Mr. QUIE. I see we do have a difference of opinion.

Mr. PUCINSKI. One question raised by the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Clendenen: While you talk about the State providing the leadership, I presume that this does not mean that you object to the Commissioner or the Secretary entering into agreements directly with a local community for a program, so long as that program is part of a comprehensive plan that has been worked out by the local community.

You recall that you were here when Mr. Scherle had pressed that point. And I said at that time that it would be a tragic mistake to foreclose the local communities from dealing directly with the Secretary.

There are various problems involved. It would create another bureaucracy. I was just wondering if we could get your comments on that so that the record could be clear on that point.

Mr. CLENDENEN. Yes. I would be happy to comment on it.

It seems to me there is a very nice problem here in terms of: How do you involve the State significantly and help strengthen the leadership role of the State: and yet at the same time provide maximum opportunity for the local community to develop its own program in relation to its problems and resources?

There is some kind of a balance here that needs to be achieved.

On the one hand, thinking in terms of Illinois, you don't want planning for Chicago to proceed out of Springfield. On the other hand, it seems to me that you want to do everything you can to strengthen the leadership in Springfield. Because particularly when you look outside of the large urban areas, about the only place that the leadership can come from in my judgment is from the State. And if the Federal Government in its relationships to the local communities completely bypasses the State role and it does not involve the State, I think it weakens State leadership rather than strengthening it.

So I think there is a matter, here, of involving the State in the development of a local program, because this local program should become a part of a larger statewide blueprint. But that does not mean that you transfer responsibility to the State, or that the Federal Government is thereby prohibited from dealing directly with the State. It seems to me what we are after here is a balance of these.

Mr. PUCINSKI. That is what I want to clear up; that is, why this legislation requires comprehensive planning by both State and local authorities. It does permit the Secretary to deal directly with a local community.

I just wanted to find out whether you have any objections to that. Now, there is no question that the bill now provides for ample consultation with the State authorities in the development of these programs. But, if I understand my colleague's question correctly this morning, he would suggest that everything must flow through a State agency; that the local community would be completely isolated and insulated, so to speak, from the Secretary. This would mean that whatever the local community wanted in the way of programs, they would have to go to the State, and the State would be the spokesman for this local community at the Federal level.

I do not think this necessarily makes for a most efficient government. I do think that these local communities ought to consult with the

State. The left hand should know what the right hand is doing. But I don't think we should foreclose these local communities from entering into their own agreements with the Secretary so long as their programs comply with a comprehensive plan.

Mr. CLENDENEN. If I were the Secretary, Mr. Chairman, I would require that a local plan show how State and local resources were going to be used in a coordinated kind of way in a delinquency control program.

Mr. PUCINSKY. It would seem to me that we take this away from the discretion of the Secretary, that we make this a matter of law, before they can be qualified for any funds.

Mr. CLENDENEN. I would endorse that too.

Mr. UUCINSKY. But the issue here is whether or not this legislation should provide that the Secretary cannot enter into an agreement with the local community, unless it has cleared everything through a State agency and the money has to travel through the State agency down to the local level. I just don't think that it is fair to isolate the local communities so completely from this Federal program.

I don't necessarily think that State government is always the most efficient. We have a pretty good local government in Chicago that has run rings around most governments county, State, and Federal. And I would kind of like to see this local government have some ability to develop these programs and enter into agreements with the Federal Government, without waiting for some bureau at the State level to say yes or no.

Mr. CLENDENEN. I don't think that I am debating a matter of relative efficiency or inefficiency of local and State governments, here, Mr. Chairman. But, you know, delinquency is a highly mobile problem. It doesn't know county or city or municipal boundries. And I don't thing that a statewide plan should be a mosaic of unrelated local plans.

Therefore, I think there should be some kind of a coordinating role here to be played by the State.

Now, I would agree with you. I think it would be a serious mistake if you placed the kind of authority in the hands of the State which would enable them to really dictate to a local community precisely what its program was going to be. But it does seem to me that a factor of coordination is an essential ingredient, and it represents the logical place for primary responsibility for this coordinating role. Mr. PUCINSKI. Well, that is exactly what I believe the bill provides. The bill provides, for instance, that the Secretary is authorized to make grants to any State agency which is able and willing to provide technical assistance to local agencies engaged in or prepared to engage in activities for which aid may be provided under this act.

Mr. CLENDENEN. Yes. I endorse it very strongly, Mr. Chairman. Mr. PUCINSKI. Mr. Gibbons?

Dr. Clendenen, would you be good enough, then, to tell us something about the program that the ladies are going to discuss with us! You organized this program, as I understand.

Dr. CLENDENEN. I helped to organize it. A good many people were involved in organizing it, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PUCINSKI. Mr. Perkins wanted to be here, I may say, but he is tied up right now with the Speaker, on a very important piece of

legislation coming up in the House very shortly. He asked me to extend his apologies. He did very much want to be here to hear your testimony.

Dr. CLENDENEN. And I might say that the Department of Justice represented an excellent example of State and local resources. I was a State official and worked with the local officials and agencies in the development of this program.

This program, Mr. Chairman, is based somewhat upon the program and experience of Essex Fields, N.J. I don't know whether you are familiar with this program or not, but it is a program that uses a process which we refer to as guided group interaction, which is a process where the boys themselves, who are involved in the program, could come together regularly each day for discussion under the guidance of an adult leader and have an opportunity there to really try to solve their problems. This was the purpose. And we attempt to utilize pure relationships in this problem solving process.

Now, in this instance of Parkland, what we were interested in was to find out whether or not this kind of programing might have value in relation to school-age boys who had been involved in difficulty with the local authorities.

And so this was launched. The reason it was called Parklandphysically it was located on the grounds of Parkland Junior High School in Jefferson County.

