JUVENILE DELINQUENCY CONTROL ACT

MONDAY, JULY 17, 1961

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SPECIAL SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION

OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., room 429, Old House Office Building, Hon. Edith Green (chairman) presiding. Present: Representatives Green, Brademas, and Ashbrook.

Mrs. GREEN. The special subcommittee will come to order to continue the hearings on the administration bills in regard to the prevention and control of juvenile delinquency. The bills are H.R. 8028, introduced by the Congressman from Indiana, Mr. Brademas, and H.R. 7178, introduced by myself.

Our first witness is Mr. Aaron Schmais of the New York City Youth Board.

Mr. Schmais, we are looking forward to the comments you may have on this legislation.

Mr. SCHMAIS. Thank you.

Mrs. GREEN. May I also say that one of the most informative occasions for myself, as far as problems related to juvenile delinquency are concerned, was a 3-day visit to New York City recently when several of us went out with you and other members of the youth board and talked with youth gangs and youth gang leaders.

We welcome you as a person who has first hand knowledge on how to deal with this problem.

Will you identify yourself for the record and then proceed as you wish.

STATEMENT OF AARON SCHMAIS, NEW YORK CITY YOUTH BOARD

Mr. SCHMAIS. Thank you.

I am Aaron Schmais, legislative assistant to the Commission of Youth Services in New York City and the New York City Youth Board.

Madam Chairman and members of the subcommittee; I appreciate this opportunity to appear before your committee in connection with your consideration of the juvenile delinquency and youth offenses control bill and urge your approval of this important and needed legislation.

I represent the office of the Commissioner of Youth Services of New York City and the New York City Youth Board, the official city agency for the prevention, treatment, and control of juvenile delinquency.

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During the past 13 years the youth board has evolved a program of service to the individual, the family, the group, and the community. Increasingly, we have found that our efforts must be focused on the hard core of the problem, as it is exemplified in the multiproblem family, the teenage fighting gangs and the depressed and deteriorated neighborhood in which delinquency and other social ills are concentrated.

We can draw much encouragement from the achievements of the past decade in rehabilitating and reclaiming young lives which might otherwise have been destined to waste and despair. Mrs. Green has had the opportunity to observe our program at first hand, as has Attorney General Kennedy. On behalf of the mayor and the commissioner of youth services, I should like to extend a similar invitation to other members of the committee who are interested in our work. Mrs. GREEN. If I may interrupt, your invitation will be accepted promptly. We are making plans to go to New York this weekend. Mr. SCHMAIS. Good. We will be glad to have you.

If you come to New York City during July or August, you will see an entire city's resources mobilized to prevent the tragic outbreaks which have shocked and saddened our city and the entire Nation in previous summers. This year, in addition to the ordinary hazards of more than a million children and young people being out of school and spending long days and evenings on the streets, our job is complicated by an unusually high rate of youthful unemployment. We have already experienced a series of outbreaks of violence beginning even before the start of the summer season. The outlook is rather grim, but we are not relaxing our vigilance for a minute and if relentless determination can make the difference, perhaps this can be the kind of summer that we all so desperately want it to be.

I know the subcommittee is interested in our work on teenage gangs, and I would like to describe briefly our work with gangs.

Through our street club project the youth board has worked with fighting gangs since 1950 and currently we are working with 139 gangs and we are in contact with 40 others. This work is spread through boroughs of the city among 15 units of workers with 1 unit devoting itself exclusively to the problem of girl gangs. A unit is a staff of seven workers and a supervisor who work directly in the areas in which the gangs are located. This is the type of work that does not wait for referral or for voluntary association on the part of the gangs. This aggressively seeks out these boys where they are on the street corners, in the hallways, in cellars, poolrooms, or rooftops, and brings them a service well in advance of their request, or their acceptance that they need or want this.

