One study of delinquency in an American city examined a set of nearly 2,000 boys-the entire ninth grade in the public schools in a given school year-and followed up these boys over 4 consecutive years. By the end of this time, 41 percent of the boys had been in some kind of trouble leading to an official record,. and 28 percent enough so to give cause for serious parental and community concern; 72 percent of the boys had records so serious as to affect their future careers. These figures are certainly graver than the annual case rate of 2 percent, and they come from a citywide sample which is rather favorable-at least the boys so studied were in school.

In another of our major cities, it has been shown that nearly 15 percent of all the children of the city were destined to come to court on delinquency charges before reaching their 18th birthday. For boys alone the citywide figure was 22 percent, and for Negro boys the rate was about 40 percent. In some neighborhoods of this city, 59 percent of the children who had resided in that neighborhood from the age of 7 had been to court on delinquency charges by the age of 18. Moving to yet another American city, we have a series of findings based upon an analysis of court cases over a 4-year period. In this city the overall case rates was only 13 per 1,000 in any 1 year. Yet over the 4-year period some census tracts produced a very high total of delinquency with more than 29 percent of the white boys and 60 percent of the Negro boys, aged 10-15, acquiring a court record. The highest delinquency areas, in or near the central business district,. showed 75 percent, and even 90 percent, of boys in these areas registered in the court dockets over the period of the study.

Such figures make it clear that a national court rate figure of 2 or 3 percent yearly does not mean that the delinquency problem is confined to a small percent of our youth. Over the entire span of a young life, such figures add up to much. more than this-15, 20, or 25 percent-and, in some groups, even very much higher.

SOCIAL DISTRIBUTION OF DELINQUENCY

In accounting for these figures, and in explaining why they are higher in some groups than others, we have at our disposal certain broad trends which are of great use in narrowing our focus upon a series of important social facts.

Sex.-Official delinquency is primarily a matter involving the young male of the community. Boys are referred to court four times as often as girls. This fact reflects the greater stress upon boys in bridging the gap between childhood and a responsible productive adult role.

Age

Age. The age at which delinquency is most serious confirms this story. Chart 3 shows the age-specific rate of court referrals in one city. The trend shown here is typical: the peak of delinquency at 15 or 16 years comes just at the time when compulsory school attendance is at an end, the school loses its hold upon these people, and the young person must face the world of adult responsibility.

Urbanization.-Another fact of great importance is the concentration of delinquency in urban centers. Urban delinquency rates are three to four times the rates in rural areas and, as we have seen, are highly concentrated in certain sectors of the city. Such neighborhoods may be traditional centers of delinquency for generations, even though many successive groups may have lived in these neighborhoods and finally left as they gained a foothold on wider opportunities in American life. These inner-city areas deserve special attention and have recently been recognized as the locus of a host of problems which plague the large American city, of which delinquency is justly seen as but one aspect. Recently, it has appeared that a disproportionate growth in delinquency is taking place in the new and yet unsettled communities developing at the periphery of our great cities, and such developments may require increasing attention in the future. But priorities demand that we focus upon the one-quarter of the population wherein one-half of the delinquency and youth crime originates. And that is the inner-city area.

As we

School and employment trends.-The relation between inadequate schooling, difficulty in securing employment, and delinquency is an important one. have seen, the peak ages for delinquency come at the years when the young person is faced with the transition between school and work. When his education seems irrelevant and painful and the job market is retreating, the adolescent male is caught in a cross-fire, and the lack of support in bridging this gap leaves him vulnerable to antisocial paths of action.

It has been estimated that 95 percent of 17-year-old delinquents are out of school, 85 percent of the 16-year-olds, and 50 percent of the 15-year-olds. Over the total age range of 8 to 17 years, 61 percent of the delinquents in one study were not in school.

Although the modal age for dropping out of school is around 16, when compulsory attendance ends, some dropping out occurs even before that; and in either case a significant degree of academic retardation is typical. The most frequent reason given is "dissatisfaction with school," and this statement need not always be an obvious cover story, for some dropouts score high on intelligence tests.

The social results, however, are striking. It has been shown that the unemployment rate among school dropouts may be three or more times as high as among high school graduates. This finding only serves to emphasize the precarious position of all youth in the labor market, for unemployment rates for youth in general are about twice that of workers over 25.

In the course of the next decade, some 26 million young people will enter the labor market. At a time when automation and other great social transformations are steadily raising the requirements for entry into the labor market, we have the prospect of 7.5 million of this group-nearly a third-who will not have completed high school. And of these, 2.5 million will not even have a grade school diploma.

Such problems are particularly acute in the inner-city areas described above. A recent study of slum areas of large cities showed 60 to 70 percent of the male youth between 16 and 21 to be out of school and out of work. Even of those who had completed high school, only about half were employed. In such areas, it would be hard to make the case that current education was providing effective channels to occupational success. In our cities such frustrated groups are large in size, very dense in numbers compressed into a limited living space, and culturally isolated from other kinds of people leading more productive lives. Unstable communities.—To these problems are added others. The unsettled organization of the modern slum, the continued state of transition imposed by slum-clearance programs, the family disorganized by unemployment, the adjustment problems of the migrant to the city, and the strong control in such neighborhoods of organized crime, all add their effects in the same direction, and it is a stark one.

