The transition from school to work is a highly significant event in the lives of all young people. For adolescent boys, especially, it warrants thoughtful planning and preparation, since the type of work a man does will have far-reaching effects on his life as a whole. The amount of planning and the nature and extent of his preparation, in the form of education and training, will be major factors in determing his status in one of the main occupational categories -- professional, technical, semi-skilled or unskilled. At the same time, many youths do not plan or prepare themselves because of lack of ability or opportunity, and are thereby at a disadvantage in striving to attain higher occupational status. The limitations to individual ability and opportunity are grouped under "Personality Inadequacies" and "Labour Market Inadequacies". This study is concerned primarily with the occupational adjustment problems of the "disadvantaged" adolescent boy. The sample selected is a group of former young offenders -- "graduates of the New Haven "Community" and the B.C. Borstal system. The advantages in selection of this group are the high incidence of employment problems, to which a remedial program has been applied, with some members achieving occupational adjustment (Group I), and some failing to do so (Group II). Reasonably complete records are also available. A limiting factor is the delinquent behaviour of youths in the sample, which distinguishes them from non-delinquent, "disadvantaged" youngsters. However,since all persons in the sample have been delinquent, the findings in terms of occupational adjustment of both groups should not be affected. To investigate the reasons for achievement and non-achievement, the "Determinants of Occupational Adjustment" were applied to the sample in order to establish which of three factors might explain these differences in eventual occupational adjustment: differences in the pre-New Haven period, differential treatment; or differential response to treatment. These "Determinants" are: economic status and stability of family; amount of education; wise or haphazard choice of occupation; character of first employments; and character of significant relationships. These do not exhaust all possible factors but are representative of the major influences upon a man's "working life". It must be emphasized that this is a small sample, which can, however, serve for illustrative purposes. On the basis of the "Determinants", characteristics of youths in both groups in the pre-New Haven period would contra-indicate eventual occupational adjustment. Young men in both groups received equal treatment at New Haven and on parole. Therefore groups differ in their response to treatment. These differences are closely linked to relative capacity for satisfactory interpersonal relationships with staff and sponsors. This conclusion is corroborated by the eventual successful social adjustment of Group I and the unsuccessful performance of Group II as evidenced in few marriages, unstable marital relationships, and a high incidence of recidivism. Psychiatric reports indicated more severe personality disturbance in Group II. Thus, Borstal treatment emphasizing interpersonal relationships, "work therapy", vocational guidance and job placement was not effective for Group II because the degree of personality disturbance of young men in this group constituted a barrier to response. Therefore alternative specialized treatment is required. But the Borstal program was effective for Group I. Since there are many similarities between this group, the high school "dropout" and other disadvantaged adolescents, a similar approach, combining opportunity for positive relationships with adults and help in planning, preparation and job placement, should be helpful to these other troubled adolescents as well. A comprehensive youth employment program would contribute to prevention of occupational maladjustment and its effects in terms of both individual and national welfare. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

The purpose of this study is threefold: (1) to analyze information available in the records regarding the manifestations of behaviour disorders in the children and the background of the parents, (2) to make a tentative diagnosis of the relationships of the parents to their children, and (3) to examine the degree of correlation existing between the parents' attitudes and the child manifesting the behaviour problem. This is, therefore, an exploratory study on the familiar topic of parental attitudes and how they affect the behaviour of children. The selection of cases for study (40 in number) were all those accepted for treatment by the Provincial Child Guidance Clinic in an 18 month period, 1948-49. The children were either of pre-school age or their problems manifested themselves before they entered school. Certain limitations were set up. All the children were of at least normal intelligence, all came from homes where there was a normal family constellation, i.e., both parents were alive and living at home. No distinction was made between sexes, ordinal position of the child in the family, religion and nationality, and economic status. These cases were classified into three groups on the basis of "problems" of symptoms of maladjustment which led the parents to seek the services of the Provincial Child Guidance Clinic. The classification adopted distinguished (1) disturbances of social adaptation, (2) habit disorders, and (3) personality disorders. The emphasis of this study is based on the hypothesis that parental attitudes influence the behaviour of children. It seemed logical, therefore, to focus specific attention on attitudes reflected and expressed by the parent in the case work situation. The sample of cases included parents exhibiting rejecting, dominating and other deviant attitudes. — The greatest number of children in this group of clinical cases were those who were affected by the combined attitudes of mother and father. The deviant trait was the predominating parental inadequacy contributing to the behaviour problem. Next in importance were the attitudes expressed by the mothers, rejection being the outstanding trait. Fathers, on the whole, affected a smaller number of children than the mothers. In this group domination was the main contributing defect. Regardless of the adequacy of one parent, if the other parent failed to fulfil the parental role, the failings were reflected in the behaviour of the child. Though parental attitudes influenced the behaviour of all the children, different children reacted differently and in varying degrees to similar experiences. The behaviour manifestation appeared to show itself in a manner peculiar to the make-up of the particular child. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

