Deficiency and Delinquency: An Interpretation of Mental Testing

"Deficiency and Delinquency: An Interpretation of Mental Testing" by James Burt Miner is a scientific publication written in the early 20th century. This work examines the relationship between mental deficiency and delinquency, focusing on the implications of mental testing, particularly through the Binet scale. The book aims to clarify how mental weaknesses correlate with social unfitness and delinquency, ultimately proposing a new methodology for diagnosing intellectual deficiencies. The opening of the text outlines the author's motivations for the research, highlighting a perceived need for clearer, more objective assessments of mental development concerning delinquency. Miner reflects on the challenges in defining feeble-mindedness and the importance of quantifying this concept for social care considerations. He introduces the idea of using a percentage-based system to more accurately categorize individuals based on their mental capacity and its societal implications, laying the groundwork for the detailed examination that follows in the subsequent chapters.