﻿II. Juvenile Delinquency and Adult Crime 



1. Statement of the Question 



It has long been the popular belief, supported until very 

 recently by the weight of scientific opinion, that the immigrants 

 in the United States furnish proportions to juvenile delinquency 

 and adult crime far in excess of their pioportion in the general 

 population. In proof of this view United States census figures 

 from 1850 to 1890 are cited, figures showing that, in every decade, 

 while in the general population the number of native bora whites 

 is far in excess of the foreign born, in the juvenile delinquent and 

 adult criminal population the number of the foreign born is far 

 in excess of the native born whites. 1 



In the special Report of the United States Census on Prisoners 

 and Juvenile Delinquents in 1904, John Koren subjects these 

 figures for the United States to a more searching analysis. 2 He 

 shows that conclusions unfavorable to the foreign born, drawn 

 from comparisons of the relative proportions of native born 

 whites and foreign born whites in the criminal population, as 

 given in previous United States census reports, are unfair to the 

 foreign born because the age bases of the comparison are unequal. 

 For the prison population of both native and foreign born is 

 chiefly of persons over 15 years of age, while the general population 

 of native born whites includes all ages, and of the foreign born 

 whites chiefly persons 15 to 40 years of age. Comparing the 

 native born whites and the foreign born on the same age basis 

 he finds that the figures are not so unfavorable to the foreign 

 born as formerly believed. In adult crime, in major offenses the 

 native born whites contribute a higher relative proportion than 

 the foreign born, but in minor offenses the foreign born contribute 

 a higher relative proportion than the native born. Koren sug- 

 gests that the explanation for this preponderance of the foreign 

 born in minor offenses may lie in the fact that the foreign born 

 are more highly concentrated in urban communities where minor 

 offenses are more severely punished. s In juvenile delinquent . 

 also, children of foreign parentage show higher proportional 



iDrahms, p. 170; U.S. Census, 1890, Table 4, p. 126 (Vol. on Penal and Benevolen 

 Institutions) . 



2Lydston, p. 133; Koren, pp. 18, 19, 41, 40, 28: Commons, p. 168. 

 3 Koren, pp. 41, 29. 



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