prison system were ordered released. Alarmed citizens warned that a terrible crime wave would result. Careful research was done to discover the actual effect. Two groups of inmates with similar records released at the same time were matched.

The only significant difference was that all in one group had been abruptly released as a result of the Gideon decision. All in the other group were released because they had completed serving their sentence or a normal minimum portion of those sentences. Over a period of 22 years, 13.6 percent of the Gideon group were convicted of new crimes. Of the other group, 25.4 percent or nearly twice as many had new convictions.

The National Advisory Commission reports, "There is substantial evidence that probation, fines, public service requirements and restitution are less costly than incarceration and consistently produce lower rates of recidivism after completion of sentence." Even Norman Carlson, Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, has made the flat statement that prisons are a failure.

If there is any consistent opinion among professional penologists who are working in the prison system it is the feeling that of all the persons in their custody, the vast majority should not be there.

It is my opinion and recommendation that rather than appropriating vast amounts of money for prison construction, that more funding should be made available to expand probation and parole programs, small community halfway house programs and other forms of assistance which will help the offender avoid becoming an offender again. It seems to me that this will better protect the community than it would be to build more prisons which tend to stimulate crime.

It may seem that you are dealing with the construction of buildings. In reality, you are faced with a decision on this appropriation which will affect the lives of thousands of men and women. There are far more effective ways of dealing with this issue. The most pressing problem is not construction of a new Federal prison nor is it an adequate answer to the needs of our nation and its communities. Prisons not only fail to accomplish their positive purpose but they are positively evil.

I urge you in the strongest possible terms to not only defeat the appropriation request before you today, but to avoid the construction of any new Federal prisons now or in the future.

Let me again express my thanks to you for allowing me to speak before you in this regard.

PRISON SYSTEM HAS FEW OPTIONS

Senator PASTORE. Reverend Stinson, I have agonized over this. I have searched my soul and I must say there is a sense of nobility in the position that you take. But being a little pragmatic about this, here comes Mr. Carlson, who does not send anybody to jail. He only has to take care of them when they are sent to jail. From a population of 23,000 last year, he has it up now to 26,000, not because he sentenced these people.

The judges did that. I am wondering, aren't we barking up the wrong tree? I mean, here is a man who comes here and says, "I have no room and the judges keep sending these people to me and

I have 3,000 more to take care of this year than I had last year. Now I have either got to put two in one bed or you have got to give me another bed."

Isn't the fault here with the judges who are sending these people to jail, when maybe they shouldn't go to jail? Isn't the fault with the system that they are not giving these people either a release on personal recognizance and/or a moderate bail, depending upon the ability of that person to produce a certain bail in order to make his appearance before the court?

I have been listening to this testimony time and time again.

Then we have a situation that we have a crowded jail in Alabama. We have all our crowded Federal jails. I am wondering what is really the answer here. Yes, we have been saying right along-and I have gone along with you people-you have been saying right along, "If you don't build them, maybe somebody will come to his senses and do something about it."

Up to this time, nobody has come to their senses and the fact still remains that we have 3,000 more this year than last year. Where the devil do we put them? What do I say to Mr. Carlson? Today or tomorrow, if there is a riot in one of these jails because there are too many people crowded in one cell, what do I say to him when he comes to me and says, "It is your fault. I needed more room and you didn't give it to me.'

I said, "Well, maybe the judge shouldn't have sent the fellow out." He said, "That wasn't my job. My responsibility is to take care of them once he sends them to me."

What do I do with that? That has been troubling me for a long time and I have gone along with you people. I am wondering if I am not at the end of my rope. That is bothering me to no end.

I quite agree with you, we have got to begin to look at this with eyes of 1976 and not with primitive procedures that we had at the turn of the century. We have got to treat these prisoners with more humaneness if we expect them to be quiet, to be organized and to be disciplined and to rehabilitate once they get out.

But in the meantime, what do I do? What do I say to Mr. Carlson, generally? Go fly a kite? Crowd up your jails? Put two people in a cell? What do I tell him? You people have me stumped. Would you like to comment on that?

NEED FOR JUDICIAL REFORM

Reverend STINSON. I agree with you, Senator, that this is an extremely difficult area to deal with. It is going to continue to be difficult until our whole criminal justice system is completely overhauled. We are finding situations, for example, in the adult correctional institute in Rhode Island where an inmate is there having served the actual amount of his sentence but he has appealed the sentence and therefore is still kept there because he cannot raise bail even beyond the length of time that his sentence would originally be.

Senator PASTORE. Is that the fault of the warden?

Reverend STINSON. No, no, definitely not.

Senator PASTORE. It is the fault of the courts, of the judicial system. Reverend STINSON. Yes.

Senator PASTORE. I mean that is the thing that is bothering me here. That is the reason why I say aren't we barking up the wrong tree. I don't know. What is the answer? I am dealing with Mr. Carlson on construction of a prison. I am not in any active or panel discussion on reformation of our judicial system.

I quite agree with you, it has to come. But that is not the responsibility of this committee at this particular time. I am searching for the answer.

