How common was juvenile crime, teenage pregnancy and underage drinking in the 1940's?

Juvenile crime and teenage pregnancy was virtually nil among the white race. It was significantly higher among the blacks. Underage drinking was common, but not as big a problem because there wasn't as much driving.How common was juvenile crime, teenage pregnancy and underage drinking in the 1940's?
More common than most people are lead to believe...





There's a number of people from that so-called ';Greatest Generation'; who would love to tell you there were no such problems in the 1940s, and they'd try convince the rest of us that they were morally above reproach compared to later generations of teenagers, but that simply wasn't true. My own mother used to tell me about what things were really like when she was a teenager back in the 40s, and it wasn't all dancing at canteen dances to the strains of Glen Miller!





Many of the facts re youth social problems were repressed starting in the 50s, but yes, there were big problems with those sorts of issues in the 40s...indeed even the 20s and 30s. There's even verified documentation regarding it including books, magazine articles and educational films to prove it. While much of the problem did come from poor families and so-called ';broken homes';, the various social problems cut a wide swatch...and often hit families of all socioeconomic levels, religions and races.





Why the various social problems back then? Well, some people tried to blame the movies, comic books, jazz and pop stars like Frank Sinatra, but the reality was that the times were turbulent and uncertain. During WWII, the men were off to war overseas and the women were working long hours in defense plants. Sure the government promised day care but it never materialized. Sometimes teens and young children were left alone to their own devices.So as a result, the deliquency rates went up as did underage drinking...and to a certain extent drug abuse.





There were police raids done on juke joints and roadhouses on a regular basis back then. Things got so bad juvenile deliquency-wise that a number of major cities such as New York, NY Chicago, IL Cleveland, OH Portland, OR San Francisco, CA and Los Angeles, CA and a number of smaller towns actually instituted curfews on teens. Yet, curfews didn't always help. In fact, the curfew plus racism against Latino teenagers were two of the reasons behind the ';Zoot Suit'; riots in L.A. between 1942 and 1944. However, youth problems weren't just in the US. Even in London, England there were issues with youth gangs during WWII. There were reports of thefts, assaults and even murders in the shelters.





As for teen pregnancies, many of the young girls in both Allied and Axis countries became military ';groupies'; as it were...the term used was ';khaki wacky'; and the soldiers didn't always ask how old or young they were. In fact one of the biggest complaints that Britons had about American soldiers was they were ';overpaid, oversexed...and over here!';





So, despite how romantic sounding they made those times out to be...in reality a number of those wartime ';weddings'; were actually shotgun weddings, and while many were enduring committed relationships, some the marriages were lucky if they lasted the duration of the war. Abandoment of young brides was not uncommon...they were called ';grass widows';...and it wasn't even just brides who were abandoned. There were more than a few unmarried women at that time from ages 14 and up who found themselves pregnant and left behind. A few sought illegal abortions, but many of them wound up in homes for unwed mothers and subsequently gave their babies up for adoption. Much of that stuff was kept very hush-hush, but the truth was that the teenage pregnancy rate was actually higher in the 1940s than it is today!





Some of the more promiscuous girls of the time were known as Victory Girls or V-girls, Patriotutes, and they were aften blamed for the spread of STDs amongst soldiers. NYC had an aggressive campaign to keep that under control...they routinely did sweeps on Times Square, Broadway and Coney Island in search of these girls. Many of the girls were runaways as young as 12 or 13, and social workers were kept busy trying to return the 'wayward' girls to their parents, but unfortunately most of the parents didn't seem to care about them at all...which made them easy prey for some of those soldiers with wild oats to sow.





One of the reason why groups like the United Service Organization (USO) formed was to have a socially acceptable place for soldiers and young people to meet, dance and have fun without going into all the negative stuff that was going on back then...and because of their success, churches and other groups started various youth programs to try to reduce delinquency and other problems affecting the young people back then.