Here is another article I thought was interesting I though I would post
http://www.nytimes.com/1975/11/16/a...ght-todays-runaway-is-no-norman-rockwell.html
On Feb. 27, 1975, Sgt. Jim Greenlay and Officer Warren McGinniss of the Police Department's Runaway Unit were winding up a 6 P.M.‐to‐2 A.M. tour of duty when they were summoned to the Midtown South Precinct on 35th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, to complete some paperwork, which is one of the banes of their assignment. In the muster room, they noticed a group of young women who had been picked up by a Prostitution Control Unit sweep on a section of Eighth Avenue that has become known to police as “the Minnesota Strip.” Ever since Minnesota passed a law making a second offense punishable by a mandatory 90‐day sentence, substantial numbers of that state's prostitutes have migrated to New York's more hospitable climate.
It was after the graves of 27 boys, many of them runaways, had been unearthed in Houston in August 1973, that Congress passed a Runaway Youth Act, which became law in August 1974. “The number of juveniles who leave and remain away from home without parental permission,” that act said, “has increased to alarming proportions.”
Ten million dollars in Federal funds were allocated for each of the years 1975, 1976 and 1977 for the establishment of shelters and counseling. A national toll‐free runaway switchboard was set up in Chicago; it handles about 1,000 calls a month. It has received calls from 8‐yearolds. It has also drawn up a statistical profile of the runaway: average age, 16; 36 percent male, 64 percent female (this female preponderance is attributed to the fact that many boys aren't reported); 41 percent recidivists and 63 percent who stay in their own
According to an unpublished master's thesis by Lieut. Neil J. D'Avino of the Police Department's Youth Division, the most common runaway is the “splitter,” who takes off as the result of a specific conflict—anything from a minor frustration, such as not being allowed to watch TV, to a severe beating. Then there are the “floaters,” who toy with running away, and are usually back within 48 hours. They seem to feel that running away confers status. Society pays attention. When the status wears off, they get bored and run away again. In contrast to the “floater,” in Lieutenant D'Avino's thesis, there is the “hard‐road freak,” the grunt‐and‐shrug teen‐ager with a record of truancy and an impulsive life‐style, who moves around the country, leaning toward criminality. Another type is the “lonely schizoid,” introspective and hard to reach, who fantasizes about being on his own.
But a common denominator for an overwhelming number of runaways is a broken or unstable home. In some cases, running away is a test of parental concern. In others, it's an escape from manipulation in a home where one parent uses the child to get back at the other. Sometimes running away can be a healthy response to an intolerable situation. Greenlay and McGinniss recently picked up one girl, a thin, sallow‐faced 15‐year‐old from North Carolina, whose drunken father had habitually cursed and struck her and once pulled a gun and fired at her. Her stepmother made irrational demands and punished her for disobeying them. For instance, she told the girl not to look out the window. When she did, the stepmother sewed the curtains together. Running away may have been the most sensible she could do.
Finally, there are the throwaway children. Perhaps their number has been increased by recession and unemployment. The parents make them the scapegoats for their own failures. More than once, Greenlay and McGinniss have called parents to tell them that they have found their missing daughter and been told: “We don't want her back.”