Figure 1.--Local communities began organiing boys clujbs (1860s). Here was see Boys Club, Public School Number 62 in New York City. Actually the numbers referred to bourough schools and we do not know the bourough here. The photograph would have been taken about 1905. Notice the boys wear suits to school. Thefirst clubs were obly for boys, only later were girls clubs founded. A national organization was founded (1916) which evolved into he Boys and Girls Clubs of America (BAGCOA). Police forces all over America also began founding boys clubs of their own which like the BAGCOA were meant to help keep kids out of trouble. The BAGCOA is an entirely separate orgnization, but they operate in many of the same cities. Some of the police clubs have merged with the BAGCOA in the 21st century.

Before we began working on Boys Clubs I rather associated the group with the police. The Boys and Girls Clubs of America (BAGCOA) are a national organization completely independent of the police or any other governmemt agency. There are, however, many boy's clubs all over the United States sponsord by metroplitan police forces, mostly in the larger cities. The police help raise funds to finance the clubs. And many officers donated their time to help staff the clubs. The police took an interest in these clubs as away of keeping kids off the streets. The idea was to involve young people in sports and many other activities rather than getting into trouble. They are all local clubs. There is no national police boys club organization. There are quite a number of these clubs, but they are not organizationally related to the Boys and Girls Clubs. We are not sure how the groeing animosity fostered by groups like the decprively named Black Lives Matters Matters has affected the effectibeness of police boys clubs among minority youth. We do note a trend in recent years for some police boys clubs to merge with the BAGCOA. This for example occurred in Washington, D.C. (2003).