Therefore, I am going to declare a 5-minute recess while those pictures are taken. Then we will resume the hearing.

(A short recess was taken.)

Mrs. GREEN. The hearing will come to order again, please.

The next witness is Mr. G. Howland Shaw, from the District of Columbia Youth Council.

Mr. Shaw, may I again express my appreciation of your willingness to return to the hearing today to accommodate our time schedule.

STATEMENT OF G. HOWLAND SHAW, VICE CHAIRMAN, DISTRICT COMMISSIONERS' YOUTH COUNCIL; CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT, AND CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEE ON LAW, OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL ON CRIME AND DELINQUENCY

Mr. SHAW. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I appreciate very much this opportunity to appear before the committee.

I am G. Howland Shaw. I am vice chairman of the District Commissioners' Youth Council; chairman of their Committee on Education and Employment, and I am also chairman of the Committee on Law, National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

Let me immediately say that I am heartily in favor of H.R. 7178. My only criticism would be one which has already been made and that is that the appropriation of $10 million is inadequate, but I recognize, having participated in several hearings before Senate and House committees on this problem of delinquency, that the important thing to to make a beginning and bring to bear in local communities the prestige, the stimulating power, the guidance and coordination of the Federal Government.

First of all, Madam Chairman, I would like to make some general remarks. I take it that we are all agreed that juvenile delinquency over the past 20 years, let us say, has increased. How much it has increased and in what localities it has increased, is a matter of debate. I think it is generally admitted that our statistical data, some of it pretty good, some of it pretty much less good, is on the whole, not too satisfactory.

There are two trends, I think, that are worth mentioning. One is that we are seeing today, and we have been seeing it, I should say, over the past 15 years, a more seriously disturbed youngster. That is certainly true of our training school population.

That has necessitated more skilled personnel and that, of course,

means money.

I do not believe that a good training school can nowadays be run on a per capita cost of less than $2,000 and it goes up to as much as $6,000 and $7,000 where there are skilled psychiatric services.

Now, that seems to be a large amount of money.

If you will measure that against the cost to the community of the career of a youngster who starts out as a juvenile delinquent and ends up as a adult offender, the amount is really insignificant.

There is a young man that I have been looking out for ever since he was about 14. He is now 28. Some of us got together not so long ago and tried to figure out what he had cost the community.

He has been steadily in trouble. Our most conservative estimate was $85,000, which we recognized was probably a good deal too low. Another trend that I believe we have to think about is the development of what we call white collar delinquency.

Several questions were raised about juvenlie delinquency. I do not know much about rural delinquency, but I would say that suburban delinquency is very much on the increase.

The idea of associating delinquency with slum areas is no longer accurate. We are getting serious delinquents from the middle-class suburban family.

Now, a lot has been said about the family. There is no question at all that the family is a vital factor in this whole problem of the prevention and control of delinquency.

There are two or three points that I would like to make in connection with that. I do not think we always realize how much the American family has changed in recent years.

The first thing that has impressed me is the lack of communication between parents and children.

Governor Lawrence mentioned, quite rightly, and praised, YMCA's and boys clubs. I agree with him heartily.

But, nevertheless, when the boy is in the boys club or when he is in the gymnasium of the YMCA, he is not in communication with his father and mother.

And then, television-and now I am not talking about programswhich was heralded as keeping the youngsters at home. Yes, it does, but when junior sits down before the television set for 2 hours in the evening, he is not in communication with his parents.

I think that problem of communication between parents and children is an exceedingly important problem which deserves, and I hope it will receive under some of the projects that are provided for in this legislation, careful study.

Another factor in family living is that more and more families are living in apartments, fewer in houses, especially detached houses.

Now, what does that mean? Even the best father and mother have nerves and the closer the physical proximity, the more chance there is that those nerves will become frayed and the more tendency there will be to push the youngster out, whether in slum areas, on the street, or whether in more fortunate areas under more desirable circumstances.

