The culmination of our work in this area was reached last year with the establishment of the Dayton Half-way House for delinquent boys under the sponsorship of the Ohio Youth Commission, the local agency of the poverty program and the Jaycees. Even in the six months since we have opened our doors to delinquent youth, we have seen remarkable change. Ours is a unique program in that the boys are represented on the Board of Directors and share in the management of house activities. We have been surprised at the ability of these "sure losers" to take hold and assume responsibility once they are given a chance. There is growing need for more programs such as these. Early passage of the important legislation before your committee is urgent if the States and communities are to be encouraged to assume greater responsibility in this area. Attached you will find some information about Half-way House which may be useful to you in your deliberations on the subject Bill. If we can provide you with any additional information about our activities in this area, we will be happy to do so. Our thanks to you for your consideration of long needed legislation in this area. Sincerely, EDWARD J. ORLETT, President. [From the Dayton Daily News, Monday, Nov. 1, 1965] HALFWAY HOUSE Last June an eight-county mental health planning study confirmed the area's need for halfway houses to help wayward youngsters bridge the gap between total dependence at an institution and total independence in society. Now there is a promising plan on the drawing board spearheaded by the Dayton Junior chamber of commerce and backed by the Supportive Council on Preventive Effort and the Ohio Youth commission. If the Jaycee plan meets no snags, and none are foreseen, a request for federal aid will be submitted to permit operation of a house for about 10 youths, returnees from the Fairfield School for Boys. The halfway house, following SCOPE standards for aid purposes, will serve youths coming from unfit homes in lowereconomic areas. Certainly youths who have gone wrong deserve a chance to get their bearings in homes approaching near-normal living patterns. With special handling and responsible supervision, they can learn to redirect thinking and conduct. They can arrest their hazardous drift toward society's backwash. The Jaycees have a good thing going for them. Their plan deserves a push from every community and government corner. [From the Journal Herald, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 1966, Dayton, Ohio] HALF-WAY HOUSE TO HELP YOUTHS HERE APPROVED A $24,223 federal grant to set up a Dayton half-way house for youths discharged from correctional institutions was given formal approval and some added words of praise yesterday by Gov. James A. Rhodes. He said he considers the project "one of the better projects of the entire antipoverty program . . . (it) can play a vital role in the rehabilitation of wayward youth and help them in attaining their proper place in society." The house will provide education, training, group sessions, group psychiatric therapy and personal hygiene instruction for 10 boys at a time-youths 16 to 21 years of age released from correctional institutions but lacking adequate home or other family situations to which they might return. [From the Dayton Daily News, Jan. 13, 1966] BRIGHT PROJECT Although the plan of the Greater Dayton Jaycees to provide a halfway house for 10 youths returning from correctional institutions is still in the planning stage, there's little doubt of its success. So sure is Paul Rosenfeld, an Ohio Youth commission representative, that he said, "The Greater Dayton Jaycees are setting a spark that we hope will spread across the state." The enthusiasm is supported. Numerous studies have confirmed the great need for intermediate stations where youngsters can get intensive guidance before making the transition from penal institution to society. Without this special care, many youths merely would return to environments which conditioned their misbehavior in the first place. Any rehabilitative work done at the institutions quickly would be wiped out. The youngsters' chances of being permanently channeled down the straight-and-narrow would be considerably reduced. Green lights at all levels-local, state and federal-should glow brightly for the halfway house plan. The Jaycees, the first civic group in Ohio to initiate a program of this kind, have something good working for them, the community and, most importantly, youth. [From the Journal Herald, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 1966, Dayton, Ohio] "IT'S A REAL HOME" Dayton's half-way house finally opened yesterday. Four boys from a state correctional institution moved in and were surprised by the North Broadway facility. "It turned out to be a real home, not another institution," one said, grinning in disbelief. Financed by a $24.488 federal grant and $25,388 from the Greater Dayton Jaycees and the Ohio Youth commission, the project has been bogged down in red tape for several months. R. Larry Fullwood, half-way house director, started work in September but sponsors had trouble finding house parents and the right kind of house. The project is designed to provide "an accepting and secure home situation" for juvenile offenders released from state institutions, who lack an adequate home life to which to return. Fullwood said he hopes it will give the boys "a chance to get back into society on an even keel." Three more youths also from the Fairfield juvenile facility will arrive Friday and the final three are due here next month. In the meantime, Fullwood said, a lot of work remains to be done. Furnishings for the three-story house were donated by Jaycees, local businesses and individuals. Frigidaire division of General Motors corporation outfitted the kitchen with a new freezer, refrigerator, range, garbage disposal unit and dishwasher. Linens, recreational equipment and other items are still needed, Fullwood said. Some boys came with only the clothes they wore. The Ohio Youth commission provides a minimum clothing allowance, but that hasn't yet been allocated. It takes four to six weeks to process applications after allocations are made, Fullwood pointed out. Two of the boys will go to local high schools and two will get vocational training through the local Youth Opportunities Center. Fullwood reminded them last night if they make the project a success, other communities may pick up the half-way house idea. "It's not just you four who are involved but all