that we were really shooting in the dark, yet doing the best we could under the circumstances. To have to make policy that way on significant public issues is ridiculous. Addiction is a desperate problem in New York. New York State today has some $250 million committed to just the narcotic addiction. program. I might compare that with the President's safe street bill which is recommended to get only $100 million for the whole United States. That is even more ridiculous. In any event, how in the world do you devise entirely new programs to meet one or another aspects of the ever shifting criminal justice problem when you do not have the data? New problems, which are bound to come, are the fourth major reason. The fifth reason is to focus responsibility, again, an aspect, perhaps, of management tools, but very much needed. The criminal justice system is like a chain-police, prosecutors, criminal court, probation, jails, parole. They are all functionally separate and usually administered by different people. That is ridiculous enough. These fragmented pieces of a whole do not come to a focus of unity at the top, administratively. However, it is one defendant who goes through the whole chain, sequentially. It is one offense against society that all are concerned with. So the functioning of the system as a whole, if you could even properly use the word "system" in this context, requires a constant assessment of which parts are out of control, because complete deficiency or so in one ruins the rest. What good is the best police work, if the courts do not do their job? What good is the best system up to the stage of hopeful rehabilitation and correction, if they do not do the job? Our criminal justice system is an entity in functioning practice. Yet, we have no way now to relate it to getting the job done, overall or by separate function. This, to me, is the greatest weakness of the FBI's "Uniform Crime Reports." Those reports are merely a policeman's bookkeeping service, nice and neatly added up, of police reports. As a limited police system, they simply ignore the real world of which they are but one part; the fact that police are only the first step in the whole process. You cannot make any intelligent study of this entire problem until you relate one step to the other. Merely inflaming the public about large numbers of crimes committed and not relating those inflammatory figures to what is happening at the other end of the system, the outgo that gets spewed out, is silly. So those are the five reasons for needing statistics that I would say are specific. The sixth, and most important reason of all, is that in a democracy the public has a right to know what is happening. The public today does not know. This is a subject, an area, of desperate importance to many, many Americans, and great numbers of dollars are expended on it. As a simple matter of democracy, I say we have got to find a better system to inform the public. There will be little public support for necessary resources until that occurs. Now, may I come back to my specific suggestions? I would set up this National Criminal Statistics Center in the Department of Justice. I would either abolish the "Uniform Crime Report" system in the FBI, as a best effort for another day but now an anachronism that simply cannot meet the current needs, or move the files right across Justice, out of the FBI and into this new Center. This new Center should be concerned, not just with police, but with the whole spectrum. Why can you not grow the FBI system so as to embrace to the whole system spectrum? Very simple. The Bureau's system is concerned only with police, and you will never get the courts, the social workers, at the other end of the system, participating in the Bureau system underneath policemen. It just is not going to happen. I have been that road many times on many other occasions. The Bureau system, therefore, can never be expanded to what must be. Thus, you must have a new entity. I feel it must be in Justice, a strengthened and different Department of Justice than exists today. That new entity must concern itself with the whole system, with workload, what is happening in the system, with costs so that we can begin to get efficiency measurements in some way, with personnel, with the subjects in the system-in the system, not just at the beginning, but subjects in process. So I accept with enthusiasm the general tenor and thrust of the Crime Commission's report on these subjects. I think certain concepts should be built into this Center. No. 1, it should adopt the system concept, as the Crime Commission did. That is, stop this game that we are just concerned with policemen and arrests; go all the way through the entire process to parole and work up a way to relate all of the functions together. The studies we have made in New York State to develop the identification intelligence system are available to you, I am sure, if you wish to make any inquiry about the value and need of doing this very kind of thing and relating one element to another. Two, I would make sure that this system is not in the direct control-this is vital-not in the direct control of any operating agency. That is another reason the FBI should not collect or be the statistical tool. It has a stake to a large degree in the current system. The FBI is not about to spew out any incisive statistics which might show it is inefficient. I do not think you would get, therefore, out of them or anybody else a fully dispassionate statistical approach. In something as emotional as crime statistics, which involve the very careers of people who are failing along the way, you have got to get hard-hitting data reporting out of the operating control of an agency, or that logically part of its jurisdiction should be transferred elsewhere. The FBI is happy to report about local police; you will study their own reports until you go blind before meaningful assessment can be made of their activities in organized crime, antitrust, and so forth; except for stolen cars and bank robberies. Three, I think it should be a national system which, on the other hand, is not promoted into a police dossier file or intelligence concept. That would trouble me greatly, although I will not here take the time to go into that subject unless you desire. Four, this system should rely on and work with State criminal justice statistics systems. I am more optimistic about State systems than my former professor. Because I believe that if the Federal Government were to provide and adopt a new funding approach that in effect said: "This problem has now reached national proportions and must be solved; the amount of money necessary for crime statistics is insignificant