Then, finally, the American population is excessively mobile. I can think of several cases of juvenile delinquency whose families have moved as much as 15 and 20 times.

That means that that family is physically unrooted, if I may use

that term.

Those are three factors in the change of the American family to which I think we ought to give a great deal of attention.

Now, Dr. Brownell yesterday covered most effectively the problem of the school and the relationship of the school to employment. So I have no intention of trying to repeat what he has said so well, but I would like to make two points:

One is, I think, our schools are too academically oriented and not sufficiently occupationally oriented.

I think most teachers are thinking of pushing their pupils on to higher academic levels and are not sufficiently aware that most of those pupils are going to have to work.

The Attorney General mentioned the figure of 26 million youngsters coming into the labor market in this decade, which is 40 percent higher than the last decade. We are going to have a gigantic, a frightening, problem of youth employment in this decade.

There was one statement that Dr. Brownell made that led me to do a bit of thinking. He spoke of the importance of employment in dealing with the gang, which, as you know, is one of the trouble spots we have in the juvenile delinquency field. He was quite correct.

But employment is not going to solve the problem. I happen to have had a good deal to do with so-called conflict gangs in New York. The gang boy is characteristically a bitter boy. He feels that the world is against him. He wants to be against the world because he considers himself, and he is, a member of a downgraded social group.

Now, in American history, we have always had a downgraded group. In the fifties and sixties it was the Irish group, and then it was the Italians. Then in some areas it was the Poles, then the southern Slavs.

Mr. BRADEMAS. May I interrupt you to say it was the 1850's? The Irish are doing very well in the 1960's.

Mr. SHAW. I agree. That is proof of what happened.

Now it is the Puerto Ricans in New York. It is the Mexicans in southern California; it is, of course, the Negro.

Now, when you downgrade any group, the members of that group, especially the younger members, are going to fight back.

Now, finally, I would like to say something which I don't think has been said. I recognize, nobody does more than myself, the importance of government in dealing with this problem, at the local

level

But I am also convinced that no matter how efficient government may be in dealing with this problem, it is not enough. There has got to be community organization. I am using that word in a quite meticulous sense. I am not thinking of community organization in terms of councils, of social agencies.

I am thinking of community organization at the neighborhood level. One unfortunate thing which has happened in American lives is that we have in considerable measure, especially in our urban areas, lost the feel, the sense of neighborliness. We have to find ways of restoring it if we are going to deal with juvenile delinquents.

The fathers and the mothers and the neighbors of these juvenile delinquents, potential and actual, have got to be convinced that they can do something. They do not have to wait for me, for government, or anything else. They can do something if they get together.

Now, we have some conspicuous examples of how it can be done. We have the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council in Chicago; we have the councils which have been organized by the Industrial Areas Foundation, largely for the benefit of Mexicans in southern California, and in New Mexico and Arizona.

We have right here in the Washington area the Board of Commissioners Youth Council. We cannot do without them.

I hope one of the projects that this legislation will enable the Government to do will be the stimulation of that kind of community organization.

Finally, let me say just one word about our correctional institutions. We have spent quite a bit of money on correctional institutions, both for juveniles and youthful offenders, but we have done far less than we should in dealing with the postinstitutional phase.

We assume that if a youngster is in a good training school for a year and a half and is then released on parole, that he will go straight with sketchy supervision. He will not.

The postinstitutional phase has been systematically and definitely forgotten or downgraded.

I think the Bureau of Prisons is suggesting now what they call half-way houses. It is a most constructive suggestion. Time and time again I happened to have been a paroling authority at three training schools. Time and time again you are confronted with a youngster who has done well in the training school. He has every right to be released, and you see to what kind of family, to what kind of environment he is going to be released, and you know your parole officer has a caseload of a hundred, let us say, the chances are against him.

Now unless we make far more progress in dealing with the postinstitutional phase, we are going to lose money, both financially and socially in our investment.

Madam Chairman, I think that is about all that I can contribute.