There were a number of agencies that were involved in setting up the project. And one of the very, very highly satisfactory results, and in my judgment I think there was real learning to be gained out of this for many of us, had to do with the involvement of the mothers of these boys in the parking project itself. And it was not long after the project was launched that the persons working in the project found themselves in very active communication with the mothers who were coming in and expressing their interest and their concern.

A mother's group or two groups really, were organized. These mother's groups meet, I believe, once each week. The two groups meet individually. And then there is a once a month meeting where both groups of mothers come together for a discussion of their common problems.

And we do feel that this has had a tremendously beneficial effect, not only in terms of the boys that were involved, but the development of a greater expression of responsibility in the community in terms of the young people living there.

We think that the project has had extensive benefits for many more children than have actually been involved in the Parkland project itself. And these three ladies are three of the mothers of youngsters who have been involved in that particular program.

Mr. PUCINSKI, Well, why don't we start with Mrs. Lawless?
Maybe you can move that microphone up a little closer.

STATEMENT OF MRS. ANITA LAWLESS, LOUISVILLE, KY.

Mrs. LAWLESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for letting us appear before this Senate committee.

A

At first when this was set up, I don't think we bothered, but then after we got into it it was different.

Our boys range from 132 to 152. And it taught us something, it really did, to understand the boys, and for the boys to understand us. So after we got down there, we got down there in order to solve problems. After the boys got into anything, they would go to school until 12, and after 12 they would pick them up. But when the parents got down there, the question was how they would start and what we were going to do about it.

So in other words we just got right down to business. If the boy was in for breaking in, we tried to figure out a way to solve that. Not only our problem, but to solve at each level.

When you got down there, you got put on the hot seat, and you couldn't get out of it. If you said, "I have a problem that this boy was AWOL," they would ask you what you were going to do about AWOL. And they would sit there and squirm, and everybody would be after you. So you had to come up with an answer. And this went on,

We have to stay on the job 24 hours a day.

So we would like to extend them into all schools. And in fact the Nation, if we could. But this is a worthwhile program.

Not only this, but we would like to get a child in a program like this before they would be able to go to an institution. We would like to stop them from getting to an institution. In other words, we would like to sell it to parents. Because in the beginning you have to get it to a parent, and maybe the parent can stop the child.

In other words, just like this: If they get into a problem, maybe some parents say, "I give up." We would like to help other parents, because we have been through this, and we understand, and we would like to help them to solve the problems if they could. So that is the reason we would like this to extend.

Also, in extending a school and getting the school board and the school to help us along with this program. And maybe we could have better citizens and cut down on juvenile delinquency.

Mr. PUCINSKI. Thank you.

Mrs. Arlene Hibbs.

STATEMENT OF MRS. ARLENE HIBBS, LOUISVILLE, KY.

Mrs. HIBBS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

By the way, the way I feel about it, most of us parents are not able to handle the problem in the first place. So in order to get down to our children's problems, we have to look into ourselves and see what we are doing wrong. So this program teaches us to find out what we are doing wrong, what we are letting our children do that they shouldn't be doing. And that is the most important thing. Because I feel like when we find out what we are doing wrong, then we can help our children solve their problems.

Mr. PUCINSKI. How do you go about finding out what you are doing wrong?

Mrs. HIBBS. Well, these mothers get on us, and our children are real good about "conning," as they call it. They have it down in Kentucky too. You don't realize it until you get into this program. This is one of the most important things: Don't let your children con you. You let all these little bitty things slip by. These little things mount up to bigger things.

I feel within the schools most of the boys usually start cutting school before they get into these other things. So we feel that the school has got to help us. And we just need the whole surrounding community involved in this. I mean we have just got to really build this thing up. And the parents I feel play the most important role with our children. Because our children don't do these things by themselves. We are partly at fault.

So I feel that the mother's group, we should set up these programs where the parents should be involved with them. And I feel that the courts should demand these parents attend something. Because they are the ones that need the help before they can help their children.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PUCINSKI. Mrs. Price.

STATEMENT OF MRS. WILLIAM PRICE, LOUISVILLE, KY.

Mrs. PRICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing us to appear before you in this subcommittee. As a member of the Parkland's Group Center, I would like to express my own feelings about the group center.

In the beginning, I did not want to attend that group meeting. Because Mrs. Lawless, here, didn't spare my feelings on telling me on what I was doing wrong with my children, how I was letting them get by with little things, and Mrs. Hibbs and all the other mothers would tell me that I did wrong.

And so, soon after we began in these meetings, I started telling Mrs. Lawless what her downfall was. These parents meet once a week, and we discuss problems with children.

My boy was cutting school, and he hasn't missed a day, or he hasn't been tardy since we have been in this program. And I have raised 12 children, and I thought I knew all the answers. I thought that I knew everything about it.

But Mrs. Lawless would tell me where I fell down. And we would meet there every week, and we would share our problems and unload our problems on the other members of the group.

And after my resentment in the beginning of this program, I found out that I did get help through this Parkland group. And I believe that if the school could cooperate with the parents and the parents with the juvenile court, and the juvenile court would demand that the parents try to solve their problems they will have to suggest that these parents attend these meetings, because you will fall out if you don't.

So I believe that this thing should be a nationwide thing, really, rather than just a group, like Parkland, in that area. And if a program like this can be all over the United States, coast to coast, we will find that the juvenile delinquency problem will fall way down, because it has worked in my community and in my home.

Mr. PUCINSKI. What you are saying, then, Mrs. Price, and you ladies, is that you have discovered that parenthood is a process of continuance learning.

Mrs. PRICE. It is.

Mr. PUCINSKI. And you feel that very often the youngsters are engaged in antisocial acts, when actually the parents themselves may contribute substantially toward the behavior pattern.