I ask because we had the problem in a rather critical State, in the District of Columbia lately. I was interested to know whether this was something which was pretty widespread. In Philadelphia we have also had a problem of a heavy caseload per judge.

Judge WAXTER. Senator, that is not a problem with us, the volume. What is a problem with us is that people are appointed to be circuit court judges in our county and they serve 1 or 2 days a week to be juvenile court judge. Our problem is that they are trained as lawyers, and the whole matter of the juvenile court, while the law is essential in the core, the authority of the colurt is the core of the whole service. Nevertheless, the kind of training they have, you have to retrain people or they have to recondition themselves to look at the problems of children in a completely different way.

Senator CLARK. I am sure you are right about that.

Judge WAXTER. It is a matter of training rather than because of the way the lawyers were trained in the past. Most of them don't like the juvenile court work. They take it because it is a part of being a circuit court judge. They do it and they are interested in it, but not all of them really understand what is going on, and they bring all kinds of concepts to the juvenile court.

That is why probation is so terribly poor. That is why one of the great problems of America is the fact that, by and large, the probation officers of the country are people who are untrained. They are likable people who relate well to children. Many of them are older people, retired schoolteachers or retired people that have done something or other, and to get into that field, to show that they can be a dynamic field and have money to run projects to help courts have good probation staffs to assist them with children, would be a matter of tremendous value.

Running it back farther, we would like to be able--and when I say "we" I mean any welfare department in any State in the Union-we would like to be able to see if we could not find other facilities for children other than the training schools. We would like to try experiments in how far we can go with foster care with children that are delinquent and have to be removed from their present status. We know that a good deal can be done with foster care. We know that a good deal has been done and that the training schools are getting more and more difficult children.

Back behind that, we would like to see the schools experiment in the field of specialized education, that when kids come along in the fourth and fifth grades and begin to manifest problems, right there something could be done with the child and his family that would be much more effective than it is at present.

Senator CLARK. You mean now the public school?

Judge WAXTER. Yes; and Philadelphia has probably done as much or more with this than any State in the Union. But Philadelphia is not representative of Pennsylvania, and it is much less representative of the country.

We would like to take a small group, a sampling group of kids in the third, fourth, and fifth grades and give them and their families. good service at the time as an experiment with what can be done. Then you have the whole field of parent education.

We would like to go around-we have done this in most areas of the State-to organize the local communities to do something about themselves, to organize childrens' commissions or committees in each of the counties of our State to get the local group to do something about detention and the various methods that we have of detention.

Today, every day, there are hundreds of children throughout the country that are held in courts, held by courts in the regular county jails. We have that all throughout Maryland.

Senator CLARK. Do you not have a voluntary civic organization that attempts to organize civic groups something like our Pennsylvania Charities Association?

Judge WAXTER. No; we do not. And that is only usual with the very large States. You have that only in States like Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois. I think there is one each in Indiana, Michigan, and California. Outside of these, there are no such organizations.

We do have a public State commission on delinquency, as I said before, and we are trying to organize in each of the counties, but we do not have the staff to do it in the way in which we should.

All I am thinking to do is to follow your suggestion, pointing out that there are many, many areas in this whole business about what we could do with children, what we have to do to find out whether what we are doing.

You see, we are spending millions and millions of dollars in our training schools without anybody really testing what is the best kind of program.

Senator CLARK. The essence of your testimony is that we need more research and planning, and the amount of money necessary to get it is very small indeed compared to the reorientation of the program which would result, which is highly desirable and which might even from a strictly fiscal point of view result in an economic measure.

Judge WAXTER. We would be very glad, as one State, to send you a list of 10 or 12 projects that we would like to embark upon if money was available and if there was Federal leadership.

Senator CLARK. I think it would be very helpful. If you could put a dollar tag on each one, it would be even more helpful.

Judge WAXTER. We would have to pull that out of the air, of course. Senator CLARK. Yes. But on the other hand, at some point you would have to justify an application for it; so why not do the work now?

Judge WAXTER. That is right. We will be very glad to do that.

Senator CLARK. And if it is at all possible to indicate what the result would be if the study-I suppose that is asking too much. I was thinking it might well be that such experimental projects would not in the long run open the gate for millions and millions of additional Federal appropriations, which will be what some people will fear.

