Social Ethics Department Attempts Intensive Study of Criminal Records--500 Men From Concord Investigated

In making the first intensive study of the effectiveness of reformatory regime, Professor R. C. Cabot '89 of the Social Ethics Department in cooperation, with Dr. Sheldon Glueck and five assistants, is attempting an entirely novel research.

Dr. Glueck said to a CRIMSON reporter on this subject: "It is the first time in history that such investigations have been made. We have been making a qualitative study of the prison life histories, periods of confinement, and subsequent careers of 500 former inmates of the Concord Reformatory, in an effort to ascertain exactly what the effect of imprisonment is on the men.

"We have been especially interested in what the men have done since the close of the paroles upon which they were released. The 500 men we have traced, representing two years' releases, were all between the ages of 17 and 25 while at Concord, and it is a notable fact that we have been able to follow up 90 percent of them."

Dr. Glueck then explained that although criminological literature is full of statements as to the success and failure of former inmates of prisons, it is a matter of record that there is hardly one scientific study to support the estimates of success and failure.

"All the men in and about Massachusetts have been personally interviewed," added Dr. Glueck, "and in general we are making one of the first piece of intense social audit. While it is well known that a business house cannot run for long without keeping books people seem to take for granted that society can continue its century-long existence without them. Considering the woeful inadequacy of American criminal records, the fact that we have followed up 90 percent of the men in question is extremely significant of the possibilities of a thorough system."

In studying the successes of the released men, success is not looked upon in the customary limited way, but taken to include success in every conceivable line, family life, associations, religious attachments as well as business. In observing their business progress, it is to see how they have utilized the knowledge of the trade they learned at the reformatory. "For of course," Dr. Glueck said, "many of these young men became criminals for lack of knowing anything else to do. On the other hand we find great numbers of the men, at the end of the five-year period back in jail somewhere or in an insane say him."