Mid 1950’s Cook County Sheriff’s Office Juvenile Delinquency Gang Prevention Special
Some time in the mid to late 1950’s, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office organized a film crew to interview “juvenile delinquents”, as gangbangers wasn’t a term used yet. These guys were mainly inner city youth’s from my area of West Town, and other neighborhood such as Little Sicily/Cabrini Green and Lawndale. They were willing to be interview on camera wearing incognito masks, and a few actors were hired to film street scenes, on actual locations in West Town of Chicago, one being Grand Avenue near Morgan before the I-90 was built, recreating how one might be pressured into joining a street gang with other “delinquents”. Note that the footage captures an early more innocent era of street banging, before all the sweaters, colors and cards came into play. The determining factor decided by sociologists for the growing gangs were compared to the city’s most congested slums, whichever area had the highest number of vacant lots and ran down buildings to play around. Also, the social family conditions were blamed, as some families, specifically immigrant families, had two parents working and not being around to watch the kids. That should come as no surprise really, something that I can relate to on a personal level having grown up in a single immigrant parent household. The full special is about 7 hours long, please let me know if you guys are interested in seeing the full feature and I will gladly upload it all in parts to every social media platform I can. Attached are a few screenshots from it.
5 сен 2024
