Experts Here Predict Reactions of Criminals

"Response of different types of criminals to various forms of punishment and correction can be predicted with sufficient accuracy to justify a fundamental change in existing sentencing and releasing procedures."

This is the revolutionary conclusion of criminologists Sheldon. Glueck and Eleanor T. Glueck of the Harvard Law School in a pioneering study of the cases of 500 male offenders from childhood until 15 years after their release from a reformatory.

"Criminal Career in Retrospect," just published by the Commonwealth Fund which supported the research, is the latest in a series of analyses of criminal careers made by the Gluecks since 1925, and the most intensive and comprehensive survey ever made of the lives of hundreds of criminals.

Numerous prediction tables presented in the new work reveal the possibility of determining the kind of penal or correctional treatment from which a particular offender is most likely to benefit.