Juvenile delinquency (1955)

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY 53 Mr. BoBO. Chief, I wonder if in a city the size of Pomona you ever have any narcotic problem with marihuana or heroin ? Mr. Parker. Yes, we have had, but it has been at a very minimum. Kecently, I think—it was about a year and a half aj^o that we had our major case wherein we had one boy who was selling marihuana to A'ery young juveniles. We were able to apprehend the subject as well as tlie boys who did smoke marihuana, and as a result of investigation he is in prison now. Through informants, through friends we made through organized activities we have the names of every juvenile who has ever bought or smoked marihuana, and we do keep a good file and record of that, and through adequate counseling we feel that the marihuana problem is well on its way to solution in Pomona. Chairman Kefauv^r. Well, Chief, we are very glad to know of the activities over in Pomona as you aspire to carry it out with such suc- cess, and we a])preciate your coming and being with us today. I think it an ap])ropriate place" in the record to insert Chief Parker's article, Harnessing the Hot Rodders. (The article referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 4," and reads as follows:) Exhibit No. 4 Harnessing the Hot Rodders Over the fireplace in our old family home where I was born, hung an old family heirloom, a tapestry in which was woven the following inscription : "There is so much good in the worst of us, And so much bad in the best of us. That it ill-behooves any of us. To try and find fault with the rest of us." In those days, while I could read the words, I never understood exactly what they meant and the important philosophy hidden in them. Their truth didn't really sink in until later years, especially when I entered the field of law enforce- ment. "There is good in the worst of us and bad in the best of us." Every city and village in this fast-moving age of the automobile, the airplane and supersonic travel, have had their trouble with speed—speed on the high- way—speed causing death by the thousands each year—speed that involves mature grownups as well as juveniles. The hot rodder is only one aspect of the major problem of our age, and for the most part we have not intelligently recognized this; consequently we have gone off the beam in trying to solve the hot-rod problem. ' In Pomona we finally woke up and applied a little psychology and homespun remedy to get the kids on our side—the side that would enable them to let off steam in an orderly and controlled fashion without endangering life and limb of us oldsters, who were every bit in need of a safety belt in our day as the kids are now. First of all, we became aware of the fact that the kids with their "souped up" hot rods were not all bad. They were a nuisance, a hazard, and a menace, but somewhere and somehow was an answer to flieir prol)lem. How to let them have their fun—let off steam—yet not do it where lives would be in jeopardy and where the law enforcement would have to be continually tracking them down, giving them the feeling they were lawbreakers, delinquents, and that the cops were against them. In reality, the kid driving and "revving up" a hot rod was not a criminal or a juvenile delinquent. We knew that from tlie arrests we had made. Wiien we looked at tbeir crimes in the light of what we had done in our teen-age years, we had a guilty conscience. Society and congestion had grown up around the kids, but society had not learned how to harness the devilment, exuberance, and tack their boisterous sails along orderly lines.