Engaging Underprivileged Youth in the Nation's Capital

In 1942, when urban youth violence was on the rise, Oliver A. Cowan convinced the leaders and members of his precinct’s worst gangs to join a recreational and citizenship building program of his own design. This book tells his story and the story of civil rights struggles, juvenile justice, and youth involvement programs from the Progressive Era to the early 21st century.

When a District of Columbia Metropolitan Police rookie, Officer Oliver A. Cowan, set up a youth program known as the Junior Police and Citizens Corps in 1942 he helped to bring about a sharp decline in Washington, DC’s youth crime, first in his own precinct and then citywide.

Officer Cowan was assigned to the city’s most impoverished precinct, but he approached the leaders of the worst of the area’s youthful gangs and was able to convince them to help him form a junior police organization which became a model for others. At a time when DC’s government was overseen by segregationists in Congress and when most Blacks residing in the nation’s capital were still living under the conditions of “Jim Crow” laws, Cowan managed to build an integrated program drawing upon the resources of Washington’s neighborhoods.