This study deals with a six month experiment of group work with a delinquent adolescent gang, together with the more general implications of the teen-age gang problem for the community. Throughout the thesis extensive use has been made of the writer's process records on this specific gang. Background information on sixteen of the gang members was obtained from a detailed study of case work, Juvenile Court and school records. The thesis begins with the sociological background of gang formation in disorganized areas. Special attention is given to the psychological needs of the individual which are satisfied through gang association. The process of encouraging a specific gang to become part of an agency program and the activities of this gang as a club within the agency are then discussed. The group work techniques employed and the various problems encountered are described in considerable detail. An evaluation of the six months' contact with the gang is presented. In setting forth the implications of the study, emphasis is given to the general philosophical requirements for the individual group work practitioner, the pitfalls which are to be avoided, and practical suggestions on such subjects as discipline, skills etc. The question of the responsibility of the private group work agency in the area of delinquent gangs is considered in detail and attention is given to the implications of a policy of dealing with gangs upon agency program, house rules, membership etc. The need for community coordination and a variety of community resources is stressed. A part of the study is devoted to examples found in various cities of community coordination to deal with delinquent gangs. A brief picture of the present stage of development in this regard in Vancouver is also given. The general principles of effective community organization in meeting the problem of gangs is set forth and the various alternatives in community-wide programs are discussed. A brief outline of a suggested plan for a community-wide organization to coordinate the treatment of delinquent gangs in Vancouver concludes the thesis. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

This study is primarily concerned with the early recognition of symptomatic behaviour in school, and subsequent treatment of the child who may become delinquent. It is based upon the premise that the only effective method of control of juvenile delinquency lies in prevention. The findings are based upon investigation of a sample group of delinquents from the Vancouver Juvenile Court, and a smaller group of delinquents from the same sample, studied in the city schools. The progressive development of delinquency is traced, from its origin in emotional factors, through the school years, to the ultimate conflict with the law. The study indicates the behaviour characteristics of many pre-delinquent children in school, and the extent to which these attributes are recognizable as symptomatic patterns. The attitudes of teachers toward troublesome behaviour in school are discussed with reference to the feasibility of a collaborative approach, between the social worker and the teacher, to the problem of prevention. In its theoretical aspects, the study draws from reports of current programs in delinquency control, with emphasis upon their preventive content. The analysis of the various control measures shows their limited recognition of the deeper-lying emotional basis of delinquent behaviour. An outline for a preventive program is presented. It is based upon the conditions indicated by the study, and the resources available to such a program in the city of Vancouver. The outline suggests how a preventive program may be launched on an experimental basis, through a reorganization of existing agencies and services. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

