And, I would stress again, that assistance from these sources is generally readily available.

It is clear that in discussing the child with organic diseases or physical defects we are not talking about a large group of cases. Whether the group is large or not is not the point, however. If treatment is made available at an early date the prognosis for cases of this type is generally good. This means that the time a parole officer can save with these cases will make it possible for him to allocate his time more effectively, permitting him to spend additional time with other needy children.

In summary, then, children with the types of handicaps discussed probably do not constitute a large proportion of delinquent children, although these numbers are not in- signilicant. For those who do manifest delinquent behavior of one type or another, however, the prognosis is good and treatment facilities are available in most communities with- out extended periods of waiting. Finally, it is of great importance that community resources for treating the de- linquent child be better coordinated and that channels of communications between the various professions involved be kept open so that the child may be treated as a whole person and not as a series of disconnected parts.

Issues Facing the Juvenile Court Judge

By QUINTIN JOHNSTONE, Professor of Law Yale Law School

(These are introductory remarks that were made prior to a participative case presentation at the 1962 Annual Meeting of the National Council of Juvenile Court Judges.)

As you know, last September a pilot institute was held in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, by the National Council of Juvenile Court Judges. Twenty-seven juvenile court judges attended the institute at the invitation of a Council com- mittee. The institute was planned and conducted by The National Training Laboratories (NTL) , a Division of the National Education Association; and there were five prin- cipal NTL staff members present in Excelsior Springs who planned and conducted the institute. All five had had sub- stantial prior experience with similar NTL laboratories although never before had NTL held a laboratory for a group of lawyers or judges and none of the five was a lawyer. I was a consultant to the principal staff members, my first experience with an NTL laboratory.

This morning we will duplicate one small part of the Excelsior Springs institute, a so-called participative case. Before we present this case, I want to indicate my reaction to the institute and the relation of the participative case to the rest of the pilot program. Basically the institute ap- pears to me to have been an intensive set of experiences that encouraged, even forced, each judge to evaluate him- self: what kind of a judge is he, what are his strengths and weaknesses in dealing with other people, and why does he act as he does. Each of us has certain patterns of behavior. We get into the habit of accepting these patterns without questioning the consequences they have f o r others, whether there are better ways of achieving our ends, or even of what are our real ends. The institute environment was highly conducive to a self-evaluation that in everyday life we are all so reluctant to make.

It is not my purpose to pass judgment on whether self evaluation of this sort should be the main purpose of train- ing sessions sponsored by a professional body such as this one, or whether any permanent change in personality pat-

1. For a popular magazine discussion of NTL’s T-group, see Klaw, Two Weeks in a T Group, Fortune 114 (August, 1961).

terns can be achieved by a week or two in this kind of program. Others better qualified than I have sought to answer these questions; and I might add, they are not in complete agreement. Nor do I want to leave the impression that the pilot institute was devoted solely to introspective experience. There were traditional lecture and discussion sessions on such topics as the dynamics of adolescent be- havior, means for preventing delinquency and problems in running a juvenile court. But the emphasis was on the individual judge and increasing his awareness of himself and his job. The focal point in this was the training group, or T-group, a standard technique in NTL laboratories.1 The participative case was one of several steps preparing insti- tute participants for the T-group experience.

The participative case that we are going to put on re- sembles somewhat a law school moot court trial. A group of role players enacts a hypothetical set of facts in a judicial setting, although our case consists of informal discussions with the judge in his chambers rather than formal proceed- ings in open court. The facts are similar to those any judge might encounter, and so are the people involved. His pro- cedure at times may violate your sense of propriety or legality, but this makes it easier to dramatize his inter- personal dealings with a series of different people without unduly complicating the facts. It also raises some legal problems that merit consideration.

Judicial Pressures Our case illustrates certain pressures that a juvenile

judge is subject to. Some are from outside-from the community - including the judge’s staff: lawyers, parents, probation officers, politicians, clerics, the press. Othcrs are from within himself - conflicts in his own values, role con- ceptions and personality: punishment of children before the court versus treatment, legal versus extra-legal fact finding, the team leader judge as against the authoritarian decision maker, the proper political role of the judge, frustration over -his knowledge of children and his ability to handle his job: As the case proceeds, you in the audience might try to identify as many of these pressures and conflicts as you can. Then find analogies in your own experience, and ask yourselves how well you resolve similar problems of your own.

Before the case presentation starts, I want to make some suggestions for future institutes your Council will put on and that the generous grant you have received will make possible. Planning for these institutes has not been com- pleted, so I assume that consideration of possible alterna- tives and supplements to the pilot program are still in order. I do not suggest these as things that necessarily should be done, but as samples of what should be thought about before the format of future institutes is fixed.

First, I am worried about the new juvenile court judges. Many of them take office each year. Should there be institutes specially directed toward them to ac- celerute their development and to help them avoid the mistakes they will surely make if their training is left merely to on-the-job experience?

Second, I am concerned for the many juvenile court judges who are not lawyers. The pilot institute was not (1 fair test of what training this kind of judge needs. I f I recall correctly, there was only one non-lawyer judge at Excelsior Springs. I share the usual lawyer’s bias against laymen in judicial positions. But as long as non-lawyer juvenile court judges are permitted by the laws of many states and as long as a substantial number are in office, I submit that this Council has a training obligation toward them.

