Simulated Social History of a Juvenile Delinquent
Instructor's Guide for
Juvenile Delinquent's History Generator
(c) 1986, 1995 by Charles L. McGehee
The Juvenile Delinquent's History Generator program will
generate a complete synthetic and unique social history for a
fictional juvenile which is useful in teaching courses in
Juvenile Delinquency, Criminology, Counselling, Social Work, and
other areas concerned with problems of youth.
The purpose of this program is to make possible assigning
each student in a class his or her own personal "case" upon which
to practice the concepts and techniques developed in the class.
The student, who is identified by name on the case record as the
Juvenile Officer in charge, is confronted with a named youth who
has a life history, the characteristics of which have been
generated randomly by the computer. Although this history has
been created by a computer, it accurately reflects key
characteristics which are found in real life, i.e., family,
school and criminal history, as well as personal qualities,
tendencies, and practices. No two cases assigned in a class will
be alike. Moreover, the program is designed in such a way that
the instructor may make a separate copy of the case for security
and future reference.
To use the program, make sure your printer is properly
hooked up and is turned on. Then simply LOAD and RUN it
according to the characteristics of your particular computer
(versions are available for the IBM-PC, Apple IIe and Macintosh,
and the Commodore 64). When prompted, enter the number of
students for whom you will be generating cases, the number of
individual copies of each case you will want printed, and the
name of each student. The program will automatically create a
unique case for each student and as many copies of that case as
you have designated. For best results set your printer to print
10 characters per inch (pica) and 6 lines per inch.
The social history is particularly useful in conjunction
with an "actual" event, that is, the event which brought the
youth into contact with the law. The author uses cases such as
the one included on this disk (file: psi.txt). The story is
part of a general assignment in which the student is required to
prepare an evaluation and recommendation for the court (a
pre-sentence investigation (PSI), depending on the terminology of
the jurisdiction). Whatever the story, the student's response to
it will depend on the characteristics of the youth involved.
There are certain inherent limitations, of course, to
computer simulations. Most notable is the inability, in this
case, to interview the subject person. To help overcome this
difficulty, a pattern is included on the social history page
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which can be cut out, pasted on a piece of stiff paper, folded
into a die and glued. It will form a reasonably symmetrical cube
if the report was printed at 10 characters/inch and 6 lines/inch.
With this die the student can then "interview" the youth.
A note on the use of the die for interviewing: A certain
amount of imagination will be necessary in order to conduct such
an interview. The party should be asked questions which can be
answered yes or no. In the final report these answers can be
converted into statements. For example, in answer to the
question "Did you intend to sell the TV?" a "Maybe" might be
expressed as "He evaded the answer when asked what he intended to
do with the TV" (or if the answer was "No", "He denied it," etc.)
Students should be cautioned to resist the temptation to
alter or avoid answers or re-roll the die or otherwise try to get
different answers simply because they are distasteful or unclear.
Remember: In a real situation we do not have any control over
what people say to us. They may be cooperative, contradictory,
vague, hostile or evasive. With young people, interviews may be
particularly difficult and unsatisfactory. It is up to the
counsellor to make sense out of it all, regardless.
The program is written in BASIC and is not copy-protected.
If the user has some knowledge of programming, it can easily be
listed and modified to incorporate additional or different
information or other probabilities for various characteristics.
For simplicity's sake, not all circumstantial possibilities are
included nor do probabilities of given conditions necessarily
reflect the probabilities found in real life. Since the student
is likely to be assigned only a single case, he or she is
compelled to take the case "as it walks in the door." How typical
it is with respect to the country or region as a whole is not
important. More important is that the class be assured the
possibility of dealing with a variety of types of persons.
As presently constituted, for instance, the probability of a
male or female being chosen is equal, as is the probability of
black or white being selected. Possible ages range from 13 to 18
with equal probability, though age is coordinated with grade in
school, age at first offense, and age of child at time of
parents' divorce, if applicable.
Beyond these characteristics, the youth may have dropped out
of school, may be a poor, average, good or even outstanding
student. The father may be unemployed or may be employed as a
laborer, truck driver, machinist, salesman, businessman, or
doctor. The mother may be unemployed or be employed as a
homemaker, waitress, secretary, sales clerk, business woman, or
doctor. The parents may be married, separated, or divorced. He
or she may be an only child, have one brother or one sister, two
brothers or two sisters, or three brothers and three sisters. If
there are siblings, he or she may be the youngest or the oldest.
The youth may have no previous criminal record or may have been
arrested 1, 3, 6, 10, or 15 previous times for which he or she
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may have received no treatment, or maybe have been sentenced to
perform community service, make restitution, receive counselling,
or be sent to a group home or an institution. Offense and
punishment are deliberately not linked within the program. The
offenses for which the youth may have been previously arrested
are shoplifting, burglary, auto theft, robbery, assault, drugs,
vandalism, and/or theft.
Personally, the subject may be a bright loner, or may be
withdrawn and sullen, friendly and outgoing, hot-tempered and
unpredictable, gregarious and manipulative or hostile and moody.
He or she may have been raised in a kind and loving way,
supportively and encouragingly, may have been a spoiled child, or
physically or emotionally abused. The youth may never, seldom,
or frequently engage in sexual relations, and if so, may do so
always, usually or seldom with the same person. Sexual
orientation may be either homosexual or heterosexual, and sexual
motivation may be either romantic attachment, recreation, or
prostitution. He or she may not use, use occasionally or
frequently use tobacco, alcohol and/or drugs. Further, he or she
may attend church never, occasionally, weekly or several times
weekly. Not all probablilities in these latter categories are
necessarily equal.
These, then, are key points of interest to the juvenile
court and to persons concerned with youth work. You may wish to
add characteristics and are encouraged to do so. The author
would appreciate hearing from you concerning your experiences
with the program. If you would like help in modifying it, please
contact him at the following address:
Charles L. McGehee
1904 Parklane
Ellensburg, WA 98926
(509) 925-4219 or (509) 963-2005
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