Senator CLARK. Thank you very much, Mr. Green.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for a most helpful session. We appreciate your help.

Mr. RICHARDSON. We appreciate the opportunity to appear, Mr. Chairman.

Senator CLARK. The subcommittee will be in recess, subject to the call of the chairman. It may be that Senator Javits will want us to hear some more testimony at a later date.

(Whereupon, at 11 a.m., the subcommittee recessed subject to call of the Chair.)

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY PREVENTION AND CONTROL

TUESDAY, MAY 26, 1959

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

OF THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 4200, New Senate Office Building, Senator Joseph S. Clark, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.

Present: Senators Clark (presiding) and Javits.

Committee staff member present: Samuel V. Merrick, special counsel

to the subcommittee.

Senator CLARK. The subcommittee will be in session.

Is Mr. Royfe here?

Mr. ROYFE. Yes, Senator.

Senator CLARK. Mr. Royfe, would you come forward, please, and take a seat at the desk there.

We are happy to have you here as director of programs and service of the Big Brothers of America.

I was a Big Brother myself for some 25 years and have some familiarity with the organization.

Senator Javits has asked me to express his regrets that because of some trouble with an airplane he is delayed in getting here. I know you came down at his instance and he will be disappointed in not hearing your testimony. But in the interests of expediting the hearings we cannot wait for him.

I see you have a prepared statement and I would suggest that we put it in the record verbatim as you have it, and then you proceed to testify in any way you see fit, perhaps hitting the high spots of your statement, although if you want to read it I have no objection to your reading it.

STATEMENT OF E. H. ROYFE, DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS AND SERVICE, BIG BROTHERS OF AMERICA

Mr. ROYFE. Thank you, sir.

(The statement follows:)

STATEMENT OF EPHRAIN H. ROYFE, BIG BROTHERS OF AMERICA

Senator Clark, honorable guests, ladies and gentlemen, as director of programs and services for Big Brothers of America, I am pleased to represent my agency which, together with its 41 affiliates, has for the past 55 years been concerned with the welfare of fatherless boys and the prevention of delinquent behavior. This service is of vital importance to our Nation, for it is estimated that there are 3 million boys in the United States under the age of 18 who are growing up

in homes in which the father is absent. Among these millions are hundreds of thousands of boys who need the guiding influence of a concerned and mature male adult if they are to grow up to well-adjusted manhood. This is the main concern of the Big Brother movement, and through the one man-one boy concept of a therapeutic friendship under professional supervision between a volunteer and a boy, we seek to develop a healthy personality.

Not all juvenile offenders, of course, are delinquent because of the lack of an adult male influence. It is estimated, however, that about 75 percent of all juvenile delinquents come from homes without positive male influence. Therefore, you can well imagine that we who are engaged in Big Brother work are most interested in the problems that this committee is reviewing.

I am certain that you know that approximately 20 percent of the boys in the United States will be legally designated as a delinquent before reaching the age of 18. I think, too, we must recognize that this represents only a small and special segment of all those who violate the legal norms. This is important, for as a Nation, we may have to consider the consequences to our existence as a free society if the law violating minority continues its upward trend and eventually constitutes the majority of the members of our country. Ironically, we may find ourselves in a positon of having created a military defense against foreign aggression through the expenditure of billions of dollars, only to discover that we are cracking from within because of the shortsightedness of failing to appropriate a fraction of this amount for the most vital resource the Nation possesses its youth.

I have read and studied in detail the five bills that are being considered by this committee. I believe that the Senators who have developed them have sought to come to grips with a severe crisis that our Nation is facing in this area. As forward a step as this may represent, it is my opinion that some of the stipulated funds proposed in the various legislation may fail to cope with the magnitude of this problem.

Most of these bills provide assistance for projects to State and local agencies which hopefully will demonstrate or develop techniques leading to a solution of the Nation's juvenile control problem. To begin with, I believe that we are presently faced with the necessity of a crash program in this area. A nation which is confronted with a threat to its very existence cannot leisurely spend a period of 5 years determining which project or technique may be most suitable for coping with a particular situation in a certain geographic area.

Several of the bills reflect one of the most acute needs of meeting the problemthat is the development of qualified, skilled, and professionally trained personnel. Wisely, the expenditures of this dire need is left in terms as "such sums as necessary." I believe we should be fully aware of the scope of these shortages and the reasons for their existence.

