Mr. Brueckner, we are very happy that you have found the time in your schedule to come before this committee to give us the benefit of your views.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM H. BRUECKNER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CHICAGO COMMONS ASSOCIATION, REPRESENTING THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SETTLEMENTS AND NEIGHBORHOOD CENTERS

Mr. BRUECKNER. Madam Chairman, members of the committee, I am here to testify on behalf of the National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers at 226 West 47th Street in New York City. However, I am a Chicagoan and I would like to compete with the two predecessors this morning and invite all of you to come and see us, to see the Longdale district, about which you heard this morning or last night some rather devastating news about explosions of a rather serious kind among the youth of these areas.

The National Federation of Settlements is operating some 270 private agencies, social centers and community centers located in some 90 urban areas throughout the United States. I have been a member of this organization for 22 years, and I have shared in its extensive experience, with the life and problems of intercity neighborhoods. It is my privilege to be the chairman of a technical advisory committee to the training center at Hull House in Chicago, the instrument of specialized education for the national federation.

I am employed as executive director of the Chicago Commons Association in Chicago; it operates two neighborhood centers in a Chicago community with high incidence of social disorganization. It will be a special privilege to use the experience of project explorations and actual services to difficult youths and youth groups in Chicago in the presentation of this testimony, together with findings gathered in other large urban communities.

The mandate given to me by our national organization is clear: we look with favor upon House Resolution 7178; we hope that it will, during this session of the Congress, pass as the "Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offenses Control Act of 1961"; we believe that the steps proposed in this bill are well conceived-both in terms of practical judgment and scientific validity. Furthermore, we believe that this bill-although providing only limited financial means to combat a very large problem-contains reference to devices more promising of success than any others known to us.

This opinion is shared by thousands of lay leaders who guide the policies and practices of our agencies' work, and by all experienced staff members, including hundreds of courageous and compassionate, well-trained and thoughtful workers who have developed their skills and understanding in daily-and nightly-contact with countless young people who are in conflict with their surrounding, and especially with those who have ceased to blame themselves and who are now angry, ready to get illegitimately what they cannot get legitimately. The House resolution, under section 2a, describes the nature and size of the present-day juvenile delinquency problem in the briefest and at the same time most comprehensive way ever attempted. It fortunately avoids the challenge of an old and rather useless debate as

to those causes of juvenile deviation which allows experts and lay people alike to be defensive about their own actions, and to blame others for their failings.

Of course, it is true that home and parental care are of crucial importance, that schools must and can help prevent and control the spreading of juvenile difficulty, that churches do provide anchors of emotional security, and that social agencies of many kinds must and can do a good job of protecting and guiding our young.

However, it has become unwise and unjust to blame any one of these institutions, and to pick on any one of them as sole or major carriers of the responsibility.

We cannot say this is what they ought to do and say this is what they ought to be able to prove.

The time of envisaging the individual juvenile delinquent as a person with a pathology of his own, separable from the conditions under which his friends, his community, his whole neighborhood live, is gone. The number of such delinquents is small; increases in the number of those who become delinquent because of severe illness, emotional disturbance, mental retardation, can be controlled.

We are much encouraged by the fact that the House resolution wishes to attack the much larger and much more threatening development of juvenile delinquency appearing among school dropouts (in Chicago more than one-half of the students of the municipal high school system), among youth without employment (across the country a youth unemployment rate about twice as large as that for the general population), and among youngsters who come from educationally and economically deprived family situations.

This sounds like a wild figure. However, 3 weeks ago Dr. James Conant, in his report, estimated on the basis of figures that ought to be more correct than ours, that the rate ought to be four times as large as the unemployment rate for older adults.

Our own experience, in hundreds of inner-city neighborhoods, confirms the growing rates of this kind of juvenile delinquency. It is, as a rule, not committed by an individual, in an individual and only occasional act of illegality. Such delinquency is generated by groups of youngsters; it is, most of the time, motivated by helplessness, carelessness, rebellion and, most important, by anger which has become the decisive mood of a constantly growing number of youth groups in conflict with almost anything we the adults of our timelike, cherish, and respect.

And this mood becomes now, more and more, the symptom of a way of life which in many cases will determine the way of adult life for which these youngsters are preparing themselves.

The threat of these developments to the order and sense of our inner-city neighborhoods is large; the cost of failure will be enormous, not only in terms of material losses.

The House resolution states that

prevention and control of such delinquency require intensive and coordinated efforts on the part of private and governmental interests.

The resolution proposes a policy to assist in such efforts.

Some objectors to the resolution may question the wisdom of such assistance by the Federal Government; they may wonder whether and why local private and governmental agencies could not or should not be able to take care of this matter themselves.

We respect this question profoundly; as a national organization of voluntary agencies operating in urban communities in many States, in cities with large cultural and economic differences between them, in city neighborhoods with each one of them showing problem ranges of their own, we do not believe that massive Federal intervening would be without harm.

However, we are also thoroughly convinced that the kind of Federal help proposed in the House resolution will not only be useful to our work; we believe that it is most urgently needed. Here are some of the reasons for this contention:

(1) The presently active devices of preventing and controlling the problem are inadequate in size and equipment. As in the areas of urban renewal effort and in the field of education, the local community has not shown readiness and ability to produce the policies and the funds needed to attack the problem very effectively, notwithstanding the fact that in the last 10 years or so some rather remarkable experimental and demonstrational work occurred in this field.

(2) Schools and churches, public and private social agencies, and other citizens organizations aroused by the problem, are already overburdened by the need for applying older and well-tested preventive

means.

