ABSTRACT
Very high delinquency was itself a symptom of a serious total maladjustment of a population to the mode of existence in which it found itself, a situation determined in the first instance by squalid poverty and usually aggravated by social discrimination. Delinquency is a mode of response to pressures and to incitations that develop in every area of society. Susceptibility to delinquency is highly variant both in degree and in type. Anything that increases the range of opportunity, especially for the poor and disprivileged, or helps develop in the young a sense of belonging, of effective membership within the community, serves as a safeguard against youthful delinquency. Officials appointed to organize or administer antidelinquency programs, whether under public or private auspices, should themselves be familiar with the problems of youth and should be in a position to keep in touch with developments in treatment and with the results of research.
