Frankly, no State in the United States, and certainly not the Federal Government, is able on a systems basis to evaluate the effectiveness of what it is doing because of the lack of a uniform juvenile and criminal justice reporting system. This was one of the main recommendations of the President's Crime Commission, and I hope that this program in HEW and the crime control bill in Justice will see a uniform reporting and accounting system as basic to any kind of grant program. Because in addition to evaluation of individual projects, the public has a right to know what these projects are doing to reduce the total crime and delinquency problem in their State and community. Senator CLARK. That is an excellent suggestion. Your prepared statement makes a number of recommendations about what to do with the Senate bill and the House bill. I gather you think, too, that the training provisions in the House bill should be incorporated in the Senate bill? Mr. RECTOR. Senator, I hope they will be. I think it is a must. Mr. RECTOR. I feel planning is basic. Our survey for the Crime Commission of all training schools in the United States convinced us that it would be a waste of Federal money to provide any grants for construction of any more institution beds until we do something about increasing the number-not just training to improve the competence, but increasing the number of personnel working within the community. We found in 1965, Senator, that 50 percent of the children committed to training schools had never been a real chance to be rehabilitated within the community first. So I do not see justification for the action by the House which added capital funding to build training schools. Senator CLARK. I agree with you. How about-are you familiar with the work of the National Advisory Council on Correctional Manpower Training? You touched on that. Mr. RECTOR. Yes, sir; I am Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Joint Commission. Senator CLARK. Are you going to be able to answer all our problems as to how we are going to be able to get skilled manpower in these professions? Mr. RECTOR. We had a board meeting with staff last Friday, and staff are going to testify before you. But just let me say that we have for the first time the basic data on who is working in the field, the kind of training they have, the kind of training they need. We will have very soon the first specification of the number of manpower we need, how they should be trained, what they should be trained for within communities and within institutions. Senator CLARK. How about recruitment? Don't you have to do something-this is becoming a cliche, I have repeated it so often-to induce more people to go into the many varied correctional disciplines, all the way from warden to psychiatrist? How are you going to get people to go into these fields? Mr. RECTOR. Well, this is why we sometimes call it the Joint Commission on Correctional Manpower and Training and Recruiting- because the recruiting job depends on improving the image of the field. It is not going to be just by raising salaries, but is is going to be by career development. Senator CLARK. When you raise salaries, you just rob Peter to pay Paul. Mr. RECTOR. That is right. Right now, with a greater sensitivity by Governors than we have ever seen before in trying to break through political lines and hire really competent professional administrators, we find we are just helping transfer people from State to State. Senator CLARK. What is the situation generally speaking among the States regarding whether the merit system prevails in the recruitment, promotion, and training of the various disciplines involved in the correctional fields? Mr. RECTOR. The merit system does not prevail in the majority of the States, unfortunately. And the merit systems as now administered in many States have faults. But our experience assessing the merit system against no merit system at all makes us come out very strongly in favor of a well-administered system. Where the merit system fails, in our assessment, it failed because of faulty administration. Senator CLARK. Yes. I think that is generally true. That is my experience. Mr. RECTOR. But in order to get career people, when we are competing with the education field, which is certainly based on merit, and the social work field, which in most instances is this field, which employs doctors and teachers and social workers and psychologists, and in the future which is going to have to employ mass numbers of trained nonprofessional personnel, is going to have to offer a career service with a merit system backing. Senator CLARK. I should think that would be fundamental. Mr. RECTOR. It is. Senator CLARK. What do you think about the funding in the bill? Is this amount of money, $25 million, about as much as can be usefully spent, or as much as we can realistically expect through the political process which takes into account the current atmosphere which has led to war versus peace, guns versus butter? Mr. RECTOR. Well, of course, some of us on the outside looking in are asking these same questions. My testimony on the bill in the House emphasized how little it is compared to the amount of money now being expended. Senator CLARK. Would you be willing to hazard a guess as to how much money could be usefully spent under this bill, or these bills? Your colleague from the Harvard Law School told us last week $250 million. He wanted to increase tenfold the authorization. Mr. RECTOR. I would have to have much more specific data even to try to fool you with a guess. Our study for the Crime Commission found that State and county governments alone are planning to spend by 1975, $1,135 million just on institution construction. About $200 million of that will go for juvenile institutions. And that alone will require a new $20 to $25 million a year, just to operate those new beds. What we would like is to see Federal moneys stimulate communities to plan with the States, and give incentive to the State to invest in community programs. 