Third, the institutes might be better if there were participants, particularly in the T-groups, who are active in juvenile court work but not as judges. A quarter, say, of the participunts might be from among social

OCTOBER, 1962 - VOL. 13 PAGE 43

workers, probation officers, teachers, psychiatrists, direc- tors of corrective institutions - even perhaps some teen- agers who recently have been in trouble. The pilot institzite may have involved too much of judges talking to judges.

Lastly, substitutes and supplements to such devices as the pilot participative case and T-groups might be consid- ered. Perhaps all future institutes should not be the same, and these devices may not be well-suited to all types of institutes. Would intensive discussion of one or two actual cases be of value, with a psychiatrist or social psychologist as discussion leader Would it be helpful if before any more institutes are held, a staff of behavioral scientists made field studies of a few juvenile courts to ascertain more pre- cisely what are the personal and inter-personal problems of juvenile court judges? Would the institutes be better planned if the planners had more background on their trainees? Would there be value in holding some institutes at a large juvenile court, correctional institution or uni- versity to take advantage of the variety of resources or illustrations that these places can provide? No doubt other suggsctions have occurred to you that merit further explora- tion.

From observing the pilot institute and this conference, I find most exciting the vitality of the National Council and its members, your willingness to try something new and to go beyond the superficial and pedestrian. You may be about to work out the best post-admission educational program that the American legal profession or judiciary has as yet come up with. You are headed in the right direction, and I wish you success.

Relationship Between Juvenile Delinquency and Electroencephalography

(Abstract) By MELS L. LOW, M.D.

Coluumbia-Presbyterian Medical Center N e w York, N e w York

Electroencephalography is the technique of recording and tile science and art of interpreting the electrical activity of the brain. Individual brain cells and groups of cells produce electrical discharges at all times, and these dis- charges can be recorded on paper after million-fold ampli- fication. These wavy lines are characterized by specific frequencies (approximately 3 to 20 sec.), amplitudes (20- 200 microvolts) and patterns. These are variations with age, with waking, drowsiness and sleep.

There are changes in the electroencephalogram (EEG) in various disease states of the brain. Encephalitis, coma and other abnormal metabolic states are usually recognized by high, very slow waves throughout the tracing. Tumors near the outer layer of the brain (cortex) are characterized by slow waves in the affected area but the rest of the brain gives off normal discharges. The condition in which this clinical method is most useful, is epilepsy. Epilepsy as such is not a single disease but rather is a complex of symptoms caused by many different disease processes. One should try to determine the cause of epilepsy in each individual patient (scar, injury, stroke, tumor, abnormally low blood sugar, etc.) but that is often not possible. When the cause cannot be determined, one speaks of idiopathic epilepsy; if the cause is recognized, it is called symptomatic epilepsy.

Epilepsy is also classified according to the major mani-

festations into (1) grand ma1 or generalized convulsions, (2) focal, that is when the seizure affects primarily or only one part of the body, (3) petit ma1 or absences, (4) minor motor, a specific form of jerks mainly seen in infants and very young children, and finally (5) psychomotor seizures. This last-mentioned form of epilepsy is characterized by a p-riodic disturbance of consciousness which is associated with organized but inappropriate movements and actions.

Out of this very brief description, two related questions of great importance to a judge suggest themselves:

FIRST: Can unrecognizzd epileptic attacks, especially psychomotor seizures, he a significant contributing iactor in juvenile delinquency? A recent study by Low and Oawson at the University of Utah done on 100 consecutive admis- sions of delinquent teenagers to a detention home suggests that ihis question should be answered in the negative.

SECOND: Can a major offense or crime be committed during a seizure? Doctors experiencGd in the management of patients with psychomotor epilepsy know of very rare cases in which that actually or almost occurred. In brief, it is not impossible but must be very exceptional.

An EEG introduced into court out of context or without expert interpretation will not only not nelp the judge but can actually mslead him. Whenever one of the above major questions is introduced in a n individual case, the court should get expert testimony by an experienced epilep- tologist, and part of his testimony will probably be based on the results of electroencephalography.

The Magistrate and the Doctor (Continued from Page 17)

Community Clinic, or Psychiatrists in private practice. Un- fortunately, too many of our Courts lack this essential re- source. Meeting this need is dependent upon meeting the need €or an effective program of public education regarding the nature and the treatment of delinquency. Public re- action to delinquency usually seems to take one of two forms, both of which are wrong. There is either a great hue and cry €or punishment and retribution, complete with demands to “get tough,” shave their heads and publish their pictures,” etc. o r a tendency to shrug it off on the grounds that “boys will be boys.” Since both attitudes are unreal- istic, and since both also avoid the need to spend money on sound treatment services and facilities, it is essential that the public gain more real understanding of the problem of Juvenile Delinquency and its treatment if adequate services are to have the broad support necessary. The people must be given a greater insight into this very serious, but not insolvable problem so that these disturbed and disturbing youngsters, whom we call Juvenile Delinquents, may also have the opportunity to realize their full potential for a creative life in freedom and dignity.8 EPILOGUE

The writer has a Court Clinic in his Court. He has observed, with pride, the operation of the Massachusetts Court Clinic Program. As a result, the emphasis in this paper on the desirability of a Court Clinic may be chauvin- istic. What has been said applies to Psychiatrists generally. The principal point, regardless of the source of the Clinic, is that the Psychiatrist, whether from private practice, a Community Clinic or a Court Clinic, can be an important resource of the Juvenile Court and that his value to the Court will be in proportion to the psychiatric sophistication of the Judge and the Probation staff and the orientation to the Juvenile Court of the Psychiatrist.

8. 1960 White House Conference on Children and Youth- Report of National Organizations, page 328-329.

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