Hearings, Reports and Prints of the House Committee on Appropriations

Publication of monographs, produced under contract by outstanding professionals in the field, directed at future needs. The authors were asked to think ahead to the next five or ten years and make suggestions for the handling of certain problems in the juvenile and criminal justice systems. These monographs, also available through the Government Printing Office, include: Perspectives on Deterrence, Youth in Turmoil, The Functions of the Police in Modern Society, Development and Legal Regulation of Coercive Behavior Modification Techniques with Offenders, Instead of Court: Diversion in Juvenile Justice.

Completion under contract of a survey of facilities for mentally disordered offenders in the United States. The report soon to be published is entitled "A Nationwide Survey of Mental and Correctional Institutions Providing Comprehensive Psychiatric Care for Adults (and Juvenile) Mentally Disordered offenders." It provides complete data on the physical and administrative features of these institutions, the treatment programs available, and the numbers of patients served, and it discusses the needs for improvement.

Collaborative Efforts

The Center for Studies of Crime and Delinquency maintains contact with the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) and its National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice (NILECJ) in the Department of Justice. These bodies, created by the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, place major emphasis on law enforcement, administration of justice, and correctional programs, while NIMH, in the area of crime and delinquency, focuses on behavioral and social science research. Despite these functional differences, the broad legislative mandates of the NILECJ program do overlap to some extent the NIMH program. In the interest of clarifying areas of mutual concern, periodic meetings are held between center staff and representatives of NILECJ. Over the past year, such contacts have resulted in the referral or transfer of several project applications reviewed by the Crime and Delinquency Review Committee to the LEAA on the basis of program relevance.

The Youth Development and Delinquency Prevention Administration (YDDPA) of the Social and Rehabilitation Services in DHEW, which has responsibility for administering the Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Control Act of 1968, last year established four task forces to address the problem of delinquency prevention and control in various settings rural, urban, suburban, and college campuses. The deputy chief of the center provided consultation to the Task Force on Rural Delinquency. In addition, as part of this work, technical assistance was offered to the department of sociology of the University of Montana toward the development of a research proposal to test the effectiveness of a Statewide delinquency prevention project in Montana.

To help meet the need for better and more systematic coordination of Federal programs in crime and delinquency, an Inter-Agency Council on Corrections was created last year. Its membership includes representatives from the Center for Studies of Crime and Delinquency, LEAA, Bureau of Prisons, YDDPA, and the Departments of Labor and Defense. Monthly meetings discuss issues and programs in crime and delinquency, particularly corrections, at the Federal level.

of further mutual concern to a number of Federal agencies is the problem of alcohol abuse and alcoholism. Last year, LEAA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism initiated plans to hold a jointly-sponsored conference to explore methods and means of working together to effectively deal with these problems. The major objective of this conference will be to assist in the development of joint planning, programming and coordination at regional, State, and local levels to cope with the alcohol-related offender, the drinking driver, and the public inebriate. A staff member of the Crime and Delinquency Center has been attending meetings to review the conference prospectus and organization and the proposed suggestions for independent evaluation of the conference.