When a French social worker was recently asked what he considered the most valuable attitude in working with juvenile delinquents, he replied: ‘The ability to accept failure-and still go right ahead.’ W e should not delude ourselves that there are any short, swift or easy solutions. Delinquent behaviour is not a twenty-four hour malady that affects a child as a virus does. The preceding chapter has pointed out how complex, and how deeply set, some of the motivations towards juvenile delinquency can be. Since a child does not become delinquent on the spur of the moment but as the result of a long and intricate series of reactions, any realistic plan to help that child will not be an easy one. Any person, or any community, who hopes to change a specific delinquency problem must accept the fact that it is a long and thoughtful process, often one of discouragement and delay. It is expensive in terms of money, time and effort. It need hardly be pointed out, however, that the results of delinquency are twice as costly.
From all our knowledge of delinquents and delinquency, there is no reassuring evidence of a formula or recipe for prevention. What emerges clearly, from many studies and reports and surveys, is that delinquent behaviour must be the concern of the entire community, not just dismissed as a problem to be handled by local schools, churches, police courts or professional agencies. It should be recognized as their problem by the citizens of a community even when their own children are not remotely involved. But in many big cities in the world, the very word community is a mockery and without true meaning. Most urban centres are not communities in any real sense of the word. Therefore, in just such an instance, a beginning must be made at the very level where delinquency occurs-on the block, in a neighbourhood, in a district. The very lack of a community, a word