576 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE OHIO PLAN FOR THE STUDY OF DELINQUENCY 



By Professok THOMAS H. HAINES 



BUEEAU OF JUVENILE KESEAECH, COLUMBUS, OHIO 



B5r the careful study of the problems of human heredity in the last 

 few years, eugenic workers have brought about a more general 

 appreciation of the tremendous burden and waste brought about by the 

 propagation of misfits. It is generally accepted that the principles of 

 breeding, which hold for Guernsey cattle and navel oranges, hold also 

 for human beings — that social misfits reproduce their defects quite as 

 certainly as do long-haired guinea-j)igs and corn grains, rich in starch 

 content, reproduce their respective qualities. Mendel's Law is valid 

 for all living forms. Furthermore, high-grade defectives are very 

 prolific. Restraints, which affect the numbers of children borne by 

 normal mothers, have no effect upon the amount of progeny of the 

 feeble-minded, so they tend to reproduce much faster than the normal 

 persons around them. It is therefore self-evident that society must 

 impose artificial restraints, for its own safeguarding. 



1. The first suggestion, which occurs to every one, is to segregate the 

 misfit and thus prevent propagation. With the estimates of the num- 

 bers of defectives, it is quite impossible to provide asylums, schools 

 and custodial farms for all defectives. Such institutions as are pro- 

 vided by states and private munificence are everywhere overcrowded 

 and holding long waiting lists, while normal children in the public 

 schools are hindered in their education by the presence in their classes 

 of feeble-minded children. It is much too great a burden for society 

 to undertake the lifelong segregation of all the feeble-minded. Further- 

 more, it is not an intelligent procedure, until we are better informed 

 as to different sorts of defect, and their respective viabilities in the 

 stocks. 



2. Again, sterilization has been proposed as a panacea for this social 

 ill — the threatened enormous increase of the feeble-minded. But this 

 is by no means a solution of the problem. Sterilization would cer- 

 tainly stop the breeding of the sterilized, but the consequences of 

 known immunity from conception through salpingectomy of the female 

 or vasectomy of the male, would lead to much increase of immorality 

 and spread of venereal diseases. Such operations do not remove sex 

 feelings for a considerable period of time. 



Twelve states have passed sterilization acts. Seven of these spe- 

 cifically provided for the sterilization of the mentally defective; three 

 others, of inmates of state hospitals, reformatories and prisons ; and two, 

 of habitual criminals and persons guilty of abuse of girls under ten 



