Juvenile delinquency (1955)

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY 47 where he liA'ed posed such problems such that we were anxious to do it for that reason. "We also felt that principally in all fields and cer- tainly in the welfare and youth field prevention must be in insepa- rable partner of treatment. And we hear a lot now about detached Avorkers, progressive casework, and protective services, and actually these have been the basic elements of our program siiice 1941. It was essentially an experimental project, and because of your time factor 1 won't go into details, except to say that this stuff of 10 positions encompass and are assigned to work in the various gang areas of the county. We took on as a responsibility group cases that would parallel our particular responsibility to individual youngsters. There are many youtliful i^roblems, parents who need help in counseling, but that is not the responsibility of the probation department. It is to take only those cases where the problem is so acute that for the welfare of the individual and the public government has a definite responsibility. Therefore, the gang referrals that our department takes are only those in situations where investigation has shown that the youth groups are beyond the reach or resources of existing programs. The situation in the county has had its ups and downs in the gang-warfare situation. These clubs, and hostility between them, has been mostly broken down because of a countywide federation of the youth clubs. So that in fact in all instances these particular groups have been converted into a club type of operation. They have their membership cards. They have learned to elect leaders by the democratic process rather than by the leader taking over. I am telescoping this very briefly because in many instances it took many months to gain the confidence and support of these youngsters, most of whom are members of our minority groups. At the present time, we can say that in the county the gang type of violence, the gang type of delinquency, is well down and has main- tained a low-frequency situation for quite a period of time. I think that 1 of the reasons, 1 of the main reasons contributing to that, Senator and Mr. Bobo, has been the fact that experience has shown that the best way to approach this type of problem is, of course, an early detection. But it is the integration of effort on the part of the various agencies. We find that law enforcement now in effect talks the same language as our staff persons, as does, for instance, church influences, such as Reverend Griffin's with the private agencies. Therefore, in the com- munity we have been able to accomplish more of the team approach to meet the needs of these youngsters. I think that that has been one of the very significant constructive trends in the field of work, has been the demonstration of our various agencies to cooperate as a team and mutually approach this particular problem. We now are working, incidentally, with about 26 groups in 19 areas throughout the county. One of the main changes that happens is that instead of these groups being all localized in the downtown or eastside area we have found that they have gone out very frequently more to the periphery, because our outskirts now have become so densely populated that youth faces the same problems there that they used to face in downtown Los Angeles.