The great mass of male offenders haled to our juvenile courts are members of uncontrolled gangs and only rarely is there seen a member of a controlled gang. Street and alley gangs are the training schools for delinquent boys and from them is graduated the juvenile criminal. The arrest, conviction, and imprisonment of such offenders will not work their reformation. It can be accomplished only through the parent on whom the duty naturally devolves, or, in the event of parental default, through the Judge of the Juvenile Court, by patiently pointing out the evil results of such lawlessness to themselves as well as to others, by the stimulation of their pride and honor, and most of all through diverting the gang’s activities, by parent or probation officer, to lawful channels such as the school, office, workshop, athletic field, and supervised society. Here may be seen the beneficent results flowing from the application of positive suggestions for employments which will supersede those of harmful import. The inhibition of a lawless activity without the substitution of a lawful one to fill the void thus created has always proven resultless. The gang spirit is inherent in boy-nature and can never be suppressed. No one who understands the boy would attempt to suppress it. Objection should not be made that your boy belongs to a gang--and he does belong to one of some sort--but only to the kind of gang with which he is associated. It is your concern whether he belongs to a Boy Scout gang or a Dirty Dozen gang. The good gang should be encouraged; it is good because it is supervised; and the bad gang should be converted into a good one by adult direction. The recognition of the psychologic necessity for gangdom has changed the former prohibition against gang association to the encouragement of the boy to join a clean crowd engaged in clean activities. This innate tendency to gangdom furnishes the cue for his reclamation. Supervised gangs are the tongs by which many boys have been pulled from the fires of delinquency. They furnish the means for his reformation as well as for his formation. It is an everlasting stigma on the parent that his son needs reformation. If the boy’s formation has been properly nurtured there will be no need for his reformation. The supervised gang forms the normal boy and reforms the delinquent boy, while the unsupervised gang unforms both.