of the criminal justice system; analyzing the factors contributing to success or failure of probation, parole, and other correctional alternatives; and so forth." (3) We learned that local recordkeeping is most apt to be satisfactory, and progress in national reporting is most likely to be enhanced, when State agencies are interested and invloved in the collection of data within their own States. This is particularly true of recordkeeping in the smaller localities. A State agency can assist local agencies in solving reporting problems, can monitor the reporting programs, and may actually tabulate data for those local communities whose statistical services are inadequate. State agencies serve also as liaison between the local agencies and the Federal agencies, thus reducing the number of jurisdictions with which the Federal agencies have to deal. In our juvenile court reporting system, we encouraged State agency participation by requesting local data to be submitted to us through such an agency. We encouraged it also by providing, in our model statistical card, the mechanism by which a State agency could collect and tabulate data within the State. (4) We learned that it is difficult, if not impossible, to obtain complete nationwide data. This results from a variety of reasons. A few courts simply do not choose to participate. Some courts want to participate but cannot do so because of inadequate records, lack of staff, or professional know-how. Still others find that reporting, particularly if complicated and detailed, interferes with the normal day-to-day operation of the court. (5) Finally, we learned that national data need not await complete and full reporting from all agencies in the country if, indeed, this can ever be accomplished. National data based on a national representative sample will often suffice during the period in which statewide and nationwide coverage is being attempted. This is why the Children's Bureau, in 1955, initiated its plan for collecting juvenile court data from a representative national sample. Although the Children's Bureau had been collecting and publishing juvenile court reports for many years, it was possible only through the use of the national sample to say with any degree of confidence that the numbers reported were representative of the country as a whole. I hope that this description of our juvenile court reporting system and the knowledge we learned from it will be useful to your subcommittee. (The attachments follow :) ATTACHMENT A Children's Bureau, Welfare Administration, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE, Washington, D. C. 20201 JUVENILE COURT STATISTICAL CARD Form CB-203-S Revised Budget Bureau No. 72-R373.9 D. DATE OF BIRTH.. mo. day year (Last) (First) (Middle) Area code or census tract 3 Indian 4 Other 08 Other place (specify) In this category ("K") if more than one code is applicable, add the appropriate codes and enter total sum in coding box. ATTACHMENT B-A UNIFORM REPORTING SYSTEM (Presented by I. Richard Perlman, Chief, Juvenile Delinquency I have been asked to talk with you about "A Uniform Reporting System". That is a very broad order. It can cover reporting systems dealing with police, courts or institutions and at a variety of levels-Federal, State, and local. The words "uniform" and "national" seem to be magic words. They crop up almost anywhere that two or more people are discussing criminal statistics. I have yet to attend a conference on the subject that did not end up with a resolution that a uniform system of criminal statistics is needed. And always there is the assumption that if such a system were established, all the problems of statistical reporting would be solved. It isn't that simple. At best national uniform reporting systems will always have certain limitations. They cannot hope to provide the detailed analysis of local factors which so strongly influence differences in the rates of various types of crime. The FBI's publication, "Uniform Crime Reports," pinpoints some of these local factors: the attitude of the community toward law enforcement problems; the educational, recreational and religious facilities of the community; the relative stability of the population; the composition of the population with reference to age, race, sex and so forth. No national system of reporting can possibly take all such factors into account. In existence today there are three uniform reporting systems at the Federal level: First, there is the "Uniform Crime Reports" reporting program. This reporting plan was initiated by the International Association of Chiefs of Police in 1930 and continues to be carried on under its auspices. By action of Congress, responsibility for the actual collection of data was given to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In this reporting system, statistical summaries of "offenses known to the police" are sent in monthly by several thousand police agencies covering city and rural areas. In addition, city police furnish an annual report of "persons arrested" for all types of crimes. These annual reports provide data on age, sex and race, as well as information on the disposition of the charges. Responsibility for this aspect of reporting is soon to be extended into rural police departments as well. Second, we have the "National Prisoner Statistics" reporting program. The responsibility for this reporting system rested with the Bureau of the Census until 1948 and since that time has been with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The data collected are based on individual reports relating to each person admitted to and released from the institution each year. Finally, we have the "Juvenile Court Statistics" reporting program. This has been operated by the Children's Bureau since 1926 in an attempt to secure uniform data on children's cases handled by juvenile courts in this country. This reporting plan has undergone several revisions since its initiation and at present is operating on the basis of a national representative sample of juvenile courts which provides the basis for making national estimates. You will note in these existing reporting systems that there is