1961.06.21 “David and Goliath” (June 21, 1961)
by Vaughn Richard Shoemaker (1902-1991)
13 x 16, ink and wash on board
Coppola Collection

Shoemaker was an American editorial cartoonist. He won the 1938 and 1947 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning and created the character John Q. Public. He spent 22 years at the Chicago Daily, and subsequently worked for the New York Herald Tribune, the Chicago American, and Chicago Today. He retired in 1972.

The 1950s were a time of increasing youthful offender crime and delinquency, causing stakeholders to begin to address the problems beyond just local and state efforts in the 1960s. Successful but local youth organizations, including Little Leagues (and YMCAs, YWCAs, scouting, etc), were under the shadow of the growing threat of juvenile crimes, where rates had doubled in a decade’s time. By 1960, Congress had not passed a single act dealing specifically with juvenile delinquency prevention.

In 1961, JFK established the Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime. The committee recommended enacting the Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offenses Control Act of 1961.

This act included a preventative focus for those children and adolescents most at risk; identification that delinquency was linked to urban decay, poverty, school failure, and family instability; and establishing diversion alternatives away from delinquency adjudication for adolescents.

Although federal funding was made available during the 1960s for delinquency prevention and diversion programs, the first established federal grant-making law was the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974.