Essay On 1950 And Juvenile Delinquency

Shengyao Xiao

CAT1 Assignment 2

Prof. Elizabeth Losh

TA Kim De Wolff

Horror Comics In 1950s And Juvenile Delinquency

Introduction

The beginning of the 1950s is marked as the peak of the horror comics book boom with over 650 different titles being produced monthly by 1952 and millions of issues being sold every year. There was the gory history of '50s horror comics which contained a large number of homicidal manias, rattling skeletons, merciless devils, howling werewolves and hideous monsters. However, what began to worry parents and educators alike is the increasingly violent content to be found in many of the horror- and crime-oriented comics. At that same era, the United States experienced a panic over youth crime. The rise of juvenile delinquency caused a serious concern in American society. At the beginning of the years following World War II, increased exposure about teenager crimes generated considerable alarm and forced child experts to look for an explanation. What

“What Makes Delinquent Children” is an article written on April 25, 1954 on Chicago Daily Tribune. The author Norma Lee Browning wrote about a case which children stolen and wrecked cars. On the court, the kid showed no penitence by telling the Judge that he would not have been caught if one of those have not confessed. He believed that he did not have to go to school if he does not feel like doing so. Norma Lee Browning kept asking: “What made him do it? What goes thru the head of a good-looking, bright looking 15 year old car thief? Whom does he blame? What does he want out of life? Is he unhappy, repentant mad at the world, or what?” Norma Lee Browning did not agree with “the soft-hearted social workers” who have fed his ego that they called the violent youth an innocent victim of “teen-age turbulence.” Instead, the author believed the answer that should be found somewhere