Part 12 (2/2)
_Mentality_:--Of peculiar value, in view of the public interest in the question of mental defect as a cause of delinquency, is a study of the mentality of our 647 women. Twenty have been p.r.o.nounced insane by commissions in lunacy and have been transferred to asylums for the insane. Three others will probably have to be transferred; 107 were unhesitatingly p.r.o.nounced distinctly feeble-minded. Not all of our 647 cases have been examined by our psychologist. One hundred and sixteen, however, have had laboratory tests of various sorts. Among these tests, all have been given the Binet test. The result has been as follows:
MENTALITY BY BINET TEST
Showing mentality of 5 year old child 2 ” ” ” 6 ” ” ” 1 ” ” ” 7 ” ” ” 6 ” ” ” 8 ” ” ” 6 ” ” ” 9 ” ” ” 29 ” ” ” 10 ” ” ” 44 ” ” ” 11 ” ” ” 26 ” ” ” 12 ” ” ” 2 --- 116
The 44 who have the mentality of a ten year old child and under were unhesitatingly p.r.o.nounced mentally defective. The 72 showing mentality from ten to twelve years may possibly not be so-called. The 67 others included among the 107 are those so mentally defective that there can be no question as a matter of observation. Fifty-two others are distinctly border line cases. This is the group which gives the most trouble in all reformatory inst.i.tutions. It is safe to say that 90 percent of all disciplinary difficulties come from cases of this sort. They can be easily divided into at least two groups. Thus divided, 26 are girls who can be taught very little in school, whose general intelligence is low, but who may perhaps be able to learn a certain amount of manual labor; these cannot ”stay good” any length of time. The other 26 are those who do well in school, are capable of mastering even such subjects as algebra and bookkeeping, but who have no moral sense or continuity of purpose. Eleven others are also properly in this cla.s.s but differ from the two preceding groups in the character of their instability. If they were boys they would be tramps. They are all girls who have run away from home, sometimes a number of times, as well as from any place where they are put to service.
The foregoing figures mean that 193 individuals, or 29.8 percent, of the number studied are decidedly mentally defective. This is an extremely conservative estimate.
With the facilities which we are to have in the Laboratory of Social Hygiene under the auspices of the Bureau of Social Hygiene, we expect to get much more definite results not only as to the mentality but also as to the physical condition and the social relations of the young women under our care.
_Venereal Disease_:--The records of the Bedford Reformatory for girls show that 20.56 percent of the 647 inmates have clinical manifestations of venereal disease. The facts are summarized in the following table:
Total number of inmates 647 Number free from clinical manifestations of disease 514 Number showing clinical manifestations of disease 133 Of the last named: Number with syphilis 61 gonorrhoea 54 syphilis and gonorrhoea 9 ” ” disease unnamed 8 ” ” chancre 1 --- Total 133 (20.56%)
A series of complement fixation tests on blood specimens from 466 of the inmates show, however, that a very much larger number are infected with either syphilis or gonorrhoea or both of these diseases.[307] With the Wa.s.sermann test 176, or 37.7 percent gave positive reactions; 273, or 58.6 percent gave negative reactions, and 17, or 3.6 percent gave doubtful reactions. With a modification of the Wa.s.sermann technique where the tests were allowed to stand for four hours at ice box temperature to fix complement, instead of the usual one hour at 37C. in the incubator, 224, or 48 percent gave positive reactions, 212, or 45.4 percent gave negative reactions and 30, or 6.4 percent gave doubtful reactions, showing an increase of 10.3 percent of positive reactions for syphilis over the method of fixing complement at 37C. The same sera were tested by the complement fixation test for gonorrheal infection with the result that 134 or 29 percent gave positive reactions; 234, or 50 percent gave negative reactions and 98, or 21 percent gave doubtful reactions, fixing complement at 37C. for one hour. When the ice box method of fixation was used, 306 or 65.6 percent gave positive reactions; 101, or 21.7 percent gave negative reactions and 59, or 12.6 percent gave doubtful reactions, showing an increase of 36.9 percent of positive results over the method of fixing complement at 37C. in the incubator.
v.a.g.i.n.al smears from the same persons were examined but it was possible to demonstrate the presence of the gonococcus in but five of them, although many of them show the presence of numerous pus corpuscles.[308]
The full significance of the results above stated does not appear until the statistics are summarized. Of the 466 girls tested, only 50, that is, 10.7 percent, are found to be free from venereal infection. Practically 90 percent showed infection; 170, or 36.4 percent gave positive reactions for both syphilis and gonorrhoea; 27, or 5.79 percent were positive for syphilis only, and 117, or 25.1 percent were positive for gonorrhoea only.[309]
_Offenses_:--Not all of the 647 cases studied were committed to Bedford for prost.i.tution; but all were leading the lives of prost.i.tutes in New York City at the time of their commitment and the specific offense which they committed was an incident in the life of prost.i.tution.[310] Table XXIV shows that 105 women or 16.22 percent were convicted of felonies, while 450, or 69.55 percent were convicted of offenses directly connected with prost.i.tution. The 25 cases committed as disorderly children were girls under eighteen years of age whose parents or relatives caused their arrest and brought them into court as the only means of taking them from the life. The 38 commitments for vagrancy were under Subdivision 3 and 4 of Section 887 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which defines a vagrant as ”a person who has contracted an infectious or other disease, in the practise of drunkenness or debauchery, requiring charitable aid to restore him to health” or ”a common prost.i.tute who has no lawful employment whereby to maintain herself.”
