I feel that parents do have a responsibility for remaining alert to the kinds of reading material and viewing material, including the comics, being utilized by their children. The wise parent will exercise some discretion and some authoritative control in this connection. The truly wise parent may realize the symptomatic importance of a strong and persistent interest in lurid material and will perhaps seek guidance or therapy for his child. In summary, I should like to add that comics must be viewed its only a part of the total experience of the child and that the same principles of guidance which parents must exercise in all realms of the child's experience must apply in this area.
The above comments leave many questions unanswered, but I hope that the committee may find this letter of same value in dealing with this difficult problem.
Sincerely yours,
Director, National Institute of Mental Health.
Senator Kefauver. Does that go for the first memorandum, too? I think the people would like to read the compilation by the Library of Congress.
The Chairman. Without objection, that will be made a part of the record, Let it be exhibit No. 2.
(The document referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 2," and reads as follows:)
Exhibit No. 2
The Library of Congress,
Legislative Reference Service,
Crime Movies, Crime Comic Books, and Crime Radio Programs as a Cause of Crime
(Prepared for the use of the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate juvenile delinquency)
(Note.—This report on the effect of crime comic books, crime movies, and crime radio programs upon delinquency includes quotations from research studies and opinions, as well as critiques of several studies.)
In the past 30 years, from time to time, discussions have arisen, centered around first, crime movies, and in later years the crime radio programs, and more recently crime comic books with respect to their connection with the causation of crime. Opinions have been voiced on this subject by sociologists, criminologists, juvenile court judges, psychiatrists, psychologists, and parents' groups, and in some instances, research studies have been made.
Some authorities feel that a realistic appraisal of these forms of entertainment indicates that, while there are delinquent cases in which they may be important, on the whole their direct influence on the juvenile is either almost nil or serves only to aggravate already existent attitudes and personality traits[1] Herbert Blumer and Philip Hauser found in their study over 17 years ago that motion pictures were one of the factors that was important in only about 10 percent of the delinquent males and 25 percent of the delinquent girls.[2]
Present evidence seems to indicate that the process of acquiring conduct norms, both unconventional and conventional, is primarily through intimate association with others and personal experiences of a face-to-face nature. Delinquents who have already had association through companions with unconventional behavior may be further stimulated by crime motion pictures, by certain radio programs, or by comic books. In a study made of 1,313 gangs in Chicago, Frederic M. Thrasher found that comic strips influenced these groups and their activities. Not only did many of the gangs obtain the names from the comic strip, but suggestions for vandalism and other destructive activities were directly traceable to this source.[3]
