Commentary: ‘Smoking, caning and delinquency in a secondary modern school’: A pioneer study by JW Palmer

In a paper published in the British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine in 1965, JW Palmer presented findings that may be very dated.1 The analysis, the interpretation of the data and the conclusions he reached, however, deserve the attention of contemporary researchers in the fields of criminology, criminal justice and epidemiology. Sadly, many of the problems identified by Palmer are still waiting to be solved.