This term refers to lawbreaking by minors, including status offenses such as truancy, homelessness, and being unsupervised by a suitable adult guardian. The term appeared first after the Civil War when criminologists and social reformers called attention to the poverty, disease, crime, and inadequate home life in urban, often immigrant, communities. Jane Addams, Robert Woods, Florence Kelley, and other settlement house leaders in the 1890s lobbied state legislators and private and public charities to eliminate juvenile delinquency by eradicating these social problems. They proposed new school attendance, public health and safety laws to protect children. Activists concerned with assisting troubled youth founded recreational organizations (such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts), team sports, sunday schools, juvenile courts, pediatric medical clinics, and the field of child psychology during the early twentieth century.

Sociologists and criminologists, many from the University of Chicago, argued that delinquents were a...