measures had been adjudicated. 3.2. 69% of the persons of group A had cases in juvenile courts, while as many as 84% admitted having committed offences, mostly thefts, at that age. On the other hand, 44% of the persons of group B had committed offences for which they were brought to court as juveniles. The difference between both groups is significant (p < 0.00l). The origins of delinquency dating back from before the age of 13 were found in as many as 23 persons of group A and 10 persons of group B. The earlier they started to commit offences and had their first case in juvenile court, the more numerous were their subsequent convictions in that period. The mean number of convictions in juvenile court was 2,2 in group A and 1,6 in group B. The structure of delinquency of the persons under examination is hardly differentiated: they committed first of all offences against property (85.7%), mostly larceny. The juvenile court, had employed such measures as admonition and charge of parents in the case of persons of group B considerably more frequently than towards those of group A (25% and 8.7% respectively). On the other hand, the persons of group A had been much more frequently sent to children’s homes and to corrective schools (44.9%) than those of group B (25%). 3.3. In the period discussed below all the persons were young adults, with the mean age similar in both groups: 19 in group A and 18.9 in group B. The mean number of convictions of the persons of groups A from the age of 17 was 1.7, and in group B 1.2. Each member of group A was responsible for 3.3. offences, while in group B the mean number of offences was 2.2. It should not be forgotten that many persons, particularly those of group A, were repeatedly imprisoned in the discussed period. A considerable majority of the persons of both groups who had committed more than one offence, were convicted for offences against property only. The data quoted above illustrate the whole of delinquency of the persons under examination and recidivism among them. Taking into account both the period of minority and the later period from 17 years of age on, there were as many as 4 per every five persons of group A who had already been convicted before, and in group B nearly every second person had had a conviction previously (the difference is significant, p < 0.01). These data confirm the conclusion as to the more advanced process of demoralization of the young adults of group A as compared with group B. 49% of the persons guilty of offences against property of group A came from unbroken homes; the respective percentage in group B was 71% (difference significant, p < 0.001). Broken homes resulted mostly from the death of one parent (23% of cases in group A and 15% in group B), or from divorce (28% of cases in group A, 14% in group B). A majority of the persons came from workmen’s families (90.5% in group A, 70.7% in group B). The level of professional qualifications and education of parents of the persons examined is significantly lower (p < 0.01) in group A as compared with group B. Approximately 60% of families of the persons of group A and 67% of group B had been living in poor financial conditions, which was connected, among others, with excessive drinking of the fathers. 56.3% of fathers of the persons of group A had regularly been drinking excessively, that is drinking vodka at least twice a week. This percentage was only 26.3% in group B, it was lowered, however, as the examination of young adults of young adults of group B was carried on at home, often with the fathers themselves present. 37% of fathers in group A and 19% of those in group B had been taken to a detoxication centre, including 21% and 14% respectively taken at least three times. As in other criminological studies, in the present one young adults have not been found to live in criminal family environment. It was extremely rare that the fathers of the persons examined had criminal records. To sum up, certain negative phenomena were more frequent in the families of young adults of group A (for instance, broken home, excessive drinking of fathers). However, the cumulation of a number of negative factors could have influenced in a particulary unfarourable way the process of socialization of the persons under examination. 5.1. There were 37% of the persons of group A and 23% of those (p< 0.001) of group B with elementary education, and 18% and 5% respectively with incomplete elementary education. The difference is significant (p < 0.001). School retardation which appears more often among delinquents than among non-delinquents is connected with a lower level of education of young adults. Among the young adults of group A as few as 17% revealed no retardation, the percentage as regards group B being 46.5%. The difference is significant (p < 0.001). The retardation of the persons of group B usually amounts to one year only, while it is often 3 years or more among the persons of group A. School problems are also connected with truancy (group A - 78%, group B – 66% of the examined persons), which begins in the very first grades of elementary school. Early and regular truancy of the persons of group A was one of the symptoms of their maladjustment. Truancy is conducive to running away from home. The persons under scrutiny, particularly those of group A, had been running away from home considerably often and for longer periods. 2. Among those who were employed, every second person in group A and every fifth person in group B worked casually only. They usually took jobs requiring low professional qualifications, as only few of them had any professional training (group A-38%, group B-62%). 6.1. Raven’s test was employed to estimate the level of intelligence of the persons examined. 53.6% of young adults of group A and 31.7% of group B scored low and very low (up to 25 centile). 10.3% of group A and 29.3% of group B scored high and very high (centile 75 and more). The mean score was 35.4 in group A standard deviation: 9.87, and 41.1 in group B (standard deviation 10.09). The difference between both groups is significant (p < 0.01). Low scares on the Raven’s scale were often found among those persons whose level of education had been low, which was accompanied by a considerable school retardation. 2. To measure the level of extroversion and neurotism, Eysenck’s MPI scale was employed. The level of extroversion and neurotism among the young adult perpetrators of offences against property was not found to be higher than that of the average youth. 6.3. The level of aggressiveness was examined by means of the Buss-Durkee questionnaire. None of its scales differentiated significantly the persons of both groups. The mean total score was 61.7 (standard deviation 21.4) in group A and 61.06 (standard deviation 23.6) in group B. The data given below concern the persons of group A only, as the information obtained from those of group B as to the volume and frequency of drinking among them do not seem reliable. The analysis of statements of the subjects reveals that the percentage of teetotallers diminishes with age. The persons examined have been drinking large amounts of alcohol from their earliest years. 36% of them stated that they had drunk such quantities of various spirits at the age of 15, which converted to 40 proof vodka would amount to 2.5 litres a month. From the age of 17 on, 60% of the persons drank over 2.5 litres of 40 proof alcohol a month. They drank vodka as well as wine and beer, which leads relatively quickly to the “treshold of intoxication”. Mean yearly consumption of alcohol per 1 examined person was 34.2 litres at the age of 15, and increased sed from year to year to reach 113.7 litres yearly at the age of 19, which means that approximately 9.5 litres of 40 proof vodka were consumed monthly; this quantity goes far beyond the mean level of drinking by men at this age. 3/4 of the subjects can be recognized as excessive drinkers. A significant correlation was found between the excessive drinking among the persons under scrutiny and their early delinquency and recidivism. The highest percentage (40%) of the persons who did not drink excessively was found among those convicter once only, while the lowest (14.8%) was found among those who had 5 or more convictions. The analysis of the young adults’ information as to their , peer groups revealed that also their closest friends had been drinking excessively and often intoxicated. In February 1980, further convictions of the persons examined, then aged 25 on the average, were checked up again. As revealed by the analysis, the persons of group A (60%) still continued to commit offences and indeed many of them become multiple recidivists. The difference between the persons of groups A and B is significant (p < 0.001). 40% of the persons of group A and 67% of those of group B have not been convicted within the period of the follow-up. The majority of the persons under observation continued to commit offences against property. The courts have mainly adjudged the penalty of immediate imprisonment (group A - 92.3%, group B - 78.2%). Among those sentenced to immediate imprisonment there were in group A 57.1% sentenced to 2 years or less of imprisonment, and in group B - 93%. There was significant correlation (p < 0.01)between the convictions in juvenile courts and further convictions in the period of the follow-up. As the data reveal, group B towards which the sanctions other than immediate imprisonment were adjudicated, differed from the imprisoned group A as to the smaller extent and intensity of their offending - also during the follow-up - and their lower degree of progress in the process of social maladjustment. However, there were quite many persons in group B as well (though less than in group A), who had been convicted as juveniles; they had yet no convictions during the follow-up in a much highter percentage of cases than the subjects of group. A who had been convicted by the juvenile court previously. On the basis of the above information, criminal policy can be discussed as regards young adults found guilty of offences against property. One should not postulate a total abandonment of the penalty of immediate imprisonment, and yet, as shown by the above data, its adjudgement should be considerably limited. The limitation in question should concern first of all young adults convicted for the first time and socially demoralized to a small degree. Within the years 1970 -76 imprisonment was the measure most frequently adjudicated towards young adults. In the years 1970 - 1974 the percentage of young adults sentenced to immediate imprisonment increased regularly. It is only since 1975 that a favourable phenomenon of regular decrease of the percentage of adjudicated penalties of immediate imprisonment can be noticed, with simultaneous increase of the percentage of measures which are not connected with deprivation of liberty. As it seems, the application of immediate imprisonment towards young adults should undergo further limitations. When postulating the re-orientation of the criminal policy of the courts towards a maximum realization of the instructions of Art. 51of the Penal Code, one should also demand changes in the stage of execution of penalty. As indicated , by many studies of readaptive effectiveness of corrective schools and prisons, their influence is minimal and sometimes their resocializing activities are destructive for the convicted persons. Imprisonment causes a state of deprivation of essential physical and mental needs, destroys the ties of those convicted with their family, gives rise to socially negative patterns of prisoners’ subculture. In the present study also the offenders of group A were described, the considerable part of whom had been changing various types of institutions and prisons, first as juveniles, then as young adults, and the effects of these imprisonments were negative as measured by further convictions within the period of the follow-up. The information presented in this study concerning the family background of the persons of group A (particularly the alcoholism or excessive drinking of the fathers, which is frequent in these families), and information concerning the early and large social maladjustment of these persons, indicate a need to consider the problem of young adult perpetrators of offences against property not only in relation to the measures that should be adjudged and their execution. It is also of almost importance to consider the prevention of social maladjustment of this category of youth.