Minority group status.-The ethnic or racial composition of delinquent groups represents the effects of social disability visited upon those of minority group status. Before 1930 the delinquency problem was mainly a problem of the American-born child of foreign parentage, notably from European rural com

munities. But in recent years the problem has shifted to the "new migrants” and new marginal groups within the American scene: the urban-drifting Negro, the Mexican, the Puerto Rican. Such groups suffer from social and economic barriers, concentration in deteriorated living areas, and cultural segregation.

Thus, although Negroes represent about 10 percent of the total population of the Nation, they contribute nearly twice that much to the delinquency rate. In some large metropolitan areas, the disproportion may range as high as three, five, or even eight times as high as the contribution from whites.

DELINQUENCY AS A WAY OF LIFE

The effect of one or even several of the social disadvantages just enumerated can often be withstood if other circumstances are favorable. For example, a rich and strong family life can protect its children against delinquency, if it can nurture skills and motives which can find a rewarding outlet as the child matures. But when the impact of all these factors is adverse, the situation alters. If jobs are scarce, school appears meaningless, communities are poverty stricken and disorganized, family disrupted, and advancement barred by ethnic barriers, then a sense of the meaning of a conventional way of life disappears altogether. When access to a whole range of opportunities is denied, withdrawn, or unattainable, and when these barriers are visible and the frustrations are shared, there then develops a wholesale loss of support for a law-abiding way of life.

Under these conditions, law violation becomes, not the isolated outburst of a disturbed child but a way of life, supported by a set of attitudes which engulf otherwise normal, healthy, productive youngsters. Delinquency is group-oriented, hostile to all aspects of convention, and may become very sophisticated. It is, in short, a system of beliefs and values with a strong and stable tradition of its own, and its power goes beyond the individual, or even the family, whose good motives to do well for its children have little material to work with.

It is, of course, in such groups that delinquency is most serious. It is here that we find the "bopping" or fighting gangs which have become so notorious. But even where the drama of gangs is absent, delinquency goes on in dangerous, even if quieter, forms. Theft, larceny, and assault pile upon the police blotter, if not in the headlines. Drug addiction, prostitution, alcoholism, and other signs of crippling despair signify retreat from life and feed the income of the organized criminal. Here is community life wholly out of control, community failure in its purest form.

Such grave trends should make it clear that the problem we face outruns the effectiveness of our control, enforcement, and correctional efforts. Even with increased emphasis in these spheres, we are dealing with the end results of delinquency-not the sources. Our concern must, therefore, broaden to include the field of prevention, and this means a concern with the effects of widespread changes in the social and economic life of our society.

Secretary RIBICOFF. Higher rates of delinquency are the signs of serious failures in our social life. They warn us of an alarming failure in our social life. They warn us of an alarming failure to motivate many of our young people in productive ways. We must search behind the statistics for the changing conditions which produce these increases. The pressures that provoke such serious misbehavior weigh more heavily with the delinquent than the consequences of getting caught. The task of prevention is to relieve these pressures ahead of time.

When such pressures arise from major changes in the occupational outlook for young people, delinquency prevention becomes part of a much broader picture. Inadequate training and job opportunities for youth need to be tackled directly. Delinquency prevention and treatment programs must be fitted into a total attack that reaches all young people whether delinquent or not.

This proposed bill on delinquency is part of a series of administration measures that deal directly with youth problems and the conditions that produce them. For example, the education bill affords new support to local school systems; the youth opportunities bill offers

a chance to explore youth employment and vocational training programs; the housing bill seeks to improve the physical and social conditions of life in local communities.

Each of these measures reaches a different part of the problem. We need to find ways of combining these new resources in the same community. Let us do this for different communities. Let us try different youth programs. Then let the comparative results show how local communities can best create effective new opportunities for young people.

But what can we do especially for delinquent youth or for those on the brink of serious trouble? How can we build secure routes back to the opportunities of a law-abiding life?

Many possible answers are being tested in local communities throughout the country and promising untried ones have been suggested.

Title I of the proposed legislation will enable us to promote more intensive testing and evaluation of such promising delinquency projects in local communities. Our chances of success will be better if we can coordinate these programs with other projects for youth in the same community. This means setting up appropriate methods of joint planning, case referral, and screening. The right combination of programs could give us a model plan for other communities with similar problems.

There are many organizations that have long done effective work with young people. The Boy Scouts of America, the Boys' Clubs, the Big Brothers, Police Athletic League, the YMCA's, the CYO's, the YMHA's, and similar groups have shown renewed interest in developing programs that reach underprivileged youngsters.

For example, in Chicago the YMCA has an effective staff for making direct contact with street clubs of troublesome youngsters in the most delinquent areas of the city. Many of these groups have become part of the regular Y programs. A new job-placement plan has won the cooperation of local business and industry. A special program of onthe-job education with a large merchandise firm shows great promise. Many talented young leaders recruited directly from street gangs have been employed in a service capacity. They aid the Y staff in understanding and dealing with training, job, and other adjustment problems of other fellows from their neighborhood. Such determined efforts show what can be done to build new roads to legitimate opportunities.

The American Friends Service Committee has been developing a new program for delinquent youth in San Francisco. They spotted in these youngsters a capacity for service which had never been tapped. What they needed was the right opportunity. Members of the committee organized groups of boys to carry out service tasks in their local community. They helped maintain recreational equipment, painted and repaired houses, and took care of aged and sick people. The boys responded with enthusiasm. The attitude of neighborhood adults. changed from rejection to praise. The committee is now trying to devise new job-training and advancement opportunities for the boys. Here again new paths back to a law-abiding life are being cleared on home ground.

Other promising programs are being tried out by different school systems. In Detroit the school system has organized a special job