Our Mission

Cops working with Kids 

The Inglewood PAL is committed to working to reduce juvenile crime and delinquency by engaging Inglewood community youth in positive, wholesome and character building activities under the guidance and constructive influence of responsible law enforcement officers and other adult role models.

PAL Today
Today, PAL is a network of 1,700 facilities and serves more than 1.5 million youth ages 5 to 18 years of age.

Over 350 law enforcement agencies serving 3,000 communities throughout the U.S. including the U.S. Virgin Island, Puerto Rico and Canada are currently operational.

  Girls Circle

Our National History

PAL Background

PAL was started in 1915 in New York City and is based in the earliest community policing concepts. This richly integrated past began with the simple premise of offering youth attractive alternatives to criminal behavior. These original police officers that built the PAL programs founded the organization with a two-fold purpose:

• One was the understanding of the importance of children playing and
• The second was to reduce tensions between police officers and youth through mentoring and sports activities.

An advisory committee studying delinquency in the early 30's recommended the formation of a national bureau, the Juvenile Aid Bureau, to assist with these original grass roots efforts linking them directly to police departments.

In the 1940's and 1950's, following national social science trends, PAL began hiring trained social workers. These efforts added the therapeutic component to the treatment of troubled youngsters.
Around this same time, growth in the program garnered awards and brought inquires from police departments and government officials from all over the U.S. and overseas about how to replicated PAL's successful programs.