7-139

Authors: Zofia Ostrihanska

This work presents the findings of studies of offenders, whose offences were time and again revealed, who had been frequently tried and many times been imprisoned. Studies were made of prisoners, convicted at least four times and who found themselves in prison at least for the fourth time, being of the age between 26—35 (the average age being 31). Studies were conducted in 1965—1966 in the Warsaw Central Prison. Selected from among the 440 prisoners there at that time, whose age and recidivism was in accordance with the above mentioned criteria, were those, who had domiciles in Warsaw or the voivodship of Warsaw and who possessed closest family members (as a rule father or mother), who could supply information about them. Making the successsive selection for studies, efforts were nevertheless made to take into account in the studied group those persistent recidivists who were convicted of robbery; this was due to the intention to take into account all the cases of recidivism, involving more serious offences. In connection with this departure from the principle of random samples, this group contained considerably more offenders convicted of robbery than was the case in the remaining group of persistent recidivists which was not subject to thorough investigation. The subject of thorough studies were half of the persistent recidivists, which at the time under discussion, were inmates of the Warsaw Central Prison, namely 220 prisoners. Studies concentrated on: collection of data about the convictions of the offenders, checking at the juvenile court records, whether they had been brought before a court while they were minors, collection of extracts from court records (regarding the most recent as well as prior convictions), efforts to obtain, by means of interviews and questionnaires, information about the work of the studied persons in various enterprises, where they had been employed, the drawing up of extracts from prison records, collection of medical documents of those prisoners who had received treatment in psychiatric outpatient clinics, in anti-alcoholic outpatient clinics or who had been in psychiatric hospitals; interviews conducted with the closest family members of the offenders, psychological examinations conducted with the prisoners of the group selected for studies (psychological interviews, the Wechsler-Bellevue scale, Sachs’s and Levy’s Sentence Completion Test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Buss-Durkee inventory). In addition to this 60 recidivists underwent psychiatric examinations. The studies were conducted by a team with the participation of Professor S. Batawia, who also headed the entire research; in the work of the team participated in addition to the author of this article: M. Kiezun- Majewska, S. Szelhaus and D. Wojcik. ; The average number of convictions per recidivist amounted to 6.5; the average number of stays in prison to 6.0. A persistent recidivist committed on an average 10.1 offences for which he was convicted, of these: 6.8 offences against property, 3.0 offences against the health or public authorities and offices as well as 1.3 other offences. One of the striking features of the offences committed by multiple recidivists was the variety of their offences: as many as two-thirds were convicted of offences of various types, only 27% were convicted exclusively of offences against property and a mere 9% were convicted exclusively of offences against the health as well as against the authorities and public offices. What is striking even in the case of those who were convicted exclusively of offences against property, is the heterogeneous nature of their offences and the lack of specialization in this respect. Violent offences (against the health or public authorities and offices) were committed by the overwhelming majority of those studied (71%). Almost all of the offences, and also the majority of the robberies were committed while they were intoxicated. Persistent recidivists are relatively rarely convicted of serious offences. Only 12.5% of those investigated could be considered dangerous because of frequent serious violent offences (including also robbery) and besides this only 12% could be qualified as people causing serious material damage. According to statistics concerning the whole of Poland every twenty-fifth persistent recidivist only was in 1973 convicted of an offence qualified according to the penal code as a felony (statutory minimum of punishment - 3 years). According to this study, a typical persistent recidivist is a person whose offences have caused not only social damage, but also serious damage to the perpetrators themselves, because the offences committed as a rule did not bring him any greater material advantages, but gave rise to consequences, due to which he spent a considerable part of his life in prison: 69% spent after the age of 17 more time in prison than out of prison. Almost half of them were less than a year at liberty between two successive convictions. These studies aimed at obtaining the possibly most allround information about the persistent recidivists and about their life histories. Special stress was laid on the problem of the early maladjustment of these people and the age when their first offences were committed, their professional work and attitude to their family, on the very essential problem of habital excessive drinking on their part, and also on personality disorders. Information on the family milieu from which the prisoners indicates that the majority of their fathers (77%) worked systematically (mainly as unskilled workers) and a mere convicted. However, fathers drinking to excess were a serious problem in the families of the sampled prisoners. When the prisoners were children approximately 27% of the fathers were heavy drinkers, in addition 25% were alcoholics. It is also interesting that alcoholism was found with almost half of the families of the parents of the investigated prisoners, involving their fathers or brothers. The social behaviour of the mothers of the sampled group was more positive. While half of the fathers were considered socially negative (due to excessive drinking, frequent convictions or unsystematic work), only 16% of the mothers deserved such an opinion. About 10% of the mothers drank systematically to excess, 6% had been convicted and 3% were suspected of being prostitutes. Only 41% of the recidivists lived, while being minors, within a complete family, in the cases of 48% of the families one of the parents had died (most frequently the father); in half of the cases the family was broken up when the studied prisoners were below 15 years. Connected with a disturbed family structure were changes regarding the educational milieu. 40% of the group changed their homes in their childhood, in the case of about one-fourth of them many changes were found: they brought up at least in three different homes. The marital relations of the prisoners’ parents were often (50%) very bad. The frequent breaking up of the family and work of the mothers to earn a living was often combined with the neglect of the children, found in as many as two-thirds of the families of the recidivists. On the basis of statements made by the studied group and their mothers the material conditions during their childhood were in 55% of the families very difficult, preventing the satisfaction of the most basic needs. The sampled recidivists relatively frequently came from families with many children: in 38% of the cases these were families with at least four children, in 21% these were families with three children. The brothers and sisters of the recidivists often, just as the latter themselves, had gaps in their primary school education (in 39% of the families there are found among the brothers and sisters persons who have not finished primary school education) and also had similar shortcomings regarding professional skills (over half the brothers had no vocational training at all). But the recidivists who were studied also had (though only in few cases) brothers and sisters by far outdistancing them as regards education. In as many as two-thirds of the families it was found that there were socially maladjusted brothers; in 44.5% of the families somebody from among the siblings had committed theft, had been brought before a court, while still being a minor, or had been convicted after having reached the age of 17; in as many as one-third of the families brothers were recidivists. The negative educational ditions in the families of the recidivists thus found their reflection in substantial social maladjustment of their brothers and sisters. The intensification of this maladjustment was, however, with the sampled group higher than was the case with their brothers, only one-fifth were families where all the brothers were recidivists. Studying the extent to which the sampled individuals were socially maladjusted While being juveniles, questions were asked during interviews regarding their early childhood. According to data obtained from mothers, neurotic symptoms could be noticed in many of the sampled recidivists (two-thirds). Though the percentage of those who showed such symptoms during the school period was slightly smaller (58%), there nevertheless were still many with such symptoms as bed-wetting (13%) and stuttering (17%). Half of the studied group of recidivists, who showed neurotic symptoms in school, displayed a number of such symptoms. During the investigation in prison 58% of the respondents admitted some neurotic symptoms, mainly disturbances of sleep and special fears. Striking was the frequent fact of stuttering (16.5%), found during inations in prison (on the basis of observation). A large group of persistent recidivists revealed a striking durability of neurotic symptoms from their childhood on till adulthood. Half of the recidivists of this group were defined by their mothers as ‘’difficult to bring up” during childhood (very disobedient and stubborn), while 44% were much more aggressive than the other children in the family. The childhood of the recidivists was marked by considerable disturbances at school: 16% of them finished no more than 3 grades of primary school, 25% —4—5 grades and 15% — 6 grades. A total of as many 56% did not finish primary school education. These shortcomings in primary school education were found especially often with those individuals among the group who had a lower IQ (IQ below 91), and those who had been brought up in negative family milieux, as well as those whose school years were during the war period and those who had revealed early social maladjustment. Two-thirds of this group of recidivists repeated the same class in school, 44% systematically played truant, in many cases (60%) it was found that the teachers had complained about their behaviour in school. While still being minors 41% of them had run away from home. Two-thirds maintained that during their childhood they spent much time outside their home, running the streets in the company of colleagues, who were stealing and drinking alcohol. Worth special attention is the fact, that close to half of the sampled group (46.8%) began already as minors to drink alcohol to excess, and there is information regarding 22%, indicating that when being barely 13—14 years old, they already were drinking wine or vodka at least once a week. On the basis of interviews and information obtained from juvenile court records, it was found that at least 36.2% of the recidivists from this group faced courts at an age below 17, while 21.3% were sent to approved schools. Taking into account also additional information regarding theft that was not found out, it has appeared that as many as at least 57% of the persistent recidivists were stealing or brought before a court while they were still under age. They belong to the category of former juvenile delinquents who are recidivists and whose offences are of a most persistent nature. Those recidivists whose delinquency started while they were still adolescents, more frequently than the remaining ones, came from negative family milieux. In interviews and tests results more frequently data found among them testifying to personality maladjustment: aggressiveness during school attendence and aggressiveness during the period when these studies were conducted (found on the basis of the opinions of psychologists and questionnaires according to the Buss-Durkee inventory, MMPI profiles with a markedly raised F scale). In addition to those of the group who committed offences while minors, there were still 53 (25%) of them who, though they had, as it was found, not committed offences at that time, nevertheless revealed considerable social maladjustment. Only in the case of 17% of the recidivists studied, no such symptoms were found. These recidivists were during the period when the studies were conducted in many respects better than the remaining ones: they more often possessed professional skills, had worked more systematically, more rarely been in prison and had longer intervals between the successive convictions. The first convictions of these individuals after the age of 17 started later, more among them had their first trials only after the age of 21. But as regards alcohol drinking they did not differ from the other recidivists. This is a very important fact, since in the genesis of offences committed by recidivists who as minors had not shown symptoms of social maladjustment, drinking of alcohol in excess played a larger role than was the case with the remaining recidivists and the entire character of the offences committed by them later was connected with habitual drinking of alcohol. Recidivists in whom no symptoms of social maladjustment were found while they were adolescents, nevertheless came, just like the remaining recidivists, relatively frequently from negative family milieux and often data were found concerning them, which pointed to early personality disorders; thus they were especially susceptible to unfavourable social conditions. In the life histories of these recidivists can be clearly noticed the significance of unfavourable situations for the genesis of their delinquency; the lasting aspect of this delinquency is later combined with alcoholism and difficulties encountered in the social functioning of individuals, who have already been in prison. Data from the juvenile period of persistent recidivists indicate that they entered adult society already with substantial gaps in their education, without the habit of systematic work and without any vocational training. Only three from among the studied group had finished vocational school, and at the time the study took place 55% had no professional qualifications whatsoever. This lack of vocational skill was especially often typical of those, who in connection with their lower intelligence quotient had objective difficulties at school, were lacking sufficient motivation to learn a trade and those, who had stayed at liberty only for a very short period. The studied group started to work at an early age (41% already below 16), which was connected with their difficult material conditions and the early dropping out from school. When being young adults half of the sampled group had worked relatively systematically (at least during half the period they stayed at liberty and were able to work). Later in their life can be noticed a distinct decline in systematic work. During their last stay at liberty 43% did not work at all; among the remaining individuals, 40% of those who started to work, were longer without work than with work. During the entire period since they reached the age of 17 only one-third of them worked more than half the time they actually could have worked, while the majority worked very little, of these 35% less than 25% of the time they would have worked. Unsystematic work was often combined with certain* personality traits of these individuals, such as agressiveness and inability to submit to discipline combined with a lack of professional qualifications and also with social derailment. In 30% of the recidivists degradation in the performance of their professional work found expression not only in the decrease of systematic work, but also in the shifting from work, requiring certain professional skill, to unskilled labour. This was partly connected with a complete lack of interest in the trade they had learned and above all with degradation due to alcoholism. Not without significance were undoubtedly also difficulties in obtaining a job, connected with prior stays in prison. Those recidivists to whom offences were almost the only source of maintenance, accounted for 17.7%. As many as 19% earned their living partly by committing offences and partly by getting help from their families. Thus, a 'total of over one-third were recidivists who lived above all from offences and work was not their source of income. 29% of the recidivists got the means to cover their expenses through work and by committing offences against property. For 34% of the studied individuals delinquency was most probably not the main source of their income: either they earned their living only through work (16%) or through work and by partly being kept by the family (10%) or they were exclusively maintained by the family (8%). The data gathered indicate that the recidivists studied here were frequently a burden for their families, that many of them had not established a family of their own, those who were married frequently did not perform their duties in regard to their families, and many of the marriages broke up. Their behaviour and relations with the family were characterized by substantial maladjustment to the requirements of family life. The percentage of bachelors among the sampled group was twice as high as is the case with their age group in the whole of Poland’s population of men and amounted to 40%. As many as 20% were divorced and 40% married. But only 20% lived during the period before their last arrest together with their wives; as many as 44% lived with their parents (mainly with their mothers). More than half of the married couples were marked by marital discord. Very bad relations with the wife were often connected with frequent imprisonment of the recidivists, with alcoholism and also the fact that their wives often were women whose personality and mode of life could contribute to the unstability of their married life. The majority of the recidivists completely neglected their children, one-third carried various objects out of the house and afterwards sold them to buy vodka. 18% were convicted of offences harmful to the family. Almost half of them received material help from their families. After release from prison only one-fourths of the studied group can live with their wives. Over half counted on living with their parents and on material help from them, the remaining 25% could not count on anybody's material help, 17% of them even had nowhere to live after their release. While they were at liberty the recidivists studied here drank alcohol as a rule to excess, much more than the average of men does in the towns of Poland. Almost 88% drank at least a quarter of a litre of vodka three times and more a week. The systematic drinking of alcohol to excess was typical not only of the persistent recidivists, of the studied sample, but also of other populations of recidivists studied in Poland. It was found that among this group of recidivists there were many individuals, who were alcoholics already at an advanced stage. In the case of 117 of them (53%) a syndrome of symptoms was found, typical of alcoholism. With the majority of them the abstinence syndrome could be established, 21% had gone through an alcohol psychosis. The recidivists started to drink alcohol to excess very early, half of them already before they were 17 years old, 20% at the age of 17—18, 10% from 19—20 years and only 15% — at the age of 21 or later. Combined with the early drinking of alcohol to excess, were distinct symptoms of alcoholism appearing at an early age. They could be noticed with the majority of the alcoholics after at least eight years from the time they had started systematically to drink alcohol to excess. However, this period would be shorter, if one took into consideration the periods of imprisonment, which were for the recidivists enforced breaks in their systematic drinking. In 25% of the recidivists, who were alcoholics, distinct symptoms of alcoholism appeared already at an age below 25 years, 36% — it started between 25 and 27. Symptoms testifying to an advanced stage decreased tolerance and abstinence syndrome appeared according to the recidivists around the age of 27. Systematic drinking of alcohol to excess already at a very early age thus led to early appearance of symptoms of alcoholism. The genesis of the progressive process of demoralization and delinquency, as a rule, had its source not in the abuse of alcohol. Drinking of alcohol to excess usually began already when people started to go astray or to commit offences. Those of the recidivists who drank alcohol to excess from the -time they were still under age, were already at such an early period more socially maladjusted than the remaining recidivists and 'drinking alcohol to excess was at that time one of the elements of their mode of life within a group of demoralized adolescents. For those who started to drink alcohol to excess as young adults (as a rule being also socially maladjusted while still under age), the beginning of abuse of alcohol was often combined with work to earn a living and opportunities to drink at work. Though abuse of alcohol did not play an essential role in the genesis of the process of social maladjustment in the case of this group of persistent recidivists and in the genesis of their delinquency, it nevertheless exerted a distinct influence on the intensification and nature of their further offences. This influence can be noticed in the heterogenity of the offences committed by them and also in the fact that there are only few among the persistent recidivists who have committed offences exclusively against property; connected with the abuse of alcohol is the considerable percentage among the recidivists of those who have committed violent offences. Connected with drinking alcohol to excess are also short periods of being at liberty between the successive convictions. Two categories can be distinguished among the persistent recidivists, where systematic drinking alcohol to excess played a major role regarding their delinquency; this was the group of 41 recidivists, convicted almost exclusively for violent offences in a state of drunkenness and a group of 33 individuals who committed theft while drunk, the motive being as a rule to obtain in this way money to buy alcohol. In the case of the investigated from these two groups, as a rule abuse of alcohol precedes substantially the beginning of delinquency; there are more skilled workers among them, who first used , to work systematically, but later degradation in professional work sets in; among these groups are more recidivists who were first convicted at a later age (above 20 years). Among those who committed petty theft connected with alcoholism, a type of alcoholic already in an advanced stage of alcoholism can be often noticed. He is passive, with a low educational level and a lowered intelligence quotient. Those who commit assaultive offences while drunk, are especially often characterized by bad tolerance of alcohol; an analysis of the individual cases reveals that the patterns of demoralization of these offenders are most varied. Though 40% of the recidivists who are alcoholics started treatment against alcoholism, while at liberty, they usually gave it up again after a few visits at the outpatient clinics. Only 10% of the alcoholics were treated in psychiatric hospitals in connection with alcoholism; they were sent there because of symptoms of alcoholic psychosis. Dealing with the problem of personality disorders of this group of recidivists the research concentrated on finding answers to the following problems: — whether and in what respect results of the psychological examinations of persistent recidivists differ from the results obtained through studies of the average population and studies of prisoners who are not persistent recidivists. Differences were taken into account in the intelligence level tested with the Wechsler-Bellevue scale and in the personality measured by the MMPI; — what the findings of psychiatric examinations were (examinations to which 59% of the recidivists were subjected); — the setting apart and analysis, on the basis of the entire material, of some of the personality determinants in behavioural deviations of these individuals. The Wechsler-Bellevue scale was administered to 211 of the persistent recidivists. The results obtained testify to the fact that they markedly differ from 'the average population and the level of their intelligence belongs to the lowest as compared with the results of various other studies of prisoners. As many as 44% of -them had a lower IQ (IQ below 91), 27% were dull (IQ 80—90), 11.8% of boderline intelligence (IQ 66—79) and 5.2% were mentally deficient. The percentage of individuals with the above average intelligence was among those studied here small (9.0%). Though the level of education and the acquired professional qualifications were as a rule very low in the group under investigation, they were particularly low in the case of those recidivists, who had a lowered IQ. The lowered level of intelligence thus made it for many of the recidivists difficult to obtain primary education and to learn a trade. The majority of those with a low level of intelligence were individuals who had not even graduated from primary school, who had learned no trade and revealed substantial shortcomings in reading and writing. (As many as 44.5% of those investigated were rather bad in reading and writing). The results obtained through intelligence tests also make one reach the conclusion, that most probably the deterioration of certain intellectual functions noticed with the recidivists under investigation were connected with their alcoholism. Though it was not established (which is in accordance with the results of a number of studies) that the recidivists who revealed symptoms of alcoholism and a lower IQ than the remaining prisoners, it nevertheless was found in the case of alcoholics that more frequently the verbal scale outdistanced the performance scale; besides, tests of alcoholics revealed more frequently profiles with symptoms, according to Wechsler, typical of alcoholics in an advanced stage of alcoholism. No significant differences in intelligence level were found between recidivists, depending on the 'type of offences committed by them. But it was found, that recidivists, who were for the first time convicted when already older than 20 years, revealed a lower IQ than recidivists, who had prior convictions at an earlier age. Among recidivists with a later start of convictions is a particularly large number in the genesis of whose delinquency alcoholism played a role and their inability independently to perform the basic tasks in life, which may be connected also with their low IQ. MMPI was administered to 148 recidivists serving according to its authors’ intentions to evaluate the most important personality traits, influencing the personal and social adjustment. The results obtained indicated marked personality disorders in the case of persistent recidivists as compared with other groups of people, studied with the same inventory, who did not commit offences and did not reveal mental disorders, and also in comparison with prisoners with a lesser degree of social degradation. Among the profiles obtained from these recidivists very frequently high-ranging profiles could be found (48%), where at least one scale reached 81—100 points.High profiles were rarely found in other Polish research. The average profile of the recidivists studied here shows a predominance of scale 6 (Pa) and 4 (Pd) and high too are scales 8 (Sc) and 2 (D), pointing to considerable hostility on the part of the sampled individuals, their suspicious attitude to and lack of confidence in their environment, irritability, shallowness of emotional reactions, alienation, lack of positive family ties and defiance of moral norms. Typical of this group is also a considerable moodiness, low self-esteem, lack of belief in one’s own possibilities and mental demobilization. The average profile of this group is similar to a psychopatic profile, but (as is the case in certain other Polish studies of prisoners) with a substantial paranoid and schizoid component. The results obtained point to greater personality disorders in recidivists, revealing symptoms of alcoholism than in those, where such symptoms were not found. Alcoholics obtained higher scores than non-alcoholics in all the clinical scales. There were, however, found no differences in the shape of the mean profile, which in both compared groups is similar and characterized by elevation of the same scales. Alcoholics revealed higher scores in all the scales; the differences noticed reached a level of statistical significance in all the scales with the exception of scales 4 (Pd) and 2 (D). This result is interesting, because in various foreign studies on alcoholics it was found that precisely these two scales differentiated in a statistically significant manner in the case of alcoholics and non-alcoholics. But in the population of persistent recidivists, characterized in general by marked psycho-social maladjustment, dating back to childhood, and alcoholism of some of them has its roots in this maladjustment, it was found, that alcoholics failed to differ significantly from non-alcoholics in scale 4 (Pd). The life situation of all the recidivists studied (within prison walls because of convictions) undoubtedly exerted its influence on the scores in scale 2 (D), in the case of alcoholics as well as non-alcoholics. Expert psychiatric opinions (regarding various periods of the life of the persistent recidivists) and/or results of psychiatric examinations conducted during this survey were collected for 60% of the cases. These data show that only in 10% of the examined recidivists neither personality disorders nor any other mental disorders were found. In as many as 70% of the recidivists, subjected to psychiatric expert examination, personality disorders of various etiology were discovered: psychopathy in 48%, encephalopathy in 22%; in 40% alcoholism was found, appearing as such or jointly with other disorders. Data regarding the remaining recidivists, not embraced by psychiatric examinations, indicate, that the majority (as many as 63%) of them were marked by advanced alcoholism, or had suffered from brain damage or psychological examinations revealed mental deficiency. After having studied data related to the remaining 37% of cases not subjected to psychiatric examination, it turned out, that though the above mentioned disorders were not found, nevertheless the majority of them were people, whose behaviour was marked by considerable agressiveness as well as self-aggression and only in 9% of the recidivists, not subjected to psychiatric examinations, no such behaviour patterns were found. The entire information about all the prisoners who were persistent recidivists — those who underwent psychiatric examinations as well as those who did not — indicates that individuals who revealed no distinct psychopathological symptoms are rare among them, amounting according to estimates to around 10% (taking into account the established percentage among those who underwent psychiatric examinations), and to 20%, if one would take into consideration also data about recidivists who underwent no psychiatric examinations, taking into account their mental deficiency, alcoholism and brain damage. The last mentioned percentage (20%) would, however, decrease markedly, if one would take into account data about certain behavioural disturbances of the recidivists, above all about their aggressiveness and self-aggression. When discussing the entire material special attention should be drawn to the fact that in one-fifth of the group encephalopathy (disturbances connected with brain damage) was diagnosed and in another 9% encephalopathy was suspected, since it was 'to a considerable degree justified by the entire aspect of the data stemming from the interview. In additional 25% it was found during interviews that they had suffered from concussions of the skull, combined with loss of consciousness. But in these cases (there nevertheless, was a lack of sufficient data, confirming this information. Data regarding the age at which the recidivists suffered from brain damage or diseases of the central nervous system indicate, that in the case of 40% of them such diseases took place during the earlier period of their - life (complications of delivery, traumas or meningitis at preschool age), with only one-third it occurred when they were already young adults or adults. Those recidivists who suffered from brain damage, frequently distinguished themselves by substantial impulsiveness, they were aggressive, committed acts of self-aggression and badly adjusted to prison conditions. Thus, those who had suffered from brain damage obviously had difficulties in social adjustment. However, with approximately half of those who had suffered such damage, the process of social maladjustment had already begun before they had suffered such damage. On the basis of the entire aspect of data about the behaviour of the recidivists during various periods of their life — in prison as well as at liberty — a psychopathological characteristic outline was drawn up for each one of them. Included in this characteristic outline were those personality traits appearing with special intensity, which according to the psychologists, conducting the survey in prison, were of special significance for social maladjustment in each case. A comparison of the above-mentioned characteristic traits yielded a picture, similar to that obtained in surveys conducted with MMPI. The majority of the recidivists were defined as touchy, quick-tempered, incapable to make systematic efforts, with insufficient resistance to cope with the difficulties of life. They often revealed a deep conviction of having been wronged and in connection with this strong resentment, directed against their environment. As many as 45% of the recidivists were defined as showing substantial disturbances in their emotional attitude towards their surroundings: of these 29% — as being unable to establish lasting, positive emotional ties with their milieu, 16% had completely broken all ties with their nearest family, due to intensified conflicts with them. Relatively frequently (52%) could be isolated a type of a passive recidivist whose passivity was partly being explained by his constant lack of achievements, not only in the sphere of approved social activity, but also in the sphere of delinquency. 59% revealed marked impulsiveness; these were individuals, whose behaviour was characterized by shortrange activity, without any more distant goals, lack of giving any thought to the consequences of their own conduct, an attitude aimed at getting temporary, immediate pleasure out of it. The impulsiveness was particulary striking in two types of behaviour patterns: in aggression and self -aggression. Three-fourths of the recidivists were defined as aggressive (such who time and again, in various situations and in regard to various individuals had behaved aggressively and those who revealed generalized, great hostility). Among the aggressive ones one-third were those, who behaved aggressively only when /not sober. In the case of a considerable part of the aggressive individuals information about their aggressiveness was from a period, when they were still of school age. More frequently aggressive were those who showed symptoms of alcoholism than those who did not. Frequently, acts of self-aggression were sombined with aggressiveness. Acts of self-aggression were committed by 56%. Many of such acts were not some specific reaction to prison situations, the majority of the perpetrators had committed acts of self-aggression while at liberty (28% of them committed self-aggression only when at liberty, 41% — while at liberty and in prison, too). More frequently alcoholics committed acts of self -aggression than those who showed no symptoms of alcoholism. The biographies of recidivists indicate that significant for the genesis and the deepening of their social maladjustment was a negative family milieu, during their childhood as well as personality disorders revealed by them, which grew in intensity in connection with later experiences in life and also with their alcoholism. A comparison of persistent recidivists, coming from families, evaluated as negative, with the remaining persistent recidivists, revealed a number of essential differences among them. Recidivists from negative family milieux began more frequently to commit theft while still under age, more frequently revealed aggressiveness during their school period, more often did not graduate primary school, began at an especially early age to drink alcohol to excess. In individuals brought up in a negative atmosphere and deprived of care, the early symptoms of maladjustment revealed considerable durability. Alcoholism — having its roots in the social maladjustment of the recidivists studied here — deepened existing disorders, proof of which are the results, presented above, pointing to lowering of certain intellectual functions with some of them and personality disorders in the case of those recidivists who showed symptoms of alcoholism. This testifies to the fact that alcoholics were more frequently marked by passivity, impulsiveness in action, aggressiveness and self-aggression. The data collected indicate that multiple stays in prison intensified the alienation of the recidivists and hampered their attempts at social readjustment. Imprisonment weakened the anyhow already weak ties with the family and limited their social contacts to other prisoners only. In regard to the prison officers the recidivists revealed considerable hostility, which, as it seems, could not remain without an influence on their attitude towards other people representing the authorities. Though terms meant for 'the persistent recidivists a compulsory break in prison drinking, this, however, did not prevent, as results from their statements, the further drinking of alcohol to excess immediately after their release from prison. These studies reveal that persistent recidivists are not a homogeneous population. There could be noticed distinct differences between those among them (who account for 70.4%) who had early convictions after the age of 17, when still being young adults and those (29.6%) who had their first conviction at a later age, when 21 years old and more. Those “late” recidivists are less socially degraded, they committed rather petty offences, most frequently connected with drinking alcohol to excess.Though the “late” recidivists do not suffer substantially from the “early” recidivists as regards the number of those showing symptoms of alcoholism and though they started later th&n the “early” offenders to drink too much alcohol, there nevertheless are more individuals among them, whose delinquency is already of a secondary nature, making its appearance in their life later than systematic abuse of alcohol. In the case of “late” recidivists it was found more often than in that of “early” ones that they had a lower IQ, but there were among them fewer individuals considered aggressive and more rarely individuals guilty of self-aggresion. The data presented before, point to the heterogeneity of the offences committed by persistent recidivists. First of all there should be set apart among the recidivists those (approximately one-fourth of the total) who, on the basis of the offences committed by them may be listed as “serious” and the remaining ones who should rather be considered perpetrators of petty offences. In addition to this there can be set apart 27% of the perpetrators of offences exclusively against property and 9% of recidivists who were exclusively guilty of offences against the person. The majority of the recidivists were, however, the perpetrators or a variety of offences, which was undoubtedly due to drinking alcohol to excess. Those who committed theft, under 'the influence of alcohol committed assaults, some of those who committed offences against the person started in connection with their growing habit of drinking alcohol to excess, to steal, in order to obtain the money needed for alcohol. Though the abuse of alcohol effaced the differences of delinquency of the various categories of recidivists, it was possible to establish that those among them, who committed exclusively or mainly offences against the person (27.6%) more frequently had in the past suffered from brain damage. Those individuals studied, who were almost exclusively perpetrators of offences of an assaultive nature (18.7%), differed from the remaining ones by an essentially smaller degree of social maladjustment, the later start of delinquency (more often only above the age of 20), by more systematic work at 'the time they were still adolescents, and the fact that more often they had learned a trade and spent less time in prison. Often poor alcohol tolerance was found with these individuals. Proof of the heterogeneous nature of the population of persistent recidivists are the results, pointing to the significant differences among those of them, who were convicted for the first time when above twenty years old and those, who were brought before a court and convicted much earlier, between the perpetrators of offences against the person and the remaining persistent recidivists. To the heterogenous features of the examined population point also the previously mentioned results, indicating significant differences among recidivists, revealing symptoms of alcoholism and those where such symptoms were not found.

