Youth: The Trouble with Girls

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The Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency had just seen an eye-opening display of hardware—machete, zip guns, revolvers, assorted shivs—liberated from Manhattan's juvenile delinquents and brought to Washington by New York's Mayor Robert Wagner. Then Arthur J. Rogers, a New York City Youth Board official, took the witness chair to tell what really gets the city's juvenile gangs into trouble. The most explosive weapon in the delinquents' arsenal, said Rogers, is the female of the species.

"The girls will do anything to please members of the gangs." Rogers explained.

"Further, they are rumor carriers, trouble carriers, weapons carriers, narcotic carriers and sometimes disease carriers. They are promiscuous, truant and violent. They participate in petty theft, have out-of-wedlock pregnancies, and use alcohol and narcotics excessively."

The complexion of female juvenile delinquency has changed "shockingly" over the past 13 years, said Rogers. In the late '40s and early '50s, the major portion of girls' delinquency "was concerned with truancy, running away from home, ungovernableness and sex offenses." Lately, more and more offenses have involved stealing and "injury to person." Youth Board studies "indicate the need for expanded service for girls, particularly those affiliated and associated with gangs. We feel that the tremendous capacity they possess for positive influence can be redirected into constructive channels.''