a complete void of data on court handling of adult criminal defendants. This void comes about as a result of failure of another uniform national reporting system which formerly existed. From 1932 to 1946, the Bureau of the Census collected State judicial criminal statistics. This included data on the offense and disposition of criminal defendants in courts of general jurisdiction. This series was dis continued for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the best insight into the requirements of uniform reporting-and some of its problems and limitations-can be gained by examining some of the reasons for this termination. These have been summarized in an article by Harry Alpert, in the July-August 1948 issue of "The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology." They are divided into two groups, statistical and administrative. Alpert points out that among the statistical factors accounting for failure of the program were: incomplete and inadequate coverage; the narrow scope of the data collected; lack of comparability; the questionable reliability of the data; improper presentation; insufficient analysis; and absence of timeliness. Among administrative factors he listed were: the incidental supervision given to the series by the Bureau of the Census; failure of the States to develop technically competent centralized agencies for the collection of criminal statistics; lack of interest of professional groups in the reports of the Bureau of the Census; and absence of continued operating relationships between the Bureau of the Census and the courts. Some of these reasons for failure are so obvious they need not be expanded upon. Any uniform reporting system is only as good as the cooperation received from the reporting agencies. If agencies do not participate in the reporting or if, when they do, the uniform instructions and procedures are ignored, then certainly the reliability of the data suffers. Or if reporting agencies ignore deadline dates and transmit their reports late, then obviously the timeliness of the published national data is lost. I'm not sure I agree with some of the other reasons for failure listed by Alpert. I feel that they are factors inherent in the limitations of what a uniform reporting system can do, rather than failures in a particular system of reporting. Let's take, for example, the idea of comparability. Ask anyone what are the values of a national uniform reporting system. I'm sure any listing would include the statement that such a system permits comparison between one community and another, or one State and another. Yet curiously enough in every publication of any of the three series of national uniform reporting systems, you will find cautions about using the data to make comparisons. This lack of comparability is not primarily a result of the definitions not being followed; rather it reflects differences in practices, even if the uniform reporting definitions are scrupulously followed by all reporting agencies. Differing practices can make the data from different communities look weird. It accounts, for example, for cities of approximately the same size and composition showing rates of juvenile court delinquency cases that differ by as much as 2 to 1. Difference in law or practices with respect to whether prisoners are to be committed to State institutions or to local institutions undoubtedly affect rates of prisoners committed to State institutions. Varying practices relating to use of parole obviously affect the median months served by prisoners. Such variations occur despite accurate and uniform reporting. Another reason suggested for the failure of the State judicial reporting system is that the data were narrow in scope and lacked adequate presentation and detailed analysis. To me, this also is not a valid criticism of a national uniform reporting system. For if we recognize that data collected on a Federal level must of necessity be limited, then we should not expect that they be wide in scope or complete in detail. The best function of national data, in my opinion, is to show general trends in various programs and to point out gross differences that should be the subject of further study and exploration at local levels. To expect more is to be unrealistic. I wish you could sit with me and read the many inquiries that come into my office from students, professors, and laymen regarding their specific interests. These include such questions as: How many delinquents read comic books and what kinds? I'm sure that when we reply that we do not collect this type of data in our national reporting plan, these correspondents, too, consider that our data are narrow in scope. But since we cannot possibly collect data on every subject, we must focus on those which have broadest usefulness. I think we could almost have predicted the failure of the judicial criminal statistics system from one of the reasons Alpert lists. This is the fact that the collecting agency-the Bureau of the Census-had no operating responsibility or even a technical interest in the work of the courts. Under such an arrangement, the Census Bureau, while competent to provide technical statistical guidance, did not have personnel with sufficient knowledge of court operations to evaluate special reporting problems. Such lack of knowledge of or concern with agency programs inhibits a good working relationship-a requisite to cooperative reporting. Significantly, in each of the other three existing national uniform reporting systems, the collecting agencies, while not actually operating the programs, do have an interest in the problems involved and a working relationship with the respondent groups of agencies. My examination of the reasons for failure of the judicial reporting system leads me to one overriding conclusion. This is, that our whole emphasis and approach in the past has been wrong. We bemoan the fact that local agencies are uncooperative and disinterested in producing the data. A comment frequently heard is that many courts still regard statistical reports as an identical activity or a necessary nuisance; that administrators of local agencies do not understand 91-314-68-10 |