265-286

Authors: Adam Strzembosz

Subject of discussion will be such families of alcoholics (involving mothers and fathers) from the area of Warsaw, where the necessity arose to curtail, or suspend parental authority or deprive parents of such rights completely. The families investigated can be divided into the following categories: families where only the father was an alcoholic — 95 families (49.5%), families in which the father as well as the mother were alcoholics 64 families (33.3%) and families where only the mother was an alcoholic 33 familes (17.2%).* Note in the material studied here that as many as 54.5% of the mothers were considered to be alcoholics, and in this case 46% of these mothers-, alcoholics were registered as prostitutes. The mothers who were alcoholics had in 39% of the cases been convicted by courts (those who were not alcoholics in about 20% of the cases). Data regarding fathers who were alcoholics, whose average age in 1973 was 44 years, testify to the fact that the majority of them had no prior convictions or were only once convicted (57%): those with multiple convictions (four times and more) accounted for 20%. In the delinquency structure of the fathers was a predominance of violent offences committed when intoxicated. The majority of the fathers (57%) did not work or worked only on and off . The material conditions in these families of alcoholics were very unfavourable. 68% of these families lived in misery and want. Complete neglect of the children was found as regards the overwhelming majority of the fathers (62%) and a large number of mothers (41%). Especially adverse was the situation in families where the mothers were alcoholics and where misery and want was found in as many as 80%, complete neglect of the children by mothers in two-thirds of the families. As results from the above-mentioned data the situation of children in the families examined (especially in families where the mothers were alcoholics) was very bad; the criminality on the part of the fathers was, however, not a special problem here. 2. In 200 of the families of alcoholics, surveyed here, 487 children below the age- of 18 were brought up — 258 boys and 229 girls. Among these children, 20% were of pre-school age, 39.8% between 7 and 12, 38.2% between 13 and 17 years. The follow-up period was studied, regarding 487 children and juveniles from these families until the oldest among them (being at the beginning of the study above 10 years old) had reached the average age of 20 years. It should, however, be borne in mind that during the follow-up period only those data were at the disposal which could be obtained from official records, which contained information about cases brought before a court and arrests of these individuals by the police. Thus, an essential shortcoming, connected with the impossibility to conduct environmental interviews, is the lack of information about other facts, besides those in the records, such as symptoms of social maladjustment or whether the investigated individuals possessed professional qualifications and whether they had worked, in which milieu they had lived, whether they had systematically drunk alcohol to excess, etc. But data found in the records of the guardianship court, regarding the school period of the juveniles exactly characterize the extent of their social maladjustment. Significant is above all the fact that the sons of alcoholics (fathers and mothers) were often delayed in their studies at school. Among the boys below ten years one-third were already delayed in their studies: at the age between 10 and 12 half of them, however above 12 three- fourths. Among the latter there were 63% delayed by two or more years. Among girls below 10 years 14% were delayed, at the age between 10 and 12—44%, and above 12 — as many as 69%. Among girls aged above 12—43% were delayed by two and more years. Among older boys as well as older girls approximately half were children, systematically playing truant. Note data, pointing to the fact that as many, as 35% of the girls between 14 and 17 showed symptoms of sexual demoralization. In 1975 when 270 boys and girls were already above 18 years old, and their average age amounted to 20 years, it turned out that 22% of the boys had already been tried by juvenile courts, 18% had been brought before juvenile courts as well as the ordinary court and 16% only before an ordinary court. Thus generally speaking, those who faced trials during their juvenility or were convicted after having reached the age of 17, accounted for as' much as 55%. Those convicted when over 17 accounted for 34%, in addition to this 12% were indicted, which gives a total of 45% of young adults who committed offences that were reported when they were over 17 years of age. The percentage given above (55%) of those who were tried when still juveniles or convicted after the age of 17, should be considered as a high one. But the degree of delinquency disclosed is small (62% of the convicted individuals were convicted only once); it should, however, be borne in mind that only three years divided them from the age of amenability to law. To the above mentioned data should be added information regardin arrests by polic because of intoxication — as many as 61% of those convicted (or tried) had already been arrested before because of insobriety, and among those without court records — 12%. However, information regarding the delinquency of daughters of the investigated families testifies to the fact that only 15% of them had court appearances (taking into account also the period when they were juveniles). None of the girls was registered as a prostitute. Worth emphasis is the fact that children brought up in families where the mothers are alcoholics were not more frequently convicted or. arrested because of intoxication, than those where only the father was an alcoholic. The entire aspect of data related to the follow-up period of children from families of alcoholics up to the time when they were on an average 20 years old indicates that approximately half of the boys (45%) were neither convicted nor arrested by the police because of intoxication and that 79% of the girls were neither convicted nor arrested by the police. These data, due to the lack of detailed environmental interviews, as already mentioned before, do not permit identification of this category of juveniles with young adults showing no symptoms of social maladjustment. Examining the entire aspect of the studies under discussion it would be worth while to mention the results of research, conducted under the guidance of Professor Swięcicki in the years 1967—1968 on children of families of alcoholics, who underwent treatment in several outpatient clinics to cure their drinking habit, results which showed, that in these families there were twice as many pupils repeating the same grade in school and young persons between 18 and 27, maladjusted to life in society, than in families of control groups from the same social milieu. Simultaneously a significant fact was noted, namely that in families belonging to the category with the worst expectations a considerable part of children did not reveal symptoms of social maladjustment. One may assume that to a considerable extent this depends on the biogenetic and psychogenetic features of the children partly being modified by sociogenetic factors, be noticed themselves, which are only in our studies, too, could a considerable group of young adults, not convicted arrested in an inebriate state by the police, youngsters who perhaps did not reveal symptoms of social maladjustment, something which could, however, be established only on the basis of detailed studies of the milieu.

7-13

Authors: Stanisław Batawia

Approaching the 30 years of the the Polish People’s Republic from the point of view of the problems, which are the subject of research work, conducted by the Department of Criminology of the Institute of the Law Sciences at the Polish Academy of Sciences, one should be well aware of the fact, that during that period there could be noticed in many capitalist countries a marked increase of delinquency, and the explanation that is as a rule given for this phenomenon is the influence of, industrialization and urbanization processes. A marked increase has also taken place as regards, serious crimes, combined with aggression and in some countries, where the degree of industrialization is especially high, the phenomenon of organized crime (organized, specialized groups of criminals) has recently adopted alarming dimensions. In addition to this there can almost everywhere be found an increase in juvenile delinquency and that of young adults. This increase takes prace also in such milieux where disturbances of the socialization process are not connected with the bringing up of children in bad material conditions. In Poland, despite the fact that during those 30 years revolutionary economic transformations have taken place and enormous socio-demographic changes, often combined with intensified migration processes, there has not been noticed an increase in crime as compared with the pre-war period, but rather a marked decrease. Worth emphasizing is above all the drop by five times of homicides, the considerable decrease in the number of brawls and severe bodily injuries. According to statistical data the number of larcencies brought before a court has decreased markedly. It has, however, to be borne in mind that part of petty theft is at present settled in work enterprises through “exerting educational influence” and some, of course, is not revealed, as is the case in all countries. Even if we assume that among economic offences, of which statictics lists only a very small number, there is an especially large dark number, it should, however, be borne in mind, that as a rule these offences of an economic nature cause in practice only small material losses. Discussing data connected with robberies, it is worth while to stress that during the prewar period they used to be of a much more serious nature. An analysis of data from 1951 does not point to an increase in offences in Poland during that long period and in particular what deserves special emphasis, there is no increase in juvenile and young adult delinquency and also no intensification of delinquency among the inhabitants of towns and cities in comparison with the rural population. Studies have revealed that the differences in the intensity of delinquency between the various areas (voivodeships) is above all due to the social results of the mass migrations of the population, which started in 1945, and not to the industrialization and urbanization processes which are taking place. The greatest intensity of delinquency can be noticed in those areas with the largest percentage of newcomers, while in the most strongly urbanized and industrialized area (Katowice) the intensity of delinquency was and continues to be below the average fon the whole of Poland. Despite the systematic growth of industrialization and urbanization processes no increase in delinquency can be noticed or the increase is not significant at all, or appears only during the stage when industrial enterprises are under construction and later decreases markedly. On the basis of experience obtained in a newly established industrial centre (Nowa Huta) one may assume that in those few regions marked by intensive industrialization, where delinquency has distinctly increased, it is going to decrease later to the average level. The example of, Nowa Huta testifies to the fact that delinquency grew only during the first period of the influx of rural population, migrating into this area, which had lost the ties with its former environment and had thus been deprived of social control. Their adaptation to new difficult conditions of existence and new types of work proceeded with the accompaniment of considerable disturbances. The above findings are of great significance in the present conditions of new socio-political system, where it is possible to control many social phenomena exerting an influence on crime. * The Departament of Criminology of the Institute of the Law Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences conducts ‒ on the basis of statistical data ‒ systematic research on the dimensions and intensity of delinquency in Poland and their socio-economic as well as demographic conditioning, a problem to which a number of publications has been devoted. An analysis of the results of these researches makes it possible to throw a light on the entire problem in a manner that markedly differs from the current opinion on the determinants of criminal offences in the new socio-political conditions. A problem to which since the beginning in 1953 of the existence of the Department of Criminology many research works have been devoted, due to its specific significance, is that of social maladjustment of children and juvenile delinquents. This subject matter goes beyond the problem of juvenile delinquency alone, since it is connected with delinquency of a considerable section of the young adult offenders and persistent recidivists, even in older age groups, where the process of social maladjustment as a rule reaches back to the time when they were under age. Research connected with juvenile delinquents took into account the population of children from the lower grades of primary school (approximately 5,500 children), so important from the point of view of prevention of crime, as well as that category of youth, so far not examined in Poland, who “do not attend school and do not work” (542 boys and girls). The results of such investigations revealed the important and as a rule underestimated role played by maladjustment in school in the etiology of social maladjustment as well as the considerable percentage of school youth with symptoms of demoralization in the younger (below 12) age groups (about 11 per cent), due to which there arose the problem of earlier diagnosis of the above-mentioned symptoms in the school, which is of particular significance for the prevention of later juvenile delinquency on the part of these children. The population of juvenile delinquents, examined in great detail, was made up of approximately 1,700 juvenile delinquents from the Warsaw area and several other towns and settlements; in two-thirds of the cases researches were conducted during a long follow-up period. Subject of research were also 250 gangs of juvenile delinquents, who had committed larcency and hooligan offences. Studies of the juvenile delinquents revealed interaction, essential from the prognostic point of view, between the early beginnings of social maladjustment and the dimensions of recidivism of a later period, jointly with the period after the age of 21. Research of this type also points to the significance for the etiology of social maladjustment and juvenile delinquency of being brought up in negative family surroundings (especially excessive drinking of alcohol in such families), and also to the significance that should be attached to the early detection of personality disonders, frenquently encountered with such minors The problems of young adults (between 17 and 20), close to that of the juvenile delinquents, socially considered just as important, has also been taken into account in the studies of the Department of Criminology, regarding the intensity and dynamics of their delinquency and analyses of the type of offences committed by them. Detailed studies concentrated on this problem, dealing with several youth populations, which have committed offences combined with aggression and the large category of young adults showing tendencies for recidivism. Due to the specific features of youth, those who have committed offences and are below 21 years of age, require separate treatment and therefore problems, connected with tchem should be the subject of special research. Investigations conducted in the Department of Criminology base itself on the assumption that a joint discussion of young adult delinquency and the delinquency of older age groups ‒ something we often encounter ‒ may lead to an entire numer of faulty conclusions and incorrect decisions. Though larcency is the major offence committed by young adults, nevertheless there are very frequent offences combined with aggression. And it is actually for this reason that this category of young adults, committing the last mentioned offence have become the subject of studies, especially the prisoners convicted for offences qualified as hooligan offences and those convicted for robbery. The total material collected concerned approximately 1,000 young adults, who had been brought before a court for hooligan offences. In 300 cases detailed studies were conducted, combined with environmental interviews, which took into account the prisoners as well as their families. These studies revealed that there was a large numer of young adults who had committed hooligan offences, who had already in their childhood shown symptoms of severe social maladjustment and who had started very early to drink systematically alcohol. Anyhow, similar symptoms could be found with young adults convicted for robbery. Special research was devoted to problems of recidivism in the case of young adult offenders, combined with a long follow-up period. Attention concentrated on those who were convicted several times and as a rule came from among the former juvenile delinquents. In addition to this, studies were conducted of the further fate of young adult prisoners, set free in 1961 from 40 penitentiaries; the follow-up period lasted for l0 years; the examined population was made up of 2,000 men. The material obtained made it possible to establish with accuracy the dimensions of their later recidivism. The research under discussion testifies also to the necessity to deal with recidivism among young adults in connection with their earlier social maladjustment, often dating back to their childhood. The problem, of very early social maladjustment also turned out to be most essential as regards young prostitutes, who were the subject of separate and thorough studies. The problem of recidivism, thrown so clearly into relief in research on juvenile and young adult delinquents, was also taken into account in the case of adult offenders. Research of the Department of Criminology embraced several populations of recidivists, beginning with the young age groups (21-24 years old). Material was obtained about over 600 recidivists, out of which approximately 400 prisoners were subjected to thorough criminological and psychological studies. Recently started examinations of material connected with persistent recidivists, who had been sent to “centre for social adjustment” (a preventive detention centre). The studies of recidivists which were conducted revealed that the problems of recidivism should be dealt with in our country in connection with the phenomenon of systematic excessive drinking: a very considerable percentage of recidivists are individuals who, due to long lasting and frequent drinking of alcohol, have developed symptoms of dependency on alcohol. As a result of this the criminality is in the case of alcoholics among the recidivists connected with their addiction and general social degradation. An analysis of data obtained through psychological and medical studies, testifies to the fact that persistent recidivists not only reveal symptoms of early social maladjustment, but as a rule also distinct severe personality disorders, which make it necessary to introduce measures, taking into account the psychopathological features of those offenders. Underestimation of this problem causes in practice highly negative phenomena. Worth stressing are the results of research, revealing that the small number of recidivists with multiple convictions, who began their criminal careers when at least already 25 years old, almost always come from among alcoholics. . Due to the significance of systematic excessive drinking and that of alcoholism in the genesis of various negative social phenomena, the problem of alcoholism has been taken widely into account in research conducted by the Department of Criminology. However, special attention has recently been devoted to the subject of early alcoholism and its serious social repercussions, underestimated so far and very little studied. In connection with this, research has been undertaken, conducted with 150 alcoholics up to 25 years old, who had been brought before social and medical commissions for alcoholics. Taken into account in research connected with excessive drinking were also people convicted for hooligan offences (approximately 600 from various age groups), 900 men charged with disturbing public order while intoxicated and people who had time and again been in a Detoxication Centre (500 men and 250 women). The obtained results testify to the importance of what is called problem of drinking. An analysis of the data about the law-breaking of these people showed that as a rule we deal here with people charged with offences that are not particularly severe; similar results have been revealed by material dealing with approximately 800 alcoholics who underwent treatment ‒ serious offences on the person are rare occurrences. * Investigations on criminological problems were conducted by taking into account sociological, psychological and psychopathological as well as legal aspects. In addition to subject matter, dealing with the dimensions of the criminality and its macro-social conditioning, empirical research concentrated mainly on the establishment of the etiology of social maladjustment in various samples of offenders by means of a detailed analysis of the individual cases, with a simultaneous utilization of objective data from various sources. Examination of long follow-up periods permitted the proper verification of prognostic factors. The results of the studies are being published since 1960, mainly in ,,Archiwum Kryminologii’ (Archives of Criminology), issued by the Department of Criminology which has so far printed 37 works, containing the results of empirical research. Some of the results of the Departments works have been published in other magazines and in the form of monographs. It should be stressed that the work of the Department of Criminology also includes opinions regarding drafts of laws, connected with the problem of delinquency, alcoholism and other phenomena in the field of social pathology; these opinions were sent to the proper ministries and to the parliament. Due to the great lack of scientific workers in the whole country, who are properly prepared to conduct research and to lecture in the field of criminology, the Department of Criminology has recently started postgraduate courses in this field.