the guys you left behind (at Fairfield)" he said. Fullwood said he hopes for a complete turnover in the 10 youth residents in a year. Some will go with foster parents, some into the service, some out on their own and some may go back to Fairfield, he said. "No work has 100 percent success. It's not realistic to think you can be everything to everybody." [From the Kettering-Oakwood Times, May 26, 1966] JAYCEES PLAN HALF-WAY HOUSE The Greater Dayton Jaycees have initiated a project for a Half-Way House for post-delinquent youth in cooperation with the Ohio Youth Commission. The Half-Way House, to serve youths between the ages of 15-18 returning from one of eight OYC institutions, will give delinquent youngsters an opportunity to better adjust to community living while under supervision. The Jaycees will help finance $9,507 of the operation, which is now under consideration for a matching allocation by SCOPE, the local Community Action Program of the Office of Economic Opportunity for $24,448. - Total operation cost of the new Half-Way House is pegged at $50,000, of which OYC funds will pay $15,881. This will be the first such program of this nature in Montgomery County scheduled to serve 10 youths. At present, many boys returning to the county after release from OYC institutions return with no chance to make a gradual readjustment and generally come back from complete institutional dependence to community independence. The Greater Dayton Jaycees are making this program a part of an ever extending service to youth, an area they have served over the years. The Greater Dayton Jaycees have participated in such other youth programs as visiting youngsters from Montgomery County in institutions and providing family visitations to those families unable to make visitations. Other Greater Dayton Jaycee projects have included giving Christmas gifts to all OYC youths in the after-care program in Montgomery County. They have also provided athletic equipment for the Boys Club and sponsored individual boys at the YMCA. The Half-Way House is scheduled to be run by the boys themselves, under the guidance of a director. Plans are that the boys would set up a governing council, in conjunction with the director and participate in establishing operating rules. The Dayton Half-Way House is a cooperative effort of the Great Dayton Jaycees, SCOPE, and Ohio Youth Commission and will have on its governing board Captain Gilbert H. Thurman of the Crime Prevention Division of the Dayton Police Department, a representative of the Dayton Recreation Department, a representative of the Social Services Department of the Dayton City Schools, a neighborhood representative and a member of SCOPE. The Half-Way House and program would be run by this coordinating Board; however, standards of operations and specifications would be set up and supervised by the Ohio Youth Commission. Re H.R. 6162. SALT RIVER PIMA-MARICOPA COMMUNITY COUNCIL, Hon, ROMAN C. PUCINSKI, Chairman, Committee on Education and Labor, Washington, D.C. DEAR CHAIRMAN PUCINSKI: A bill. H.R. 6162, has been introduced by Mr. Perkins and referred to your Committee. This bill would supplant the previous Juvenile Delinquency Control Act of 1967, legislative life of which ended June 30, 1967. This bill in it's present context covers more territory, and we feel if this hill were approved it would make it easier for Tribes to handle their particular juvenile delinquency problems within their reservations, and further it provides greater latitude for Tribes starting and setting up their programs to help enrb juvenile delinquency. The bill in its present context is highly desirable and we would lend our full support to the bill, and respectfully ask a favorable consideration of same. We would make one observation, that the bill be broadened to include the training of personnel specializing in the field of; house parents, social workers, administrators, etc., that are necessary in making up youth home and programs staff. We have had a previous demonstration grant of this nature, and can speak with some minimal degree of authority on this matter. There are other reservation and Indian communities looking for something of this sort, but with the termination of the legislative life of the Juvenile Delinquency Control and Prevention Act of 1967. no other grants are being made under this law. Unless there be favorable consideration of such a bill as H.R. 6162. We respectively request any and all consideration your office can give in making the suggested amendments and supporting the bill on through to fruitation. We thank you for your kind consideration of this matter and we look forward to hearing from you. Respectfully yours, FILMORE CARLOS, President. THE OHIO ASSOCIATION OF JUVENILE COURT JUDGES, HON. ROMAN PUCINSKI, DEAR CONGRESSMAN PUCINSKI: I am deeply grateful for the opportunity of appearing before your Committee on May 10th and for the courteous consideration that was given my testimony on H.R. 7642. It was indeed gratifying for me to observe, as I sat in the Hearing Room throughout the day, the knowledge and understanding of the problems of the Juvenile Court possessed by you and the members of your Committee. We now have the Gault opinion and I am sure that most of us in the large urban centers will agree that it will not affect us greatly since we have been observing most of the constitutional safeguards with which Gault is concerned. The one benefit I see out of this case is that it may help in taking the onus off the Juvenile Courts in respect to our failure to cope with the problem of crime and delinquency. Many of the ill informed and unsympathetic heretofore have blamed the Juvenile Court law and procedures for the lack of accomplishment and they have therefore failed to understand that the fault has been society's failure to provide facilities. As I see it we in the Juvenile Courts have two primary tasks: One is to see to it that the child who is in trouble with the law and who generally does not have a proper home environment gets the care and control that is required to bring him to healthy adulthood and productive citizenship. The other is to protect society from the unlawful and sometimes, vicious acts of the delinquent youth. In a good majority of the cases we can discharge our dual responsibility with the child in his own home by means of proper clinical and probation services. But even assuming the optimum of these services, both qualitatively and quantitatively, it would remain necessary to place many