Jailbait the Story of Juvenile Delinquency

urt animal, 14-year-old Nanette tore her stockings. Her only nylons. Gossamer badges, in her own eyes, of freedom and adulthood. It didnt matter that her legs were too skinny to fill the things, that they curled and rolled limply around her adolescent thighs. She had worked for them, hard. With them to indicate professional status, to hint of cultivated technique and experience at collecting for same, she could now demand a dollar, even two. In fact, she had been busily embarked on her first venture at the new rates when members of the vice squad had so rudely broken into the hotel room. YOU can put her down now, officer, the desk sergeant said. Ive sent for a policewoman. FVatch out for this kid The officers wrist streamed blood where Nanettes nails had gashed deeply. You could have stopped to dress her. She threw everything but those stockings out the window. She was fixin to jump after em, but I- No guy Two. Both over fifty. Found one hiding in the shower bath. The other was . . . say, youd be surprised Had to let em go. The desk sergeant wearily made notations and shooed the cops out of the station room. Nanettes child-blue eyes sought his. Put this on, kid. A heavy black police shirt supplanted the 1 2 JAILBAIT ripped bedsheet wrapped around her. How did you get into the hotel Just walked upstairs. They told me their room number. You dont think Im dumb enough to use the elevator Nanettes eyes returned to the torn stockings drooping over her calves. A dollar and thirty-nine cents She started to cry. Impulsively, the sergeant stepped down from his desk to consoIe the child. Nanette looked up at him. With desperate inspiration she slid an arm halfway around his sturdy middle. Listen For a dollar and thirty-nine cents, I7I1-well, anything-only a dollar thirty-nine- The sergeant had had a hard day. He felt a surge of warm, guilty passion. Then, more angry at himself than at the child, he slapped her across the mouth. You little slut l Nanette is a juvenile delinquent. She stands for sin, but whose sin Whose shame No one knows, exactly. Experts disagree more than they agree concerning the origins of delinquency. No man can say for sure who or what is responsible for it. But this much is certain. Forty thousand like Nanette will go to reform schools this year. Other hundreds of thousands will brush with the police, be reprimanded, locked up, paroled, suspended, dismissed, remanded in custody of parents, foster homes and sectarian institutions. That hundreds of thousands is pretty vague. Because we simply do not know We have exact enough information on the bushels of wheat or tons of pig iron produced each year, but the nations crop of Nanettes is considered less important. Its size has never been accurately calculated...