﻿Edmoxdsox : Juvenile Delinquency axd Adult Crime 45 



4. Description of Method Used 



Juvenile delinquents and adult offenders are treated in this 

 study according to so-called single race or nationality units. 

 These terms, "race" and "nationality", are used in their loose pop- 

 ular sense. 27 For example, they cover such groups as American 

 negroes and Slovaks, neither of which can be spoken of properly 

 as a race or a nation; as well as Japanese and Chinese where the 

 terms may be applied properly. In the absence of a term which 

 accurately describes all the divisions, they have been designated 

 according to the answers given to the question, "To what race 

 do you belong?" or "To what nationality do you belong?" — that 

 is, "I am a Slav", "I am a Jew", etc. Altho this method is in 

 many ways unsatisfactory, country of birth as a determinant of 

 race or nationality is much less satisfactory. This becomes 

 apparent when there is considered, for example, such a country 

 as Austria-Hungary, from which alone come 12 races or national- 

 ities, 7 Slavic and 5 non-Slavic — Bohemians, Ruthenians, Bul- 

 garians, Slovaks, Slovenians, Poles, Servo-Croatians, Germans, 

 Roumanians, Magyars, Albanians, and Italians. 28 In some of 

 the materials used information both as to race or nationality and 

 country of birth is available and offers much more satisfactory 

 results. 



For purposes of this study, however, race or nationality 

 consciousness is perhaps after all the important factor. In the 

 study of juvenile delinquency,race or nationality is determined 

 rather by the parentage of the child than by the child himself, 

 because of the fact that race consciousness is usually present 

 in the second generation in the age covered by juA^enile delin- 

 quency laws; and in the study of adult offenders race or national 

 ity is determined by the individual himself. A slight inaccuracy 

 results from this method because of differences in race or national- 

 ity consciousness in the New Immigration and the Old Immigra- 

 tion. For example, American born children of foreign born 

 parents of the Xew Immigration often assert that they are Amer- 

 icans and that their parents are ''foreigners" in answer to the 

 question of race or nationality: while in the Old Immigration, 

 especially among the Irish and the Germans, the third and fourth 

 generation cling to the country of their ancestors. 29 



27 See discussion of race, ethnic groups, etc., the Races of Man, J. Deniker, chaps, 

 viii-ix. 



2 *Emily G. Balch (Our Slavic Fellow Citizens), p. 32. 



29 It will be noted that this statement was made in 1916 and not in the light of 

 recent events which have brought out in bold relief this characteristic of these two 

 national units. 