I would ask your permission to place in the record the report from the Youth Council, the District Youth Council, to the Commissioners, setting forth our best thinking on the youth employment problem here in the District.

Mrs. GREEN. Without any objection, that will be made a part of the record at this point.

Mr. SHAW. Thank you, Madam Chairman. (The report referred to follows:)

Memorandum.

GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
COMMISSIONERS' YOUTH COUNCIL,
Washington, D.O. June 8, 1961.

To: The Comissioners' Youth Council.

From: The Education and Employment Committee.
Subject: Youth employment.

For the past several years, the Commissioners' Youth Council's Committee on Education and Employment has given considerable attention to the employment problems of our youth, including the school dropouts. Through our deliberations it soon became clear that the employment problems of the school dropout is but one part-albeit an important part-of a total problem of youth employment.

Unfortunately, the community of Washington, D.C., is not geared to the problems of youth employment. An adequate approach in the solution of this problem of youth employment must entail a total community effort. We believe the extent of this problem is such that it deserves public recognition by the Commissioners in an effort that is led by them.

To this end, we have formulated a series of recommendations. These were formulated after the committee had studied and considered existing recommendations which included in 1960 White House Conference on Children and Youth, "Bridging the Gap" of the Dictrict of Columbia White House Conference Committee, the What Price Dependency study, the Employment Opportunities for High School Dropouts study published by the U.S. Employment Service, and

the Council on Human Relations memorandum to the Board of Commissioners dated May 26, 1960. The committee acknowledges its reliance on these existing recommendations.

A concern of the committee has been with the existing curriculum of the public schools. The first six recommendations represent a reevaluation of this curriculum with emphasis on preparing all students for eventual employment. In considering the recommendations of the committee, it is well to remember that 75 percent of our high school population will not enroll in a college or a university. With this fact, it becomes critically important to offer these students a program that is realistic for their future.

This revision of school curriculum will not, of itself, solve the problem of youth employment. Indispensable to its solution is the willingness of the employers of the Washington area to utilize the available work force on a merit basis. Seventy percent of the applicants at USES are nonwhite. Seventy percent of our high school graduates are nonwhite. It is estimated, however, that of all jobs available, only 30 percent are available to nonwhites.

I. COMPREHESIVE VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Recommendation 1: That school-work and other vocational training programs be expanded to include skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled occupations available in Washington, D.C., and that these programs be made available beginning at the junior high school level.

Recommendation 2: That a school-work advisory committee (perhaps the Citizens' Advisory Council) be formed, by invitation of the Commissioners, which shall be representative of the occupational structure of Washington, D.C. to include management, labor, government, and citizenry, with the following dele gated responsibilities:

1. Develop job opportunities in the community to help insure the successful operation of the school-work program.

2. Advise local schools in organizing their curriculum.

3. Advise on material procurement.

4. Continually acquaint the school with current practices and developments within the occupational structure of Washington, D.C.

Recommendation 3: That there be present in the junior and senior high schools professional personnel who are specifically qualified as vocational counselors.

Recommendation 4: That the present elementary school counseling program be augmented to provide an adequate number of trained pupil counselors. Recommendation 5: That effective use continue to be made in the public schools of the Services to Youth office of the U.S. Employment Service for the District of Columbia.

Recommendation 6: That consideration be given to establishing a system of "hidden subsidy"-such as the Detroit program-to help insure the hiring of potential school dropouts and to encourage participation by employers. Funds for this subsidy hopefully shall be secured from both public and private resources, with $50,000 being secured initially. Payment of subsidy to employer shall be on a prorated basis as follows:

Recommendation 7: That the Commissioners of the District of Columbia exert strong leadership in the field of merit hiring and merit promotion within the District of Columbia by:

1. Recommending to the Congress the enacting of a fair employing practice law.

2. Designating the Commissioners' Council on Human Relations as the body responsible for the education of the Washington community on the need of merit hiring and merit promotion by such programs as they deem necessary.