(1) The distinction between well developed and less developed countries is difficult to assess inasmuch as in each country there are a variety of aspects to be considered and not all of them develop in the same desirable way.

Usually, but not necessarily correctly, by well developed country is understood a country highly industrialized, suffering from over urbanization and with a rather high individual and collective income. This concept of well developed is incomplete, but under the influence of this type of country widely accepted even in international policy making bodies of the United Nations and revered by most of the less developed countries. Such a policy overlooks that economically and financially high levels are not automatically parallelled by the same levels in the political, human rights and social fields. This gap or series of gaps explains why discrimination, intolerance, corruption, defective education systems, family disintegration and widespread crime, particularly well-organized crime, and delinquency are often found in these so-called well developed countries. It is under the influence of this equivocal concept that international standards of living have been formulated and put forward as guiding principles or policies. The term «developing» is equally wrong but it is used here because it appears on the agenda of the Course. It rather reflects a psychological reaction among the less developed countries that apparently prefer to be called «developing», a term that by implication means that others are not developing at all or are already fully developed, which is not so. Actually, every country is always developing in one way or another. Furthermore, as already implied, to develop does not necessarily mean equal progress in every respect or that it is in the right direction.

(2) The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the United Nations.

(3) The Secretariat of the United Nations has referred to the necessity of an evaluation as well as of a policy for prevention on several occasions. See inter alia: The Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency in Selected European Countries, ST/SOA/SD/6, 1955; The Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, in International Review of Criminal Policy, n^os 7-8, Sales n° 1955.IV.10; recommendations on juvenile delinquency in the Report of the First United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Sales n° 1956.IV.4. Attention was drawn to the lack of progress in research regarding the prevention of juvenile delinquency aggravated by the lack of coordination, in the Report of the Secretariat on New Forms of Juvenile Delinquency: their Origin, Prevention and Treatment, A/Conf. 17/7, 1960, as well as in its Report on the Second United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Sales n° 61.IV.3. The lack of balance in the existing trend has recently been stressed by Dr. Edward GALWAY, Chief of the Section of Social Defence, in his closing address at the European Seminar on the Evaluation of Methods used in the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, Rome 1962. Also illuminating in this respect is the Survey of Research on the Effectiveness of Current Programmes for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, 1962, published by the Council of Europe and prepared by Dr. R.-L. MORRISON.

(4) As for examples of «atomization», the report on Current projects in the Prevention, Control and Treatment of Crime and Delinquency, New York 1962, published by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, offers a choice. Thus the summary of one of the projects listed reads as follows: «The following hypothese were supported by data: non-delinquents will exhibit greater interest in career preparation of training and generally evidence greater orientation towards a greater concern for the concrete present. Delinquents will evidence a significantly higher degree of aggressiveness independance, and diversity of their reponses while the nondelinquents will be more conforming and conventional in their replies. Although the delinquents were matched according to their father's occupational achievement of the delinquent's fathers was, on the average, two full years less than the highest grade achieved by the fathers of the control group. The data in this area of parental background has not yet been sufficiently explored.» Another project on the influences of group psychotherapy used only six boys as an experimental group. These were matched by another six boys who did not receive the treatment. According to the report the results were not amenable to statistical validation—a conclusion which was obvious without undertaking any experiment. The report says, however, that a suggestive increase in extrapunitive responses and a shift from ego defence toward obstacle dominance were observed, and that the only movement observable in the control group seemed to be from the ego defence type of aggression toward the need persistent type (sic). The findings of another project on juvenile delinquency in three subcultures reads as follows: «It was found that the upper middle and lower-calss youth did not differ significantly with one another, or with their own observers, but there was a significant difference at the .05% level of confidence in the responses when all delinquent's responses were compared to all the observer's responses. It was concluded that the feelings held by delinquents are relatively the same, but the manner in which these feelings originated were different.» As for abstracted empiricism, the reader is referred to my paper Some Misconceptions in Contemporary Criminology, in Essays in Criminal Science edited by Professor G.-O.-W. MUELLER, London 1961, pp. 5-29.