I was interested in your question, Madam Chairman, this morning, as to the attitude of a church when it is confronted with the arrival of a youth group. It is difficult. Shall they be hospitable to it or not. Mr. Schmais made an interesting and fascinating remark in response. He said unless they are fully prepared to take care of that over and above the kind of things they normally do, they had better not start accepting it. It needs to be more, not just a change from one service to another, but if they are continuing to do preventive work and add to that also the work of accommodating very difficult youngsters who need a lot of effort and attention until they are adapted to the situation, until they accept it, it will take more than many agencies have, this particularly in the light of the fact that the youth population is growing in size.

Many of them are suffering under the pressure to furnish the more commonly understood and supported ways of helping youth with general education and recreation. Pioneering departures into the field of working with hard-to-reach youth groups are costly. Therefore, the practical answer of many agencies is "Hold the line; keep good what we have; protect the basic structure of youth services" instead of saying "Watch the dangers threatening our youth, and go after them." "After them" means both the dangers and the kids.

(3) This problem is not one confined to a few cities or regions; it is alarmingly common to all American communities. The recognition of this fact is evident in efforts made jointly by public and private agencies across the country-such as the great cities school project for some of the largest school systems in the United States, or in efforts made since 1954 through programs of experience exchange and training of specialists in our own National Federation of Settlements. (4) This problem grows faster toward unmanageable proportions than anything we have done so far, and anything we are planning for the near future.

The present behavior of inner-city youth groups and the predictability of its rapid further growth toward disorder establishes the condition of a national and not just occasional local emergency.

We believe firmly that the Federal assistance proposed in the House resolution was most wisely conceived. It is to be given, after thorough exercise of judgment in regard to promise of success, after establishing also the program and financial readiness and competence of the receiving agency, for purposes of "demonstration and evaluation projects" and for purposes of "training of personnel."

There have been a number of very significant plans made by public and private agencies. Our own organization has experimented with new ways of working with delinquent or delinquency-prone youth groups in Chicago, Detroit, New York, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Boston, Cleveland, and in several smaller communities.

Some of these new ways are now almost standard procedure. Great value could come to many communities in this country if your resolution would become law, and if we were helped to demonstrate what we have done, how we do it, and if we were enabled to help train personnel "on the job."

In 10 years in operation of some rather successful projects, we do not have the time to tell what we did, what was good about it, and what was not so good about it. This is one of the reasons why evaluation seems to be so important and so useful.

It is probably a one-time job and not something the Federal Government will have to stay with for a long period.

The latter is of special importance to us, agencies operating in neighborhood situations. Their work is one of the greatest possible nearness to the people and their own organizations; their work isand has to be-minute, direct, done in day-by-day relationship. In our work, there is no slogan, no gimmick, not even the word describing a high, idealistic, wonderful aim which could help us much. Not even money will help us.

Our way of working with the families of these inner-city neighborhoods, based on face-to-face relationships, made it possible for us to help youth groups in difficulty, and also to help the rest of the community to better understand what is needed.

This is why we like the wording of your resolution's basic notion as to what is required: The resolution says "intensive efforts" are needed. This means that all of us will have to come to the point of actually reaching youth groups instead of talking to them from some distance, whether that distance is one of space or function, of social role or rank.

The National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers shall be delighted to contribute to the task of demonstrating and training. It will be ready to contribute all it has. It believes that other youth-serving organizations in this country will do the same. It assures you it will be ready to learn. There are many questions unanswered by us.

In the matter of training, much more needs to be done than now possible. This training needs to be enhanced by extensive field work, training on the actual job. Training arrangements allowing for both theoretical orientation and the development of skill acquired in reality situations will be needed. The federation's national training center

at Hull House is one of the already existing examples for such an arrangement.

I was interested in listening to Mr. Schmais' observation that it is hard to get trained social workers into the field. I do not believe, as he apparently does, that the sacrifice such workers have to make by working nights, long hours, by working on weekends, may be the decisive obstacle. In my experience the decisive obstacle always has been that a heavily academically trained person, who is prepared for the job in an office, in a counseling capacity, in a well-controlled and controllable kind of situation, actually has difficulty to make the adaptation on the street. It takes a different kind of preparation. Much of that cannot come from classroom, seminar case discussion. It has to come from an actual exposure to conditions on the streets. Finally, I would like to report to you that we are especially appreciative of the House resolution's plan to lodge the responsibilities involved in this piece of legislation in the Office of the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. This, in our judgment, is the place where facts and judgments may best be developed. While saying this, we do wish to again express the hope that an effective liaison between the Department of Health, Welfare, and Education, and the Department of Justice-because of the role of law enforcement in any delinquency control program-and the Department of Labor— because of the youth employment question-will be assured and used when the resolution becomes law.

The resolution provides for the appointment of technical and of advisory committees. It is there, we believe, where national leadership might be gathered to help make one of the most useful contributions to our youth. Such leadership may or may not be representative of all organizations and functionaries in the fields of youth services. It will be more important to find people who are less inclined to worry about the present and future of their institutions, and more capable of concern with those needs of American youngsters which happen to be unmet, and which therefore happen to create frustration, hostility, and delinquency.

Thank you very much.

Mrs. GREEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Brueckner. This statement has obviously been the result of a great deal of thinking and careful planning on your part.

If we are successful, and this legislation becomes law, I hope that those who are responsible for the administration of it will refer back to the testimony and the suggestions that you have made and the recommendations that you have given.

Mr. Brueckner, may I refer to the paragraph in your statement on dropouts?

Would you expand a bit on that? I am not sure that I understand from that paragraph exactly what you meant.

Mr. BRUECKNER. Much juvenile delinquency occurs as the result of an opportunity which is given young people to abandon school at the age of 16. Most of them have a notion that they will be employed, that they will find a job. A very large number of them-our estimate was roughly one-half of them-will not find jobs.

Mrs. GREEN. One-half of what group?