An interview with Karen M. Staller

In Runaways, Karen M. Staller examines the programs and policies that took shape during the 1960’s and the ways in which the ideas of the alternative-services movement continue to guide our responses to at-risk youth.nnQ: What did you seek to accomplish in this work on runaways?nnKaren Staller: Working at a large crisis shelter for runaway and homeless youth during the late 1980s, I became interested in where this kind of service arrangement for vulnerable kids came from. In writing this book I set out to explore three basic questions. First, why and how did running away emerge as a socially constructed public problem and what influenced that construction? Second, why did grassroots organizers respond to the problem by opening runaway shelters in the late 1960s and, as a service model, why didn’t these shelters fit within the preexisting public child welfare system? Finally, why did Congress embrace the runaway shelter model in 1974, and what other policy initiatives either contributed to or helped alleviate the runaway youth problem? In the process of answering these questions it became clear that the 1960s counterculture played a major role, and the legacy of that influence is still seen in our practices and polices today.nnQ: What makes the 1960s such a watershed era for runaway youth?nnKS: In part this is a question that can be answered demographically. In the early 1960s, waves of Baby Boomers were turning 13 years old. By 1967 the first of these Boomers reached the age of majority, which was 21 at the time. So there were many youth leaving home and transitioning from childhood to adulthood. Not surprisingly, I think, conversations about leaving home as a matter of life course and leaving home prematurely (as in running away) began to intertwine in public discourses, including policy arenas and in the mainstream press.nnQ: In what way was policy a factor?nnKS: For example, the demographic picture was complicated by policy changes that resulted in instability around the rules of adulthood. In 1971 the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. States followed suit by lowering the age of majority. One consequence was that rules for governing unruly minors’ behavior, such as running away, precipitously dropped to below age 18.nnIn addition, during this period states began to embrace a tripartite structure of legal interventions that distinguished between abused and neglected children, juvenile delinquents, and “status offenders.” Status offenses included problematic behaviors like running away and truancy. The public sector was legally mandated to assume responsibility for youth who were adjudicated as abused and neglected, or delinquent; however, the private sector was left to deal with status offenders. The programs designed by the private sector, most of them relying on the voluntary participation of youth, had a very difficult time meeting the needs of status offenders, who often presented complex cases including mental health problems, sexual activity, drug use, and other complicating factors—not to mention the fact that these youth were the ones who were most inclined to run away from their placements.nnSo not only were lots of kids leaving home during this period, but policymakers were tinkering with the basic rules governing when, and how, to regulate them. It was a period of instability and reformulation of youth policy.nnQ: You argue the counterculture was influential in this discussion. How so?nnKS: I make at least three arguments in this regard. First, by using the New York Times as a source of evidence, I trace the construction of “runaway” stories over an eighteen-year period. In the early 1960s, running away was characterized as a private family matter of little public consequence, but by the mid-1970s it was being typified by young teenage prostitutes. This shift is traceable to 1966-67, when runaway accounts commingled with reports on the hippie counterculture. The “safe runaway adventurer story” construction could not survive, and what emerged in the aftermath of the “hippie” phenomena was a new conceptualization of the typical runaway as a much more troubled, street-based child.nnSecond, I argue that writers of the Beat movement were providing an alternative (and much more hip) version of “dropping out” for a generation of Baby Boomers who were reading works like Kerouac’s On the Road (for example, I use the life histories of two Beat “muses,” Herbert Huncke and Neal Cassady). This version of “running away” stood in sharp contrast with the Establishment’s interpretation. Arguably, a second generation of counterculturists, calling themselves Diggers, picked up on these ideas and created youth communities that embodied much of the “beat” philosophy. Runaways were attracted to these ideas and to the lifestyle being enacted in counterculture communities such as Haight-Ashbury.nnThird, during the mid-1960s the Diggers were engaged in a cultural critique in which they attempted to “enact Free.” Their goal was to create a true counterculture that would sustain a community of like-minded social activists free of the social, cultural, moral, and economic constraints of mainstream society. In the process of performing “Free,” Diggers provided free crash pads, free clinics, free food, a free store, and telephone help lines (hence earning them such much-detested labels from mainstream journalists as “psychedelic” social workers, “mod” monks, and “hip” charity workers). Both the messages emanating from these communities about love, peace, and alternative families, and the concrete services being provided, were attractive to younger runaway children. In 1967, as the media, acid rock, and pop music groups of the day promoted a so-called “Summer of Love” in San Francisco, Diggers called on the local community for help in caring for the younger children. The community responded by opening Huckleberry House, the first of what would become a nationwide movement of alternative and radical service providers that sheltered runaway children. The shelters looked quite a bit like the Digger crash pads and incorporated many counterculture values.nnQ: Was Huckleberry House and others like it a welcomed addition to the community?nnKS: Not really. In its earliest days the police raided Huckleberry House and arrested all the staff (for contributing to the delinquency of minors) and all the kids (for being without parental supervision). Like other runaway shelters emerging in the late 1960s (such as Covenant House in New York City, Ozone House in Ann Arbor, and Looking Glass in Chicago), they maintained an uneasy relationship with parents, law enforcement, family courts, and child welfare authorities. The services were radical because they were not part of the traditional child welfare or juvenile justice systems. Teenagers asked for help directly and were not ordered by judges or other authorities into treatment. Clients could come and go as they pleased. The service was voluntary and free. Although some providers refused to house minors who wouldn’t permit parental contact, none of them would call parents, police, or child welfare against the teenager’s wishes. So the child could just leave the crisis shelter without being reported to authorities.nnQ: Did these alternative agencies stay relegated to the margins?nnKS: No. In several ways they were legitimized in 1974, ending the most radical period of their histories. In 1974, Congress enacted the Runaway Youth Act (as part of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act). From testimony during congressional hearings, legislators embraced the ideas and arguments espoused by the alternative providers and their teenage clients who also testified. Legislators mostly rejected arguments put forth by law enforcement agents who advocated that they continue to play a role and that runaway shelters should be linked to other preexisting, traditional service providers. No parents testified at these hearings. So Congress firmly embraced arguments made by the youth rights advocates and largely ignored traditional authority figures.nnQ: What are the legacies of this influence?nnKS: Well, certainly runaway shelters still exist and they still embody the values that originally stemmed from the American counterculture. But I think there are at least two other important consequences. First, amendments to the Runaway Youth Act have resulted in the voluntary sector’s being asked to serve as an “alternative” for increasingly troubled youth (such as homeless and street-based youth), at the same time excusing more traditional public service providers from responsibility (such as schools, mental health facilities, and child protective services). This should lead us to be concerned about whether we ask too much from local, private, voluntary agencies. Second, parents and police organized and became united by reconceptualizing the problem as one of “missing” youth (including runaways, parental abductions, and stranger abductions). The result of excluding these constituencies from the policy debate is that they came back and established their own independent, parallel movement. In doing so, the “runaway” problem has lost some of its currency. Public panic is more likely to be stirred by reports of abducted youth or of prostituting youth than by runaway behavior. The problem has not disappeared, but the framing of it has shifted in reaction to its initial conceptualization.