"Boy, I sure learned me a lesson, and we didn't even get any money. The creep didn't have any," he said.

James stole two shirts in his first venture into crime.

Did he need the shirts?

'JUST FOR KICKS'

"Hell no, man, just like most of the guys I know, I was doing it just for kicks."

Jim R., a native of Yakima, Wash., is 19 years old.

He is in jail on a charge of aggravated robbery.

Jim and a friend "went looking for some dough." They held up a service station operator, kicking him into submission.

They got $40, but the police nabbed them less than four blocks from the station.

Jim, like James, is another of the "uniformed" teenagers, with the black shirt and saggy denims.

His left arm is tatooed with a picture of a hypodermic syringe and needle.

ADMITS DOPE

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He admits use of barbiturates, morphine, marijuana and so-called thrill pills like "yellow jackets and red devils."

Jim says he pulled the robbery to get money for a trip back to Washington to visit a sick sister:

It wasn't his first run-in with the law.

He served more than two years in Washington reformatories as a runaway, and car thief. He belonged to a teenage gang which supported "debs" (girl counterparts to gang members), and engaged in "rumbles" (gang fights). "I guess I was just generally fouled up," he explains.

Jim also is a small guy. He has held jobs as an orchard worker, "pearl diver” (dishwasher) in a long string of cafes, and as a preliminary bout

boxer.

His schooling ended in the 10th grade.

BLAMES 'COMPLEX'

Jim blames his trouble on a "persecution complex."

"My family split up when I was three, and I ain't never had nothing since. "I didn't have nothing as a kid, so I tried to get attention by being a tough guy."

He became a tough guy through miscreant behavior.

Juvenile authorities, psychiatrists, sociologists and police officers have tried for years to pinpoint the reasons behind the street hoodlum's activities. "Lack of supervision, gang identity, improper parental control, lack of self-discipline..."; on and on the list goes. The answer remains hidden.

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Jim says he wants to be a child psychologist someday. There is a strong doubt he can even spell the words.

Gerald W., 23-year-old ex-Marine, was Jim's partner in the service station holdup..

It was his first step in crime.

"Well, I did do a stretch in the Marine brig for going AWOL, and got bust ed, but this is the first time I tried anything like robbery," he said. Gerald has been living at a transient hotel in downtown Denver. Most of the time he works as a carpenter.

Next: The Police and the Problem

He met Jim in a pool hall. Together they planned the robbery. "We needed money, and I was tired of going hungry," he said. OUT OF WORK

Gerald said he has been out of work since December, and earning a living by gambling.,

"You can't live on nothing, and as far as I could see there just was ho other way to make it, so we decided on the robbery," he explained.

Gerald has worked as a laborer in sugar factories, as a shop laborer and as a card dealer in a California night spot. He spent three years in the Marines after finishing high school in a tiny town in Eastern Kansas.

He joined the Marines because he couldn't get along with his father. Where will he go from here?

"What difference does it make? It's too late for me now.

"I'll just have to wait and see.

"

Not all street hoodlums are teenagers from broken homes. Not all are the products of slum areas in big cities.

BACKGROUNDS VARY

James comes from a fine home, Gerald lived most of his life in a small farm community. Jim worked in the apple orchards owned by his grandfather. Capt. Lloyd Jamerson of the Denver Detective Bureau says many street crimes are committed by transient hoodlums, too "hot" from previous crimes to look for a job, and needing money for further flight.

Sometimes the assaults are committed by "regulars," old timers to the police who just seem to get into trouble when they have one or two drinks. A large part of the 408 assaults reported to police in the first three months' of 1962 were family fights which got out of hand.

In many cases rapes and criminal assaults are committed by sex deviates.

or sadistic assailants who seek gratification for twisted desires in violence. The picture of the street mugger is hard to paint. It is harder still for the public to recognize.

J

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