Reverend STINSON. I think this is one of the first-

Senator PASTORE. If I knew that I could punish Mr. Carlson to bring about the reform that you want, I would do it. But the poor fellow is prostrated from the punishment that he has taken. He has a problem and he comes to us and he wants us to help him solve it.

You see, in your attempt to be humane, we are creating an environment that is inhumane. I don't know what the answer is. I wish I knew the answer.

Senator Hruska, you go ahead and take it from there and give me the answer.

EFFORTS TO RESTRUCTURE THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM

Senator HRUSKA. Yes. I won't give you an answer, but I will pose another question.

What has been done by people who advocate the abolition of any further funds for building prisons? What effort has been put forth to restructure the system that we have now? And what results have they received?

Let me tell you of a very fruitful field. If it thought that prisons are not necessary and they should not be resorted to, we have right here in the District of Columbia one of the most fruitful sources for effort that ever existed. Because we have a system here that abolishes prisons for virtually thousands of prisoners every year.

The basis for it is found in the bail law that we have here. So that if a man is found robbing a filling station and he has a gun in his hand, the robbery is illegal, the possession of the gun is illegal, both of them are felonies and he should go to jail. He appeared before the judge and the judge asked him where he lives and how long he has lived there, and so on, and he will say, "I was born here. I have been here all the time." The judge will say, "Have you any relatives away from the District of Columbia?" He will say, "No, there is no danger of flight from here."

So he is freed. Under the law, as it has been applied, he must be freed. Repeatedly we find people of that kind whose trial is set in 6 weeks or 8 weeks or 10 weeks and they go off the very next night to rob another filling station so they can get enough money to pay for the lawyer or whatever he had to represent him, if he didn't get one free.

And if he got one free, he still wants to rob somebody else to get money for either his drug habit or whatever.

Some of those people accused of crime have done that as many as 8 or 10 or 11 times. Now, there the prison system for them is abolished.

For those organizations that say, "Let us abolish prisons, I ask this question-and I have never quite found an answer-what have they been doing to take care of that kind of a situation so that there will be rehabilitation, so that there will be a realization by this accused that he shouldn't continue that kind of a thing?

If we are not going to build any more prisons, we can't put them in prison. Are we going to allow them to run rampant over the face of the District? Unfortunately, that is the same situation in far too many jurisdictions in America.

What is your answer to that? You have a chance here in the District of Columbia to put your theories to work-that you don't need prisons, that prisons are bad.

EXPERIMENTS IN BAIL REFORM

Reverend STINSON. In Rhode Island, we are experimenting with the Rhode Island bail fund. I happen to have coordinated that. I am dealing with some of the same kinds of people that you mentioned. I think for most of these people, there is a need for careful screening, perhaps more careful than it has been in the past.

We have come to the conclusion that, in order to keep a person from going back to prison, the important thing is to get him working, get him established with his family, see to it that he does have a permanent place to stay, that he is not left out on the street, that where he has personal problems or if he happens to be a drug addict or an alcoholic, that these particular problem areas are pursued.

Where we have been able to work that closely with individuals we have had very few of them going back to the State prisons.

Senator HRUSKA. I would like to invite you to come to the District then, because there are thousands.

Senator PASTORE. Well, he is talking about Rhode Island, Roman. Senator HRUSKA. That is right.

Reverend STINSON. We can do this in Rhode Island because it is a small, almost self-contained unit that we are dealing with. We have only one State prison. We have a very small prison population, really, in comparison to most States.

Senator PASTore. You see, the Reverend is not talking about the case that you cited, Roman, about the continual rapist and the continual burglar. He is not talking about nonviolent crimes.

But I repeat generally, we are confronted here with the problem where we have got to do something about the bad guys that you are talking about and these bad guys have been sent to jail. What do we do with them, if you don't have any room for them? What do we do with them?

Reverend STINSON. Mr. Chairman, I think that part of the answer is tied up in dealing with the people who are not violent people, who are not going to commit the violent crimes in one category and dealing with the violent person in another category.

Senator PASTORE. That is right, but the prisoners he is talking about are the bad ones, as I understand him. Is that right, Mr. Carlson?

KINDS OF CRIMES COMMITTED BY PRISONERS

Mr. CARLSON. Mr. Chairman, nearly 25 percent are committed for armed bank robbery and another 25 percent for major narcotic violations, basically, the interstate transportation and sale of narcotics. The remainder are largely repeat offenders who have been tried on probation previously.

Senator PASTORE. It is a tough nut to crack.

We want to thank you, Reverend. You have made a great contribution. I don't know where we are going to go from here. Maybe I can get an inspiration from you.

Our next witness is Justus Freimund.

STATEMENT

OF JUSTUS FREIMUND,

CRIME AND DELINQUENCY

NATIONAL COUNCIL ON

PREPARED STATEMENT

Mr. FREIMUND. I am Justus Freimund from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Today I am testifying on behalf of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency and the Unitarian Universalists Services Committee. These two groups have joined together in a joint venture and represent the constituents of almost half a million people.

We have submitted a written statement. We would appreciate filing that in the record.

[The statement follows:]