Delinquent Generations in New Zealand

Application of Wilkins' "delinquent generations" hypothesis to New Zealand Children's Court statistics for 1947-60 suggests that, as theorized, social disturbances associated with the Second World War (1939-1945) had affected certain cohorts of children born during or just before it, in such a way as to render them more likely than other children to appear before the Children's Court later in life. An independent method of analysis, based on the theory of normalization of variables with large means, leads to the same conclusion. It further shows that the results are highly significant in the sense of statistical theory. The hypothesis put forward by Wilkins, which has survived tests in England and Wales, Scotland, Denmark, and now New Zealand, is clearly a contribution of some importance to the understanding of international trends in delinquency.