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doi: 10.1177/000271625932200102pmid: N/A
The extent and nature of that ill-defined com plex, juvenile delinquency, defy precise definition. Never theless, existing evidence indicates that delinquent behavior known to official agencies has increased in recent years, both absolutely and proportionally. Moreover, there is evidence that a great amount of law-violation among juveniles goes un detected. Because of the size and importance of the juvenile delinquency problem, its tremendous cost in dollars and in human wastage, and the prospect that it will increase still further, much more must be learned about its prevention, treatment, and basic causes. More and better research is needed to test hypotheses concerning causal factors, to evalu ate current programs of prevention and treatment, and to try out and evaluate new methods. Research priorities must be carefully assessed and the finding of basic facts must be im proved. We will then have an adequate base line for evalu ating the problem and an adequate picture of the extent to which our treatment facilities are now applying what we do know.
doi: 10.1177/000271625932200103pmid: N/A
Overactivity and aggressive, destructive behavior in children are often regarded as precursors of juvenile delin quency. This symptomatology is nonspecific for diagnosis or causation. Review of typical cases shows the wide range of meanings such behavior may have and the varied backgrounds, in a causal sense, from which such children may come. If delinquency is to be reduced or prevented, more will have to be learned scientifically about this whole subject. Both clinical workers and the general public will have to revise their atti tudes toward and their ways of dealing with aggressive children.
doi: 10.1177/000271625932200104pmid: N/A
The Area Project program is based on studies of the epidemiology of delinquency and of the social experience of children growing up in city neighborhoods with high rates of delinquents. Preventive effort is concentrated in such delin quency areas. The structure of the local society is regarded as deficient in its ability to reduce the normal alienation of the male adolescent and to restore and maintain adult controls. In most instances delinquency in this situation is viewed as a product of social learning. Procedures of the Area Project are based on the assumption that young people are responsive principally to the expectations of their intimate groups: family, peers, and neighbors. The major activity of the Area Project program is the development of youth welfare organizations among residents of delinquency areas and, within the structure of these groupings, direct work with predelinquent and delin quent individuals and groups. Neighborhood groups are en couraged to employ qualified local residents to carry on the work. Variation in the procedures in the organization of local groups and in the content of their programs reflects variety in patterns of integration of local social institutions. Area Project experience indicates that residents of delinquency areas are capable of action in relation to youth welfare problems. Such action has probably reduced delinquency in the program areas.
doi: 10.1177/000271625932200105pmid: N/A
The South Central Youth Project was based on the assumption that juvenile delinquency is part of the child- rearing problem of the whole community. Prevention there fore demands co-operation and co-ordination among all the organizations of the community related to youth and aimed at the creation of a healthy community climate. Accordingly, this Project did not consist in the establishment of a new agency but was rather a co-ordinated effort on the part of law- enforcement, health, and welfare agencies and of public schools in an area of high delinquency. The Project focused on de tection of the beginning signs of delinquency and on finding concrete means to improve interagency communication and co-operative efforts. On the basis of its experience, the follow ing suggestions for carrying on such work in the future were made: (1) Establish Practitioner Committees from sufficiently small geographic areas to meet regularly to make plans for cases needing concerted community effort. (2) Increase the flexibility of established agency structures and functions. (3) Realize the importance and difficulty of the "aggressive case work" and "street-corner group work" approaches and train selected practitioners for this task. (4) Increase the use of community education; co-ordinate the work of all agencies to change community culture. (5) Strengthen community efforts capable of early detection and attention to juvenile problems as for instance the services of school social workers and youth agencies using qualified professional personnel.
