ABSTRACT
On 17 December 1927, in an article in The Lancet, Dr. E. A. Hamilton-Pearson, chief physician at the Children’s Department of the Tavistock Clinic for Functional Nervous Disorders in London, highlighted the findings of a Home Office investigation that had been running for seven years and that was aimed at seeking scientific explanations for the causes of juvenile delinquency. Hamilton-Pearson stated that the study had been ‘undertaken in no narrow psychological spirit, but with the object of exploring all factors, physical as well as psychological and environmental.’ In particular he emphasised one key finding:
An environment characterised by a harsh unbending discipline may produce a psychological rabbit or a rebel against any form of authority. In one type the conflict resulting from non-adaptation remains un-resolved, a collecting point for irresolutions, a neurosis. In another type, the conflict is resolved in action which is at variance with accepted standards, a delinquency. 1
