ABSTRACT
Traditional definitions distinguish between being a “runaway,” “throwaway,” and “street youth.” The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency estimated 450,700 runaways in 1988 and concluded that the number of runaways had not increased since their last national survey in 1975. Much of the early descriptive work focused on establishing classification systems or typologies of runaway adolescents. Control group studies also have indicated that homeless adolescents report higher levels of parent marital problems and lower levels of parental care and acceptance than adolescents who live at home. Research on runaway and homeless adolescents is inconclusive regarding gender ratios. Accurate diagnosis is problematic with homeless adolescents because it is often difficult to distinguish early developmental disorders from onset of symptoms when homeless. As a nation of immigrants, the United States has a long history of young people making it on their own both in their initial immigration to North America and later during the westward migration.