(5) The artificiality of this transposition as well as the character of other assumptions on which prediction tables are based were examined by the writer in the paper mentioned in the previous note.

(6) Contrary to this point of view is that of the Gluecks, Mannheim and others supporting prediction tables. Thus the Gluecks, in Unravelling Juvenile Delinquency, isolated 402 factors, out of which fifteen divided into three groups were selected as those enabling the prediction of predelinquency. The groups refer respectively to social, characterological and personality traits. Apparently it is firmly believed that this handful of factors, and no others, is enough to predict future delinquency. The reason for this conclusion seems to be the degree of probability represented by the frequency of, and score assigned to, these factors. But as far as human behaviour is concerned frequency and probability do not necessarily imply predictability. Doubtless this is determined by other factors than those regarded as probable. This simplification of the structure and dynamics of human behaviour is contrary to what is known about both aspects and the interdependence of personality and environment. Apparently the trend to simplification is stressed in another project undertaken by Dr. Eleanor-T. GLUECK. See project n° 66 in the Report mentioned in note 4.

(7) When, at the International Colloquium on Criminology, Copenhagen 1959, I explained the above point of view, it was regarded by some as a variation of the theory of differential associations. Although in my opinion learning plays a definite rôle in crime and delinquency as well as in the formation of attitudes and this has been known for centuries—my thesis cannot be identified with that of differential associations with which it no doubt has some points of contact. Sutherland's theory has, among other merits, that of constituting a departure from the causative-naturalistic theories of many Americans. The need for a new approach to delinquency and crime has been stressed by me for years past on many occasions. More recently in Present Approaches to the Problem of Juvenile Delinquency, in Federal Probation, June 1959; Juvenile Delinquency, Maladjustment and Maturity, in Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science, 51 n° 1 May-June 1960; New Criminological Approaches to the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, in Bulletin of the International Society of Criminology, Paris 1961, and Les exigences pénales d'aujourd' hui et la politique criminelle contemporaine, in Revue internationale de criminologie et de police scientifique, XVI, n° 4, Geneva 1962.

(8) Against the inflation of the concept of juvenile delinquency see the recommendations on the matter of the two United Nations Congresses, as well as the writer's papers already cited. A legal concept of delinquency, the only one which is valid, is maintained in most of the European countries including the U.S.S.R., and most of the Arab and Latin American countries. However, in these countries one quite often finds supporters of the all-embracing concept of delinquency which prevails in the United States, the Scandinavian countries, Israel and others. At national and international meetings the supporters of inflation are usually numerous. Nevertheless, even in the United States a definite reaction against it is under way. It is to be regretted that such a distinguished professional as Dr. GIBBENS has recently stated that «Delinquency refers to such a wide range of behaviour from the most trival to the most serious, that the term has practically no significance from the psychological point of view. The crime itself tells us nothing about the offender.» See his paper, Evaluation of Methods of Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency: The Medical Contribution, UN/SOA/SEM/8/WP. 3, submitted to the European Meeting on these evaluation methods held at Rome in October 1962. To this sweeping statement, I should like to say that it was maintained and generally accepted long before psychiatry existed that quite often crime and delinquency tell significant facts about the offender. Psychologically the fact of being a rapist, an embezzler, a sadist, a corrupter of minors, a persistent thief, an arsonist, a bigamist, etc., has obviously some significance. In rebuttal to similar assertions it should be said that the psychological process of killing or causing grievous bodily injury is not the same if committed on the battlefield, because of gain, as a result of immediate and serious provocation, in the middle of a quarrel or as a result of being out looking for trouble. In all these and many other cases the setting pervades the psychological process and characterises it. There are no pure psychological processes; all of them are tainted with something outside themselves.

(9) Part of what is said is based on the writer's personal knowledge of Arab, Asian and Far Eastern and Latin American countries. As for African countries, reference is made to the Report of the Seminar on Population Problems in Africa, E/CN 14/186, Cairo 1962, as well as to the papers submitted to the Seminar.