86-260-67—15 The States are beginning to see that where, traditionally, the State has served only to build beds for anyone the community chooses to send them, it is going to turn off the faucets by which children flow into State beds by taking institution money and diverting it into prevention and community treatment programs. Now, this can be done by State grants, by State subsidy, and in much of rural America it can be done by totally State-operated and Statestaffed regional service programs. That is why we would like to see as much of the money as possible flow through a State planning commission- not to give the State veto power over what a community can do, but to make it worthwhile for the State to start seeing how some of these millions of dollars they are going to invest in communities anyway could be better spent, so when Federal money does run out, as it seems to on project basis, the State is committed to carrying on. Senator CLARK. Well, I think that is a very helpful suggestion. We have been fooling around with demonstrations, research, pilot projects now for almost 7 years, with relatively small appropriations for this juvenile delinquency program. Aren't we perhaps just wasting relatively small amounts of money which might better go into something else, since the real need is so enormous that it seems highly unlikely we could persuade the Congress or the administration to fund it at an adequate level? Mr. RECTOR. Senator, here is where I wish I could answer your question more specifically about how much more we should havebecause I think any money that has been wasted-and some has-has been wasted because more money was not available to provide, along with the demonstration project or the research project, a technical consultation team to go into other States and communities which do not need to do this demonstration all over again, but do need technical help to show their policy people how to build this change into their program. In other words, throughout my testimony the word "replication” is emphasized as important as demonstration. Too many grants were given directly to communities for demonstrations and research which had no involvement of State consultants, or anyone who could take what one community learned and help transfer it to another community in the same State. Replication could have been done had more money been made available to the Office of Juvenile Delinquency. But projects closed and were not adopted elsewhere, and might be termed a waste, because they did not provide the knowledge that they might have for other communities. Senator CLARK. Thank you very much. Is there anything you would like to add? Mr. RECTOR. No, sir. I just hope that with the crises that are on us, in Vietnam, and elsewhere, that the Congress will not overlook the critical problem of juvenile delinquency. The last Juvenile Delinquency Act was the first real demonstration of Federal leadership. Now, with the crime control bill, and this act, it looks like the Federal Government, the States, and communities are going to start to develop, if we can get the money we need for a few years, something with permanence, and with solid planning and direction. Senator CLARK. Thank you very much, sir. I hope so, too. Senator PELL. Just one general question, and that is whether you think I would be right or wrong in my own ideas-the reason for this act, the reason is the breakdown of the sense of family responsibility, and government is trying to pick up the slack-and the real trouble is with the parents of the children who become delinquent. This comes out of Sheldon Glick's theory, as I recall it, that when the child comes from the broken family, lack of discipline, chances are more than 65 percent that child will end up in the courts. So basically would you agree with my thought that what we are trying to do do is pick up the slack of what many American mothers and fathers have left undone? Mr. RECTOR. Senator Pell, I think any significant research that has been done into delinquency shows the factor of family. Many times it is family fault, but more often it is family disability. Somehow, living in urban America, our research has got to identify-which it has not done yet-the inherent factors in family life, and early training of youngsters, in urban America which makes the family less and less able to provide. Some kind of social institution has to pick up and I think we are identifying some essential steps in parental relationships, discipline, and firmness. But there are other things that we don't know that families somehow impart to children. And you never find the case of a serious delinquent in which you do not find red flagging in family relationships when he was very very young. Then no one knew how, not only to identify but, to do something about. And this is what concerns us in other bills before the Congress-social security particularly, and the Public Child Welfare Service that in most communities in America today, when a youngster is seen by neighbors and police to be in difficulty, and in danger of becoming delinquent-no one wants to or is equipped to do anything until he actually explodes and becomes delinquent. Senator PELL. It