[Character disorders and social maladjustment]

1020 juvenile delinquents were subjected to psychiatric examinations between 1960 and 1965 which in about 50 percent of them showed certain deviations from the psychic standard. The largest group (372) was that with disorders of the central nervous system (characteropathy). By special examinations (pneumoencephalography, arteriography, and electroencephalography) it was possible to find variations in the form of an internal hydrocephaly, cerebral atrophy, or anomaly in the electroencephalogram. The investigations also showed that characteropathic individuals more easily succumb to the demoralizing influence of a specific environment and also yielded to a secondary sociopathization. They constituted the most difficult element in the reformatories. From a scientific investigation of the problem of juvenile delinquents the practical conclusion is to be drawn that it is absolutely necessary to create medicopedagogic reform schools, the activities of which are based upon the latest achievements in psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, and therapeutic education.