The Effect of Low Intelligence on the Emotional and Environmental Concepts of Retarded Offenders

Abstract

Over the past thirty years the emphasis on low intelligence as a major causal factor in criminality has decreased considerably. When intelligence tests were less refined, early in this century, authors considered a depressed intelligence score as an important determinant in delinquency. Improved psychometrics, with their culturally non-biased test items, have since proved that individuals from deprived upbringing and adverse social learning situations do relatively poorly on verbal items. Woodward (1955) pointed out that both in this country and in the United States the delinquent is only 8 I.Q. points behind the normal population. Opinions amongst psychologists have gradually but radically changed, and it is for this reason that research workers now look elsewhere for causal factors in the subnormal offender rather than attributing his delinquencies to low intelligence.