The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-06-09
pROBATIONERS . FEAR POSTWAR DELINQUENCY
By ANN RYAN

tWnited Press Staff Correspondent)
 Cleveland, June g - (U.P) - The hussy with the false eyelashes and the heavily rouged cheeks may be a sweet-faced child when her face is washed, but as Victory Girl' she constitutes menace which Is like " to get worse, not better, when the victory is won.
 That was the consensus of juv- emile authorities who gathered here for the 38th annual convention of the National Probation Association.
 ''The young lady with the green hngernails who turns out to be IS instead of 20," according to Miss Rhoda J. Miliken, director of the Women's Bureau of the Washing ton Metropolitan police depart nlent, "is often an enterprising and intelligent girl"
 But, Miss Milliken added, such a girl got her patriotic motives mixed and set out from an unsatis- factory home to "see what It '3 all about"
 Protest Blaming Youths
 Probation officers at the con- vention were vehement in protest against the assumption that the youngster is entirely to blame for the current rash of juvenile delin- quency which has spread across the country.
 "A large part of the conflict with youth" says Austin L. Porterfield, professor of sociology at Texas Christian University, grows out of the peevishness, rejection, im- patience, Responsibility or crim- inal attitudes of those who com- plain.
 Parents, most everyone is willing to agree, are usually to blame for the unsettled home conditions and lack of innocent recreational facil- ities which drive children out into the streets, according to the Con- vention consensus.
 But these conditions, added Por- terfleld, are not always due to the parents, but in many cases attri- hutable to neighborS, school teach CTS, or perhaps even policeman who becomes cross and irritable with noisy children when the tem- perature scars and the kids must play in the streets for lack of a supervised playground.
 Jailed For Teasing"
 These persons, according to Por- terfield, are responsible for putting hundreds of children into jails or correctional institutions for of- lenses no more serious than teasing popcorn peddler or stealing peaches from neighbours tree.
 Even the most seemingly-brazcA of the wartime delinquents, the victory girl" is often the victim of exploitation" according to Mss Milliken. Here the pasty-faced night clerk in & cheap hotel may befriend the adventuresome young girl he meets in a skating rink.
 Through his good offices she meets a number of young soldiers who cheerfully assume that any girls they meet at the place were there for the express purpose o1 brightening their furlough time in every way" And, without quite Knowing how 1t happened, the g'ri is classified as sexual offender by the police.
 Urges Attention Today But. warned the authorities, the problem is not ore to be pushed into the postwar files. Today's problem, said Mark McCloskey. director of the Community War Services of the Federal Security Agency, must be handled today, and in more efficient manner than it has been thus far
 World War II, ne said. has not produced new causes of delinquen- cy but has turned the spotlight or old ones. "The nation was shocked" he added. "at results they shoul' have expected from disrupted fam flies. uprooted homes, loosening of social restraints, fewer children at school, more children at work with more money to spend.'
 McCloskey concluded that unless we learn to combat the home front e2ourge of delinquency with our most concerted efforts. the post war plight of the kids may be even harder than that of returned vet erans.'