The Runaways

IUSTITIA Volume 3 Number 2 Article 3 10-15-1975 The Runaways Richard David Young Indiana University Follow this and additional works at: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/iustitia Part of the Behavior and Behavior Mechanisms Commons, Child Psychology Commons, Juvenile Law Commons, and the Psychological Phenomena and Processes Commons Recommended Citation Young, Richard David (1975) "The Runaways," IUSTITIA: Vol. 3 : No. 2 , Article 3. Available at: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/iustitia/vol3/iss2/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in IUSTITIA by an authorized editor of Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Runaways RICHARD DAVID YOUNG The number of children and adolescents who leave home without parental knowledge or permission has increased at a staggering rate over the last decade. The actual number of runaways is difficult to ascertain for a variety of reasons including inadequate reporting, the rather ambivalent legal status of the runaway act, and the fact that a sizable proportion of runaways do not come into contact with the various professional agencies which compile statistics. Estimates of the number of runaways have been as high as 600,000 per year. Prior to 1964 running away was not included in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports but since that year the reports show an annual increase in the number arrested with no year showing less than a 4.6% increase over the prior reporting period. These official figures almost certainly reveal only the most visible surface of the problem. Popular magazine articles, movies, television and newspaper accounts attest to the greatly increased public interest and concern about the problem, yet these sources far outnumber the recent professional contributions to our scientific understanding of youthful runaways. The problem of runaways has been poorly represented in the recent literature of psychiatry and psychology. Professional knowledge and interest have certainly not kept pace with the increasing magnitude of the problem, nor has it encouraged efforts to systematize the clinical and research literature which is available. As a consequence, our professional knowledge of runaway youth appears to be scarcely more cogent, well- defined, or systematized than it was several decades ago. The social history of America is filled with famous men who as youths ran away from home. In the past it appeared to be a well accepted pattern; indeed, Samuel Clemens, who was himself a runaway, wrote about youthful running away as almost a rite of passage, that any red-blooded boy will sooner or later run away from home on a glorious and exciting Huck Finn-Tom Sawyer adventure. Although accepted and sometimes even applauded by society in the past, the runaway of today is viewed legally as an offender of the law, socially as a problem in terms of other delinquent activities such as drug abuse and prostitution, and psychologically as a potential tragedy for himself and/or his family. 35 CLASSIFICATION Several major questions have been either implicit or explicit in attempts to provide a classification scheme to deal with runaway behavior. The extent to which classificatory efforts have focused on one or another of these questions, often to the exclusion of others, is reflected in the systems which have evolved. The five significant questions appear to be: 1) Is runaway behavior to be included within the broader classification of juvenile delinquency? 2) To what extent is running away assumed to be reflective of psychopathology and thus subject to categorization within classifications of psychopathology? 3) To what extent are runaways as a group similar to or distinct from other delinquent groups or from other psychopathological groups? 4) To what extent do runaways as a group present a consistent pattern and to what extent are there major differences among them? 5) Is runaway behavior to be considered a symptom or a syndrome? The delinquent status legally accorded to the act of running away has had considerable influence on efforts to classify runaway behavior. In a number of classificatory attempts there has been a conscious effort either to include running away as a form of juvenile delinquency or to distinguish it specifically from juvenile delinquency. Kanner's (1957) psychiatric classification includes running away under the category of juvenile delinquency, which in turn appears within the larger heading of behavior problems. An intimate relation between running away and juvenile delinquency has been suggested by psychoanalysts (Staub, 1943) and criminoligists (Hildebrand, 1963, 1968) alike. The prevalence of running away in juvenile delinquents has been noted by Foster (1962) and by Hildebrand (1963) and has led both to conclude that study of the runaway will contribute to an understanding of the etiology of juvenile delinquency. Although Hildebrand (1968) argues that running away is "one of the earliest manifestations of delinquency", elsewhere he noted that its status as a predelinquent indicator makes much of juvenile delinquency research inapplicable when it deals with cases in which a definite anti-social attitude has already developed (Hildebrand, 1963). On the other hand, Cramer (1958) has made an effort to distinquish between juvenile delinquency and running away as a behavior problem. He believes that behavior problems, in contrast to delinquency, are diverted more discriminately toward parents and parental sanctions than toward collective substitutes or social sanctions. A different line of inquiry has been concerned primarily with runaway behavior as indicative of psychopathology, and it has attempted to include runaways within psychiatric classifications. The emphasis on individual and family pathology in the runaway case has come almost without exception from clinical studies and treatment efforts dealing with runaways seen in clinical settings. Armstrong (1937) first argued for consideration of running away as a 'psychoneurotic reaction" and concluded that: "The act of running away is at least prima facic evidence of factors more or less destructive in the environment, perhaps intrinsic in the boy." Despite the label she applies to runaway behavior, Armstrong's sample consisted 36 exclusively of "delinquent" boys arraigned in juvenile court on a runaway charge, often with concomitant delinquent offenses. Balser (1939) has argued, on the basis of cases seen in the psychiatric clinic of the Travelers Aid Society, that the psychoneurotic individual does not, for the most part, appear to run away from home. He suggests, "It was the feeling in the clinic that the psychoneurotics build their abnormal psychological patterns around their families and homes to such a degree that running away would upset much of that pattern and make for greater uneasiness. " The emphasis on the presence of severe psychopathology in the runaway child or adolescent is suggested by a number of authors. In treating runaways who have repeatedly deserted their homes, Belkin (1940) characterizes them as "neurotic delinquents" and Riemer (1940) points to the presence of a severe "narcissistic" disorder encompassing the needs for love, increased self-esteem, and the expression of hostile aggression. It has been suggested that in the adolescent girl, the runaway act is almost invariably indicative of "extensive and severe" pathology in the girl and in the family (Robey, 1969; Robey et al., 1964). Similarly, Levanthal (1963) suggests "severe' pathology in the runaway, with possible indications of pre-psychotic functioning characterized by some degree of reality distortion and an overly- concerned attitude toward loss of control and ego surrender. There has also been an extensive research effort to link running away in childhood and adolescence with adult psychiatric pathology (Robins, 1966, 1958; Robins and O'Neal, 1959), with the conclusion that running away as a childhood behavior problem is an excellent prognostic index of poor psychiatric status in adulthood. The second edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-II) of the American Psychiatric Association (1968) included for the first time a diagnostic category for runaways: 308.3 Runaway reaction of childhood (or adolescence): Individuals with this disorder characteristically escape from threatening situations by running away from home for a day or more without permission. Typically they are immature and timid, and feel rejected at home, inadequate and friendless. They often steal furtively. The runaway reaction is classified within the broader category of "Behavior disorders of childhood and adolescence". Inclusion in this category accords it an intermediate position, in terms of stability, internalization and resistance to treatment, between "transient situational disturbances" and "psychoses, neuroses, and personality disorders". Despite Jenkins' (1971) caution that the diagnosis of behavior disorder should not be employed when the conviction is present that such a condition already has been deeply internalized in the child, the institutionalized runaway samples on which this classification was primarily based seem potentially to represent such a group. The impetus for inclusion of this category has come in part from research efforts under the direction of R. L. Jenkins, which have focused on efforts to distinguish among three groups of institutionalized

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