Vandalism, as one facet of juvenile delinquency, has received scant attention from social scientists in North America. This reflects the relatively low proportion of all delinquent acts which can be described as "vandalism" on the one hand and the efforts of social scientists to develop all-encompassing theories of delinquency causation on the other. This study has proceeded on the premise advanced by Alfred Kahn in his book, Planning Community Service for Children in Trouble, that community service must not be built on the assumption that delinquents are a homogeneous group. Kahn maintains that our efforts will be more fruitful if we develop an awareness of the heterogenity of the group. Therefore, this study represents an initial, exploratory study of juvenile vandalism to determine what, if any, factors set juveniles who indulge in vandalism apart from other delinquents. A descriptive-diagnostic research design suited the exploratory nature of the study and permitted the use of the experience survey method. A survey of the literature on juvenile delinquency gave focus and direction to the study. The questionnaires developed for the study were based to a large extent upon theories extracted from the literature. A survey of the literature, questionnaires, the examination of records, interviews, and case studies were the methods utilized. Data was obtained from law-enforcement agencies and from public and private business organizations in the City of Vancouver. Vandalism occurs in all areas of the community and in all social classes. Predominantly a group activity of younger male juveniles, vandalism is characterized by contagion from group member to group member and from group to group. Vandal acts occur in areas or situations isolated in various ways from direct observation. Reports on the incidence of vandalism from non-law-enforcement sources in the City indicate that this crime occurs more frequently in middle-class and upper-class areas but the juvenile court records show that the majority of juveniles appearing in Court reside in the lower-class areas. These findings indicate the middle-class attitude of the official court system and the prevalence of delinquency in the more affluent class of society. The need for detailed research into the delinquent activities of the upper-class juveniles pleads to be recognized. Until society permits further research into delinquent behaviour to focus equally upon all strata of society, complete comprehension of the act of juvenile vandalism in the City of Vancouver will not be achieved. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Leung, Sophia Ming Ren; Pittman, Robert Graham; Wills, Madlyn Gertrude / Graduate

The subject of the thesis is an evaluation of the existing juvenile court services in British Columbia. The objective is to assess whether the intent of the founding legislators has been realized, and also whether the court achieves currently-recognized standards in its organization and operation. The legislative intent underlying the Juvenile Delinquents Act of Canada, and the Juvenile Courts Act of British Columbia is defined, in so far as this is possible. References are cited on standards for the organization of the court, judges, probation officers, diagnostic and treatment facilities, and juvenile court committees. A descriptive account of the juvenile court in British Columbia is built up from interviews with officials of the Provincial Probation Service and the Vancouver Juvenile Court, reports of the activities of various services associated with the juvenile court, and correspondence with the Attorney-General's Department. The evidence gathered indicates that one of the primary purposes behind the original formation of the juvenile court in Canada, the keeping of children out of adult jails, has not yet, been achieved in British Columbia, except in the largest urban centres. It shows too that the courts, which have been legally established in a very large number of communities, lack any well-defined standards for the appointment of judges, and any objective means for ascertaining the suitability of those who are appointed. Probation services, vital to the effective operation of the court, are non-existent in some areas, and carry excessive work loads where they do exist. The diagnostic services available to the courts do not measure up to suggested standards. The study also shows that institutional treatment facilities are limited in scope, restricted in programme, and overcrowded. Except for the probationer, no other non-institutional treatment resources are available on a formally-organized basis. The evaluation shows a need for broad legislative changes which would make possible the attainment of high standards of performance. One possible way is through the creation of district courts with full-time judges. The study shows the need for defining qualifications for judges and other court personnel, and establishing means of achieving these standards. It shows too the need for periodic post-enactment evaluations of legislation to determine whether statutes are achieving the purposes for which they were enacted. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