Judge WAXTER. You have not had that, really, with the child welfare grants that go back for years and years in the whole field of child welfare and include many of these things, and you are still only up to $12 million.

Senator CLARK. That is true. The impact of the foot-in-the-door argument, though, is hard to estimate.

Judge WAXTER. That is true, Senator, with every single appropriaion the Federal Government makes in a new field.

This is a field that you know better than I-having been mayor of a city-that is a rising problem. You get a materialistic society in the way that we do and delinquency in America is just like Boston baked beans. Other nations don't have it. The nations of Western Europe don't have it like we do.

Senator CLARK. I don't know nearly as well as you know, Judge, but I think I have some understanding of the problem, and I hope we are going to be able to get a start through the adoption of one or more of these bills.

Judge WAXTER. Really all the Federal Government is being asked to do is, with a broad national problem, to exert some leadership and to let some experiments go on in California that New York and Illinois and Indiana can look at and we all can benefit from. We are spending millions and millions of dollars in this field and we have tested it very little. We have a hazy idea that the thing to do is to take children out of jails and penitentiaries and have special institutions, and for 50 years or more we have had them, but we have never tested what we are really doing with those kids other than to splinter them off.

With all the growth in modern psychiatry and our knowledge of people, we ought to be able to test what we are doing in some way. Senator CLARK. Would you have a feeling that a good deal of the money now being spent in this field is being wasted?

Judge WAXTER. Oh, yes; I think undoubtedly that is true. We are doing something because we are in the mill and have to do it. We have all these kids coming along. But we don't know that what we are doing is the right thing by these children. We don't even know the number of recidivists in the country, we don't know whether the problem has grown. We talk about the problem having grown. Maybe we are just aware of it and the police are picking up kids at a different level of conduct because we have become larger and society has become more complex.

Senator CLARK. If we handled our highways on that basis we would be subject to a lot of criticism, wouldn't we?

Judge WAXTER. That is right. All the stories that cities like New York back in the seventies and the eighties and the delinquency that went on then, it must have been far worse than anything we have now. When you get the kind of pressure that we get on children going along, it is something that is basic to our whole society.

Senator CLARK. We do not realize the extent of the problem until somebody takes the blanket of secrecy off of it.

Judge WAXTER. That is right. And of course the real McCoy in the problem is what you do about family living. If you get two people that are fairly decently related to each other and each of them is getting something out of his own life that is satisfying to him, their children by and large-there are always exceptions-are not problems in terms of delinquency because they get a setting that is healthy. What do you do to shore up a family living that kind of life? What do you do in the whole field of adult education? What do you do in the whole matter of standards of American values?

Senator CLARK. That is the real problem.

Judge WAXTER, Sure.

I read in an article the other day that in one of the prep schools in New England they asked the sixth form of the upper school what

they wanted in life, and practically all of them said they wanted to go out and make a lot of money.

That seems like a simple sort of thing, but it poses tremendous problems for civilizations coming along.

One day I heard Mr. Einstein make a speech. I will always remember this. He said as long as he lived at Princeton he could never understand when he saw a lot of kids running down the road why it made any difference who came in first.

What he was really talking about is something that is inherent in American civilization.

I do not know anything that we can do about that. What we get is an impact of that and the whole matter of integration. To be a Negro and to grow up and find out you are "nigger" when you get to be about 10 or 11 years of age is devastating to children.

So you have all these collateral problems involved.

Senator CLARK. Judge, this is fascinating to me, but I am not sure it is getting us ahead with the bills. Do you have anything else you want to tell us?

Judge WAXTER. No, I have not, Senator.

You have been very kind to me, and I will take the liberty of sending you 8 or 10 projects, if you want them. I don't want to do a lot of work unless it is going to be useful to you.

Senator CLARK. I very much want them, and I am sure the staff and other members of the subcommittee do, too.

Mr. McClure, when it arrives, will you see it is placed in the record and circulated among the members of the committee?

Mr. McCLURE. Yes, Senator. (See p. 394.)

Senator CLARK. Thank you very much, Judge. It has been most helpful.

The American Public Welfare Association has submitted a pamphlet entitled "Public Welfare Services and Juvenile Delinquency." which is a policy statement, and I will ask to have that printed in the record at this point.

