Juvenile delinquency (1955)

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY 51 the first law-enforcement agency in the United States to sponsor such a track. We did receive inquiries from the boys to join the hot rods. After several difficulties in getting insurance we did open up m 1951, and the opeiiing date was such a success that there were hotrodders that came from as far away as San Diego and camped on the strip all night to run the next day. -, j. , -i x Since that time the program has been such a wonderful success tliat the city of Pomona, in cooperation with the Los Angeles County Fair Association, formed a league in the city of Pomona and contributed ^5,000 and put a well-organized strip in the parking lot of the Los Ano-eles County Fairgrounds. Since that time the calls coming into the'police department complaining about hotrod racing are practically nonexistent. Before that they used to drive into the local drive-ins and drink beer and curse and create a disturbance, and then the police were cliasing them down the street, and that certainly has been al- leviated. „ . ^^. - -r» - 1 T The annual statistical report of the California Highway Patrol dis- closed that since 1950 there has been approximately a 10 percent in- crease in accidents each year involving youths under the age of 18, 18 or unquestionably under the age of 20. While the city of Pomona has had approximately a 21-percent increase m population our accident rate in that category has been less than 9 percent. We feel that that has a very direct reference as to how well the program is working. Also the youths around drive-ins, who formerly created a very great disturbance, have ceased such activity, and that condition has been alleviated. And at the same time they have contributed over «oO 000—they are incorporated as nonprofit—these donations go to the city of Hope, the March of Dimes, and so forth, the Children's Home. And they have also given prizes and trophies to other types of clubs that have that activity. . We feel in the city of Pomona that if you give youths a chance, that thev will come through, and we feel that the American people have an inherent desire for individualism. We feel that the youth certainly strives to get recognition such as any other person. \\e have a well- supervised program, and we have channeled their enthusiasm, and we feel that youth will come through. . . . i .-, . Keferring to the problem of seasonal activities by youths, and par- ticularly Halloween, in 1952 they practically burned the city of Pomona down. These groups would go out and set fire to palm trees and burn telephone lines. And in one section to the south, they turned on so many hydrants, lire hydrants, that the fire department was un- able to fight the fire, and generally destruction was caused throughout the city. ^We realized that this couldn't be an annual program for the youth; we decided to create a reo-ular Halloween committee. The com- mittee was composed of members of the PTA, the YMCA service clubs, and so forth. Plans were immediately drawn for a safe and sane Halloween. This blueprint included the organization of parties not only available to, but attractive to every boy and girl of junior and senior high school age. For the junior high schools, the parties were of the carnival type with games and other means of group activity, and a dance was "provided for the members of the senior high school. A few days prior to Halloween of 1953 a member of the police de- partment and of the fire department appeared at assemblies at these