The stories of the following girls will ill.u.s.trate the relation between prost.i.tution and crime in the cases of women sent to us for felonies or misdemeanors:
A. B. was a girl of eighteen, convicted of manslaughter in the second degree. She was not only leading a life of prost.i.tution but was supporting her lover by it. As is so often the case, she was very fond of the man and intensely jealous when another girl won him away. She bought a sharp knife and carried it for a month before she met the girl, who had tried to avoid her. When at last they met, our girl stabbed her rival so seriously that she died from the effects.
C. D. was also only eighteen years of age. She was convicted of shooting her lover. The time had come when they were no longer happy together. A quarrel arose on the street over a trivial matter. She wished to go to one place and he to another. Neither would yield. He started across the street to go his own way. She drew a pistol and shot him dead. Asked how she happened to have a loaded pistol in her possession, she said that she has always carried one ever since she came to New York. She thought it necessary for self-protection.
The story of E. F., convicted of grand larceny in the first degree, was as follows: She came north from a southern city thirteen years ago with her mother, who died soon after. She had had a lover before her mother's death. By him she had an illegitimate child. After the child was born he married her but they were not happy together. Another man coaxed her away from her husband. She claims he put her on the street, that she was violently in love with him and supported him by prost.i.tution. Finally she was with a man whose watch she admired and coveted for her lover. She stole it and gave it to her lover in whose possession it was found. Both were convicted.
G. H. was a woman of twenty-four convicted of robbery. She had a husband and two children. The husband was entirely able and willing to support her. She became addicted to the use of opium. She claims it was first prescribed by a physician during an illness. As the habit grew, she stole money from the till in her husband's shop to supply herself with the drug.
The resulting friction between herself and her husband finally caused her to leave home and enter a life of prost.i.tution. She had been living the life for two years at the time of her arrest for robbing a man of a diamond pin.
Three women, sentenced for corrupting the morals of a minor, had young girls with them whom they had brought to the city for immoral purposes.
The cases of a.s.sault were for the most part girls who had engaged in fist fights, usually on account of rivalry.
The attempted suicide was a girl who had tired of the life which she had led since she was fourteen years old and saw no other way out of it. She had made three unsuccessful attempts before she was sentenced to Bedford.
_Previous Records_:--The law prohibits the sentencing of women to the reformatory who have previously served a term in a state prison. With this limitation the judge has the power of sending those who have served numberless previous sentences for minor offenses if in his judgment there is hope of reform in the particular case. Contrary to the impression of many people, it is a very rare thing for a girl or woman to be sentenced to an inst.i.tution for what is really a first offense. Never in our experience has a previously innocent girl been so sentenced.
Throwing light on the history of the prost.i.tutes committed to Bedford, Table XXV gives us some information as to the various inst.i.tutions in which they spent time previous to the Bedford commitment. The first section of the table shows that 305, or 47.1 percent have had previous inst.i.tution experiences. In cases where these girls have been in more than one inst.i.tution, this first portion of the table gives the inst.i.tution in which she has spent the most time. Out of 647 cases, 255, or 39.4 percent only, are not known to have been at least previously arrested. These figures give the data that we know. The probabilities are that the tables understate the facts. The latter half of the table shows the variegated experience of a number of the women. We have no comparable data for the cases from other inst.i.tutions.
_Conclusion_:--As this is a statistical study, we have not touched upon various phases of the lives of prost.i.tutes which are of general public interest. This is because we had not sufficiently accurate data to warrant giving figures or percentages. For example, the relation of the women to the men whom they support is a matter where verifiable data are very hard to get. An increasingly large percentage of the women under our care state that they were turning over the whole or a part of their wages to their lovers. In other cases we were pretty well a.s.sured that this was the case although it was denied by the girl.
As a result of our twelve years' experience we believe that there is an increasing number of young women who live in furnished rooms and take their patrons to hotels. A larger proportion of prost.i.tutes in our early days lived in houses of ill fame. Now in many instances, even if their work is in these houses, they live outside and go to the houses only for business purposes. A case in point is that of a girl only sixteen years of age who worked in one of the houses conducted by the so-called ”syndicate.” She was living with a young Italian who had lured her from her home. He conducted her to this house every afternoon at four o'clock, calling for her at five or six next morning and receiving her earnings from the woman who ran the house.
A number of the young women included in this study have figured in white slave cases. These commercialized phases of the social evil are dealt with elsewhere in this report.
<script>