is most interesting-the young and the old, are confronted with problems due to the lack of cohesiveness of the American family. We are one of the few societies who do not care for older people. We ask that they be institutionalized and cared for by the Government instead of accepting the responsibility as we should. By the same token the problems confronting children are again due to the selfishness and lack of care on the part of many of the middle aged. This situation is a commentary, I guess, on our system, and civilization. Maybe the real cure is not only to have the Government pick up the slack, but to also place the responsibility for family life where it belongs. Mr. RECTOR. But I think, sir, what you have said applies directly to this legislation and the crime control legislation that they must permit the juvenile and criminal justice systems to touch base with the entire field of law and behavioral sciences-that if either of the bills, particularly the crime control bill, becomes primarily a law enforcement leadership program, without opening the door to the whole justice system, and touching base between criminal justice and courts and child welfare agencies, and the total complex of services to deal with people, that we will be putting the emphasis the wrong place. Senator PELL. I agree. I guess what we are really doing here is providing a palliative to treat the weakness of the Americans between the younger and older years who want responsibility shifted to the State. We must move ahead, I guess, and make the best and most effective palliatives as we can. That is one of the reasons I support the administration measure. Mr. RECTOR. When the juvenile court in America is able to carry out the intent of the statute, it will become a family court. It will be as concerned about the parents who appear before it as it is about the children. Senator PELL. Thank you. Senator CLARK. Thank you very much, Mr. Rector. (The prepared statement of Mr. Rector follows:) PREPARED STATEMENT OF MILTON G. RECTOR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL COUNCIL ON CRIME AND DELINQUENCY I am Milton G. Rector, Director of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. The NCCD is a private, non-profit agency which develops and promotes adoption of improved methods for the prevention, control, and treatment of crime and delinquency. It has twenty state councils, 135 local councils, and a membership of about 60,000, including civic leaders and the leaders in the field. I have been its director since 1959, and I have been associated with the Federal juvenile delinquency program since 1961, when it began. I served from 1961 to 1966 on the Advisory Council of the President's Committee on Juvenile Delinquency, created by the 1961 Act. The NCCD supports S. 1248, as we supported and testified in support of the companion bill H.R. 6162. Because much of our House testimony would apply to S. 1248, I should like to call your attention to that, and address today the dif ference between S. 1248 and H.R. 12120. In certain respects, the House of Representatives improved H.R. 6162. H.R. 12120 emphasizes rehabilitative services more strongly than does S. 1248. It demands that the state be fully involved. It improves the criteria under which the Secretary would evaluate need. It strengthens coordination with the Justice Department. And it includes a training section. But some of the provisions of H.R. 12120 are questionable. While excluding comprehensive planning by local communities. H.R. 12120 requires such planning by states. But, it authorizes no money for the states to do this. And it allows them only nine months to develop comprehensive plans, a practically impossible task. We do not believe that comprehensive planning for juvenile delinquency can be done separately from comprehensive planning for crime control. We think there should be one state plan for both. An HEW juvenile delinquency program should not compete with a Department of Justice criminal justice program. And yet if both require comprehensive planning, competition seems to us inevitable. We wish that the House had not stripped the bill of research and demonstration, or specifically authorized construction of training schools. We urge reconsideration of the block grant formula which severely limits the ability of the Secretary to exercise controls on the quality of projects. H.R. 12120 contains no reallocation authority although it seems almost certain that during the first year of the program little (if any) of the action funds will be spent, since few (if any) states can develop truly comprehensive plans in nine months. The requirement that 80 percent of the funds allocated to states must be passed on to local projects does not encourage state participation, like consultation, standard setting, and financial grants or subsidies to local services. Further it ignores the fact that many communities can obtain quality services only through state financed and operated regional services. The achievements of the juvenile delinquency program during the past six years have been many. The Office of Juvenile Delinquency has supported a number of highly worthwhile projects, and was responsible for the development of many others. It helped to define and articulate the problem of poverty in the United States when few were aware of it. It really introduced the concept of comprehensive planning into the Federal government; and its work lead directly to the development of the Community Action Program, and indirectly to Model Cities as well. It was the first Federal program to demand that localities pull their |