[Development of views of the causes of juvenile delinquency in Europe]

In the past two hundred years, views of the etiology of delinquency have developed from the extreme constitutional direction or line of thought through theories considering social factors to be solely responsible to the assumption of a combination of constitutional and social factors. Theses of social misadaptation as a source of delinquency, which were inaugurated by Soviet criminologists, could also be confirmed by the results of a large-scale investigation conducted in Poland. The combination of two factors (limited psychic power and negative social influences) was found to be the most frequent cause of criminal acts.