delinquent children outside their own homes. This is because certain parents are simply unable or unwilling to give their children proper care and control in the home even when buttressed by completely adequate social service programs. As I said before your Committee we have a present pressing need for placement facilities for 75,000 children in the United States. H.R. 7642 recognizes this need to a very limited extent on page 8, line 7 through line 19. I would agree that the types of facilities here included will be useful but such facilities would meet only a very small part of our needs. You will notice that lines 7 and 8, page 8. authorize facilities that are "of unusual and special purpose or innovative types of facilities". I am certain these provisions represent the ideas of the Children's Bureau (H.E.W.) as to the needs of the Juvenile Courts. By requiring the above limitations they have fallen into the error which is warned against on, page 164, 2nd column of the President's Crime Commission Report, part of which I quote: "There has been a tendency for the correctional field to adopt new or seemingly new programs in an impulsive, sometimes faddish manner, only to replace them later with some more recent innovation. Much supposed progress really has been only circular movement. "New" approaches turn out to be devices tried elsewhere under a different name." [My emphasis.] The nation's Juvenile Court judges who every day must face the responsibility of meeting the needs of the delinquent child and of protecting 'society from their unlawful acts know what is necessary for the great majority who cannot be taken care of in their own homes. In short, we need good residential schools where the child will have the benefit of a warm, secure long term placement in a controlled, well supervised setting. Ideally the maximum capacity of such schools should not exceed 100 children but since the present need is so overwhelming and the per capita cost on this basis is so high, our National Council of Juvenile Court Judges believes that schools not exceeding a capacity of 200 should be our realistic goal at present. In keeping with the above statement our Ohio Association of Juvenile Court Judges would recommend that lines 7 and 8, page 8 of H.R. 7642 be amended by deleting the words "of unusual, and special-purpose or innovative, types of" and as proposed by the National Council of Juvenile Court Judges, on Page 8 in line 16, delete the "and" immediately preceding (C); in line 19, same page, delete the period and add the following "and (d) training schools for the rehabilitation and education of youth of a capacity not to exceed 200 youths, who are in the custody of any public agency charged with the care of delinquent youth". Hundreds of serious crimes committed in this city every year could be prevented if training school facilities would permit a proper length of stay for committed delinquent youth. Without any research I can account for three homicides in this city in the past year directly chargeable to the premature release of delinquent youth from a grossly overcrowded training school. A psychiatrist attached to our Ohio Fairfield School (population in excess of 1100) says that one-third of the boys are “dangerous types" and that "homicide is always a possible concomitant of many other criminal acts committed by" such youth. Please believe me, Congressman Pucinski, the Juvenile Courts can greatly curb delinguency and youth crime if the Federal Government will assist us in providing the facilities with which to do the job. My sincere thanks for whatever consideration you give my views and please call upon me if I can be of any service to your Committee in connection with H.R. 7642, including again coming to Washington if necessary. Sincerely and respectfully yours, JUDGE WALTER G. WHITLATCH, President. STATE OF MICHIGAN, Hon. ROMAN C. PUCINSKI, Chairman, General Subcommittee on Education, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. DEAR REPRESENTATIVE PUCINSKI: I am pleased to report to the General Subcommittee on Education the endorsement of H.R. 6162, titled "The Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Act of 1967" by the Michigan Commission on Crime. Delinquency and Criminal Administration, voted at its meeting in Detroit on June 15, 1967. The Commission's position statement is attached, and I call your attention particularly to the concern of the Commission for the future development of "State training schools." Our approval of the general objectives of H.R. 6162, however, is qualified in one way. We believe that federal, state and local governments would benefit from coordination of planning at the state level. We are not suggesting that every local plan should be subject to a veto at the state level. We are, however, urging that every local plan be submitted to a coordinating agency of the state designated by the Governor on or before the date of submission of such plan to the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare for such analysis and comment as the state may wish to make upon the proposal being submitted. The purpose of this is three-fold: 1. To enable the state, with its knowledge of other plans being submitted and of the general delinquency prevention situation within the state, to make suggestions both to the local unit or agency submitting a plan or project and to the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare with respect to possible improvements which could be made in the plan prior to its final approval. 2. To thus enable the local unit of government to have the benefit of knowledge about other and possibly related plans and projects within the state. particularly where these are geographically related. 3. To enable the Secretary of the Department of Health. Education and Welfare to have the benefit of overall knowledge of the delinquency prevention situation within the state which is not available to the local agency submitting the plan. The provisions of H.R. 6162 are designed to meet an urgent situation. We are most impressed with the bill's emphasis on the relatively new approach of involv ing active participation of other related agency programs in the local community to assist the pre-delinquent. This will prove an immense advantage. We believe that the bill should be passed at the earliest possible opportunity and that work should commence without delay for the preparation of state and local juvenile delinquency prevention plans. Such work cannot begin too soon. |