by Dan Sellard of The Register-Guard
Glancing up and down the store’s aisles and trying to look casual, the thief sidled up to the counter and dropped a shiny knife into his pocket. Then he resumed his stroll around the store, a picture of sweet innocence.
Just another shoplifter? No, not quite. This thief is only 9-1/2 years old, and he’s already been caught stealing five times before. His record is bad enough to bring him to the attention of psychologist Jerry Patterson.
In that respect, he’s lucky. For he’s not going to be punished, in the classic sense, but studied and guided into a crimeless life.
Patterson–an associate of Oregon Research Institute, Eugene’s “think tank”–has a professional interest in all little boys who steal. He hopes to find out why they steal and what society can do to ward off such behavior.
“Stealing by young boys is very definitely a major social problem,” says Patterson. “I don’t like to use the cliché road to crime’ but it does apply. For some criminals, the first anti-social act was petty thievery when they were young.”
Patterson’s interest in the young-thief problem is an out-growth of a study he helped conduct from 1967 through 1971 on children whose hyper-aggressive habits caused family, school and community stress.
In that investigation, trained observers visited families and, using a system devised by ORI, carefully noted details about the behavior of every member of the family. Twenty-seven families with problem boys were studied and then compared to 27 control families (those with no problem boys) for data.
ORI is still analyzing the results of that investigation. “The value of the study is that it used professional observers who looked at every member of the family,” says Patterson. “Before now, professional people have had to rely on reports made by mothers and those reports are often distorted by emotion.”
Patterson found that of the 27 problem boys in the hyper-aggressive child study, 14 were thieves who had stolen enough to come to the attention of school counselors, police, juvenile workers and welfare workers.
Patterson knows quite a little about the young stealers. In general:
Their ages range from 6 to 14 years and the average is 9.
They all come from larger-than-normal families.
The parents, in Patterson’s term, are “over-extended,” usually with both mother and father working. If it is not employment that keeps the parents away from home, it is other activities. In virtually all cases, though, the parents and kids have too little time together.
The parents lack ordinary “family management” skills.
Patterson says the young thieves come from families in all income brackets. “The average is probably low middle-class income,” he says.
While the thievery study was started only a year ago, in September, 1971, the ORI scientists feel they already have found one key element in the behavior pattern of kids who steal.
“These boys are allowed just to wander, to roam, for many hours every day,” he says. “They goof off with their friends after school and they don’t keep regular hours.”
This lack of control encourages trouble, he says. “The boys do their stealing because of pressure of the gang. It’s sometimes more than just peer pressure, though, an in thing’ with the other kids who wander. Sometimes it’s just something to do to beat boredom.
“In nearly every case, a major part of our treatment procedure is to make the family set up a time schedule. We ask them to serve meals at certain times each day and have all family members at the table. Bedtime is the same time every night, everyone is given chores to do, and the family is converted into an operating unit rather than just a collection of people.”
Patterson rebuts the modern idea that discipline discourages a child’s development. “It’s not easy to know where to stop with authoritarianism and where to relax and be permissive,” he says, “but this we do know–. . . security and love in an organized family and that’s what children need a lot of.” Most of the families in trouble show too little love for the children, he says.
He also casts aside the complaint of some families that they can’t think of any chores for their children to do. Patterson says, “Maybe there isn’t wood to be cut and water to be hauled, but there are tables to be cleared, beds to be made, dishes to be washed and lawns to be mowed. Chores expected of a child assume great importance in his development.”
Patterson’s investigation also shows the child’s need for what modern-day psychologists call “reinforcement,” but he doesn’t put any fancy title to it.
“It’s this simple,” he says. “When a child does something good, he has to be told. He must be complimented and encouraged to do something else good.”
“When he does something bad, he must be made to see what he did wrong. Call it punishment if you want.”
The most effective form of punishment is the “time-out” practice. “Send the child to his room for two minutes,” he says. “Let him work out his problems away from anyone else. If he keeps raising hell, extend the time, and if he comes out and goofs again, pop him back in for another time period.”
Patterson stresses that parents must be consistent. “Reward and punishment must not be dished out in a haphazard way,” he explains. “Both must be handles so that the child knows what’s going to happen. If he seeks reward, he must be assured it’s there. And he must know that goofing up is going bring sure and swift punishment.”
The disciplining parents should not act in anger, he cautions. “Rather, the punishment should be automatic–saying, This is what we said we’d do and now we’re going to do it.”
Although the ORI researchers got lots of cooperation from the parents of the over-aggressive children in the earlier study, they’re running into resistance from the parents of the stealing boys.
“It’s easy to understand,” says Patterson. “The super-aggressive kid was raising so much hell with his family, his folks were glad to come to us for help. They were strongly motivated.”
“But the less-aggressive kid who steals is not really such a problem for his folks. He’s apt to be quieter, passive. And, too, there’s more shame attached to stealing than there is to mere aggression. So some parents aren’t cooperating.”
Though it takes considerable time to conduct the investigation and then write the prescription for a program of rehabilitation, Patterson can use more cases.
“We’re in the telephone book,” he says. “We want the parents of kids who have a thievery problem to call us and talk it over. We think we can help and we’d surely like to try. The more kids we work with, the more we’ll all learn.”
The project is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Crime and Delinquency of the National Institute on Mental Health, Washington, D.C. Patterson says that ORI is the only agency in the nation carrying out this special study on children who steal. “It’s a pioneering effort,” he says.
The hoped-for result of the investigation is the development of programs to (1) keep young people from stealing, and (2) to stop them from doing it once they are started.
“We are gong to try hard to learn enough about the problems and the solutions to be able to write books for professional workers in the field,” says Patterson. “We’ll also publish our findings so that parents can take action themselves.”
He says the program has already halted four young thieves. “We’ve got the parents and the kids to do things differently, and the stealing stopped,” he says. “We can help more youngsters if we are told about them.”
That 9-1/2-year-old boy who was mentioned earlier isn’t stealing anymore. In fact, he isn’t wandering around stores at all. He goes home, has good meals and talks with his folks.
He’s becoming the kind of son any parent would be glad to call his own.
Reprinted with permission. Copyright 1972, The Register Guard, www.registerguard.com.