doi: 10.1177/000271625932200106pmid: N/A
Fuld Neighborhood House in Newark, New Jer sey, has for the past two summers sponsored a Work Camp Project in an attempt to combat delinquent trends by offering teen-agers both paid work in accordance with their abilities and the guidance and leadership of trained social workers. The experiment has not been an unqualified success, but many good results have been obtained and many valuable lessons learned for future projects. Boys of the particular subculture involved equate success with the art of obtaining the greatest material reward for the least effort possible, an equation clearly indi cated by their work habits. Their deep fear of being taken advantage of by society causes them to react violently to any thing which they feel to be unfair, but at the same time they are extremely responsive to just treatment and anxious to maintain a close and friendly relationship with the social work ers who serve as their leaders. The extension of the Work Camp Project into a year-round program could provide the continued leadership sorely needed by these young people and offer them an incentive to obtain the education and training necessary to enable them to become productive members of society.
Brown, Roscoe C.; Dodson, Dan W.
doi: 10.1177/000271625932200107pmid: N/A
The delinquency rates for white boys in three areas of Louisville, Kentucky, were compared for the period 1944-1954. These areas were selected because they were similar in certain ecological characteristics. The delinquency rates decreased steadily over an eight-year period in the area where there was a Boys' Club. The delinquency rates in the two other areas with no youth-serving agencies increased over the same period of time. Some discussion is devoted to the limited nature of any conclusions that can be derived from a statistical study of this type in which several factors can not be controlled. The study indicates that the Boys' Club was probably one important factor in the decline in delinquency in an area of a city where delinquency was increasing in other sections.
doi: 10.1177/000271625932200108pmid: N/A
The Quincy experiment is in the seventh of its ten- year program. It is concerned with a cross section of all youth in a small, midwestern city in Illinois and is attempting to prevent maladjustment and develop special talents of children. While not being specifically centered on delinquency, it does offer a picture of what the delinquent is like in this setting. Typically, he is a child of lower ability and lower economic status who has a difficult home situation, who finds school equally frustrating, and who has little contact with other com munity agencies. He usually leaves school as soon as legally possible and is unsuccessful in the work world. The first pro cedures tried by the Project to meet the needs of delinquent children had only moderate success. Later, a special pro gram was developed to determine whether the school years could be made a profitable rather than a defeating experience for them. This study is still in progress. Findings to date suggest that at the junior high school level the interests, atti tudes, and aggressive behavior of these children are more likely to be favorably influenced than are their academic achieve ment or personality patterns. There is a hint that similar pro grams instituted in the earlier grades might be effective in the latter two areas also.
doi: 10.1177/000271625932200109pmid: N/A
The All-Day Neighborhood Schools of the New York City Board of Education is a significant project. These are elementary schools in which additional staff are provided to help children during the schoolday and in an after school "club program" from three to five. The warm, personal rela tionship between teachers and children fuses home, school, and community into a sympathetic unit. Children of working pa rents who might otherwise be unsupervised in the empty after- school hours before the mother returns to the home, children needing help in learning processes, children with language and integration problems benefit from the program. Statistics show that there is a conspicuous lack of truancy and a mini mum of vandalism in these schools and that the delinquency rate declines.
doi: 10.1177/000271625932200110pmid: N/A
At the Henry Street Settlement, New York City, a project is under way to prevent the contagion of gang activity on younger children by detecting and working with the younger groups while there is still a good chance to influence them. Here we find that one of the most important steps in the cor rective process lies in reaching the parents of these children and helping them reassert their own influence and authority. Even the flimsiest of parent-child relationship is a potential source of control, if help is given in time. Through this spe cial project we are attempting to devise programs which place as much emphasis on encouraging parents to express their au thority as on the intensive group work being done with the chil dren. One of the most effective tools for achieving this has been through a constant effort to bring the parents of prede linquent gang members together at meetings so that their opin ions and group influence can be felt by the children. Another has been through the close, informal relationships developed with individual parents around matters concerning their chil dren and themselves. The partnership between home and Settlement is accepted and recognized by the children and, in most instances, is contributing towards revitalizing parent- child relationships. All combined, this approach seems to be having a positive effect on the behavior of the children in these young groups.
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