Delinquency, Maladjustment and Unfavourable Ecology

The dichotomy of ‘psychological’ and ‘sociological’ delinquency is criticized. To ascertain to what extent delinquency is purely cultural, the prevalence of psychological factors was investigated in a year‐group of Glasgow boy probationers. The latter were found to be strikingly more prone to behaviour‐disturbance than the non‐delinquent controls Contrary to theories of ‘cultural’ delinquency, the probationers in high‐delinquency areas were just as maladjusted as those in ‘good’ neighbourhoods. But the non‐delinquents were consistently less well adjusted the greater the density of delinquency. It is suggested that delinquency is mainly an aspect of more general behaviour disturbance in the under‐privileged quarters of large cities, and that this in turn is only one of several consequences of unfavourable ecology.