Juvenile Delinquency and Adult Disorganization

Abstract

We point at the disrupted war-time family. Yet in doing so we do not dare to admit two things: first that this institutional breakdown, this cave-in of old and time-honored taboos, that this social disorganization is above all personal disorganization; and further that the present affliction, contrary to current beliefs, is vastly a grievance born of abundance. It seems that uncontrolled plenty can be as sure a cause of disorganization as uncontrolled and unsupported destitution. Like other dangerous matters, dynamite, for instance, car driving, marriage and voting, it can not be expected to be managed correctly by inexperienced and immature youngsters.' In rural sections of the country 100 dollars a month will mean more affluence to a 15 year old boy than $10,000 to a fifty year old banker. Money, in adult and competent hands, means freedom from want. Under different circumstances it means premature freedom from control, premature sense of all-competence, premature sex relations,2 a distorted picture of social and human relations. By living in an artificial boom situation youngsters build up false adjustive mechanisms. They will enter the hard struggle of the post-war world equipped with misleading ideas and brittle weapons. Wars, by concentrating on one aim, are disruptive forces. Fathers, as far as they have not joined the fighting divisions, have occupied the front of production. Internal migrations of unprecedented magnitude are taking place. The attraction of high wages, good life and the feeling that they belong to the elite of essential citizens carry