These youngsters face our workers with suspicion, hostility and, at times, outright rejection. While such feelings are not easily broken down, they do diminish if, in their place, confidence is built when the worker demonstrates that his desire to help is not only sincere but concrete, and he offers a program which shows confidence and a belief that they can, will, and must change.

Often when minimal efforts by the community are made for gang kids, and these are greeted with indifference, the community is quick to shut out these kids. Yet these are children who have known rejection and have been hostile all their lives, and it is not easy for them

to see adults helping or concerned without having an angle of their own. The gang is all-important to these youngsters. They spend up to 15 hours a day in close companionship with other gang members. Their time is spent endlessly on street corners without much to do, and often out of boredom, they break out into acts of violence. It is the gang that gives them their basic belonging and whatever status and recognition they have achieved. It is here that they have a defined place, a role to play, and they will jealously guard whatever membership gives them. Each worker works with one gang and we have a policy of saturation. In any one neighborhood we may have seven workers working with six different gangs, and in only such a way do we feel able to control conflict. These gangs are more like than unlike in their structure, organization, their alcohol and drug use, names and leadership patterns, their arsenals of weapons and in their antisocial activities; namely, gang fighting. A gang may number anywhere from 30 to 70 members. This is multiplied by the types of associations they devise where they join with other clubs throughout the city and form brother clubs or, in the same neighborhood, they will divide into age groups: 13 to 15, may be tots; 15 to 17, juniors; and 17 and above, seniors. However, the hard core of the gang numbers from 10 to 30, and is the heart of the group. It is this group we work with. There are presently over 200 such gangs in the city of New York. We do not use the term "gang" descriptively, but definitively.

A gang in this sense is a group that has a structure and an organization to wage conflict. It has arsenals of weapons and it carves out an area of its neighborhood which it calls its territory or turf, and to which no other gangs can come.

It is not an easy task to work gangs and many people have asked the question, "Why bother? Why not turn them over to the police?" Our work with gangs is based on a firm conviction that these youngsters must be helped despite all obstacles, since this is often the last chance they will have for help.

We feel that much of the process of belonging to a gang is part of growing up and that there is positive potential in the gang when it is guided and directed. We further feel that while the protection of the community often necessitates repressive action and police action, in the long run, these do not change behavior and attitudes.

Finally, based on our own experience and the experience throughout the country, we know that the special relationship a worker can have to a gang can be productive of significant and fundamental change. Work with the gang can be divided into three stages: a beginning, a middle, and an end.

The beginning is concerned with locating and establishing contact with the group and gaining acceptance. The method we use is widely known as the hanging-around method. A worker will approach the hangout where the gang is and make himself known and, over a period of weeks and months, get to know these kids. Needless to say, there is much suspicion and they wonder who he is. Is he a cop? Is he an undercover agent? Maybe he is a sex deviate or a drug pusher. It is only in constant interpretation that the kids learn what this worker stands for.

Mr. BRADEMAS. He does not identify himself as a worker hanging around?

Mr. SCHMAIS. He will at the first opportunity. Either he will volunteer this informaion or usually the curiosity of the kids is too great and they will ask him why he is there. At this time, he will honestly and forthrightly tell them he is there because these kids have been in difficulty with the law and he has a program which can help them. Mr. BRADEMAS. How old are most of the workers?

Mr. SCHMAIS. Under 30; probably 26. Most of them are young, married, with children.

The suspicion is great and the truth is very hard to come by. I remember when I first worked with a gang group we arranged on the second night to meet and play basketball.

I got to the appointed spot and waited for them and after about an hour and they had not appeared, I began to wonder if I had made a mistake. I got anxious and was going to the telephone to call the supervisor to ask him what to do. As I was walking I noticed that the entire group was across the street in the hallway. This confused me and I did not know why they were there. I knew it had some significance so I walked back and waited. They stayed in that hallway for almost 2 hours, and after 2 more hours I left.

Subsequently, we found out that this was the way they were trying to determine how sincere I was. If I had merely waited for a half hour or 15 minutes, they would not have continued in association with me, but they felt that a wait of 22 or 3 hours was some measure of my sincerity to help.