18-50

Authors: Stanisław Szelhaus

This work discusses investigation results concerning 564 individuals convicted of offences defined by the court as hooliganism; the offences were committed in Warsaw, involved the exercise of physical aggression in relation to persons not known to the offender, and took place while the offender was intoxicated. These studies were initiated in 1963 by the Department of Criminology, Institute of Legal Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences; police officials throughout Warsaw were ordered by Police Headquarters to complete during the course of 1964 special forms relevant to individuals suspected of having committed one of such offences combined with assault on a member of the public or an official, (usually a policeman). These questionnaires were filled out only in cases of (a) an offence combined with physical aggression being established; (b) if the person assaulted was previously unknown to the offender; (c) if there was no provocation on the part of the assaulted person; and (d) when as a result of preliminary proceedings the probability of the offender’s being guilty was established. During the course of one year (1964), there were arrested in the Warsaw area 788 offenders (including 46 women) who had committed offences covered by the criteria referred to above. Investigations embraced 564 male offenders who had committed the most frequently occurring offences classified as hooligan offences: ‒ 226 later convicted by a court for assault causing no bodily harm, ‒ 226 for the assault of policemen, ‒ 112 for causing slight bodily injury. Data regarding convictions and imprisonment of those investigated, as obtained from official records, were thrice checked: in 1964, after five years; at the end of 1969; and after eight years ‒ at the end of 1972. As regards offenders who in 1964 were under 21 their convictions between 13 and 16 years of age were found out in a Juvenile Court. The age of 564 of those guilty of hooligan offences in 1964 was as follows: 23% were 17-20 years old, 18% were 21-24 years old, 23% were 25-29 years old, 25% were 30-39 years old 11% were over 40 years old. The average age of those investigated amounted to approximately 28.5 years and the median – to 26. After eight years in 1972 the average age of the investigated amounted to approximately 36 and the median was about 34. Note that as the offenders grew older there was a gradual increase in the percentage of assaults upon policemen and a decrease in the percentage of those who were convicted for aggressive attacks to the detriment of others. In 1964, there was a total of 53% with previous convictions, most frequently in the group of young adults (17-20) ‒ 60%, if also taken into account are those cases in which they faced trial before a court while juveniles and least frequently ‒ 40% ‒ in the group of those convicted not earlier than at the age of 40. Among the recidivists, 40% were convicted once, 29% ‒ twice, 13% ‒ three times, and 18% ‒ four times or more. Already in 1964, when the median of age amounted to no more than 26 years, only 40% of all the offences committed were offences against property, while 50% committed offences with aggression and other offences while intoxicated. Offences qualified as hooliganism appeared in the light of the random sample, taken from court records, as follows: Assaults upon policemen: approximately 70% of the offences of this type were committed in connection with police interference caused by disturbance of public order during a brawl, a scuffle, etc., approximately 20% were the reaction to the offender’s being told to behave properly, and the remaining 10% were the reaction when asked by a policeman to reveal identity. With about 45% of those charged with minor assault on the person or slight bodily injury, it was impossible to perceive any reasons for such aggressive behaviour. In the case of 26%, aggression was the response to the victim’s having criticised the offender’s improper behaviour in a public place. In the case of 17%, aggression was connected with refusal by the victim to give the offender a small sum of money to buy alcohol. Note that in cases of slight bodily injuries, only 16% of the offenders used some hard object, and 5% a sharp instrument. All those charged with such offences classified as hooligan acts were intoxicated at the time they committed the offence; among the victims (of whom 53% were aged up to 30), 22% were also under the influence of alcohol. The characteristic features, given below, of the offenders referred to were based on all the data obtained about them up to the end of 1972, when the median of age amounted to approximately 34 years; note that this research was combined neither with psychological and medical examinations nor with home interviews of those investigated. Four groups were differentiated among the 564 individuals charged with acts of hooliganism: The group marked with the symbol 0/0, which included those convicted only once in 1964, who had faced no trial, either before or afterwards during the course of eight years. This group embraced 30% of the total of offenders. Group +/0, to which belong those who were charged before 1964, but did not face a court during the follow-up period of eight years. This group included no more than 18% of those investigated. Note that those investigated from groups A and B are older than those in the remaining two groups. The percentage of those between 17-24 years not convicted after 1964, amounts respectively to 31 and 30, and that of those 30 years old and more ‒ 47 and 37. Group 0/+ is made up of individuals without convictions before 1964, but who faced charges later. This group contained only 17% of the total of the delinquents. Group +/+ is composed of individuals convicted before as well as after 1964; this is the most numerous group, embracing 34% of the total of those investigated. Those from group C and D are considerably younger – below 25 were in 1964 respectively 56% and 47%, while only 25% and 28% were 30 years old and older. In these two groups of individuals convicted also after 1964 the initiation of convictions took place at a very early stage – convictions below 25 years were: in group C (0/+) – 56%, and in group D (+/+) as much as 90% , taking into account also Juvenile Court convictions under 17 years. However, in groups A (0/0) and B (+/0) there is a markedly later initiation. In group 0/0 there were only, 32% who were convicted while under 25 and in group +/0 ‒ 39%. Dealing with those from group A (0/0), where one hooligan act was exceptional, it was found that as regards education and work they were positively distinguished from all the remaining individuals investigated. A considerable majority of them were skilled workers and 23% were white collar workers, students or secondary school pupils. All of them (bar three) were working or studying. According to police records, only 20% of the members of this group frequently consumed alcohol to excess. The offenders from groups B (+/0) and C (0/+) revealed certain common features, despite the fact that in group B were some who during the course of eight years after 1964 had committed no further offences, while group C embraced some without convictions before 1964, but who faced charges after 1964. A fundamental common feature is the systematic excessive consumption of alcohol by 65% and 60% of those investigated in these groups. Of those from group B (+/0), although they had faced no charges during the eight-year period, only one third were not repeatedly arrested by the police for drunkenness. Among the remainder, 29% were arrested once or twice and entered in police records for drunkenness, 10% were arrested 3-4 times and 26% ‒ five times or more. The rate of delinquency of those investigated from these two different groups was similar: in group B +/0 ‒ 57% were convicted by court only once, 20% ‒ twice, and only 15% ‒ three times or more; in group C (0/+) ‒ 56% were convicted only once during the course of eight years after 1964, 35% ‒ twice, and only 9% - three times or more. The delinquency structure of those investigated from these two groups is almost identical: offences against property do not exceed 20% and 18% respectively of the offences committed by them in general; 54% and 52% were offences combined with physical aggression; and 17% were offences involving verbal aggression: 6% and 10% of the offences were also connected with excessive consumption of alcohol. The majority of the delinquents from the most numerous group D (+/+) came from socially seriously depraved categories; one in three of them had not even finished primary school, 43% did not work or only from time to time. Even in 1964, when 47% of them were still under 25, approximately 70% of the total of those investigated in this group figured in police records as “individuals frequently getting drunk and arrested for drunkenness or for causing brawls”. Between 1968 and 1972, as many as 68% of those investigated of this group were brought to detoxication centres and half of them were arrested at least three times (15% even over 10 times). Those investigated who belonged to group +/+ of recidivists were convicted: 19% ‒ three times, 18% ‒ four times, 18% five times, 18% ‒ six times, 15% ‒ seven to eight times, and 12% ‒ nine times or more. Among the young adults from this group who in 1964 were 17-20 years old, as many as 90% had already faced charges while they still were juveniles. Examination of the structure of delinquency of the total number of those investigated from group +/+ showed that 36% committed theft, 42% committed offences combined with physical aggression, 17% with verbal aggression, and 5% committed still other offences, also connected with drunkenness. Two sub-groups differentiated from among those investigated in group +/+: (1) The first included 57% of such recidivists who were convicted exclusively (24%) or mainly (33%) of offences combined with aggression, or other offences committed as a rule while intoxicated. (2) The second sub-group included 36% of the recidivists convicted mainly (26%) or exclusively (9%) of theft. Theft accounted for three fourths of the total of the offences, and approximatery 20% of the offences were combined with aggression. The following answers were obtained to the question as to how many out of the population of delinquents investigated who committed hooligan acts were convicted at least four times for physical aggression: There was a total of 42 such delinquents, 32 were convicted four times for such offences and only 10 were convicted at least five times. Though these 42 offenders convicted at least four times for physical aggression account for almost 23% of all the recidivists, convicted four times and more, however, they make only 8% of the total of the investigated committed hooligan acts. Ail these recidivists are recruited from among recidivists of group +/+ of the socially most depraved, and as a rule they were convicted also of having committed other offences (54% for theft). Examining other data, also mentioned in this work, related to “offences combined with physical aggression” it should be borne in mind that among all the offences with aggression against the person (564), committed by those investigated, 58% were responsible for battery and 26% for slight bodily injury. As regards serious crimes with violence against the person there were: 3 murders, 27 very serious and serious bodily injuries, 28 brawls and 3 rapes. Together, all such serious crimes make only 10,8% of all the offences against the person. Robbery also is rated a serious crime and there were 68 of such (as many as 55 robberies were committed by recidivists from group +/+ with multiple convictions). If offences involving serious violence against the person are added to robberies, then all the serious (dangerous) crimes accounted for 6.4% of the total of offences. * Summing up the results of the investigations, it may be concluded that among Warsaw residents studied as responsible for hooligan acts, 30% were convicted only once for such offences in 1964, 35% were as a rule convicted not more frequently than 2-3 times, and 34% were recidivists marked by strong social degradation, as a rule with multiple convictions. Among the crimes committed by all those investigated ‒ with the exception of 35% of the subgroup of recidivists from group +/+ ‒ there is a substantial predominance of offences combined with physical or verbal aggression and other offences resulting from insobriety. Out of the entire 564 individuals investigated as having committed hooligan acts, only 12% were recidivists as regards whom could be noted a marked predominance of offences against property as compared with other offences. Thus the category, discussed in this work, of offenders who committed hooligan acts, is marked by specific features, closely connected with excessive drinking.

70-107

Authors: Stanisław Batawia

In Poland we have at present in towns 29 detoxication centres with 1,226 beds; people found by the police in public places in a state of intoxication are more and more often taken to detoxication centres instead of being arrested and taken into custody (a stay in a public place in the state defined as state of drunkenness is in Poland not subject to penalty). Between 1966-1972 from 60 to 70% of those arrested for drunkenness were throughout the country sent to detoxication centres and not taken into custody. The average annual number of men placed in the Warsaw detoxication centre in the years 1968-1970 amounted to approximately 27,550 and that of women to 1,500. The number of men taken to the centre for a second time during the course of a year amounted to approximately 4,200, and three or more times – 4,500; the number of women placed in a centre for the second time during the course of one year amounted to approximately 200, for the third time or more – to approximately 500. The category of individuals taken to a detoxication centre several times during the course of one year thus is substantial. There were 32% of men with a least two such stays, and 40% of women from among the total number people taken to the centre. This category of individuals is called habitual drunkenness offenders, which, as we know, exists in many countries. Selected as a sample for the studies, discussed here were not individuals who had repeatedly been taken to the detoxication centre during the course of one and the same year. The idea was to eliminate those individuals as to whom we were sure that they were alcoholics. The research, conducted in 1970 in the detoxication centre in Warsaw by the Department of Criminology of the Polish Academy of Sciences embraced that category of men who during a period of over five and a half years were at least three times taken there and the category of women who during the period of five and a half years were taken there at least twice. Each individual, listed in 1970 by the detoxication centre, in the order they were entered in the book, was checked from the beginning of 1970 in the centre’s records for the past five years (1965-1969) and in such a way material was completed on 500 men who during that period had at least been sent there three times and on 250 women sent there at least twice. Among men taken time and again to the detoxication centre there is a large percentage of older people, because in 1970 as many as 50,5% were over 40 and a mere 11.4% were below 30. The median age of these men amounted to 40.2; we find, as is known, similar figures in publications dealing with the problems of alcoholics. Those taken only three times to the centre amounted to approximately one-fourth of the total number of men, those taken 4-6 times accounted for 37%, 7-9 times – 19% and 10 or more times – 20%. Among the latter category of 98 patients of the centre 52 were taken there 10-15 times, 26 – 16-20 times and 20 – 21 times and more. As results from the above those who were only 3-6 times registered by the centre constitute 61% of the total number, and without taking into account additional data about arrests by the police of the people whose state of intoxication did not require their isolation in a detoxication centre, the true picture of the extent of deviations in the behaviour of the investigated, caused by intoxication would be distorted. That is why the decision was taken to add to the data related about the frequency of stays in the detoxication centre additional data on arrests by the police of men in a state of intoxication, who had been already registered in the centre three times, four times, six times and 8-9 times; it was not considered necessary to introduce analogical procedures for those listed many times during that period in the centre – from 10 to over 21 times, since it is to be assumed that these as a rule are already alcoholics. Taken into account in this respect was not only the period between 1965-1970, but also later years between 1971-1973, in order to find whether excessive drinking of alcohol by the investigated, causing police intervention, did not get worse. It turned out that only with men registered in the centre three times the percentage of those arrested additionally by the police did not surpass the figure of 33, but with those listed by the centre four times – it already amounted to 48%, six times – 55% and 8-9 times – 53%. This shows that beginning with 4 stays in the centre the percentage of people arrested by the police because of drunkenness already amounted to at least approximately 50%. Taking into account the number of arrests, figuring in police records, it was found that those arrested at least 5 times there, were in turn among those listed in the detoxication centre 3, 4, 6 and 8-9 times: 10%, 30%, 32% and 47%; of those listed 10 and more times: 0, 15%, 14%, and 27%. Thus the studied material is the subject of substantial differentiation if, in addition to stays in the detoxication centre, one takes into account arrests by the police and the number of such arrests. Taken into account additionally were court convictions which makes it possible to answer the question, how many men listed in the centre until the end of 1973, were neither arrested by the police nor convicted by a court for offences, as a rule committed in a state of intoxication. Of such former patients of the centre, without the behaviour patterns, referred to and connected with excessive drinking of alcohol, there remained at the end of 1973: among those listed in the centre 3 times – 44%, among those listed in the centre 4 times – 38%, among those listed in the centre 6 times – 25%, among those listed in the centre 8-9 times – 31% . Distinctly noted was an intensification of deviations in the behaviour in a state of, intoxication in the examined individuals during the course of the last three years (1971-1973). At the end of 1973 over 50% and 60% of the investigated with previous 3 and 4 stays in the centre and approximately 70% beginning with 6 stays in the centre, may without any special objections be considered alcoholics. It should, however, be borne in mind that there exists a large category of alcoholics whose systematic drinking alcohol to excess does not cause a behaviour that requires the intervention of the police and that is why, in regard even to these individuals among the investigated with whom, in addition to frequent stays in the detoxication centre, no other additional negative features were noticed, the suspicion that they may be alcoholics, is nevertheless justified. In this study under discussion here, during which no individual, psychological and medical investigations or environmental research were carried out, these problems could not be properly clarified. 82% of the men who more than once were brought to the detoxication centre were blue-collar workers and only 8.5% – white-collar workers. 63% had regular jobs and 31% worked from time to time or did not work at all (information regarding work is, however, not based on reliable data). The percentage of those who are not working (and those working from time to time) increases together with the number of stays in the centre; amounting to: 18% of those listed three times in the centre, 22% – 4-6 times, 39% – 7-9 times and 55% – 10 times and more. 50% of the men were not convicted by courts, 20% – were once convicted, 16% – 2-3 times and 14% – 4 times and more. Together with the growing frequency of being registered in the centre there also grows the percentage of those convicted by a court from 42% (3 times listed in the Centre) to 66% (in the group listed 10 times and more). 62% of the men registered in the centre as “not working” were convicted by a court, 69% – of those working from time to time and 40% – of those who were working regularly. Studying the group of men who had been convicted it was found that the late beginning of convictions, only when they were already 30 and more, is found with 31% of those convicted who are 30-39 years old and with as many as 65% among those who are 40-49; in the group with convictions when 50 and older – the first convictions occurred after 50 with all of them. Among the total with convictions only 18% were first convicted when below 21. However, among those offenders who were first convicted at the age of 17-20 we find the largest percentage (4l%) with later convictions amounting to 4 and more. Markedly smaller numbers of the men over 40 have been convicted than is the case among the younger age groups (p < 0.001). However, the percentages of recidivists, convicted 4 times and more are similar in the various age groups, beginning with the age of 30. The above-mentioned data testify above all to the fact that the majority (70%) of men listed time, and again in the detoxication centre, whose median amounted in 1970 already to 40.2 years, either had not previously been convicted at all (50%) or had faced charges only once (20%), while the category of recidivists with multiple convictions is not numerous (14%). The results of studies also testify to the fact that approximately 45% of the total number of those convicted, faced charges for the first time only when they were already 30 years old. Dealing with data on the delinquency of those convicted by a court once and 2-3 times, it was found, that in the structure of their delinquency offences against property did not surpass 22% and 23% of all the offences committed, and offences with physical or verbal aggression and other offences, as a rule also caused by insobriety, amount respectively to 68% and 60% of the committed offences. Among a small group of recidivists, convicted at least 4 times, only 45% of the recidivists committed mainly or exclusively offences against property (larcency), while in the case of 48% there dominated offences with physical and verbal aggression. To the typical offences, with physical aggression belong acts that are not particularly dangerous, such as slight bodily injury, “il-treatrnent of family members” and assaults upon policemen. Within the group referred to above only a very small sub-group of the recidivists with multiple convictions, who committed mainly aggressive acts caused by insobriety, can also found crimes in the form of more serious aggressive acts, such as robbery, serious bodily injuries, brawls, combined with the use of a dangerous instrument. Despite this, even among recidivists with severe degradation there is only an insignificant number of such recidivists who committed at least four offences combined with physical aggression ‒ there were only 7 out of 67 ‒ 10.4%; they constitute a mere 2.8% of the total of convicted persons. The group of recidivists with severe degradation and at least 4 convictions accounts for no more than 28% of the total number of those convicted; the deliquency of the remaining men who are frequently listed in the centre is rather a marginal phenomenon. During the past three years (1971-1973), side by side with the intensification of alcoholism there could be noticed among the investigated an increase in the percentage of those with convictions in the group listed 3 times in the centre from 42% to 49%, in the group listed 4 and 6 times from 44% to 57% and 62% and in the group listed 8-9 times from 53% to 62%. But the structure of the offences did not undergo any changes ‒ petty offences, that socially are less harmful and caused by insobriety, predominate. Out of the 250 women, listed at least twice in the detoxication centre during the period of 5 and a half years, have been set apart 128 women noted in police records as prostitutes (P) and 122 women about whom such data were lacking (NP). 70% of the P were listed at least 4 times (32% ‒ eight times or more). 60% of the NP were registered only twice (14% at least 8 times). The prostitutes are younger than the remaining women ‒ the age median of P arnounted to 35.4 years, that of NP ‒ 42.3 years. 48% of the women with the symbor “P” were below the age of 35 years, 24% of the NP. Among the NP as many as 30% were already 50 years old and more (among the P 13%). Those who are not prostitutes thus are considerably older, but among the prostitutes, too, are women from the age groups above 35 years. (Note that while in 1970 there were among the total number of prostitutes, known to the police throughout the whole country, 44% who were at least 31 years old, as many as 73% of the studied prostitutes registered in the Warsaw detoxication centre were at least 30 years old). Prostitutes were often arrested by the police because of drunkenness – only 30% were arrested less than 10 times, 34% from 10 to 29 times and 27% ‒ 30 times and more. Only 32% of those who were not prostitutes were arrested during this same period because of drunkenness, in the following 3 years (1971-1973) ‒ 34% and among the total of the arrested 56% were arrested only 1-2 times and a mere 22% ‒ 10 times and more. Women listed time and again in the centre have much worse data related to education and work than men, listed there from time to time. Among P there were 20% of women with incomplete primary school education, and NP ‒ 39%; 69% of the women had no trade, including P and NP; not working (or working only from time to time) were 72% of the P and 60% of the NP. Data regarding convictions testify to the fact that 64% of those who were not prostitutes had no convictions and only 6% NP were convicted by a court four and more times. Only 28% of the prostitutes had no convictions, 22% were convicted once, 20% ‒ 2-3 times, and 30%, four times and more. The first convictions at an age below 25 were found with 40% of the prostitutes and only with 11% of the NP, 31% of the P had their first conviction at the age of 30 and 7l% of the NP. Those who were not prostitutes as a rule had no convictions and among the few who had faced charges, the beginning of delinquency took place only after 30 (with approximately 30% ‒ only after 40). In the delinquency structure of P as well as NP larcency constitutes only 36% and 33%; undoubtedly this mainly means stealing from men. Most of the offences committed by P and NP are not serious. The material about women obtained from the detoxication centre points to their marked social degradation, probably reaching back to the period preceding their turning into alcoholics and also indicates the deepening of their social degradation, together with age and the intensification of their alcoholism. * The results of the research under discussion testify to the fact that the majority even of those who were registered less than 10 times during those five and a half year in the detoxication centre, are certainly already alcoholics. Studies revealed that in addition they had been frequently arrested by the police for drunkenness (though not isolated in detoxication centres) and had faced courts, charged with typical offences for people drinking alcohol to excess. Thus, even less frequent stays in a detoxication centre should already be an indication for the health and social care service to intervene, in order to find alcoholics requiring treatment.

