they possibly can. We are trying to develop that program now in many States. Also, may I say for the record that I feel that what we need to do more, and that is under our welfare programs, but it does relate to the improvement of the family life, we need homemaker services. We need people who are qualified to go into the home to improve the standards of many people in the interest of the children. You would be surprised how many people there are that are really inadequate in some respects, but they are people and my experience has been that they are sincere, and they will accept help, that they just do not know. For someone to go in who is qualified to tell them about certain habits and training will be helpful to their training so that when their boy goes to school the boy next to him will not move away because he has not had a bath for a couple of weeks. I know Miss Jewett, administrator of public welfare in Oregon, is very much interested in it but the money has never been available, so I think we must be giving more thought to helping in family life. Senator MORSE. I agree. For the last 22 years as chairman of another subcommittee of the Senate I have been conducting hearings on the youth of the District of Columbia that have become known as hungry children hearings, but they go far beyond the question of just getting food for hungry children. Our hearings showed a shocking number of little boys and girls in the District of Columbia that actually had no food source at all except garbage cans and what they picked up from food that was thrown away by others. Some had no known parents. This, in the Capital, not only of the Nation, but in a real sense the capital of the world; it was a pretty shocking investigation. People would not believe it at first but we documented it and it resulted in making accessible additional quantities of surplus food. But that led to the problem of who would prepare food, because just delivering the food even to the homes where there were parents did not mean that the children were going to get it, or it did not mean that it was going to be cooked so it would be nutritious. One of the things we ran into is the great need of the social worker you have testified about, to go into many of these homes and teach the mothers how to prepare the food. Judge LONG. That is right. Senator MORSE. How to make a home. It is not so easy for those of us who live at our level of society to appreciate fully the many children that have to live in homes where there is not even an understanding of how to prepare the food. That is another reason why I am so glad that you are stressing this matter of training of social workers to get into the homes and help these mothers. I had asked you about the difficult problem that confronts many juvenile judges, they do not have the social work probation officer assistance they need and they have to make a choice of letting a child stay in a home that has proven inadequately supervised or going to a training school and it is pretty clear that many of our training schools do not graduate law-abiding future citizens. A good probation officer or social worker assisting a juvenile judge can help supervise a number of delinquent children, can he not? Judge LONG. Oh, yes. Senator MORSE. In terms of the cost of sending that same number of children to a training school or hiring a probation worker that we know could do at least as much good for the child as the training school can, is the cost ratio very much in favor of hiring the proba tion officer or social worker, as far as the taxpayer is concerned? Judge LONG. Much lower, Senator Morse. They are so much less costly to, say of 50 boys on probation, some of our staffs, however, and probation officers have a larger caseload. We try to hold it down to 50. Thirty, where they are severely emotionally disturbed children is a big caseload. And it saves us a great amount of money to be able to redirect the thinking of these children and make them law abiding than to have them go down to our schools where they stay for 6 months to a year and then they are released on parole and where there are not enough well-qualified parole officers that take care of these boys when they are released from the boys schools so they do not have the support that they need and too often they have committed another offense and are back in the training school again. So that is an area I have not mentioned, but they just need a lot of qualified parole officers in dealing with these children after they are released from the boys school to see if we can prevent them from going on into the penitentiary. Senator MORSE. One final question: Is it true that there are a great many counties throughout the United States that did not have a single child welfare worker of the type that you have just been testifying about? Judge LONG. That is true. There are many, hundreds of counties that do not have any assistance whatsoever. Senator MORSE. Well, on that one I will be willing to rest my case. I rest it with this observation, if it is true that there are hundreds and hundreds of counties throughout the United States that do not have a single worker to assist the courts in the field of juvenile delinquency, you cannot for this reason justify the resulting human waste of a single boy or girl who could be saved for the ranks of good citizenship. That is why I think the training program which you testified to is so much more important than to spend a lot of money adding to research, important as that is. I think your testimony that out of $5 million, you would spend about $4 million for training and $1 million for further research is the sentence in your testimony that I am willing to emphasize. Judge, thank you very much. I will see to it that your testimony here this morning receives all of the attention that I can possibly give to it. Judge LONG. Thank you, Senator Morse, and may I thank the committee for the privilege of making a few observations due to my experience in the field and I do trust that I have made at least a slight contribution. Senator MORSE. You have been very helpful. It is now my privilege to call Prof. John R. Ellingston to the witness chair. Mr. Ellingston represents the Minnesota Legislative Interim Commission on Juvenile Delinquency, Adult Crime, and Corrections, and the Law School of the