The Affluent Suburban Runaway
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X7004301015 |
| Author | Jay Reynolds,Jerry J. Tobias |
| Date | 01 October 1970 |
| Published date | 01 October 1970 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
JERRY
J.
TOBIAS,
Ed.D.,
and
JAY
REYNOLDS
Dr. Tobias and Mr. Reynolds (a special college assistant with the
Bloomfield, Michigan, U.S.A., Police Department's Youth Bureau)
examine one
of
the chronic problems
of
police forces everywhere-the
youngster whoruns away from home.
THE AFFLUENT SUBURBAN
RUNAWAY
With "runaways" becoming a major concern in the affluent
suburbs, the following rather limited pilot study was undertaken in
the hope of shedding greater light on the problem. Bloomfield, with
its above average incomes, forty thousand dollar
"plus"
homes and
upper status occupations, portrays such an area where in 1969
sixty-nine official missing reports were filed on young people who
ran away from their materially bountiful homes. Of these, seven
were repeaters.
That
is, seven youngsters left home more than
once; consequently, only fifty-nine young people actually
ran
away
during the year. Table 1 illustrates an age-sex profile on those in-
volved.
TABLE 1
AGE-SEX
PROFILE
OF BLOOMFIELD'S
YOUTH
WHO
RAN
AWAY
FROM
HOME
IN 1969
Age
Sex Total
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
---.
I
Male 1 4 3 11 12 31
-.
Female 1 1 2 313 7 1I28
Total I1 2 6 6 24 19 1 I59
Of
further interest, and this is strictly a subjective observation
from personal experience, is that there were probably many more
runaways during the year, but parents, for one reason or another,
failed to make an official report of this. Oftentimes they wait for a
few hours and the youngster returns; or they hesitate to call the
police for fear of alienating their youngster any further; or because
of
their position in society, they prefer to handle the situation pri-
vately. Whatever the reason, there are probably a good many run-
aways that go unreported in suburban Bloomfield.
Additional demographic data reveal that 39
per
cent. of those
involved were Protestant, 20 per cent Catholic,
and
2per cent.
Jewish. Thirty-nine per cent either failed to respond or indicated no
religious preference.
Of
additional interest, and significantly so as it
tends to reinforce other studies 011 delinquency, is that 20 per cent
of
October 1970 335
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