The Study of the Delinquent as a Person

The general theories of criminality are of little or no value when it comes to controlling behavior. This applies to the unitary explanations of Lombroso, Tarde, and Bonger, and to the pluralistic interpretation of Ferri. In his work The Individual Delinquent, Healy performed a global study of the individual delinquent instead of using the methods of general observation, speculation, and statistics. As a psychiatrist and psychologist, he emphasized physical examinations and mental tests without ignoring social factors. However, his work was based more on the experiences of social workers than on sociological techniques. The person was portrayed as an individual with a status. The topic of the person, insofar as it is the product of social interaction, generally falls under the field of sociology. In order to explain and control delinquency, it is important to determine the nature of the person’s role in the social organization, the insecurity or degradation of status, the type of personal behavior pattern, the degree of mobility, the change of the social environment, and the collapse of the social world of the person. In the study of delinquency, the psychiatric, psychological, and sociological methods of investigation are not in conflict with each other. Instead, they are complementary and interdependent.