(10) Actually in the past of the present well developed countries juveniles were part of the world around them, but brutality and economic interest made them victims. At present, for several reasons juveniles in the well developed countries are mostly marginal persons. The pattern has been followed by many less developed countries in Europe and Latin America.

(11) The main aspects of it have been examined by the writer in some of the papers cited, particularly in Les exigences pénales d'aujourd'hui et la politique criminelle-contemporaine, and more recently in La justice criminelle et la formation des juges, des magistrats du ministère public et des avocats, in Revue de droit pénal et de criminologie, Bruxelles, mars 1963. For reasons beyond my control the original English, although accepted for publication before the French translation was made, has as yet not appeared. Both papers are forerunners of my book under preparation on Criminal Justice and Criminal Policy.

(12) This corresponds to the recommendations made by the Second United Nations Congress, antecedents of which can be found in the recommendations on the same subject of the First Congress. Although these recommendations are not binding they have an evident guiding character which cannot be ignored. The non-identification of maladjustment with delinquency, as well as the definition of juvenile delinquency as the commission of an act which, if committed by an adult would be considered as crime, were categorically adopted in the Findings of the Second United Nations Seminar for the Arab States on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, 1959, ST/TAO/SER. C./42. It was also recommended that any legislation that considers delinquent and non-delinquent children alike because both need assistance, should be replaced by legislation more in accordance with the recommendations made.

(13) See recommendations and findings mentioned in previous footnote.

(14) See reports prepared by DD. J.-J. PANAKAL, A.-M. KHALIFA and the United Nations Secretariat on Prevention of types of criminality resulting from social changes and accompanying economic development in less developed countries for the Second United Nations Congress already mentioned, documents A/Conf. 17/3 and 4. Part of what is said in the text reflects some of the data of these reports as well as the recommendations of the Congress on this matter.

(15) The question of Human Rights is usually referred to in a rather general way when migration and delinquency are discussed. A closer consideration shows that freedom of movement, the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work, to protection against unemployment as well as the right to just and favourable remuneration, necessarily imply some restrictions and intervention so as to make all these rights effective.

(16) This belief also prevails in the formulation of economic and social policies at the international level. As a remedy, a new trend has been initiated called balanced economic and social development. However, a policy of balancing both forms of development still means that each of them is taken separately. What is required, in the writer's opinion, is the joint formulation of a single socio-economic policy.

(17) Typical is the present exodus from northern to southern regions of England.

(18) Free access to Colleges and Universities has, in many Latin American countries, created problems having a direct impact on the social, economic and political field as well as on crime and delinquency. Steps to put a stop to this free access, erroneously regarded as democratic, have already been taken in the University of Mexico City, one of the largest in Latin America.

(19) At the Symposium of Dar-es-Salaam in September 1962 on Unemployed Youth, it was estimated that in 1960 fourty-one per cent of the population in some tropical African countries was under 15 years of age; it was also stressed that the problem of school-leavers was increasing in countries that had furnished data on the matter. See Unemployed Youth. An African Symposium, in International Labour Review, LXXXVII, 3, March 1963, pp. 183-206. For Asia and Latin American countries see Youth employment and Vocational Training. Schemes in the Developing Countries, ibidem, LXXXVI, 3, September 1962, pp. 209-234.

(20) In the United States, United Kingdom, etc. school teachers are rather scarce especially in the big cities where recource is made to temporary teachers without the necessary professional qualifications. The disintegration of the school as a center of social formation and the lower status of teachers in society is obvious in many countries, and this phenomenon quite often runs parallel to the rapid increase of juvenile delinquency. The results obtained by adding social workers and medico-psychological staff to this type of school do not correspond to expectations, and even less to the efforts, time and money involved. Without denying their beneficial effect, the truth is that the problem is deeper and that the solution lies in transforming the structure and purpose of the school. The traditional type of school cannot satisfy the needs and requirements of contemporary society whether in developed or less developed countries.