“Taranaki Central Press” TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 1937. A BORSTAL EXPERIMENT.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 412, 20 April 1937, Page 4

“Taranaki Central Press” TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 1937. A BORSTAL EXPERIMENT.

An extensive psychological experiment on the influence of | vocational training on, Borstal inmates has just been concluded in I England, and its results have been published by the Medical Research Council. They are very favourable to a continuation of the work, for “vocational content” has been shown in 70 per cent, of cases, and has been reflected in general content. The experiment began with intelligence and vocational tests on 400 boys. They gave a generally truthful outline of their lifehistory, which unknown to them was in the possession of the investigator, and showed sensible notions about their simple ambitions and the careers for which they might have an aptitude. One Irishman, it is true, had an ambition merely to sing outside publichouses, and psychological exaggerations were often revealed, in one case by a youth who said that he had been on the stage, though he did not say it was only as a wave under a carpet in a provincial production of “Robinson Crusoe.” The investigator had no difficulty in recognising boys capable of doing skilled work, but it was not always easy to decide on the class of work. The conclusion arrived at from the examination was that there was no appreciable difference between the average level of ability among Borstal boys and those adolescents who had attended elementary schools. This, by the way, challenged Dr. Burt’s conclusions that 28> per cent, of criminals are dull, in comparison with 1 0 per cent, of the general population. To control the experiment, half of the boys were given training in accordance with the investigator’s recommendations and half were left to run their sentence without guidance. The test of vocational contentment” was entirely in favour of the controlled training. It pointed to the importance of skilled rather than unskilled work in producing contentment, and the chief regret seemed to be that the range of vocations within an institution was too limited to accommodate the diversity of types. The report will doubtless lead to a general adoption of vocational training, possibly under a resident psychologist.