126-187

Authors: Stanisław Batawia, Ewa Żabczyńska, Adam Strzembosz, Teodor Szymanowski

Three follow-up studies were published, dealing with juvenile delinquents and young adult offenders, based on a random sample and material on: ‒ 100 boys charged with larcency, who during the period of the investigation in 1966 were barely 10-11 years old. This research concentrated in turn on all the 10-11 year-old boys charged with larcency and brought before a Juvenile Court in Warsaw; the follow-up period embraced 5 years; ‒ 358 former juveniles (10-16 years old) charged with theft in three districts of Warsaw and brought before a Juvenile Court in 1961-1962, whose further fate was investigated during the period when they were 17-20 years old and from among the same 243 former juveniles 13-16 years old, who in 1972 were already 24-27 years old; ‒ 17-20 year-old young adults released from 40 prisons throughout the country, after having served their sentences for various offences and whose subsequent recidivism was established during the course of 10 years from their release from prison in 1961. Two works, discussing the further recidivism of the juvenile delinquents, convicted for larcency obviously differ markedly regarding the age and follow-up period. The first work deals with the investigated up to the age of 15-16 only, the second also embraces the time when the former juveniles are already approximately 26 years old. However, both works unanimously emphasize the fundamental significance of early initiation of social maladjustment and demoralization for the prognosing of the rapidity and extent of recidivism. They stress the necessity to make use in practice as the only criterion for recidivism of juveniles, each new charge brought before a court and the number of times theft has been committed, being the subject of a given trial. Simultaneously these works reveal unanimously, that the majority of the juvenile delinquents charged with larcency, are brought up in families, which are unable to guarantee them the proper conditions for normal development and that in these families also many brothers of the juvenile delinquents charged with larcency revealed symptoms of social maladjustment and committed offences. The results of the studies under discussion also are unanimous as to the fact that with the majority of the juveniles could be found personality disorders. The material under discussion deserves special attention as regards the juvenile delinquents of the younger age groups. It is of great significance that many of the investigated 10‒11-year-olds charged with larcency committed theft already before. Long years of research, conducted by the Department of Criminology, Institute of Legal Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences, testify to the fact that the majority of the juvenile delinquents charged with larcency and brought before Juvenile Courts are boys who already previously committed larcency more than once. Disturbance of the socialization process with these juveniles, usually reaches back to their early childhood, requires early discovery and interference at the earliest possible time in the form of surrounding the parents, brothers and sisters of the juvenile delinquent with care and also of controlling them. The results yielded by follow-up studies of the recidivism during a period of 10 years of the 17-20 year-old young adult offenders, released from prison in 1961, concentrate on young people whose recidivism is undoubtedly connected with serious social maladjustment already during their juvenility. Obviously one cannot identify these young adults released from prison with all the 17‒20-year-old young adults convicted by courts who received various sentences. The results of the follow-up studies of the young adult prisoners should contribute to the initiation of systematic, individual research regarding young adults convicted and receiving various prison terms and to the change of certain guiding lines of the penal and penitentiary policy in regard to young adult offenders.

140-155

Authors: Adam Strzembosz

The subject of this work are the findings of studies of the follow-up period intended to establish the further fate of 343 juvenile delinquents aged 10-16, who had been guilty of theft while still under 17. In 1961 detailed, criminological research was initiated in the Juvenile Court of Praga – one of the districts of Warsaw – (records were studied, interviews undertaken in the environs, homes and schools were conducted), which embraced all the 180 juvenile delinquents between 10-16 years, living in that district, who during the course of one year had been found guilty of theft. Further a study was made of the criminal records of 178 juvenile thieves from two other districts of Warsaw, all the juvenile delinquents who had been tried for theft by courts during the period from August 1961 to May 1962 being investigated in turn. In this way was obtained a total of 358 juvenile delinquents who had been found guilty of thefts. The idea was to find out how many of them were recidivists in the follow-up period. 33% of these juvenile delinquents were under 13 and 67% were between 13 and 16 years. The division into these two groups was justified because of the different approach of the Polish penal code to minors up to the age of 13: as regards such juvenile delinquents, the court may apply educational measures only: reprimand, supervision by parents, probation and placing in an educational institution. As regards delinquents between 14 and 16, the court may also apply correctional measures – i.e. approved schools. In the present work, the author accepts as basic criterion for defining the recidivist the fact that he has faced in a Juvenile Court a new charge of theft. The category of those not considered as recidivists includes only delinquents charged once with theft. Each juvenile delinquent who has been charged (usually by the police) a second or third time with theft already figures as a recidivist with 2, 3, 4 and more appearances in court. Moreover, it was possible during the investigations, combined with detailed interviews in the homes of the delinquents, additionally to qualify as recidivists such juvenile delinquents shown to have stolen though not brought before a court. Taking into account the variety of criteria applied to recidivists, they have been divided into the following categories: (a) first of all, formal criteria were applied: considered as recidivists were those concerning whom the court had previously applied educational and correctional measures. Here, the percentage of recidivists amounted to 37.7; (b) this percentage increased to 48.6 when considered as recidivists were all those who had been charged at least twice with theft, including those concerning whom the court had not considered it relevant to apply any new measures; (c) this percentage was still higher (61.2), when listed as recidivists were all those whom the court had found guilty of at least two thefts; (d) interviews in the environment conducted as regards 180 juvenile delinquents in a single district revealed in addition that these data too were not entirely reliable in defining recidivists. Data from interviews showed that the percentage of delinquents who had committed more than one theft amounted to as much as 78.5. It was also found that, when applying the first, formal criterion recidivists among the older delinquents (46%) were far greater in numbers than among the younger (20%). The second criterion – at least two thefts – showed that the difference between older and younger delinquents as regards the percentage of recidivism among them (82.2% 73.2%) was only slight. These data indicate that the formal criterion for recidivism, used by Juvenile Courts, does not reflect the actual extent of this phenomenon. This is the more important since, the latter, broader definition, was found to be the most satisfactory for prognostic purposes. It was established that during the two-year follow-up period a substantially larger number of juvenile delinquents previously listed, according to the first formal definition, as not being recidivists (47%), faced charges than was the case with those listed according to the second definition (17.6%). Criminological investigations – combined with interviews conducted in their families – of 180 juvenile delinquents from a single district, revealed that juvenile delinquents charged with theft are as a rule socially maladjusted children, showing the first symptoms of social maladjustment even in the first grades of primary school. With 62% symptoms of demoralization were recorded with children between 7 and 10 years of age. A typical phenomenon with these juveniles is a considerable lag in their school studies, found as regards 95% of older and 76% of younger juveniles. A lag of at least two years was found with 77% of the older and 37% of the younger individuals investigated. The majority of these systematically played truant; 37% of the younger and 70% of the older juveniles had run away from home. Only as regards 33% was it not found that they consumed alcohol; 26% drank at least once a week; 25% of the recidivists were heavy drinkers. On the basis of data obtained from mothers during interviews (and for 50% of the cases also from child guidance clinics, institutions etc.) it was possible with 60% of the older investigated delinquents to establish various types of personality disorders; 26% were suspected of having suffered organic disturbances of the central nervous system; data indicating such diseases in the past were more frequently found with recidivists (37%) than with those who were not recidivists (13%). Those investigated were for the most part brought up in an unsatisfactory family environment. It was found that in 46% of the families fathers or step-fathers systematically drank alcohol to excess; delinquency of fathers was noted in 31% of the families, and in 9% the mothers were suspected of prostitution. As many as 67% of the brothers revealed symptoms of demoralization and 47% had committed theft. Recidivists differed markedly from non-recidivists as regards such negative features, characterizing the family environment as: systematic abuse of alcohol, unhappy married life of the parents, children very poorly cared for. Of all the 358 thieves investigated, a mere one-third were as juveniles (under 17) charged only once: thus they were not recidivists according to the criteria accepted in the investigation; 21% had twice faced a court; 11% – three and 34% – four or more times had been charged before a Juvenile Court. The differentiated groups of the youngest and oldest among those we investigated did not differ markedly as regards the number of appearances in court while under age. Consideration was next given to further delinquency during the period when the investigated were young adults i.e., when they were between 17 and 20. New offences were noted during that period with 50% of the former defendants who, previously had been juveniles. It also emerged that the number of charges preferred while they were under age was of essential significance for recidivism during the period when those investigated were already young adults. Among those who had been charged only once as juveniles, only 27% were afterwards convicted between the age of 17 and 20; among those charged twice – 48%; beginning with 3 charges, the percentage of later recidivists amounted to 65.8, and with 4 and more charges – to as much as 78.7%. The number of convictions while juveniles indicates a correlation not only with the actual fact of recidivism when those concerned were still young adults, but also the intensification of recidivism between 17 and 20. The majority of those who while juveniles had only one case against them, were subsequently convicted only once. But of those who while juveniles were charged at least three times, the majority (64%) had multiple convictions between 17 and 20. Typical of offences committed by those who had been charged with theft as juveniles, continued to be theft; close on half of those investigated, however – and this should be emphasized – were convicted for offences against the person, officials or the authorities, and these as a rule were offences committed while intoxicated. One-third of the subjects spent in prison at least half of the four-year period, while they were young adults. In 1972, when the last follow-up period was studied, ten years had elapsed since the beginning of the investigation of the delinquents who had committed theft while juveniles. The younger among them were at that time 20 to 23 years old; the older – 24 to 27 (the average age being about 26 years). As regards these 243 older investigated individuals, it was possible to examine not only the period when they were young adults, but also the later period, after they were already 21 years old; this later period was in their case sufficiently to make it possible properly to evaluate whether during that time they had ceased committing offences or whether they continued to do so. Further delinquency of the older among those investigated during the period after 17 until their average age was about 26, was as follows: – It emerged that only 38% had not been convicted at all after the age of 17. The overwhelming majority of them (83%) had been charged only once or twice while under age. – 17% had been convicted only between 17 and 20, while 13% had been convicted only after 21. – 32% were convicted as young adults as weil as later after the age of 21. In this group, the majority (73%) had been charged before a court at least three times as juveniles. As regards the older among those investigated for the entire follow-up period, it was confirmed that the majority showed a correlation with what happened during their juvenility: further delinquency as well as persistent recidivism was found more frequently with those who were more frequently charged as juveniles. During the entire follow-up period, 19% of the older individuals were convicted only once, l3% – twice, and 30% – at least three times. The category with multiple convictions, recidivists convicted at least four times amounted to 20%, which certainly is a substantial figure, having regard to the relatively long prison sentences passed on those convicted two and three times. It should be added that though interviews in the environment during the follow-up period were lacking, making impossible a proper evaluation of the social adjustment of those investigated who during that period had no new convictions or were convicted only once, the data obtained enable the drawing of conclusions which are important for social policy. Note that even frorn among the investigated juveniles who were charged only once before a court, as many as 42% were later convicted after 17; this points to the necessity of a thorough examination of even apparently minor cases of theft involving those under age who previously had not been convicted. The extent of persistent recidivism revealed demonstrates the poor effectiveness of methods used as far in dealing with juvenile delinquents who revealed symptoms of marked social maladjustment.