University of Minnesota, concerning proposals for Federal legislation on juvenile delinquency. I want you to proceed in your own way. I will give you all the time you want, Professor Ellingston. I have before me a prepared statement by you, setting forth your qualifications that I have already referred to. I will put the full statement in the record at this point. It is your privilege either to read it or summarize it, to follow any course you wish to. STATEMENT OF JOHN R. ELLINGSTON, REPRESENTING THE MINNESOTA LEGISLATIVE INTERIM COMMISSION ON JUVENILE DELINQUENCY, ADULT CRIME, AND CORRECTIONS, AND THE LAW SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, CONCERNING PROPOSALS FOR FEDERAL LEGISLATION ON JUVENILE DELINQUENCY Mr. ELLINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, you are extremely gracious. I welcome the chance to discuss this problem because in Minnesota in 1953 at the university we set up a training project in delinquency control and I have a personal interest in describing what we have done and in urging similar action in other States. I would be very glad to have my prepared statement inserted in the record. (The full statement by Mr. Ellingston follows:) STATEMENT OF JOHN R. ELLINGSTON, REPRESENTING THE MINNESOTA LEGISLATIVE INTERIM COMMISSION ON JUVENILE DELINQUENCY, ADULT CRIME, AND CORRECTIONS, AND THE LAW SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, CONCERNING PROPOSALS FOR FEDERAL LEGISLATION ON JUVENILE DELINQUENCY Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am professor of criminal law administration and director of the training project in delinquency control at the University of Minnesota, and also executive secretary of Minnesota's Legislative Interim Commission on Juvenile Delinquency, Adult Crime, and Corrections, and I represent here both the interim commission and the law school. The legislative interim commission, under the chairmanship first of Repre sentative Joseph Prifrel, Jr., and later of Senator Daniel S. Feidt, has been working for 4 years to increase understanding of the problem of delinquency in Minnesota, and to improve State and local services for its control. Illustrative of the commission's achievements is the passage of a bill in the recent legislative session providing sufficient qualified probation service to every juvenile court in the State. This is but one of many pieces of constructive legislation in delinquency control and corrections which led the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune on May 3 to make the following editorial comment: "In fact some professionals in these fields are now saying that this legislature may go down in history as the greatest of all-as far as these areas are concerned." I submit copies of the commission's two major reports, "Antisocial Behavior and Its Control in Minnesota," and "Safer Driving by Juveniles in Minnesota." The law school is interested in the bills you are considering because it believes that more effective control of delinquency and crime depends at bottom on education and training. Accordingly, in 1953, under the leadership of the former dean, Maynard E. Pirsig, it launched a training program in delinquency control aimed to reach not only law students, but graduate students in social work, sociology and psychology, undergraduates aiming at subprofessional careers in delinquency control, and finally personnel actively working in the delinquency control field, particularly police officers and probation officers. This project, which is universitywide and has the support of the university administration, is sponsored by the following committee: Maynard E. Pirsig, professor, law school, chairman. Marcia Edwards, professor and associate dean, college of education. John R. Ellingston, professor of criminal law administration, law school, executive secretary. Dale Harris, professor and director, institute of child welfare. Donald W. Hastings, professor and head, psychiatry and neurology, medical school. John C. Kidneigh, professor and director, school of social work. Elio D. Monachesi, professor and chairman, sociology. Julius M. Nolte, dean, extension division. George B. Vold, professor, sociology (criminology). Robert D. Wirt, assistant professor, psychology, child welfare, and psychiatry and neurology. Gilbert Wrenn, professor, educational psychology. Since I shall urge passage of all three proposals before this committee, namely, to provide Federal aid for the training of personnel in the delinquency control field, Federal aid in support of demonstration projects, and Federal aid in support of ongoing programs, I should perhaps qualify myself by saying that in addition to participation in the activities described above, I have been working full time in the delinquency control field since 1940. For 13 years before going to the University of Minnesota I was in charge of the American Law Institute's youth authority program, which has served as the basis for legislation in eight States and the Federal Government, and has influenced legislation and programs in many other States. I have written extensively in the field, including a book, "Protecting Our Children From Criminal Careers," and book length reports on prisons and parole in Maryland and on Maryland's services and facilities for delinquent children and youthful offenders. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DELINQUENT PROBLEM Why should the Federal Government move massively into the field of delinquency control? How should it move? To answer these questions wisely it would seem to me that this committee and the Congress must see the enormous problem that lies behind and beyond the usually quoted statistics. It is not enough to know that the proportion of children aged 10 through 17 appearing before juvenile courts on charges of delinquency in the United States has jumped from 1.26 out of each 100 children in 1948 to 2.35 out of every 100 children in 1957. It is not enough to know that the increase in the number of children coming before the juvenile courts outran the increase in the population of juvenile court age almost five times during these 9 years. The California Youth Authority has recently given us a glimpse of how much more extensive may be the misbehavior and restlessness of youth than these juvenile court figures would indicate a glimpse