Streetcorner Research

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This absorbing book, outlining specific methods for persons interested in initiating similar programs in their own communities, proposes a new experimental approach to a widespread and critical problem—the juvenile delinquent. The central objective of the Streetcorner Research project was to explore ways of reducing adolescent crime. To accomplish this, a research laboratory was established that recruited severely delinquent boys as subjects in a unique experiment in which the boys were paid to talk about anything that came to mind. Various procedures and activities were designed to enlist their regular attendance and cooperation and the boys were encouraged to express themselves as frankly as possible. In time, as the transcribed interviews in this book reveal, the subjects experienced a novel sense of personal release, which frequently resulted in unprecedented and illuminating revelations into their conduct for both themselves and their interviewers. More important perhaps, a three-year study of the thirty boys employed by the project indicates that the amount of crime committed by the Streetcorner Research group was significantly reduced.