179-187

Authors: Halina Janowska

Summary of the Investigation This study is devoted to an analysis of homicide in Poiand during the 20 years 1951-1971 as compared with the pre-war period. This part of investigation is based on data taken from the police and prosecutor’s office statistics from before the war and for the years 1951-1971. The analysis deals also with the court records’ data on 308 offenders convicted for homicide throughout the country in the year 1961. The offenders represented almost all the persons convicted during that year for crimes covered by Arts. 225, paras 1 and 2 of the Penal Code of 1932. As many as 75 per cent of them were convicted for committed and 25 per cent for attempted homicides. The incidence of homicide was during the pre-war period more than five times that during the 25 years after the war. The social reasons for this phenomenon undoubtedly involve the important socio-economic and cultural transformations which have taken place in the country since the war. The diminished frequency of acts of homicide was brought about by changes in the social structure, an increase in the range of values made universally accessible, a rising level of culture and education, and changes in certain behavioural patterns. As between pre-war times and the last few years, a significant dynamic aspect in the territorial distribution of homicide has been noticeable; fundamentally, this is a change in the trend of dependence between the rate of homicide and the level of industrialization and urbanization. In the years 1935-1937, this dependence was negative, the greatest rate of homicide being recorded in the economically backward regions of eastern and southern Poland. In the years 1956-1962, this dependence persisted but at the same time the highest coefficient of homicide was noted in areas with an extremely high level of industrialization. In the years 1963-1965 there was an interdependence between the homicide rate and the low level of industrialization and urbanization; the highest coefficient of these crimes appears at that time in voivodeships marked by a high ‒ or an extremely low ‒ level of industrialization and urbanization. In recent years, 1969-1971, the dependence between the homicide rate and the low level of industrialization and urbanization further decreased, but the dependence of the high coefficient of homicide on the high level of industrialization became still more obvious. The highest homicide rate before the war in markedly agricultural areas of what was then called Poland “B” is to be linked with, above all, the influence exerted by such factors as: low level of economic development of these regions, low level of culture and education, the local type of social bonds, favouring ‒ in the then existing conditions ‒ lynch law, the spread of models called “subculture of aggression”. The fact that after the war (with a coefficient of homicide less than one-fifth of the former) a relatively higher coefficient of homicide remained unchanged in the eastern voivodeships is to be connected, above all, with residues of the pre-war situation which were of a cultural nature and whose influence ‒ because of the urbanization of rural culture ‒ was expected to diminish. This hypothesis finds confirmation in the results of the analysis of statistitical data for the years 1956-1971 related to the dynamic changes in the territorial distribution of homicide. Analyzing the reasons for a greater homicide rate in the western voivodeships, and even of tendencies indicating increase in the homicide coefficient in these areas, primarily taken into account should be the enormous intensification of social migration processes and the rapid rate of industrialization and urbanization of these regions. As regards the first of these factors, it should be borne in mind that the coefficient of homicide in the various voivodeships is greater in voivodeships with a higher percentage of people frorn those areas of Poland which before the war were known for a high coefficient of the crime of homicide. In conditions inevitably giving rise to social frustrations, there is an increased probability of homicide by people with certain psycho-social features. It should be emphasized that the offenders examined were in the majority of cases individuals marked by serious personality disorders and not having had even primary school education or any professional qualifications. Not without significance seems to be the fact that the overwhelming majority of such came from environments where aggressive behavioural patterns had been widespread. The indirect influence of social factors on the frequency of homicide seems to be insignificant in the case of people who commit such a crime in states of mind definable as psychotic, giving rise to irresponsibility. This assumption found confirmation in data from some other countries indicating that during a period when there is an increase in homicide, no increasing number of homicides by mentally ill people is to be observed. There seems, however, no doubt as to the influence of factors of a social nature on homicide by people who are not mentally sick but suffer from psychic anomalies. Among offenders examined by court psychiatrists (70.4% of the total in the court record material studied) 69.8 had psychic anomalies of various kinds; this fact is to be connected with their difficulties in social adjustment as well as with violent, extremely aggressive reactions to frustrating situations. Analyzing by comparison with the years before the war, the structure of motives for homicide, on the basis of court records, it was found that in the categories of motives differentiated in pre-war works by P. Horoszowski, the following changes have taken place as regards the number of convictions for homicides with given motives. The annual number of convictions for homicide with economic motives decreased five times (by approximately 300 cases); homicides for erotic motives less than two and a half times (by approximately 100); in defence of honour and person ‒ five times (by over 500); and infanticide ‒ also five times (by about 70). Examining the structure of motives for homicide ‒ i.e., the proportional share of convictions appropriate to the various categories ‒ it was found that the number of convicted offenders decreased by 7% as regards economic motives and defence of honour and person, and increased by about 14% in the category of homicides with erotic motives, while the percentage of convictions for child murder remained in the general structure of motives unchanged. Although the results of research on court records of one year are in principle insufficient as a basis for generalization in regard to a longer period of time, nevertheless we feel justified in generalizing the basis of statistical data supplied by the police. Such data enables the statement that there is a similarity between the average annual number of cases of homicide in the various categories of motives for the years 1962-1964 and 1968-1970. Since, moreover, the all-over number of cases of homicide for those years also reveals similarities, it may be concluded that the structure of motives for homicide in those periods was relatively stable. Changes in the structure of motives for homicide since the war period may, as compared with the pre-war period be attributed primarily to the changes in the structure of classes and strata in Poland and to changes in the hierarchy of socially accepted values. The typology of motives for homicide followed F. Horoszowski’s typology, which served as a basis for analysis of court records before the war but had to be extended for the purpose of this work. An effort has been made to find out whether offenders prompted by different motives differ essentially in respect to socio-demographic and psycho-social features. It was found that offenders, whether prompted by economic or erotic motives, or acting in defence of their personal dignity, etc., did not differ essentially as regards the features indicated above. But such differences can be observed when in the grouping of cases account is taken of, in addition to the motive for a crime, the objective situation on the background of which such motive took shape. Typotogy of the material examined, developed as indicated, led to the establishing of the following groups: (1) homicide in defence of personal dignity, arising out of a serious, developing conflict between the offender and the victim (26 cases); (2) homicide in defence of personal dignity, arising from a momentary, trivial conflict caused by the insobriety of the offender (40 cases); (3) homicide in defence of personal dignity during a brawl arising out of a trivial, passing conflict, caused by the insobriety of the offender (21 cases); (4) homicide for erotic reasons, arising out of the victim’s failure to satisfy the slayer’s emotional expectations (excluded are marital conflicts, caused by the slayer-husband’s alcoholism) ‒ 32 cases; (5) homicide with erotic motives connected with marital conflict, arising out of the slayer-husband’s alcoholism (32 cases); (6) homicide with erotic motives, to eliminate someone who constituted an obstacle to the offender’s realization of a plan to marry (18 cases); (7) homicide with economic motives arising out of claims to property (36 cases); (8) homicide with economic motives with intent to rob (29 cases); (9) homicide in self-defence or in defence of intimates (27 cases); (10) homicide to eliminate a witness to another crime committed by the offender (6 cases); (11) child-murder, as a rule of illegitimate infants, for various motives (23 cases), (a) by women (17 cases), (b) by men (6 cases); (12) homicide with pathological motives, arising out of a pathological reaction to intoxication (12 cases); (13) murder with pathological motives, arising out of a pathological way of achieving sexual satisfaction (6 cases). Note that the homicide category with the largest number of cases is that in defence of personal dignity (over 28%), including homicide for trivial reasons, a momentary confiict, arising out of the slayer’s being intoxicated (in police statistics such homicides figure as “hooligan”' killings; in literature ‒ often as “homicide arising from alcoholic motive”). Of the total of slayers examined, 90% were men. Of those ‒ 51% were under 30 years of age, and of female slayers ‒ 47%. 41% of male and 61% of the female offenders were single. From among male offenders 60% of them lived in the countryside, and from among female ones ‒ 63%. As many as 58% of offenders of both sexes had failed to complete primary school education (56% of men and 72% of women). Only 7% of the male and 9% of the female offenders were white collar workers. Analysis of the symptoms of social degradation among homicidals, showed that in only half of the cases was there evidence of intensification of such symptoms, which appearing together, indicated previous social deviance of the individual. Thus among the examined men 43% had already been tried for previous criminal offences before they were convicted of homicide; 22% of the total had been convicted once, 11% ‒ twice, and only 10% three times or more (among women there was not a single case of having 3 prior convictions). As to the structure of previous offences, it was found that there was a predominance (54.5%) of offences involving theft; 23% were offences combined with physical aggression, but of these only 17 out of a total of 75 could be considered serious (four involving manslaughter, 1 a brawl ending fatally, 5 serious bodily injuries, and 7 robberies). 58% of the total of homicidals systematically drank alcohol to excess (large quantities at least several times a week) and 68% of offenders were under the influence of alcohol at the moment of the crime. Alcohol is undoubtedly a very significant factor in the etiology of homicide; it plays an essential criminogenic role, especially as regards the very frequent cases in which an intoxicated offender simultaneously had serious disorders of personality. Data concerning recurrence of aggressive behaviour by offenders prior to the homicide were found in the court records of 65% of the cases; 60% of these received adverse references from their places of residence or of work. Only 20% did not work during the period preceding the homicide. The data given above show that not all homicidals reveal features indicating previous social maladjustment. In this connection, an examination was made of the correlation between certain psycho-social features o the criminals and the motives which prompted them to homicide. A statistical analysis, on the basis of which groups of the most strongly correlated variables were formed enabled further typology of groups of homicides differentiated according to motives. The principle of this typology was the connection between certain groups of homicides and the syndromes of psychosocial features, considered negative or “positive” from the point of view of social evaluation. Groups most strongly correlated with syndromes of negative features thus included individuals who had committed such crimes as: homicide with intent to rob; homicide in defence of own dignity arising out of a trifling, momentary conflict caused by the insoberity of the offender, homicide for erotic motives arising out of conflict caused by the offenderhusband’s alcoholism, homicide arising out of the offender’s pathological reaction caused by alcohol. It was found that the groups of offenders most markedly correlated with the “positive” syndrome of psycho-social features from the point of view of social evaluation were: homicide occurring in defence of personal dignity; arising out of a seriously gnowing conflict between slayer and victim; homicide with erotic motives aimed at the elimination of someone regarded as an obstacle to the realization of an offender’s plans to marry; homicide with economic motives arising out of claims to property; homicide in self-defence; child-murder committed by women. Of interest is the fact that in the light of court records a considerable majority of slayers (approximately 80%), men as well as women, committed homicide under the influence of strong negative emotional states, prolonged and belonging to affective experiences of the type frequently qualified in criminology and psychopathological literature as “states of continuous affect”. Only in about 10% of homicides did the records not reveal any intensified emotional stress on the part of the slayers – neither in the form of prolonged emotional stress nor in the form of marked exasperation arising directly before the homicide and caused by the victim’s aggressive, provocative behaviour. A mere 17% of the cases examined could be considered homicide “with malice aforethought”; this also includes homicide committed under considerable affect. The courts considered onry14.5% of the total of offenders to have committed their crimes “under the influence of strong emotion”, and applied para. 2, Art. 225 of the penal code (of 1932). Note that in the years 1961-1965 the courts invoked para. 2, Art. 225 of the penal code in connection with – annual average – only 14.7% of the total of individuals convicted of homicide, and in the years 1966-1971 in connection with a bare 10.3%. But during the pre-war years 1934-1937, of all cases of homicide, an average of 49% were considered by the court as having been committed under the influence of strong emotion. Data from the records examined as regards homicide victims are very scant and incomplete. Thus this work took into account only information related to the connections between the offender and victim and such features as: sex, age and state of sobriety at the time the offence was committed and also data contained in opinions given about the victims. It is of some interest that such features of the victims differed, depending on whether the offender was a man or woman. Close relatives constituted as much as 53% of the total of victims of female offenders and only 9% – of the males. On the other hand, there was marked similarity as regards the percentage of husband or wife as victims, of the partner, lover or fiancé (fiancée). In the case of men this percentage amounted to 24%, of women – 21%. The percentage of more distant relatives as homicide victims was 10.4% for men and only 3% for women. The percentage of victims unknown to slayers was fon men – 13% and for women 12%. Entirely different as between the sexes of offenders was the percentage of their victims who were closer or more distant friends: for men – 43%, and for women only 12%. 60.4% of the victims of offenders (men and women) were men, 37% – women and 2.6% – children of both sexes. Consideration of the age of homicide victims showed that the average age of victims was slightly higher than the average age of offenders, being on an average around 35 years (children excluded). Approximately 45% of the victims were given unfavourable references and in 45.5% of the cases the victims were in a state of insobriety at the time the crime was committed. The undoubtedly important role played by the victim in provoking of some of the homicides could not be examined in this work, due to the lack in appropriate records of more detailed characteristic traits of the victims and the lack of analysis of the circumstances preceding the murder.

7-149

Authors: Zofia Ostrihanska, Helena Kołakowska-Przełomiec, Stanisław Batawia, Anna Kossowska, Maria Marek

