Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-g4j75 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-11T08:09:13.314Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Effect of Low Intelligence on the Emotional and Environmental Concepts of Retarded Offenders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

M. Bhagat  and
W. I. Fraser
M. Bhagat
Affiliation:
Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy, Fife; now Airedale General Hospital, Keighley, Yorkshire
W. I. Fraser
Affiliation:
Lynebank Hospital, Dunfermline, Fife
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Over the past thirty years the emphasis on low intelligence as a major causal factor in criminality has decreased considerably. When intelligence tests were less refined, early in this century, authors considered a depressed intelligence score as an important determinant in delinquency. Improved psychometrics, with their culturally non-biased test items, have since proved that individuals from deprived upbringing and adverse social learning situations do relatively poorly on verbal items. Woodward (1955) pointed out that both in this country and in the United States the delinquent is only 8 I.Q. points behind the normal population. Opinions amongst psychologists have gradually but radically changed, and it is for this reason that research workers now look elsewhere for causal factors in the subnormal offender rather than attributing his delinquencies to low intelligence.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 119 , Issue 553 , December 1971 , pp. 639 - 646
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1971 

References

Bhagat, M., and Fraser, W. I. (1970a). ‘Young offenders' images of self and surroundings: a semantic enquiry.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 117, 381–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bhagat, M., and Fraser, W. I. (1970b). ‘The meaning of concepts to the retarded offender.’ American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 75, 260–7.Google Scholar
Castell, J. H. F., and Mittler, P. J. (1965). ‘Intelligence of patients in subnormality hospitals.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 3, 219–25.Google Scholar
Clarke, A. D. B., and Clarke, A. M. (1954). ‘Cognitive changes in the feeble-minded.’ British Journal of Psychology, 45, 173–9.Google Scholar
East, W. N., Stocks, P., and Youno, H. T. P. (1942). The Adolescent Criminal: A Medico-Sociological Study of Four Thousand Male Adolescents. London: Churchill.Google Scholar
Fraser, W. I. (1970). ‘A retrospective and cross-sectional investigation of a deviant subcultural group.’ American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 75, 298–303.Google Scholar
Gibbens, T. C. N. (1963). Psychiatric Studies of Borstal Lads. Maudsley Monographs No. 11. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Glueck, E. T. (1935). ‘Mental retardation and juvenile delinquency.’ Mental Hygiene, 19, 549–72.Google Scholar
McCord, W., and McCord, J. (1959). Origin of Crime. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Milner, K. O. (1949). ‘Delinquent types of mentally defective persons.’ Journal of Mental Sciences, 95, 401–7.Google ScholarPubMed
Osgood, C. E., Suci, G. J., and Tannenbaum, P. H. (1957). The Measurement of Meaning, Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1926). The Child's Conception of the World. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951.Google Scholar
Stein, Z., and Susser, M. (1960). ‘Families of dull children.’ Journal of Mental Science, 106, 1296–319.Google Scholar
West, D. J. (1967). The Young Offender. Penguin Books.Google Scholar
West, D. J. (1969). Present Conduct and Future Delinquency. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Woodward, M. (1955). ‘The role of low intelligence in delinquency.’ British Journal of Delinquency, 5, 281–303.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.