Citation

Prensky W. Crisis Interv. 1971; 3(2): 31-34.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1971, Suicide Prevention and Crisis Service)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Within the development of what has been called the counterculture, there has been noted the growth of a "street culture" which is in some ways quite distinct from those street cultures which have been studied previously. The emphasis on study and rehabilitation/treatment of street cultures has focused largely upon ghettos and minority groups disenfranchised because of their poverty and because of prejudicial conditions within society. The emergence of the "street culture"--young Americans with long hair and attitudes that can be broadly construed as antisocial with an intense involvement in drugs, often supported through prostitution--presents a different pattern than ordinarily presented by the traditional ghetto. There is a subjective feeling of being surrounded by what they often, rightfully so, consider to be a hostile social environment. This perception can exist regardless of the socio-economic background or "status" of their parental families.

The population of which we are speaking is comprised of young people, ranging in age from 16 up to 24 or 25. Generally called "street people," they are characteristically high school graduates or dropouts who have few or no marketable vocational skills and profess no stable means of earning a livelihood. They manifest no clear goal-directed behavior towards a career and lack any aspirations towards one. They are transients or vagrants exhibiting a pathology that stems from malnutrition and/or toxicosis and have been or are currently engaged in illicit trafficking of drugs and/or prostitution. They are, in general, estranged from their families and receive no immediate support from them. Inclusion into a growing petty organized criminal class or death or disability from some form of toxicosis is not an unlikely final outcome.

This is a pathogenic society, a community of young people whose talents are not being actualized and who possess little or no vocational or interpersonal skills. There has been a strong clinically-oriented response on the part of communities which harbor these street cultures. This response has manifested itself in the form of free clinics and drop-in centers, hotlines, suicide centers, detoxification programs, venereal disease control programs, and a smattering of live-in rehabilitation centers geared to specific populations, primarily with specific drug addiction problems. These programs represent a response on the part of members of the community itself and are identified as being a part of that general mileau of which the street culture consists...

Language: en