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"Young Offenders," a volume of 168 pages, was written by A. M. Carr-Saunders, director of the London School of Economics, and Dr. E. C. Rhodes, reader in statistics and Dr. Hermann Mannheim, lecturer in criminology, both on the staff of the same school.
The authors worked under the auspices of the home office of the British government, which undertook an investigation of juvenile delinquency. The investigation began in October 1938 and covered the London area and six provincial cities.
The first of the book's four chapters deals with the history of previous investigations and cites many reports in part. The earlier reports were in general unsystematic and lacking in comparable standards, and the conclusions drawn were open to question. There was, however, a certain amount of uniformity of opinion, viz., concerning the predominant factors in juvenile delinquency.
These factors are: (a) the family factor—the broken home; (b) the environmental factor,