Self‐reported Delinquency among Schoolboys, and their Attitudes to the Police

An individually administered test battery was given to 94 boys in their 15th year at Grammar, Secondary Modern and Approved Schools. This involved a card‐sorting technique in which the boys indicated their (i) job preferences, (ii) leisure interests, (iii) attitude to the police, and (iv) admission of delinquent acts committed by boys known to them, by their friends and by themselves. The present report gives details of the attitude scale and the admission of offences in relation to the three categories of boys, separately. The relationship of the attitudes and group membership to admission of offences was as expected from a review of similar studies in self‐reported delinquency.