This study has grown out of a seven month contact which the writer had, in a local group work agency, with a gang of delinquent teen aged girls and boys from the downtown section of Vancouver. It is based largely upon the process records which she kept on the gang during its stay in the agency, with certain corroborative material from other community sources such as case work agencies, the Family Court, the Police Department and the newspapers. The problem of delinquency is approached from a group work point of view; the chief purpose of the Thesis, therefore, is to indicate the strengths and short-comings of the group work process, as used here, as a treatment method. At the same time, the study deals with the family and environmental difficulties which have led the gang and its members into their present anti-social position. It stresses too, the attitude of the gang to the rest of society and in turn the reaction of society to the gang. The First Chapter gives the background of delinquency in Vancouver. In it the writer comments on the increasingly serious nature of the problem in the city. She touches on the various factors responsible for the delinquent child’s failure to adjust successfully - poor family relationships, bad environmental influences, crowded housing, limited recreational facilities and others - all of which have been considerably aggravated by the war. And in conclusion, she gives a general picture of the youngsters themselves and the gangs they have formed as a security against the rejection which, they have suffered during their growing years. The Second Chapter introduces the gang to the agency. The writer tells of the referral made by the head of the women's division of the City Police, who, in the course of her duties, had become interested in some of its girl members. A description of the girls and their family backgrounds is included in this chapter. The first period of activity when the club operated as a girls’ group, with the boys constantly in the background, is discussed. And the girls’ preparations for the inclusion of the boys as guests at a Christmas party are described. The Third Chapter deals with the first contact which the writer had with the boys at the Christmas party. Their attitude to the agency and to the group leader is very evident in the account of their destructive and quarrelsome behaviour on this occasion, following the section on the party, a description of the boys and their family backgrounds is given, which makes their belligerent attitude to the world around them quite understandable. The Fourth Chapter presents the gang as a whole, with the boys established, ostensibly as members of a dance committee, but actually as the governing body of the club. In this section, the complexities of relationships between the members of the gang and particularly between the girls and boys make up the major portion of the narrative. Their activities inside and outside the agency are described fully and indicate very clearly the instability and insecurity of their daily existence. In the Fifth Chapter, the writer continues her discussion of the club as a mixed activity, with the relationships between the girls and boys gradually worsening until they reach an open break. A description of the desperate attempt by the boys at a reconciliation is followed by an account of the withdrawal of the girls as a result of the mistreatment they have received at the hands of the boys. In the Sixth Chapter, the experience of the gang in the agency is evaluated in accordance with Bernstein's Criteria for Group Work. In this section, the following questions are answered. Has the area of concern to the members been enlarged? Do specific interests develop so that they find wider expression both within and without the agency? Has the group matured in its sense of responsibility to the agency? How have the standards of behaviour of the group been affected by the experience in the agency? Have the prejudices of the group based on nationality, financial status and other factors been affected? In the Seventh Chapter, the writer comments once again on the delinquent's position in the community. She indicates the limitations which a group work agency, handling this type of youngster, unsupported by other resources, must face. And she points out the necessity of a co-operative effort on the part of all welfare organizations and the community as a whole as the only effective method of dealing with the problem. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

For many year, correctional theory has shown the need for a greater variety of treatment programs to combat the problem of delinquency. It has been mainly administrative problems, stemming from a lack of public support, that has resulted in the extensive gap between theory and practice. There have been several attempts to introduce new programs, but there are still many wide gaps in the total range of services that are needed. In adapting the principles of Outward Bound to a Correctional Program, the B.C. Corrections Branch has taken an imaginative and radical step towards filling part of the gap. Their Search and Leadership Training program (S.A.L.T.) is an injection of new ideas into an established field of practice rather than a progressional development within the field. However, there is virtually no theoretical or scientific evaluation of the principles or methods of Outward Bound available. In this study of the 1966 Search and Leadership Training courses for boys on probation, an attempt has been made to identify the basic theoretical assumptions on which the program rests. These assumptions have been related to current social science theory in order to show what concepts can eventually be tested by evaluation of the program. The main focus of this study has been at the pre-evaluative level. The research team has concentrated on developing instruments for the effective collection of data. These instruments, particularly the one developed to extract information from the pre-sentence report, are generic in scope and can be used to evaluate a variety of programs or the effectiveness of the pre-sentence report itself. The information collected on the twenty-four boys who took the two S.A.L.T. courses in 1966 has been tabulated to show the amount and the consistency of the data available. Perusal of this information gives a concise picture of that data and suggestions have been made as to what areas of information should be solicited to ensure future evaluative studies have adequate material to analyze. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

