returns begins to operate. Crime and violence in drama lose their cathartic value when there is a constant habituation to overdoses of these ingredients which not only results in jaded taste in children but may contribute to those frustrations which bring about aggressive behavior. If this premise is correct, it follows that the producers of crime dramas help bring about some of the aggression which these dramas are supposed to relieve."[1]
Hans Von Hentig. Crime Causes and Conditions. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. 1947. 379 p. [⟨HV6025.H45⟩]
- (The author at the time of publication was Professor of Criminology at the University of Kansas City.)
Dr. Von Hentig, in his preface, says:
"Crime, being a pattern of social disorganization, has a multiplicity of causations that rest on defects and obstructions in the working order of society * * *. The statistics that complement personal observations and the lessons to be drawn from the many case studies herein have been brought up to date as of 1940 and 1941.
"* * * In its presentation the book goes its own way. Theoretical views and hypotheses are regularly supported by concrete facts as contributed by judges, district attorneys, police officers, wardens, prison doctors, criminals and victims. * * * Whatever theory is proposed or upheld, it is based on realities and exact observation,
"When movies and radios produce those long-drawn-out slugging scenes in which the hero finally downs the bad man, the G-man, the gangster, or the sheriff, the cattle rustler, we think that the moral outcome should be enough to immunize the aggressive spirit. There will, however, always be some spectators or hearers who are by disposition in a tense readiness for violence. From hearers they lurn into doers, today or tomorrow when adequate incentives arise, * * * Some children have an inordinate craving for movies; so have many adults, Burt found this inclination in more than 7 percent of his delinquent boys.[2] The movie has achieved tremendous results in reducing drinking and gambling and thereby cutting down delinquency: yet it may cause misconduct as Well.
"There are three sources of possible danger, ably discussed by Burt. While some films do not teach crime, they describe criminal techniques. Before the law starts its triumphal march, wickedness has to be demonstrated; it has to be nearly successful before being smashed. In this phase a good film advertises crime and its technical procedures.[3]
Judith Crist. "Horror in the Nursery," Collier's, March 27, 1948. pp. 22–23. [⟨AP2.C65⟩]
- (The author quotes extensively from Dr. Frederic Wertham who was formerly the chief resident psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University. He was, at the time of the writing of the article, director of the psychiatric service at Queens General Hospital.)
Dr. Wertham * * * said: "The comic books, in intent and effect, are demoralizing the morals of youth. They are sexually aggressive in an abnormal way. They make violence alluring and cruelty heroic. They are not educational but stultifying."
With 11 other psychiatrists and social workers, Dr. Wertham, senior psychiatrist for the New York Department of Hospitals and authority on the causes of crime among children, has spent 2 years studying the effect of comic books on youngsters. His findings [are] published here for the first time. * * *
The purpose of the study was to find "not what harm comic books do," Dr. Wertham said, "but objectively what effect they have on children. So far we have determined that the effect is definitely and completely harmful. * * * We do not maintain that comic books automatically cause delinquency in every child reader. But we found that comic-book rending was a distinct influencing facter in the case of every single delinquent or disturbed child we studied."
Dr. Wertham does not believe that comic books alone can cause a child to become delinquent.
Dr. Wertham feels that a local enforcement of the penal codes by district attorneys, or license commissioners could stop circulation of the most offensive books.
