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bulk of these women delinquents are misdemeanants. A third comparison can be made within 
the delinquent group dividing them according to class of offence, nationality, mental capacity, etc. 
The women considered are those who have a legal age of 16 years and over and were con- 
victed in the courts of New York State. The investigators would have preferred to secure the 
women at the time of conviction as they came through the various courts but this was not 
possible and the plan followed, though necessary, is open to objections. To avoid selection con- 
secutive commitments to the different institutions were taken whenever possible but even this 
could not always be carried out, as for example in the workhouse. The groups studied were 
(a) New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford Hills ; this includes women convicted 
of felonies and misdemeanors. Women convicted of murder in the first or second degree or who 
had previously committed a felony are not committed to Bedford Hills and very few women over 
30 are found there. There were 102 examined for the main part of the enquiry, (b) Auburn, 
for felons only ; 88 were examined and the enquiry was carried on for over two years, (c) The 
New York Magdalen Home under private management ; includes women between the ages of 16 
and 35 ; felons are not generally admitted, {d) The New York County Penitentiary ; there is 
no organized training provided and one would expect impromising cases, indeterminate sentences 
and older women to be sent here, (e) The New York City Workhouse which has only misde- 
meanants. The types of women who are committed here are (1) general misdemeanants who seem 
unpromising or have failed before, (2) new and relatively hopeful cases who have a sentence of 
only a few days, (3) intoxication cases. Only the first group could be studied since the second 
gi'oup were not in the workhouse long enough and the group of inebriates seemed to the investi- 
gators so senile and untruthful and their dwelling places were so shifting that information could 
not be obtained*. (/) Probation Cases from the Women's Night Court of Manhattan and the 
Bronx ; these women were all misdemeanants and generally first offenders. It is quite true that 
all offenders are represented except inebriates, but the author's material is not a true sample of 
all women delinquents even when the results are pooled and this seems to me to invalidate 
much of the work on age for instance. The period over which the women were examined varies 
considerably in the difiierent institutions, as for example in Auburn, where the enquiry was 
carried out for over two years and we shall therefore get a larger proportion of the type of women 
committed to Auburn than we should have in the general delinquent population ; in this case 
we shall have more felons and probably more older felons among these delinquent women 
than really exist. We are inclined to tliink that consecutive cases should have been examined 
over the same length of time in each institution or that the institutions should never have been 
pooled. Generally each institution is kept separate but not always. 
Correlation coefficients and ratios have been largel}^ employed and in all cases an "index of 
reservation is given"; this index is the probable error of more general use without the constant 
•67449. We are not sui'e that an r) from three groups is very satisfactory but the only alternative 
is to use a bi-serial "r" but we believe that this method is never used throughout the book. 
The mental condition of these women has been studied very fully. Four tests were used, 
Binet-Simon Scale 1911, Yerkes-Bridges Point Scale, Stanford-Binet Scale and Woolley Series, 
and finally educational tests were given to the Bedford women. Great care was taken in scoring 
and all the answers were taken down verbatim so that a second examiner could check the marks 
given. Also the women were judged by Professor Pearson's scale and generally speaking those 
who judged by this scale did not know the result of the tost examination. The final tests 
selected were those which gave the highest correlation between intelligence as judged by estima- 
tion and the result of tests applied to the Bedford group. The social investigation was carried 
out by six field workers. Information from the offender was followed liy visits to the home, to 
other relatives, to the employers and to social agencies who had been in touch with the offender. 
This investigation and that of the mental capacity of these women mu.st have entailed much 
work and seems to us an excellent model for future investigations which one would like to see 
carried out on an unselected female population. The relationship between age and number of 
previous convictions is discussed and compared with Dr Goring's results for English convicts 
but one doubts whether such comparisons are very useful. Dr Goring was dealing only with 
felons and he omitted first offenders while nearly half these women delinquents are first offenders 
and more than half are not felons, and as Dr Goring pointed out in England men and women 
differ considerably in the annual number of convictions for crime and in the type of crime com- 
mitted. The larger number of previous convictions among the users of alcohol is probably 
significant but we think a correction for ago should bo applied, since use of alcohol is correlated 
with age in the data as here presented and there is a significant though small correlation between 
the number of convictions and the age of the women. One would also like to know whether, if 
* To eliminate the inebriates, however, is to eliminate a considerable element of mental defectives, 
for to judge by English experience it is largely the mentally defective who take to alcohol. 
