Short Essay on Intelligence Testing and Crime !
One of the distinguished French psychologists Alfred Binet (1857-1911) carried out experiments in psychological laboratory on the persisting problem of retardation due to individual differences and introduced the concept of ‘Mental Age’ and ‘Intelligence Quotient’ (IQ) and its influence on criminal behaviour.
There are two distinct types of mental defect, namely, amentia and dementia. Amentia literally means lack of mind and describes a person who is born with a low intellect. Dementia, on the other hand, refers to someone who once had a normal intelligence but later lost it because of some disease, decay or accident. These definitions provide guideline to decide which persons need treatment or help and law deals with them accordingly.
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Robinson has suggested that retarded persons may be grouped as (i) mildly; (ii) moderately; (iii) severely; and (iv) profoundly retarded persons. Criminality is mostly attributed to person with retarded intellect and not with severely or profoundly retarded ones.
Prof. Jerman, an American psychologist worked further on the researches of Alfred Binet and observed that the idea of ‘mental age’ is basically sound common sense in the children. On an average, a child of twelve years age can comprehend and tackle more difficult and abstract problems than an average young person.
The same is equally true for other ages as well. With each year of age, ability continues to grow and develop constantly. Thus, Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is simply the ratio of Mental Age (MA) divided by chronological age (CA) multiplied by 100 for each of numerical representation. Thus, the formula for determining Intelligence Quotient is:—
IQ = MA × 100 / CA
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Scientific researchers have established a definite link between intelligence and criminality. They have discovered that delinquents on an average had an IQ eight points lower than non-delinquents. It has also been proved that IQ is not necessarily related to hereditary factors but the environmental factors too affect individual’s I.Q.
It has, however, been accepted that age of sixteen years be assumed to represent the level of full mental development beyond which additional years do not bring additional ability.
As to the inter-action of sex in incidence of crime, it may be mentioned that there are certain crimes which are peculiar to a particular sex. For example, illegal abortions are commonly resorted to by women. So also, the offence of shoplifting is more common with women than men because the former can escape frisking even though suspected of this offence. Conversely, crimes such as homosexuality, house-breaking, embezzlement etc., are rarely committed by women.
Gillin suggests that physical abnormalities in criminals drive them to commit crime. Prof. Smith also supports this contention and holds that there are certain abnormal personalities in whom the endocrine glands are functioning abnormally and this mal-functioning of the endocrinal glands causes them to commit certain types of crime.
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Thus, sexual in capabilities of a person may result into his failure to mature socially and out of sheer disgust and frustration he may resort to criminality. Contrary to this, excessive sex desire may cause one to indulge into prostitution and commit crimes such as rape, kidnapping or drug addiction and similar other offences.
Again, physical over-development of young girls becomes a cause of sexual attraction for males which leads them to sex delinquencies. Commenting on this point Prof. Gillin rightly observes that ‘oversize of both the sexes tends to make the child conspicuous among his play-mates and set a stage for abnormal conduct’.
Of late, explanation of criminal behaviour in terms of glandular mal-functioning has been a subject of criticism by endo-criminologists. It has been suggested that many persons indulge in criminality despite normal functioning of their endocrine gland while there are others who suffer from serious glandular abnormalities yet they never resort to deviant behaviour.