In an attempt to look at the question of juvenile delinquency, an exploratory and descriptive study was undertaken to examine the relationship between selected social factors and the disposition by the court of the cases of female juveniles in the province of British Columbia. The study population consisted of 499 cases which appeared before the British Columbia courts in the year of 1966. This figure includes all female juvenile offenders with the exception of Vancouver where a sample population was selected. Data was collected from the Dominion Bureau of Vital Statistics, Form 3, 1966, coded and computerized in an attempt to correlate specific variables. The resulting univariate and bivariate tables were examined and certain conclusions were drawn. An important factor which must be taken into account, along with other difficulties, in considering such conclusions, was the inadequacy of available statistical data. Despite these limitations, it was found: that generally the disposition was appropriate to the offense; that older offenders were more frequently fined or required to make restitution; that the majority of fathers' occupations tended to fall into the lower socio-economic strata; and that dispositions involving loss of liberty were more likely to be imposed on children whose fathers were in the lower strata. Of interest were the findings which indicated that some current and popular assumptions regarding causative factors in juvenile delinquency were not supported by this study. With full knowledge that the hypothesis has not been conclusively proven, we hope that the merits of this study will encourage others, interested in this field or juvenile delinquency, to expand on the framework provided herein. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

The federal Juvenile Delinquents Act of 1908 confirmed and expanded upon an inferior civil status for Canadian children and young people. Using the vehicle of a special children's court designed to protect its clientele with such innovations as private hearings and informal evidence, legislators denied the benefit of traditional legal protections to children. The rationale for these changes was the assumption that wayward children were incontrovertibly criminalized by contact with the regular court system and with adult offenders. Proponents of the new juvenile court system believed that a paternalistic probation officer who kept a close watch on the child and its family would provide an effective alternative to the cycle whereby juvenile offenders became irreversibly committed adult offenders. This thesis examines the day-to-day operations of the Vancouver Juvenile Court, one of the pioneer Canadian children's courts, with a view to testing some of these premises. Files were compiled on all juvenile males who came before the court during its first five years of operation. A computer analysis was made of the cases to determine how different variables, such as the child's home situation and who initiated his initial contact with the court affected handling of the cases. It was found that the Vancouver Court did not function as its promoters had intended. Children were still frequently picked up by police and held in regular police cells for varying lengths of time. They were subjected, further, to frequent and lengthy periods of detention in the Court's Detention Home. Instead of being the subjects of an exhaustive examination by a fatherly judge, their cases were decided, occasionally over the telephone and usually after only the most cursory consideration, by a police magistrate after his other duties were completed. Almost all male offenders who came into contact with the Court were formally charged. Of these, fewer than half were brought back for a subsequent offence. Most of those who did return to Court on one or more new charges were brought in for either the same or lesser orders of offences than their first charges. Many repeating offenders were brought forward on charges arising directly out of the settlements of their first cases. The Juvenile Court thus may have either succeeded in breaking the presumed cycle whereby boys arrested on a single charge went on to commit more frequent and more serious offences, or it may have actually inflated the numbers of offenders by causing the arrest of boys whose minor misbehaviours might otherwise have been overlooked. The Court's influence went beyond the power it held over its wards. Families, friends, teachers and employers of the boys were also brought under the control or influence of the probation officer as part of his efforts to control their environments. In a larger sense, the entire community was affected by Court campaigns for new bylaws to control children's activities. The Juvenile Court served a social function by enforcing a standard period of dependency for all children without regard to their personal and/or their parents' wishes in the matter. The lengthier childhood had always existed in law, but Court enforcement and elucidation of the issue made it a matter of wider practice as well. The Juvenile Court also functioned as an economic institution in that it controlled both the occupations of its wards and the regularity with which those occupations were practiced. It played a similar role for parents who came under its power. The evidence suggests that in both its social and its economics functions, the Court was acting in full compliance with the wishes of the general community. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate