Narcotics research, rehabilitation, and treatment. Hearings, Ninety ...

438In addition to this, however, there are a significant number ofpeople that have other types of problems; for example, depressionand chronic anxiety. This group, perha])s, constitutes 25 percent ofthe addict population. And there jirobabl}' is another 25 percent ofthe population that we do not understancl very well, but which Dr.Kolb described man}^ years ago as frank hedonists that have a personalitythat makes them like to get intoxicated. We know very littleabout this group.Chairman Pepper. This is a little bit out of the area which weare discussing right now, but it relates to om* ])roblem as a committeeconcerned with crime. 1 have heard that the teachers or the ps\^chiatristswho know something about young peo])le say that it is possible todetermine in the very low grades in the jmblic schools, which studentshave a ])redilection toward the khid of conduct in later life, that wecall criminal conduct.Is there any such discoverable characteristic in children in the firstfew grades of public school?Dr. Brown. There is a serious body of research which has attemi)te(lto do this, to ])redict which students, say, in the first grade would goon in teenage and young adult life to criminal careers, and the evidenceis somewhat equivocal at this time.1 would say, again, we have carefully looked into this and we willbe glad to submit sort of a precis for your committee, but we do notyet have that hard knowledge to predict which child would turn outto be a criminal.(The material referred to above follows:)The develnpment of efficient prediction and prev^ention efforts to cope with theproblems of dehnquency and crime is greatly needed. However, in view of currentscientific and technological limitations, viz., the lack of accurate and economicallyfeasible predictive devices, very serious scientific and pul^lic policy problems haveto be considered. The younger the age at which predictions are made, the greaterthe technological and social policy problems. P>om a scientific standpoint, thereliability and accuracy of the predictions remains questionable, e.g., to say atage six or eight that a particular youngster is definitely headed for serious trouble.From a public policy standpoint, there are serious problems in labelling a child as"delinquency-prone" and then intervening in his life—before he has even displayedany overt problem behaviors.It is a statistical and empirical fact that predictions aimed at events whicli haverelativel}" low frequencies (e.g., serious or violent crimes), invariably have ratherhigh rates of errors. Thus, while devices such as the Glueck Delinquency PredictionScales do pick out high proportions of youngsters who may actually becomedelinquent, the\' do this at the cost of having rather high rates of "false positive"errors, viz., persons who are ])redicted to l)e delinquent but who do not laterdisplay such behavior. In addition, behavioral and social scientists point to variousother problems and complications which result from giving designations and labels(e.g., "delinquency-prone") to children who have not yet disi^layed problem Ix'-haviors. For example, such labels and preventive efforts could lead to "selffulfillingprophecies".In attempting to jjredict and prevent deliTiquency, otlier inii)ort;int fticts needto be considered. The great majority of youngsters engage in acts which couldbring them into official contact with the law, but most such youthful pranks andproblem behaviors do not come to official attention. P'urtliermore, police statisticstend to reflect social class and related l)ias(>s in the Imndling of problem behaviors.Thus, youngsters engaging in delinquent conduct will more likely become apolic(^ statistic if they come from lower social class and economicaUy and sociallydeprived families. Youngsters showing the same behavior but coming from middleand upper class and more stable families, will not as likely receive official adjudication.In other words, officially labelled deliiuiuent behavior does not simplyreflect the i)roblem displayed by the individual, l)ut also reflects the manner inwhich the comnnmity and social agencies have responded to that behavior.