(The document referred to follows:)

PUBLIC WELFARE SERVICES AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY. AMERICAN PUBLIC WELFARE ASSOCIATION

A policy statement of the American Public Welfare Association, developed by its National Council of State Directors of Programs for Children and Youth and adopted by its board of directors on December 16, 1958

EDITORIAL NOTE

The statement presented here is an official policy position of the American Public Welfare Association. Its purpose is to identify the important factors of public welfare responsibility in the prevention and control of juvenile delinquency, and to call attention to the urgent need for positive and dynamic leadership in attaining these objectives.

The statement was drafted by National Council of State Directors of Programs for Children and Youth, which is an organization established under the bylaws of the association. There was also close collaboration with the American Public Welfare Association Committee on Services to Children, which is widely representative of the total public child welfare field at various administrative and professional levels and specialties. It bears the endorsement of both of these bodies.

Helpful comments and suggestions were also offered by other national organizations having a special concern with juvenile delinquency.

While the focus of the statement is on the functions of the State department of public welfare in relation to juvenile delinquency services, the implications will be of significance for all who have an interest in dealing constructively with this difficult social problem.

STATE PUBLIC WELFARE DEPARTMENT RESPONSIBILITY FOR LEADERSHIP IN JUVENILE DELINQUENCY SERVICES

INTRODUCTION

Juvenile delinquency constitutes a major and growing hazard to the wellbeing of a great many of the Nation's children and youth. Although statistical reports are not exact, the evidence of a serious increase in delinquency is so overwhelming that it cannot be minimized or ignored.

The American Public Welfare Association has long acknowledged and now reaffirms public welfare's responsibility in the prevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency. In 1954 this position was set forth in a policy statement which concluded:

"While courts and law enforcement agencies carry a primary responsibility for dealing with delinquents in conflict with the law, the broader duty of prevention and treatment rests with the total community and is shared by public and voluntary welfare agencies, schools, churches, courts, law enforcement authorities, recreational agencies, and individual citizens. The American Public Welfare Association acknowledges and reaffirms the obligation of public welfare agencies to discharge their part of this task competently and effectively and to exercise constructive leadership toward the further improvement of public welfare services in the prevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency."

1

While juvenile delinquency most directly affects the local community, it is also a problem of State and National proportions. Each level of government must accordingly contribute to the general effort to deal with the problem.

The association has for several years recommended, as one of its Federal legislative objectives, that "Federal financial assistance should be made available to the States in programs for the treatment of juvenile delinquency, including research and the training of personnel.”

2

On the local level the giving of services, upon request of the court, to children who have come into conflict with the law was stated as an integral part of the public child welfare worker's job in a statement approved by the association's board of directors in June 1954.

Because of the urgency of the problem, the American Public Welfare Association directs this present statement, which amplifies its earlier positions, to State welfare departments and calls upon them to provide the leadership which is so greatly needed. No State today is equipped to deal adequately with the situation and it is apparent throughout the country that efforts to cope with it are falling far short of their goal.

State government should place responsibility in a single State agency which it can hold responsible for planning, for facilitating coordination, and for seeing that needed services are made available either under its own or other auspices. The State welfare department is most advantageously situated to accept this responsibility. In carrying out this assignment it is essential that the department work cooperatively with other organizations and agencies having appropriate functions in the field and that it contribute in every possible way to the strengthening of their programs. This is especially true in relation to juvenile courts, which have a major and essential responsibility in the treatment of juvenile delinquents.

NATURE AND SCOPE OF ACTIVITIES NEEDED

While delinquency, in its technical sense, is a judicially determined status resulting from conflict with the law, so-called delinquent behavior is usually

1 "The Public Welfare Responsibility in the Prevention and Treatment of Juvenile Delinquency: A Statement of Policy." Adopted by the board of directors of the American Public Welfare Association, June 4, 1954, and published in Public Welfare, July 1954. "American Public Welfare Association Federal Legislative Objectives for 1958," Objective No. 7." This had also been formally adopted as an association objective in earlier years.

3 The Child Welfare Worker Job in the Public Welfare Agency," approved by the board of directors of the American Public Welfare Association, June 4, 1954.

4 "Essentials of Public Child Welfare Services." Approved by the board of directors of the American Public Welfare Association on July 9, 1955.