The chronic underpayment of professionals in the social welfare field has during the past few decades created this desperate situation so that today we find ourselves without the adequate personnel to cope with the social pathology of our society. For example, in all of the United States there are about 30,000 trained social workers in a great variety of settings. A small percentage of these are directly concerned with delinquency. If we assigned 30 delinquents to a social worker, we would need more than the total number of social workers that presently exist in the entire Nation. A bill which would appropriate $5 million annually for training personnel could only turn out approximately 800 social workers per year. Again, unless these future professionals are assured of an adequate salary range and a reasonably secure position after completing their 6 years of study, they will not enter the field, or will transfer to a more remunerative vocation. What I am proposing, therefore, is that along with the funds which you appropriate for the various projects, you qualify them with a salary range that will induce individuals to enter the social welfare field and give them an additional incentive to remain on a specific project for a reasonable period of time.

In appropriating funds to Federal, State, and local agencies, I think it is most important that they be carefully supervised so that they are not dissipated in supporting or supplementing the budgets of existing programs. You are well aware, am sure, that it is quite simple for many agencies to lay claim to the fact that they are preventing delinquency without necessarily establishing additional services.

I was pleased to learn that, contained within much of this legislation, was a desire to coordinate the planning among our public and voluntary agencies. Be

cause of the many contributing factors to delinquent behavior, this is essential if we are to come to grips with solving this problem.

In granting funds for these programs, I would like to tell you that many of our private agencies throughout the United States are in dire economic straits. Our united funds and community chests throughout the country raise a total of only $400 million which supports the bulk of our private welfare and health agencies. These groups are currently faced in many localities with an inability to expand their services. For example, 50 communities throughout the United States eagerly want to develop a Big Brother program. Because of a lack of $20,000 in each of these communities, the program is blocked. I am certain that many of the agencies which also deal with delinquency are in a similar position and may not even find it possible to secure part of the matching funds which may be necessitated by some of the legislation.

Let me give you some additional estimates of why I believe we should carefully review our appropriations. The FBI indicates that we will shortly have a crime rate of 1 million delinquents per year. It is estimated that 25 percent of delinquents are emotionally disturbed. The cost of treating a child and his family in our typical child guidance clinic today is approximately $1,000 per year. If we multiply this sum by the 250,000 delinquents in this category, we arrive at a figure of one-quarter of a billion dollars per year for treating this group of children alone. If we were capable of assigning a Big Brother to 75 percent of all delinquents, it would cost $150 million per year to supervise 750,000 Big Brother-Little Brother relationships. I am stating these startling figures because I believe the time has come for us to determine whether we will seriously cope with the problem or will jump on the popular band wagon of saying, "I, too, have fought delinquency" without really accomplishing very much.

In conclusion I would like to state that we are maturing to the point of recognizing that juvenile delinquency represents norm-violating behavior and that its seriousness, its form, frequency, and relation to a person's behavior are important to consider in treating the individual. I am glad to say that we have learned that we cannot solve our delinquency problems simply through a punitive approach, curfews, physical playgrounds, or clearing slums alone. What is needed is to put the technical knowledge we presently possess to work at an expanded and accelerated pace. Second, we have to develop additional trained personnel who will utilize this knowledge, staff the new programs and benefit from research which should be concomitant to the program.

Mr. ROYFE. I would make one request. Because our staff was attending our annual meeting in Los Angeles last week, I did not learn of your request to testify until yesterday, and consequently I do not have a full report. I was wondering if we would be able to submit such a report within the next week.

Senator CLARK. How soon could you get it in?

Mr. ROYFE. Probably in a few days.

Senator CLARK. A supplemental statement by the witness may be filed for the record on or before the end of this week.

(The supplemental material referred to follows:)

ADDITIONAL STATISTICAL INFORMATION SUPPORTING THE MAGNITUDE OF THE

PROBLEM

This article is by Richard Perlman, Chief of Juvenile Delinquency Statistics, Children's Bureau, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare:

"In 1957, more than 600,000 cases of delinquency were referred to juvenile courts. These involved an estimated one-half million different children or about 2.3 percent of all children in the vulnerable age group-10 through 17-in the United States. This percentage represents the proportion of children involved in court delinquency cases in 1 year, 1957, and it is frequently cited to show the size of the delinquency problem. A much better idea of the size of the problem can be gained by estimating the percentage of all children who will become involved in at least one court delinquency case during their adolescence. Generally this covers an 8-year period, from 10 through 17 years of age. Allowing for repeaters who are involved in about one-third of all delinquency cases, this percentage is roughly estimated to be as high as 12 percent if the 1957 rate