This article, authored by New York City Police Commissioner Theodore Bingham in 1908, was cited by former Jewish Board of Guardians Executive Director John Slawson as the impetus for Madeleine Borg and colleagues to found the Jewish Board of Guardians. In the piece, which caused significant public backlash, Bingham made false and inflammatory claims about the causes of crime in New York City.

Although Bingham would later retract the article and apologize for its inaccuracies, which included xenophobic and racist falsehoods about Jewish and immigrant criminality, many working in the fields of Jewish philanthropy, social work, and social welfare more generally felt it had been a dangerous and misleading piece of disinformation that must be countered, including by providing social support to New York City’s Jewish children and families – especially those most at risk of being ensnared in the juvenile justice system. In her role as President of the Jewish Board of Guardians, Borg and others would fight for decriminalizing language around child and adolescent behavioral problems, including an end to the use of the words “juvenile delinquency.”