INTRODUCTION The paper discusses the findings of research conducted by the Department of Criminology of the Polish Academy Sciences’ Institute of Legal Sciences among Warsaw 15 - 17 years-olds who left school but were not gainfully employed, and were subject to the requirement of compulsory vocational training. The problem of this category of youth is of considerable social importance since it is closely connected with the problem of delinquent or socially at risk youth. In 1967 and 1968 the educational authorities in Warsaw registered 5,749 boys and 2,477 girls aged 15 - 17 who were “out of school and out of work”. The Department’s surveys embraced a sample of only a proportion of the youth subject to registration, but it included in all probability a large majority of the boys and girls whose normal education had suffered the greatest disturbances: 1) ones who had completed only four, five or six grades of elementary school and had been directed to newly organized two-year vocational schools; and 2) ones who had completed the 7th grade but had failed to qualify for admission to the 8th grade or to a normal vocational school and had been directed to newly organized one-year vocational schools. The object of organizing these one- and two-year vocational schools was to give the kind of children who drop out of the normal educational stream the chance of learning a trade and also those attending the two-year schools the possibility of continuing their elementary education. It should be noted that in the one-year schools classes are held only twice a week, and in the two-year schools three times a week. The remaining days are given over to practical in-work training. In the 1967/68 school year the Department’s inquiry was conducted among boys attending one- and two-year building and electrical schools and a one-year motor mechanics school; they accounted for 52 per cent of the boys with the greatest degree of school retardation. In the following year, 1968/69, the subjects were boys attending one- and two-year building and electrical schools, to which 60 per cent of boys in this category had been directed. In 1967 a sample for each school was drawn from a complete list of the pupils in attendance, providing a sample of 180 boys. In 1968 the survey embraced all the boys (a total of 252) at these two schools. In 1968/69 the inquiry was extended to include girls as well: the subjects were all the girls enrolled at a one-year catering school (70) and a one-year clothing school (40). As regards the age of the boys assigned to these vocational courses, 43 per cent were over 17 in the first survey, and 23 per cent in the second; the remainder were aged 15 and 16. Girls over 17 formed 31 per cent of the sample. The selection for the Department’s survey of pupils whose normal education had probably suffered the most serious disruptions made it reasonable to suppose that distinct symptoms of social maladjustment would be found among them. To ascertain the incidence of such symptoms and the size of the category of youth with clearly delinquent tendencies or records was one of the chief objects of the inquiry. However, the working hypothesis was that 15 - I7-year-olds “out of school and out of work” were recruited from among the sort of boys and girls who had in the first place had serious problems with the elementary school course and that these difficulties had played a large part in their social maladjustment. As regards the degree of their social maladjustment it seemed likely that they were far less demoralized than the majority of juveniles with criminal convictions and tendencies to recidivism. In the inquiry whose findings are discussed below the following breaches of the fundamental rules of society or the standards of behaviour expected of children and youth were considered evidence of maladjustment: 1) persistent truancy; 2) staying out of school and out of work; 3) keeping demoralized company; 4) running away from home; 5) excessive drinking; 6) delinquency; 7) sexual promiscuity among the girls. Account was further taken of symptoms indicating serious school maladjustment: considerable school retardation and frequent commencement and discontinuance of attendance at different schools. Only those subjects of the inquiry were classified as maladjusted in the case of whom evidence was obtained that they were given to conduct of a certain type and that they regularly displayed a combination of deviational symptoms and not only a single isolated one. It should be indicated that in view of the impossibility of conducting medical and psychological examinations crucial aspects of the genesis and mechanism of difficulties at school and behaviour disorders could not be properly investigated. The inquiry had necessarily to be restricted to symptomatic and not etiological criteria of maladjustment. These were, however, enough to identify on the basis of the degree of neglect of school work and specific behaviour certain boys and girls as being socially maladjusted to some extent or another ‒ which was the main purpose of the research undertaken among this category of youth and made it largely possible to single out the children in need of care and attention. Recourse was had in the inquiry to opinions about the subjects collected from their elementary and vocational schools and from the work-places in which they underwent practical training, to court and police records, etc. Tn addition, in 1967/68 background interviews were conducted in the homes of the subjects. Both in the first and second survey tests were made of their level of achievement in Polish and mathematics at schools and of their intelligence on the Raven’s Progressive Matrices. The inquiry was supplemented by follow-up studies which for the boys in each of the successive years embraced a period of 2 2/3 years and l 2/3 years (including the period of vocational school attendance). The paper in question runs to 140 pp. of print and consists of a number of contributions: Introduction; Section 1, devoted chiefly to the criteria of social maladjustment among children and youth (written by Z. Ostrihanska); Section 2, discussing the findings of the studies of 432 boys (written by H. Kołakowska-Przełomiec); Section 3, reporting on the studies of 110 girls (written by Z. Ostrihanska, in association with A. Kossowska); Section 4, containing the results of the tests of the boys’ and girls’ achievements in Polish and mathematics (written by M. Marek); and a resume of the results of all the research and the conclusions to be drawn from it (written by S. Batawia). FINDINGS OF THE RESEARCH AMONG BOYS The boys examined in the l967/68 school year (the first year in which the educational authorities registered this category of youth) were older than the subjects in the following year. As has been already indicated, 43 per cent of the boys in 1967/68 had passed their 17th birthday, compared to only 23 per cent in 1968/69. It is worth noting, however, that the number of l5-year-olds was small, only 23 and 36 per cent respectively. Since only a third of all the subjects were at least 17 at the time of registration, the question of the employment of these boys in the period preceding their referral to vocational school is not worth entering into. The basic point is connected with the course of their school attendance – the degree to which the process of education at elementary school was disrupted and the length of time these boys had been out of school (among those who had completed the 7th grade and also those who had discontinued attendance at a normal vocational school). The surveys revealed the important fact that only a small percentage of the youth described as “out of school and out of work” had in actual fact been absent from school for a period of more than six months (including the summer holiday): in the two succeeding years the number of boys of this kind was 28 and 21 per cent, while the number who had no breaks in school attendance whatsoever was 33 per cent in the first year and as much as 77 per cent in the next. On the other hand, the process of education had been highly disturbed: among the subjects attending one-year vocational schools only 21 per cent had no record of retardation at elementary school, and barely one per cent in the two-year schools. Among the boys attending the one-year schools 28 and 24 per cent had dropped two years behind, and 11 and 18 per cent three years or more. The boys in the two-year schools who had completed only 4 - 6 grades were of course even more retarded: in 1967/68 retardation of two years was shown by 28 per cent and in 1968/69 by 45 per cent, and three years or more by 52 and 39 per cent respectively. As many as 70 – 80 per cent of all the subjects had been systematically truant from elementary school, and about two-thirds had long-lasting disciplinary difficulties. In considering these boys’ failures at school, attention should be given to the results of tests of their achievement level and of their scores in the Raven’s Progressive Matrices. On the whole the subjects’ achievement level in mathematics differed markedly from that of a comparative sample of children in corresponding grades of elementary school. Bad marks in mathematics were scored by 62 and 64 per cent of the boys in the one-year schools and 83 and 86 per cent of the boys in the two-year schools. There were also considerable differences in achievement in Polish between the subjects and the control group. Particular emphasis should be given to the bad scores recorded in silent reading and comprehension tests not only by many of the boys in the two-year schools who had not completed the 7th grade but also by many of the boys in the one-year schools. This low achievement level in basic subjects was undoubtedly a serious obstacle to learning progress for the majority of the subjects, not only earlier at elementary school, but also at vocational school. Raven’s Progressive Matrices testing, first of all, reasoning ability revealed in 1967/68 a larger percentage of boys with low and very low scores than in the control group. The subjects in the one-year schools had better scores than the subjects in the two-year school. In the following year, 1968/69, however, the percentage with low and very low scores decreased, though it remained higher among the boys attending two-year schools than one-year schools. The Raven’s Progressive Matrices scores do not, however, explain all the reasons for the boys’ great degree of school retardation, since there was a fairly large group which had good and very good scores. Their failure at school must be connected with other factors than low reasoning ability. These may be deficiencies in other mental abilities, personality disorders, neglect at home, etc. In examining the degree of social maladjustment (the criteria were discussed earlier) of the boys surveyed in 1967/68 it was found that: 1) only 28 per cent of the boys could be judged seriously socially maladjusted; they displayed a number of symptoms of marked demoralization and committed offences (theft); 2) 35 per cent could be called moderately maladjusted: they had been out of school or out of work longer than six months, had been frequently truant, and some of them also displayed other symptoms of maladjustment of a less marked order: 3) a relatively large group (36 per cent) were boys who by and large displayed only symptoms of school maladjustment, and symptoms of demoralization only sporadically. It should be added that the number of seriously maladjusted boys was much smaller in the one-year schools (25 per cent) than among those who had not completed the 7th grade and had been placed in the two-year schools (33 per cent). It is worth drawing attention to the fact that boys with various Raven scores and various achievement levels in basic subjects can be found in similar percentages both among the group of boys only slightly socially maladjusted and the group of boys moderately or seriously maladjusted. However, the more socially maladjusted boys had worse home backgrounds than the others and no doubt suffered from greater personality disorders since they had already earlier caused more serious disciplinary problems. The greater degree of maladjustment among this groups of boys who had made bad progress at school was, therefore, affected by factors connected with personality and home background. It should be noted that 34 per cent of the subjects in 1967/68 and 33 per cent in 1968/69 came from broken homes. Fathers who were excessive drinkers (alcohol addicts among them) constituted 41 per cent of the total, and the number of brothers (over ten years of age) who displayed various symptoms of social maladjustment came to 30 per cent. Bad material conditions were found in almost half the homes of the subjects. The surveys revealed that the percentage of boys “out of school and out of work” who had appeared before juvenile courts was relatively small. Among the total number of subjects (432), only 28.4 per cent had been prosecuted before being directed to vocational school. In the period of attendance to vocational school and later a total of 39 boys were convicted, but only 14 of those had previous convictions. The percentage of boys brought to court rose only very slightly to 31.7 per cent, and it should be emphasized that the percentage of recidivists with three or more cases among the total number convicted came to only 24 per cent (including juvenile court appearances). A large majority of the subjects are therefore boys who were not seriously delinquent even though they displayed a whole series of symptoms of social maladjustment. The careers of the boys after placement in vocational schools are basically contingent on the degree of their social maladjustment, and only this, and not appearance in court, forms the proper criterion for assessing the difficulties encountered by efforts to normalize these boys. Although the subjects’ attendance at the vocational schools was not regular and there was a considerable degree of absenteeism from the practical training periods, while a large percentage (53 and 41 per cent in the two succeeding years) failed to complete the vocational course on time, follow-up studies showed that only a third of the subjects in 1967/68 and a fifth in 1968/69 had not subsequently continued their education or entered employment. These boys, in the case of whom attempts at rehabilitation had been wholly unsuccessful, did not exceed 25 per cent of the total of 432. Virtually all of them came from the group of subjects with serious prior social maladjustment who had long displayed advanced symptoms of demoralization. FINDINGS OF THE RESEARCH AMONG GIRLS The publication presents the findings of an inquiry conducted among 110 girls aged 15 - 17 who had been directed, on the grounds of being “out of school and out of work”, to two one-year vocational schools in Warsaw (catering and clothing). All the girls enrolled in these schools were the subjects of the study. The first point to be established was whether the girls classified as “out of school and out of work” had in fact not been attending school or gainfully employed for a longer period of time prior to admission. In point of fact the job question did not really enter the picture since almost all the subjects had never yet been employed, partly on account of their age: only 31 per cent of them had reached their 17th birthday at the time of the inquiry. Most of them had previously been attending school, while the period of idleness was as a rule very short: as many as 70 per cent had been in attendance until the end of the preceding school year and had found themselves without a place at the beginning of the new one. The number which had quit or interrupted school attendance in the course of the preceding school year came to 24 per cent; only 6 per cent had longer breaks in schooling of a year or more. However, if we forego this formal criterion of non-attendance and take into account not only failure to enroll in a school, but also systematic truancy, it turns out that the number not attending school is much larger: two-thirds of the subjects had either left school or, though nominally in attendance had in fact been systematically truant in the course of the preceding school year. The question of the criteria employed to classify young people as “out of school and out of work” merits special emphasis because, as we shall see, it was systematic staying away from school though nominally enrolled rather than brief official breaks in attendance which proved bad prediction for subsequent adjustment in the one-year vocational school. Two-thirds of the girl subjects had fallen behind in elementary school, and among 46 per cent this retardation came to at least two years. The school retardation of the subjects was not only much greater than the general rate among children in the higher grades of elementary school in Poland, but also greater than among boy subjects attending analogous one-year vocational schools. So large a degree of school retardation prompts the question whether poor progress was not due to the diminished intelligence level of the subjects. This point was examined with the help of Raven’s Progressive Matrices, tests of achievement in basic subjects, and the opinions obtained from teachers at the schools which the subjects had previously attended. A large percentage of the girls (41 per cent) had low and very low Raven scores (under 25 percentiles). Girls attending one-year vocational schools had far worse scores than average school children, and worse ones than boys attending one-year vocational schools and even than boys attending two-year vocational schools. These Raven scores must be put into the context of data obtained by other means. As had been said, tests were made of the level of achievement in basic subjects (Polish and mathematics). The percentage of subjects who displayed a very low level of achievement was greater than the percentage with low and very low Raven scores. The girls attending one-year vocational schools differed markedly in level of achievement from the control group of elementary school children. Additional information on the abilities of the subjects was obtained from questionnaires answered by teachers at the schools which these girls had previously attended. On this evidence, more of them were found to be “dull” than had been suggested by their Raven scores. The variations in the data obtained from different sources require clarification. Raven’s Progressive Matrices test only certain abilities (reasoning visual perception) important to learning. But there are also a number of other abilities which play a part in progress at school (e.g. memory, audial perception, verbal abilities) and deficiencies where these are concerned might have contributed to the low scores of the subjects in the tests of achievement and to the teachers’ estimates of their abilities. The failures or difficulties of a part of the subjects at school might have been connected with disturbances in these particular learning abilities. But they might equally well have been due to personality factors or – and this seems especially important given the evidence obtained in interviews – to considerable neglect at home. The school retardation of the subjects, their achievement level, their low Raven scores and the teachers’ opinions of their poor abilities are all signs that their being “out of school and out of work” was clearly bound up with failures at school and objective difficulties with learning. The next question was the degree of social maladjustment of the subjects. Only a small number of the girls (18 per cent) had no record of considerable school retardation, presented no particular problems of conduct at school, and displayed no symptoms of social maladjustment. The biggest quantitative problem among the subjects were the girls (almost half) who only manifested evidence of maladjustment as regards school work, i.e. retardation of two or more years, systematic truancy, and repeated discontinuance of school attendance. Only a third of the girls were found, however, to have other symptoms of social maladjustment: keeping demoralized company, running away from home, excessive drinking, stealing and suspected sexual promiscuity. It was only these girls in whom the relevant symptom or symptoms had occurred frequently or jointly that were classified as socially maladjusted. It should be added, however, that only three of the girls had been previously convicted, only 10 per cent were found to have committed thefts and only 10 per cent were suspected of sexual promiscuity. These percentages are insignificant when compared to those found in girls brought before the courts. However, for a third of the girls to reveal evidence of social maladjustment constitutes a relatively large proportion if it is compared with the degree of social maladjustment found in an average schoolgirl population. In the inquiry a comparison was made of the girls who displayed only symptoms of maladjustment at school (notably considerable school retardation) with those whose behaviour indicated evidence of social maladjustment as well. It was found that the subjects in the latter category tended indeed to come more frequently from adverse home environments and were more often described by school teachers as excitable, restless and aggressive. Although systematic truancy has in this study been placed under the heading of maladjustment at school, it proved in fact to be more frequent among the socially maladjusted girls than those who displayed only school maladjustment. This fact, as well as evidence of a connection between social maladjustment and certain personality features, suggest that it is not difficulties and failures at school as such, but the modes of reaction to them that lead to major maladjustment. The next point tackled by the inquiry related to the environmental, health and personality factors behind the subjects’ non-attendance of school and lack of employment. Here the data was obtained by means of background interviews and interviews with 62 of the girls who qualified most obviously for the designation of “out of school and out of work” on account of interrupted school attendance and systematic truancy. Of these 62 girts, as many as 44 per cent came from broken homes. Among their families there was a high incidence (47 per cent) of excessive drinking by the father. A third of the fathers had criminal convictions and in 30 per cent of the families there were brothers with convictions. This data indicates that the girls who were “out of school and out of work” had frequently been brought up in homes which constituted socially negative educative environments and got their children off to a bad start in life. Health data showed that 29 per cent of the girls “out of school and out of work” had suffered various protracted illnesses resulting in long absences from school which could have led to low achievement level. Hospital or sanatorium treatment had been prescribed at some time for 44 per cent. The interviews afforded grounds for suspecting that 23 per cent had suffered brain damage. These are all factors which interfere with progress at school. But they are obstacles which could have been more easily overcome if the girls could have counted on the help and care of their families; in the home environment in which many of the subjects grew up, on the other hand, they formed serious barriers to normal results at school. Finally progress at school has been analysed in 110 pupils attending one-year schools as well as their accomplishment in a successive year. A total of 40 per cent of the subjects attended the one-year vocational schools very irregularly, cutting over a quarter of the days of instruction. This poor attendance record had a statistically significant interdependence with systematic truancy in the preceding school year (though insignificant with the break in school attendance prior to enrolment in the one-year vocational school). This indicates that truancy should be regarded by schools as a particularly urgent warning to pay greater attention to the children involved. Irregular attendance of the one-year vocational schools was also connected with social maladjustment in the period preceding admission. The girls with the greatest degree of social maladjustment were the ones who found it hardest to adapt in the vocational schools. A year after the end of the school year in which the inquiry was conducted, follow-up interviews were made in order to see if the former pupils of the one year vocational schools were still attending school or gainfully employed. It was found that almost half the girls were continuing their education and 29 per cent were working (half of them in jobs matching their vocational qualifications); only about a fifth were “out of school and out of work”. The reasons they gave for this varied and in certain cases the fact that they were neither attending school nor working was clearly justified by special circumstances. CONCLUSIONS In the light of the surveys of the 15 - l7-year-olds “out of school and out of work,” it can be seen that a large majority of the subjects are recruited from among boys and girls whose basic problems can be reduced to school maladjustment, serious learning difficulties and inability to adapt to the school curriculum. With most of the subjects social maladjustment is clearly connected with school maladjustment, which is no doubt frequently the anterior process. The lack of detailed psychological and medical tests makes it impossible to say what are the factors chiefly responsible fur such school retardation: what percentage of the subjects are backward children, children with only partial developmental retardation, children with certain congenital defects which are serious obstacles to learning to read and write, or children with personality disorders which interfere considerable with a normal process of education, reduce their capacity for systematic effort, impede concentration, etc. The children whose normal progress at school encounters serious difficulties and cannot cope unaided with their school obligations have a sense of inferiority with regard to the other children in their class, and the conflict situations experienced by them continually and their fear of the consequences of bad results at school make for a hostile attitude to school, truancy, seeking contacts outside school with peers in a similar position, spending much of their time with other maladjusted boys in whose company they can win approval. Children of this kind frequently drop far behind in elementary school and sometimes fail to complete it altogether. Subsequently, they have a very difficult start in life, extremely limited prospects of employment in jobs with a low social status and a sense of personal failure and rejection which frequently helps to develop antisocial attitudes. In dealing with boys and girls of this sort who have already reached an older age bracket, one should realize that their considerable school retardation, their unaccustomedness for systematic study and the development of certain adverse habits militate against progress in the vocational schools to which they are directed. In view of the fact that teaching them a specific trade in combination with practical in-work training may be of vital importance to their subsequent careers, the syllabus in these special vocational schools should be adjusted to the degree of inability displayed by such boys and girls. Since the boys who have not even completed six or seven grades of elementary school are in a worse position than those who have completed a greater number of grades, the syllabus of the vocational courses for these children should be differentiated to match their achievement level in elementary school. It seems essential therefore, before directing such boys and girls to a vocational school, to submit them to psychological tests to discover their intelligence level and suitability for a specific trade. The findings of these surveys make clear the importance from the point of view not only of the practice of the educational authorities but also of social policy of paying special attention to cases of recurring repetition of elementary school grades and truancy, and of failure to complete elementary school. Problems and failures at school require the early intervention of psychologists and doctors and the extension of special attention to such children in the earliest grades. The elimination and prevention of symptoms of school maladjustment depend on the proper organization of school work to allow for the specific problems of this category of children. It is essential to provide a sufficient number of special classes in the lower years to enable children making poor progress to catch up and also individual coaching of pupils who have special learning problems. The surveys show how important the implementation of the above recommendations could be for prevention of social maladjustment and demoralization among a large proportion of the children subsequently classified as “out of school and out of work”. The fact that among juvenile offenders there is a large incidence of records of serious disturbances in the course of their education from an early age is obvious evidence of the need to pay special attention to school maladjustment with a view to the prevention of juvenile delinquency. Since the surveys have shown that a large proportion of children with serious school failures come from adverse home backgrounds, from broken homes, from homes in which the father is an alcoholic and from homes whose material circumstances are bad, it is essential to put such families under special supervision and also to provide welfare benefits to the mothers of children in such home.

15-31

Authors: Zofia Ostrihanska

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84-117

Authors: Zofia Ostrihanska, Anna Kossowska

The publication presents the findings of an inquiry conducted among 110 girls aged 15 - 17 who had been directed, on the grounds of being “out of school and out of work”, to two one-year vocational schools in Warsaw (catering and clothing). All the girls enrolled in these schools were the subjects of the study. The first point to be established was whether the girls classified as “out of school and out of work” had in fact not been attending school or gainfully employed for a longer period of time prior to admission. In point of fact the job question did not really enter the picture since almost all the subjects had never yet been employed, partly on account of their age: only 31 per cent of them had reached their 17th birthday at the time of the inquiry. Most of them had previously been attending school, while the period of idleness was as a rule very short: as many as 70 per cent had been in attendance until the end of the preceding school year and had found themselves without a place at the beginning of the new one. The number which had quit or interrupted school attendance in the course of the preceding school year came to 24 per cent; only 6 per cent had longer breaks in schooling of a year or more. However, if we forego this formal criterion of non-attendance and take into account not only failure to enroll in a school, but also systematic truancy, it turns out that the number not attending school is much larger: two-thirds of the subjects had either left school or, though nominally in attendance had in fact been systematically truant in the course of the preceding school year. The question of the criteria employed to classify young people as “out of school and out of work” merits special emphasis because, as we shall see, it was systematic staying away from school though nominally enrolled rather than brief official breaks in attendance which proved bad prediction for subsequent adjustment in the one-year vocational school. Two-thirds of the girl subjects had fallen behind in elementary school, and among 46 per cent this retardation came to at least two years. The school retardation of the subjects was not only much greater than the general rate among children in the higher grades of elementary school in Poland, but also greater than among boy subjects attending analogous one-year vocational schools. So large a degree of school retardation prompts the question whether poor progress was not due to the diminished intelligence level of the subjects. This point was examined with the help of Raven’s Progressive Matrices, tests of achievement in basic subjects, and the opinions obtained from teachers at the schools which the subjects had previously attended. A large percentage of the girls (41 per cent) had low and very low Raven scores (under 25 percentiles). Girls attending one-year vocational schools had far worse scores than average school children, and worse ones than boys attending one-year vocational schools and even than boys attending two-year vocational schools. These Raven scores must be put into the context of data obtained by other means. As had been said, tests were made of the level of achievement in basic subjects (Polish and mathematics). The percentage of subjects who displayed a very low level of achievement was greater than the percentage with low and very low Raven scores. The girls attending one-year vocational schools differed markedly in level of achievement from the control group of elementary school children. Additional information on the abilities of the subjects was obtained from questionnaires answered by teachers at the schools which these girls had previously attended. On this evidence, more of them were found to be “dull” than had been suggested by their Raven scores. The variations in the data obtained from different sources require clarification. Raven’s Progressive Matrices test only certain abilities (reasoning visual perception) important to learning. But there are also a number of other abilities which play a part in progress at school (e.g. memory, audial perception, verbal abilities) and deficiencies where these are concerned might have contributed to the low scores of the subjects in the tests of achievement and to the teachers’ estimates of their abilities. The failures or difficulties of a part of the subjects at school might have been connected with disturbances in these particular learning abilities. But they might equally well have been due to personality factors or – and this seems especially important given the evidence obtained in interviews – to considerable neglect at home. The school retardation of the subjects, their achievement level, their low Raven scores and the teachers’ opinions of their poor abilities are all signs that their being “out of school and out of work” was clearly bound up with failures at school and objective difficulties with learning. The next question was the degree of social maladjustment of the subjects. Only a small number of the girls (18 per cent) had no record of considerable school retardation, presented no particular problems of conduct at school, and displayed no symptoms of social maladjustment. The biggest quantitative problem among the subjects were the girls (almost half) who only manifested evidence of maladjustment as regards school work, i.e. retardation of two or more years, systematic truancy, and repeated discontinuance of school attendance. Only a third of the girls were found, however, to have other symptoms of social maladjustment: keeping demoralized company, running away from home, excessive drinking, stealing and suspected sexual promiscuity. It was only these girls in whom the relevant symptom or symptoms had occurred frequently or jointly that were classified as socially maladjusted. It should be added, however, that only three of the girls had been previously convicted, only 10 per cent were found to have committed thefts and only 10 per cent were suspected of sexual promiscuity. These percentages are insignificant when compared to those found in girls brought before the courts. However, for a third of the girls to reveal evidence of social maladjustment constitutes a relatively large proportion if it is compared with the degree of social maladjustment found in an average schoolgirl population. In the inquiry a comparison was made of the girls who displayed only symptoms of maladjustment at school (notably considerable school retardation) with those whose behaviour indicated evidence of social maladjustment as well. It was found that the subjects in the latter category tended indeed to come more frequently from adverse home environments and were more often described by school teachers as excitable, restless and aggressive. Although systematic truancy has in this study been placed under the heading of maladjustment at school, it proved in fact to be more frequent among the socially maladjusted girls than those who displayed only school maladjustment. This fact, as well as evidence of a connection between social maladjustment and certain personality features, suggest that it is not difficulties and failures at school as such, but the modes of reaction to them that lead to major maladjustment. The next point tackled by the inquiry related to the environmental, health and personality factors behind the subjects’ non-attendance of school and lack of employment. Here the data was obtained by means of background interviews and interviews with 62 of the girls who qualified most obviously for the designation of “out of school and out of work” on account of interrupted school attendance and systematic truancy. Of these 62 girts, as many as 44 per cent came from broken homes. Among their families there was a high incidence (47 per cent) of excessive drinking by the father. A third of the fathers had criminal convictions and in 30 per cent of the families there were brothers with convictions. This data indicates that the girls who were “out of school and out of work” had frequently been brought up in homes which constituted socially negative educative environments and got their children off to a bad start in life. Health data showed that 29 per cent of the girls “out of school and out of work” had suffered various protracted illnesses resulting in long absences from school which could have led to low achievement level. Hospital or sanatorium treatment had been prescribed at some time for 44 per cent. The interviews afforded grounds for suspecting that 23 per cent had suffered brain damage. These are all factors which interfere with progress at school. But they are obstacles which could have been more easily overcome if the girls could have counted on the help and care of their families; in the home environment in which many of the subjects grew up, on the other hand, they formed serious barriers to normal results at school. Finally progress at school has been analysed in 110 pupils attending one-year schools as well as their accomplishment in a successive year. A total of 40 per cent of the subjects attended the one-year vocational schools very irregularly, cutting over a quarter of the days of instruction. This poor attendance record had a statistically significant interdependence with systematic truancy in the preceding school year (though insignificant with the break in school attendance prior to enrolment in the one-year vocational school). This indicates that truancy schould be regarded by schools as a particularly urgent warning to pay greater attention to the children involved. Irregular attendance of the one-year vocational schools was also connected with social maladjustment in the period preceding admission. The girls with the greatest degree of social maladjustment were the ones who found it hardest to adapt in the vocational schools. A year after the end of the school year in which the inquiry was conducted, follow-up interviews were made in order to see if the former pupils of the one year vocational schools were still attending school or gainfully employed. It was found that almost half the girls were continuing their education and 29 per cent were working (half of them in jobs matching their vocational qualifications); only about a fifth were “out of school and out of work”. The reasons they gave for this varied and in certain cases the fact that they were neither attending school nor working was clearly justified by special circumstances.

