ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the deviant child and adolescent whose misconduct—as legally defined—leads to his control by some judicial and law-enforcing agency. It deals with some psychological comments on various treatment programs applied to delinquents. The chapter attempts to classify the overt acts labeled delinquent in terms of social-cultural and inner personality factors. While the state statutes vary in the matter of definition, the following from a model juvenile court law formulated by the National Probation Association provides a working basis for distinguishing delinquency from other, somewhat related acts. A more satisfactory method of classifying delinquent behavior might be through a consideration of the social-cultural situations under which conduct occurs. M. T. Healy and A. F. Bronner note, first, those delinquent cases for whom the prognosis of return to nondelinquent behavior is highly unfavorable even with sound family and community conditions.