that challenges belief. The authority reports that during 1957 arrests of boys aged 17 totaled 35.7 percent of California's total population of boys of that age. Arrests of 16-year-olds and 15-year-olds were not much behind. Allowing for repeaters-that is, youth arrested more than once the authority reported that about 26 percent of the State's 17-year-old boys were arrested in 1957. Approximately 5.6 percent of all arrests in the 15-, 16-, and 17-year-old groups were for major crimes; the remaining 25.8 percent were for minor offenses such as truancy and petty theft. Traffic law violations were no included in these figures. Perhaps we are just deceiving ourselves when we take comfort in the fact that only 2 or 3 percent of our children become recognized delinquents. Modern scientific insights, to say nothing of the figures quoted above, will no longer permit us to brush off delinquency as the inevitable behavior of an evil or moronic segment of the human species, an order of beings lower than the rest of us. Rather we are forced to see delinquency as a phenomenon to which every child is liable and for which society as a whole is primarily responsible. What raises today's extensive delinquency to the rating of a No. 1 social problem is that it reflects and reveals grave weaknesses in our society and its institutions. To these weaknesses all our children are exposed and vast numbers suffer from them, though to a less perceptible extent than do the identified delinquents. That is why, as I see it, today's juvenile delinquency demands the attention of and large-scale action by the Congress. A BROAD CONCEPT OF THE CAUSES OF TODAY'S DELINQUENCY To talk about the weaknesses of social institutions without being specific is mere rhetoric. To relate those weaknesses to delinquent behavior demands some discussion of the complicated problem of causation. Difficult as the subject is, it seems to me that those of us making recommendations to this committee and the committee itself in deciding on action must come to some agreement on the causes of delinquency. Until we do, we are flying blind. For centuries the Western World operated on the belief that everyone knew the difference between right and wrong and that if anyone did wrong and broke the law, it was because he willfully chose to do evil. That belief underlies our criminal law and its reliance on punishment. Related to this concept was the idea that delinquents and criminals differed from the rest of us in being "born bad." Over the last century people have fixed on one single factor or another to explain all the misbehavior of the age-feeblemindedness, poverty, unemployment, slums, gangs, drinking, broken homes, malfunctioning glands, lack of playgrounds, failure to punish children. Recently major blame has been thrown on crime and horror comics, movies, and television programs-many of which are, heaven knows, inexcusable. The danger of fixing upon any single cause as the explanation of all delinquency is that it encourages us to sidestep our responsibilities. If crime comics are the cause of current juvenile delinquency, then obviously all we have to do to stop delinquency is to get rid of crime comics; if the cause is alcohol, enforce prohibition; or lack of playgrounds, furnish them. Meanwhile we can shut our eyes to the really difficult and complicated task of delinquency control. I would not want to be understood as suggesting that none of the factors I have mentioned make any contribution to the causation of delinquency. Certainly the concept that certain children are born delinquent just will not stand up under scientific testing. But several other factors mentioned do play definite roles in the causation picture. However, these are secondary roles. They may act as triggers of particular delinquent acts, but the guns had to be loaded before the triggers could have any effect. Rarely is there a simple explanation of serious or chronic misbehavior by a particular child, except, perhaps, for the infrequent instances of brain lesion resulting from disease or accident. Rather the causes are multiple and interwoven over a long period of time. They combine differently for each child. Yet, despite their multiplicity and complexity, the psychological and environmental causes of delinquency can be reduced to ultimate factors that can be comprehended and used as guides to action. To understand today's peak load of juvenile delinquency, we have to grasp two broad but crucial facts. The first is that children have to grow up emotionally just as they have to grow up physically and mentally, and that failure to grow up emotionally predisposes them to antisocial behavior. The second fact is that industrialization and the machine have destroyed many of the automatic aids to emotional maturing of children with consequent increase in the proportion of children who become delinquent. Every child is born a little savage Studies of chronically delinquent children reveal the same basic predisposing factors reappearing in case after case. The one almost universal predisposing factor may be defined as emotionally immaturity or warping, resulting from unsatisfactory human relations in the child's formative early years. It must be remembered that no infant is born a finished product. On the contrary, every baby starts life as a little savage. He is equipped among other things with organs and muscles over which he has no control, with an urge for selfpreservation, with aggressive drives, and emotions like anger, fear, and love over which likewise he has practically no control. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it-his bottle, his mother's attention, his playmate's toy, his uncle's watch. Deny those wants and he seethes with rage and aggression which could be murderous were he not so helpless. He is dirty, he has no manners, no shame, no respect for persons or property, no conscience, no morals, no knowledge, no skills. What I am saying, of course, is that all children, not just certain children, are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in the self-centered world of his infancy, giving free rein to his impulsive actions to satisfy his wants, every child would grow up a criminal—a thief, a killer, a rapist. And in the process of growing up, it is normal for every child to be dirty, to fight, to grab or steal, |