134-149

Authors: Stanisław Batawia

In the light of the surveys of the 15 - l7-year-olds “out of school and out of work,” it can be seen that a large majority of the subjects are recruited from among boys and girls whose basic problems can be reduced to school maladjustment, serious learning difficulties and inability to adapt to the school curriculum. With most of the subjects social maladjustment is clearly connected with school maladjustment, which is no doubt frequently the anterior process. The lack of detailed psychological and medical tests makes it impossible to say what are the factors chiefly responsible fur such school retardation: what percentage of the subjects are backward children, children with only partial developmental retardation, children with certain congenital defects which are serious obstacles to learning to read and write, or children with personality disorders which interfere considerable with a normal process of education, reduce their capacity for systematic effort, impede concentration, etc. The children whose normal progress at school encounters serious difficulties and cannot cope unaided with their school obligations have a sense of inferiority with regard to the other children in their class, and the conflict situations experienced by them continually and their fear of the consequences of bad results at school make for a hostile attitude to school, truancy, seeking contacts outside school with peers in a similar position, spending much of their time with other maladjusted boys in whose company they can win approval. Children of this kind frequently drop far behind in elementary school and sometimes fail to complete it altogether. Subsequently, they have a very difficult start in life, extremely limited prospects of employment in jobs with a low social status and a sense of personal failure and rejection which frequently helps to develop antisocial attitudes. In dealing with boys and girls of this sort who have already reached an older age bracket, one should realize that their considerable school retardation, their unaccustomedness for systematic study and the development of certain adverse habits militate against progress in the vocational schools to which they are directed. In view of the fact that teaching them a specific trade in combination with practical in-work training may be of vital importance to their subsequent careers, the syllabus in these special vocational schools should be adjusted to the degree of inability displayed by such boys and girls. Since the boys who have not even completed six or seven grades of elementary school are in a worse position than those who have completed a greater number of grades, the syllabus of the vocational courses for these children should be differentiated to match their achievement level in elementary school. It seems essential therefore, before directing such boys and girls to a vocational school, to submit them to psychological tests to discover their intelligence level and suitability for a specific trade. The findings of these surveys make clear the importance from the point of view not only of the practice of the educational authorities but also of social policy of paying special attention to cases of recurring repetition of elementary school grades and truancy, and of failure to complete elementary school. Problems and failures at school require the early intervention of psychologists and doctors and the extension of special attention to such children in the earliest grades. The elimination and prevention of symptoms of school maladjustment depend on the proper organization of school work to allow for the specific problems of this category of children. It is essential to provide a sufficient number of special classes in the lower years to enable children making poor progress to catch up and also individual coaching of pupils who have special learning problems. The surveys show how important the implementation of the above recommendations could be for prevention of social maladjustment and demoralization among a large proportion of the children subsequently classified as “out of school and out of work”. The fact that among juvenile offenders there is a large incidence of records of serious disturbances in the course of their education from an early age is obvious evidence of the need to pay special attention to school maladjustment with a view to the prevention of juvenile delinquency. Since the surveys have shown that a large proportion of children with serious school failures come from adverse home backgrounds, from broken homes, from homes in which the father is an alcoholic and from homes whose material circumstances are bad, it is essential to put such families under special supervision and also to provide welfare benefits to the mothers of children in such home.

191-212

Authors: Anna Kossowska

The principal aim of the article is to examine some aspects of the distribution over the area of Warsaw of offences committed by young adults (17-20 years) convicted of acts bearing the nature of hooliganism. The analysis of this question was based on material relating to young convicts resident in Warsaw who had sentenced for offences against the person or against public officials which were ruled by the courts to bear the nature of hooliganism. These young adults were inmates of Warsaw prisons in the years 1967 - 1968. In examining the criminal records of the 493 young adults serving sentences for hooligan offences account was taken of all their convictions between the ages of 17 and 20, i.e. not the offences of a hooligan nature for which they were serving sentences at the time of the inquiry, but also their previous and subsequent convictions before they reached their 21st birthday. It was found that 45 per cent of them had more than one conviction between the ages of 17 and 20; of these recidivists 69 per cent had two convictions and 31 per cent three. It is also worth noting the fact that a third of all the young adults convicted of hooligan offences had, before their 17th birthday, appeared in juvenile courts (usually on stealing charges). Of these 46.4 per cent had been prosecuted once, 16.1 per cent twice, and 37.5 per cent three or more times. As regards the character of the offences of the 224 young adult convicts with more than one conviction since their 17th birthday, it was as follows: – 55 per cent of these recidivists had been convicted solely of offences involving physical aggression (verbal aggression in only a few cases); – 40 per cent for offences involving aggression and at least one offence against property; – 5 per cent for offences involving aggression and other offences, but not against property; A study of the criminal records of these recidivists revealed that in as many as 73 per cent of these cases the offences were solely or chiefly ones of violence (there were only a very few instances of verbal aggression), a fact which merits special attention in view of the typical circumstance that these offences are generally committed while intoxicated. Only rarely, however, did the aggressive offences cause any more serious harm to the victims: among all the offences of this type, grave ones constituted no more than two per cent, or six per cent if robbery is included. Turning now to the ecological analysis of the law-breaking of the young adults convicted of hooligan offences, it should be remarked that the classification of Warsaw’s seven districts (boroughs) according to the incidence of the phenomenon in questions differs fundamentally depending on the frame of reference of the analysis: whether we make the criterion the place where the offence was committed or the place where the offender lives. In terms of the place where the hooligan offences of the young adult group in question were committed, the highest incidence rate was recorded in two districts: Central Warsaw and Northern Praga District. A similar picture emerged from a study of the police records relating to young adults suspected of offences against the person or public officials on the area of Warsaw. These two districts bear a resemblance to each other in certain respects: Central Warsaw is the commercial and entertainments centre of Warsaw, especially its left-bank neighbourhoods and Northern Praga performs the same role for right-bank Warsaw. Both these districts also contain railway stations serving the city’s environs. It is also worth emphasizing that both these districts also have the highest incidence of crime committed by all suspected male adults, not only aggressive offences, but other felonies in general. They also have the highest crime discovery rate. To sum up, it can be seen that the highest incidence of crime is to be found in the districts which are the commercial and entertainments centres of Warsaw. The classification of Warsaw’s districts is different when the factors taken into account relate to the place where the young adults convicted of hooligan offences lived and not where their offences were committed. The first two places are then occupied by Żoliborz and Mokotów, two districts with no specifically distinctive features (and basically of a residential nature). Central Warsaw, in first place as regards the incidence of hooligan offences, drops to last but one among Warsaw’s seven districts as the place of residence of the offenders. Since almost a half of the population in question were recidivists, the question arose whether there were any distinct variations in the percentage of recidivists resident in each district. It was found that a decidedly higher percentage of residents than the average for Warsaw as a whole was a feature of a traditionally industrial district (Wola). It seemed interesting to look into the relationship between the place of residence of the subjects and the place where they committed their offences. A majority of their offences were committed in the same district as they lived, with the percentage for each oscillating between 54.7 and 70.1. Central Warsaw stands out from other districts as one in which the majority of the offences committed within its area were committed by offenders resident elsewhere: only 36.8 per cent of those guilty of offences committed within its area also lived there, whereas the corresponding percentages for other districts run from 62 to 80 per cent. It was also found that each district contains certain neighbourhoods which are the homes of a particularly large number of young adults convicted of hooligan offences. Inquiries into the territorial distribution around Warsaw of various types of crime committed by different age groups are currently being conducted by the Department of Criminology of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

214-227

Authors: Stanisław Batawia

The Problem of Early Alcoholizm The group of 50 repeatedly convicted recidivists, dealt with in this article, aged 38 on the average, deserves particular attention, first of all because their delinquency was started only when they had turned 25 - 27 (and there were no data that they had committed offences before). It distinguishes them from the typical most often occurring persistent recidivists who, as a rule, start to commit offences already as juveniles, or a little later as young adults. The above recidivists deserve, moreover, to be distinguished when considering the problem of recidivism, for they represent the population of alcohol addicts whose delinquency is a consequence of their addiction to alcohol and who differ from typical alcohol addicts, even from those submitted to compulsory treatment, first of all in the extent and in the considerable rapidity of their recidivism. In the investigations of the cases of repeatedly convicted recidivists aged 17 – 20, 21 – 25 and 26 – 35, prosecuted previously by the Department of Criminology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, it was ascertained that a considerable majority of them used to drink heavily several times a week and that a great percentage of them could be reckoned among alcohol addicts. The fact that, during the investigations prosecuted in prisons, 31 per cent of young adult recidivists (aged, on the average, about 20) and no fewer than 58 per cent of young recidivists (aged on the average 23.4) already manifested initial symptoms of addiction to, alcohol, is highly significant. As regards repeatedly convicted recidivists aged 26 – 35 (average age about 31) – 53 per cent from among them showed symptoms of addiction to alcohol characteristic of an advanced stage of alcoholism. It should be emphasized that there were among these 3 groups as many as 91 – 70 – 63 per cent of recidivists who started to commit offences already as juveniles; the percentage of recidivists on whom the first punishment was inflicted by the court only when they were 21 or more, did not exceed 20 per cent among those aged 21 – 24, or 29.6 per cent among those aged 26 – 35. It was just only among the last group of recidivists on whom the first punishment was inflicted comparatively late, (when they had turned 21), that there occurred a not numerous category of recidivists whose regular abuse of alcohol and the symptoms of addiction to it had preceded their delinquency. Yet in the group of 50 recidivists, dealt with in the article by S. Szelhaus, on whom the first punishment was inflicted when they were 25 – 27 – practically all of them (94 per cent), when they started to commit offences, were probably already alcohol addicts and not only individuals regularly abusing alcohol. Although though thorough investigations, carried out in prisons, could cover only about one-third of them, and the documentation with diagnosis of addiction to alcohol in 60 per cent of them was complemented by judical-psychiatric experts’ evidence and by medical certificates – yet in the light of the total data contained in the records of the court and of the police, the supposition that in the majority of the remaining cases we have to deal, as a rule, with individuals who had been alcohol addicts already when they were brought to court for the first time – can be admitted. The problem of an early appearance of symptoms of addiction to alcohol in a certain category of young adults abusing strong drinks has a great importance when considering the occurrence of their subsequent social maladjustment and recidivism. That is why we give in brief the results of such new investigations made in the Soviet Union concerning treated alcohol addicts, in which importance was attached to the most accurate ascertainment of the age at which the successive stages of addiction to alcohol were developing. The question of the ascertainment of the age from which date the symptoms evidencing the initial stage of addiction to alcohol, is, of course, connected first of all with deciding which symptoms should be considered as entitling us to diagnose addiction to alcohol as a pathological process. If, according to the opinions of the majority of authors, we consider the loss of control as one of the chief criteria, then, judging from the rich material of A. Piatnicka and A. Portnov (1971), covering 968 alcohol addicts treated at out-patients’ departments, and 685 ones treated at clinics, the symptoms characteristic of the first stage of alcoholism appeared at the age under 26 in as many as 54 per cent and 61 per cent of alcohol addicts respectively, therein even in those aged under 21 – in 19 per cent and 22 per cent of cases respectively. According to the results of B. Segal’s investigations (1967), 19 per cent of 515 alcohol addicts treated at hospitals showed initial symptoms at the age under 25; according to those of Tähka (1966) the loss of control appeared in alcoholics aged 26.8 on the average, while in 34 per cent already at the age under 26. In connection with the numerous population of alcoholics showing early symptoms of addiction to alcohol, one ought to realize that as regards many alcoholics – from the beginning of their addiction till the appearance of pathological symptoms, often pass no more than 5 years, and that in juveniles who often started to tipple under 17 and who usually manifest pathological traits of personality – the first symptoms of addiction to alcohol may arise even after 1 – 2 years. The fact that in the rich material of Piatnicka, and Portnov, mentioned above and concerning treated alcohol addicts, as many as 1/5 showed symptoms of addiction to alcohol under 21, has an essential importance. When compared with the above data, the results of the investigations concerning the early beginnings of addiction to alcohol in persistent criminals showing, as a rule, personality disorders, who usually start to abuse alcohol when aged under 17 – 18 – should not give rise to astonishment. Other results of the investigations of the cases of alcohol addicts, which deserve attention, are those that evidence the fact that the period of the first stage is usually short, for in a great majority of treated alcohol addicts mentioned in the above material it does not exceed 2 – 3 years, and that the symptoms of the second, advanced stage, in which there already appears the abstinence syndrome, were found in 17 per cent and in 26 per cent of the investigated alcohol addicts aged under 26, and in 43 per cent and 60 per cent in those under 30. Thus the opinion (based on the age of the alcohol addicts submitted to treatment) that the symptoms of the advanced stage have not been observed in alcohol addicts aged under 30 – would be wrong. For this advanced stage can be ascertained even in some alcohol addicts under 25 – but those are, as a rule, beyond the reach of out-patients or hospital treatment. To complete the above data, it may be well perhaps to add that in the above mentioned material there were as many as 24 per cent and 31 per cent of alcohol addicts, aged under 31, in the third, most advanced stage of addiction (in Segal’s material – 19 per cent). Passing on to the question of the extent of addiction to alcohol in 50 recidivists, we shall first present the data on the early stage of their heavy drinking, and shall try to determine approximately the age from which probably date the symptoms of their addiction to alcohol. Such an attempt to ascertain the age at which the first symptoms appeared may, of course, be questioned in view of the lack of proper medical documentation; yet the data contained in the materials relating to the majority (60 per cent) of recidivists allow to establish certain fundamental facts. 57 per cent from among them started to drink heavily several times a week they were aged under 20 (as a rule, when they were 17 -18, and certain of them even earlier – under 16), and only about ¼ of them started to abuse alcohol regularly not before 22. It should also be stressed that personality disorders dating from early youth are a typical occurrence among the recidivists who were submitted to investigations, that nearly a half of them (44 per cent) are encephalopaths and that the cases of low IQs are frequent occurrence. Bearing in mind that the first symptoms of addiction to alcohol appear, in a considerable percentage of cases, within 5 years since the beginning of their indulging in alcohol, and that in persons who started to drink heavily being very young and who show serious personality disorders, symptoms of addiction to alcohol may appear already after 1 – 2 years – the hypothesis that the majority of these recidivists showed, when aged only 23 – 24, symptoms characteristic at least of the first stage of addiction to alcohol – may be acknowledged as well founded. Only in about ¼ of them the initial symptoms appeared probably at the age ander 26 – 27, (and they could have appeared even earlier judging from the data on their early and prompt degradation in work). This estimation is very safe when compared with the above results of the investigations of treated alcohol addicts, among whom 20 per cent showed symptoms of addiction to alcohol at the age under 21. Basing, furthermore, on the results of the investigations which point to the fact that in almost ¾ of alcohol addicts the first stage did not last longer than 3 years, it may be acknowledged that at least about 60 per cent of the recidivists showed symptoms of the second stage (with abstinence syndrome) at the age of 26 – 27, and about 25 per cent about 25 per cent when they were probably younger than 30 – 31. Taking into consideration the fact that the average age of these recidivists was lately about 38, it should be supposed that probably nearly all of them are showing now symptoms typical of the third, the most advanced stage of alcoholism, with serious psychic and somatic disorders and with the syndrome of organic alcoholic deterioration. The data of the time when the above mentioned recidivists were aged under 30 – 31, concerning the frequency of their getting drunk, their behaviour at home and at places of employment, (as a rule only a casual one), the kind and the circumstances of their offences – evidence the fact that they were already then, with perhaps not-numerous exceptions, alcohol addicts with symptoms typical of at least the second stage. These data evidence a very rapidly advancing process of their social degradation. As regards the category of alcohol addicts who transformed themselves into persistent offenders – the penal measures applied even in the initial period of their delinquency had, of course, to fail. For as results from the investigations of typical cases, we have here to do with individuals with very serious personality disorders already in the period of their early youth, in whom the course of addiction to alcohol was particularly rapid and malicious.

270-303

Authors: Andrzej Mościskier, Edward Syzduł

The publication compiles data from police records on offences discovered in 1965-1969 and the persons suspected of them.