When we are able to provide concrete services such as getting them a gym, helping them organize for a dance, going down to jail if they are arrested often none of their families appear-and other such examples, we feel that we are moving toward acceptance. However, we do not feel we have acceptance until they accept our police policy which firmly states that a worker, knowing that a kid is carrying a gun, going to a gang fight, or selling narcotics, will, without question, notify the police. When they know that, they accept us and continue contact with us. Then we feel we have gained acceptance and can move into the second stage of this work which is all important and the heart of the work. That is, building a relationship and beginning to use this relationship to bring about change in these kids.

Mr. BRADEMAS. May I interrupt you to ask a question about population? You said there are about 139?

Mr. SCHMAIS. We are working with 139 gangs.

Mr. BRADEMAS. You are working with 139 gangs and the membership of each gang runs from 30 to 70, I think you said?

Mr. SCHMAIS. Yes.

Mr. BRADEMAS. What is the total gang population? I am not able to keep the figures in my own mind.

Mr. SCHMAIS. I do not think I can either.

We know it numbers, or goes to a thousand.

We are working with several thousand kids ourselves and we are not covering every gang in New York.

Mr. BRADEMAS. That is what I am getting at.

Mr. SCHMAIS. There may be as many as a thousand of the youngsters who are gang members who are not covered at this time.

We

work with both the group and the individual. In terms of the individual, we seek to help him with his problems, be they education, employment, or personal problems at home. In this sphere we have at our disposal the full array of special services of New York and these are generally very deprived youngsters in terms of experience. I once was shocked by my personal experience with a gang in thinking they were very sophisticated. Twenty blocks from where the gang hung out was a large amusement area with several movies. We planned a trip there and I thought it was just a trip to spend a Friday evening, unaware that it was taking on the proportions of a major safari for these youngsters to go that 20 blocks. To go these 20 blocks they had to walk through 4 different gang territories and some of these kids had never been beyond 3 or 4 blocks of their immediate neighborhood. When I met the leader, he doled out subway tokens to each one and he gave them a lecture on how to act on the train, so as not to invite any violence by other train riders. They could not conceive of a 20-minute trip on the subway without having a fight. At the movie they lined up again and the leader bought hot dogs and soda for them. For almost 6 months afterward they still talked about this trip as one of the most significant things that had happened to them. This was only a trip to a movie 20 blocks away. This is the area in which we do a lot of work.

These kids have never left the confines of the city.

We go on bus trips, to plays, to amusement areas, and so forth. In this way we give them a feeling that there is another way, that there are other kids who find enjoyment out of life without gang fighting. Schoolwork and employment are very important and often these kids are unemployed. These are kids who do not do well in school.

I remember a kid who had not reported to his draft board and when asked why, he would not say. Finally it came out that he could not read or write and the embarrassment he faced in going down to the draft board was too much. Finally a worker had to take him almost by his hand and seat him at a desk to see what the problem was. We introduced more democratic procedures in the clubs themselves. Over a period of some years we are ready to terminate with the group when they are able to stand on their own feet. We may turn them over to another agency to service them or discontinue our service entirely but much of what we have achieved is a result of the availability of our staff around the clock, 7 days a week, and a willingness to meet these kids where they are, when they want us, and on whatever problems they have.

Even with the continuous efforts of the mayor and the board of estimate, who continually have increased our staff, which we appreciate, we have to meet our ongoing requirements and frequent emergencies. At the same time we have to be available on nights, weekends, holidays. We have found, as others have found, that delinquency does not stop Friday at 5 p.m. and begin Monday morning at 9 a.m.

This problem of shortage continually confronts us, not only in street club work, but in all aspects of our program, including case workers, group workers, psychiatric workers, and community workers. We find that young people generally do not enter this field and choose instead jobs where the enticements, financial rewards and opportunities for advancement are greater and the demands less forbidding.