Senator John O. Pastore, Members of the Senate Subcommittee

on State, Justice, Commerce, the Judiciary, ladies and gentlemen: It is my honor and privilege to have this opportunity to appear before you today, and to present, on behalf of the American Correctional Association, testimony regarding the

efforts and continuation of the Law Enforcement Assistance

Administration.

deliberations.

I hope this testimony will assist you in your

The American Correctional Association represents approximately 10,000 correctional professionals throughout the United States and Canada, and 38 affiliate professional and geographic organizations. The sole function of ACA is the improvement of correctional policy, programs, and practices.

of

For both the protection of the public and the restoration the offender to the community as a productive and lawabiding citizen, modern-day correctional experts advocate the development of a balanced correctional approach, consisting of both institutional and community programming. Because of the complexity of human behavior, and the often deep-seated and longterm nature of individual criminal patterns, these goals are far more easily stated than achieved.

The American Correctional Association advocates the con

finement for those individuals who commit violent crimes and

who, in the interest of public safety, must be separated from the general public. Property-crime and other non-violent offenders can most often be diverted from costly confinement through the use of community-based programs. Probation, parole, halfway houses, and other supervised community programs, such as work-release, group homes, crisis centers, and self-help programs

are both cost-effective and demonstrably more helpful than confinement in the re-direction of criminal careers to productive employment and law-abiding careers.

In order to attain this type of balance within and throughout the correctional systems of the Country, every element of the broader criminal justice system must be carefully coordinated and orchestrated. Standards for joint planning, coordination of activities, and evaluation of results must be encouraged and implemented at every level of the criminal justice system. Continuous research and demonstration programs are equally important as a basis for future and more effective policy and practice. All of this requires leadership on a national basis. And the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration has been providing this leadership in an increasingly effective manner.

The battles in the "war on crime" are being fought and will

be won.

They will be won through the resolve and hard work of local governments, and with the continuation of strong and effective support, encouragement, and assistance from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration.

LEAA's 1975 annual budget of 888 million dollars represents more than a substantial growth in financial support from the 1969 budget of 63 million dollars. During this same period of time, serious crime in the United States has not only increased

substantially

it has increased in spite of our efforts, and

at an entirely unacceptable pace. This contradiction between the growth of crime and the resources that have been made available

to combat it must be considered in light of the following:

1. One has to wonder what kind of crime rate this

Country would now have if, over the past five

2.

years, we had not committed major resources to

the police, to the courts, and, in a less signifi

3.

cant manner, to the correctional systems at each
level of government.

It is common knowledge that more than half of our
serious crime is caused by relatively young people--
most often in the 15-34 year old age group. This
population "bulge" has produced, undeniably, a
major strain on our criminal justice system. It
is expected that this age group--as a proportion
of our total population--will begin to decline at
the end of this decade. LEAA has had no more
control over this phenomenon than it has over the
gradual, but nonetheless incessant decline of
the American family, the American neighborhood,
and, of course, the decreasing capacity of

governmental units to manage their criminal justice

systems.

It is interesting to note, too, that we have had
real difficulty in this Country in reporting crime
accurately. Recent studies, in many instances
supported by LEAA, have shown that in some commu-
nities as much as 50% of the actual crime experienced
has not been reported accurately (or in some cases,
at all) to law enforcement agencies. LEAA's studies
of unreported crime and the victims of crime have,
of course, led to both more and more accurate re- 3
porting of crime. Thus, in a sense, LEAA's work has

lead directly to a major criticism of its activities.

4. Finally, one must remember that efforts to solve

social problems typically result in knowledge that

the problem was worse than we thought, and that

the solutions are more difficult than we ever

imagined.

Turning now to the correctional agencies of the United States and the needs within the broader criminal justice system, it is clear that we have learned "the hard way" that the support of corrections is as vital to the reduction of crime as the support of law enforcement and the courts. The first Crime Control and Safe Streets Act (1968) gave little thought to corrections. Since that time, an awareness has grown that effective crime control will come about through the modernization of all aspects of the criminal justice system-and, of course, at every level of government.

In 1971, Part E funds, earmarked for correctional programs,

were added to the LEAA authorization by the Congress. And, since that time, over one billion dollars in block, discretionary, and technical assistance support have been allocated to both juvenile and adult corrections. One billion dollars is a great deal of money. Over this same time period, federal, state, and local corrections throughout the Country, have spent approximately 12 & 1/2 billion dollars. Thus, LEAA's investment has been less than 10% of a total amount of money required to operate the the national correctional apparatus. And if we mean what we say about modernizing corrections as a tool to reduce crime, significantly more resources are going to be required from both LEAA and local governments.

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Although Part E addresses the whole area of correctional

needs, it does so in a rather fuzzy manner; it should be clarified

and sharpened.

Provision is made for the development of regional planning agencies in communities of over 250,000 which meet the requirements of being metropolitan areas and/or being of inter

state concern.

Yet this is not the only place where the crying need exists. Cities, counties and local government frequently don't have the planning capacity to do a good job. Some jurisdictions--and they are most frequently those in rural or sparsely populated areas-- have no planners at all, and certainly no grantsmen who could help them obtain the funding for planners. Their needs are noneit none-the-less as real, and their problems as urgent as those of the more metropolitan areas. Even when planners exist, under the present system they often find themselves with multiple assignments working simultaneously for justice courts, councils of government, county commissioners, and many other separate and discrete agencies and units. Any consideration of Title I changes should make possible relief to these problems.

The basic conceptualization of a single federal authority, providing assistance both in funding and in technological advice to a single central planning authority in each state, in turn providing services to all state and local components of criminal justice, seems to be working admirably. Reports from many state administrators indicate basic satisfaction with and support of the arrangement. The formal position of the National Governors' Conference with regard to Crime Reduction and Public Safety strongly supports continuance of the arrangement; the Association of State Correctional Administrators, an affiliate of the ACA, generally