OCR Text |
Show Youth Street Gangs Of Major Concern To Nation's Police NEW YORK - The problem c street gangs in the large cities 0 this country and Europe is of mi jor concern to police officials. In New York last year strpe' war gangs took the lives of le. schoolboys, but the gangs are nt as numerous or powerful as fiv years ago, police report. Chicago, Detroit, Los Angcle and many other American c:t:c have the problem of boys an girls who run in gangs and di mischief or worse. In London, for instance, once the world's safest big city, teen age gangs are assaulting and rob bing adults and fighting amonj themselves with knives, blackjack: and bicycle chains. Police in Rome and other Eu ropean cities have their hand.' full with youth gangs. Social workers report the anti social antics of the gangs is pari of a world-wide malaise that has come out of the late war. Years ago gangs had "pellai elubs" whiph they used for headquarters head-quarters and plotting their mis chief. Now, however, the teenage teen-age gangsters "hang out" in candy stores, pool rooms, cafeterias cafe-terias and meet in streets and parks. The problem of juvenile delinquency, delin-quency, too, Is being approached in a different manner. In New York the Youth Board will spend $2,000,000 this year to prevent and control delinquency. Police through the country are operating on the theory that increased in-creased recreation facilities for youth will cut delinquency. As a result, many communities are opening community centers of boarded up settlement houses and abandoned churches In underprivileged underpriv-ileged and crowded areas. |