in the whole and we, therefore, will give your State, x million to set up and run a good crime statistics program." The States would do it. If you fellows cannot think of a good way to tease the States into that, using a matching grant concept, or whatever, and in a really short time produce something meaningful, I would be surprised. I think you probably would not have trouble in maybe more than six or seven States, all small rural States. Those States do not represent more than 2, 3, 4 percent of the national crime problem, if that. I would not, therefore, allow the fact that you might not get 100 percent State compliance to hold me back from the whole. Five, I would tie this Justice program in with the Census Bureau, as I said, for it is a magnificent collection device which would provide many things, including a grand outside check on the Criminal Justice Center when set up. Now, why has not this happened? Information obviously is needed. There has been drift and inaction for a long, long time. The President's Crime Commission said it should happen, and one of the more amazing gaps in the follow-on from that fine group's works is why, after the Crime Commission recommended it, the President did not include the item in his recent message to Congress on crime. It would be an inexpensive, harmless thing that would not hurt politically. I suppose people are not supposed to say these things in public. I gather that maybe there have been some conversations to the general effect that the Bureau resists any such development on a protectionist ground that this would harm or in some way impede their possession, the "Uniform Crime Reports." Mr. OLSEN. Are you talking about the Bureau of the Census? Mr. LUMBARD. FBI. I think you must cope with that. I do not know as a flat fact that is the case, but I suspect that is the case. And I hope in the course of your hearings, you will address yourselves to that question because it seems to be essential to any further development. Why also has it not happened? Because judges are powerful people. They are involved in any true system concept. And the more you get into it, the more you are going to in a certain sense be directing yourselves to questions of the efficiency of the members of the judiciary along with others. The same is true to a certain extent also of many others in the system whose efficiency would be measured. Agency heads, their subordinates, obviously, feel that such new developments would be both bothersome and revealing of their effectiveness. I do not think I need to spell that out any more. I am happy to have had the opportunity to appear. If you have any questions, I would be pleased to answer them. Mr. GREEN. I want to thank you very much for coming, Mr. Lumbard. Your testimony was most appreciated. Incidentally, I think you have set a precedent. I do not remember another witness who testified while standing. It must be the lawyer in you. Mr. LUMBARD. It may well be. I feel more at ease and more comfortable. Mr. GREEN. I would like to interrupt a moment to say to the committee and the other witnesses who are here that I have been informed that Professor Wilkins has to return to California today and this will be his only opportunity to testify. You could not, by any chance, come back tomorrow? Professor WILKINS. Not tomorrow, sir, no. I am free today until 6 o'clock. My flight leaves at 6 today. I can be brief. Mr. GREEN. I think then that I am going to thank you again, Mr. Lumbard, and forgo for myself, the opportunity to ask you any further questions. I will ask the other members of the subcommittee to limit their remaining questions to whatever single question they deem most important, and then give Mr. Wilkins the opportunity to testify. Mr. McClure? Mr. McCLURE. I will waive any questions, sir. Mr. GREEN. Mr. Olsen. Mr. OLSEN. I have one question. You dismissed with the word "ridiculous" the Federal safe streets program and $100 million worth of planned spending. Where would you start? How much of the $100 million would you start with? Mr. LUMBARD. I would start at $1 billion. Mr. OLSEN. Would you seek this from the Congress? Mr. LUMBARD. If you ask me what must be done to try to meaningfully do something about crime in America, that is where we start talking. Mr. OLSEN. Could you find enough people to go to work and what would the first year budget be? Where would you start? Mr. LUMBARD. The first year, I would start at about $500 million, maybe a little more. Mr. OLSEN. But, could you find that many people to employ in 1 year? Mr. LUMBARD. Not any doubt about it. Mr. OLSEN. Thank you. Mr. LUMBARD. Not any doubt about it. I will only say for you one other thing, again Mr. OLSEN. I do not think you are right. You could not put together a $500 million program in 1 year. Mr. LUMBARD. Well, I would love to take you up on that, Congressman. Mr. OLSEN. I would wish we had time for a more detailed discussion on that point. Mr. LUMBARD. Let me say only one thing. Mr. OLSEN. I would still disagree; $500 million is an impossible amount. You could not put it together in a year. Mr. LUMBARD. It depends on what you are going to do with the program. If you are going to concern yourself with salaries on the local level Mr. OLSEN. You could not assemble that many people. I have seen the amount of time it takes to formulate a program. Mr. LUMBARD. The budget of the New York City Police Department today is over $425 million. Mr. OLSEN. How old is that police department? Mr. LUMBARD. How old? Mr. OLSEN. Yes. Mr. LUMBARD. They can recruit 1,000 officers. They are recruiting for next year 1,000 more officers. Mr. OLSEN. So is the department in the District of Columbia. Mr. OLSEN. But you are talking about Mr. LUMBARD. Which multiplies out very easily. Mr. OLSEN. You are talking about a $500 million program of assisting the States and cities. I think that is an unrealistic position. Mr. LUMBARD. Congressman, we differ in that. Mr. OLSEN. Yes, we do. Mr. GREEN. This is one reason for the hearings; to air differences in views. Mr. White? Mr. WHITE. I will waive any questions. Thank you. Mr. MCCLURE. Mr. Chairman, might I suggest if there are members of the committee who have questions, in the interests of time, that we might be able to correspond with Mr. Lumbard and have those questions and answers made a part of the record. Mr. GREEN. I agree. Our next witness is Professor Wilkins, currently visiting professor of criminology at the University of California at Berkeley. Professor Wilkins comes from Great Britain where he is a leading statistician in the field of criminology. I am sure we will benefit from your observations, Professor Wilkins, and I am happy to welcome you this morning and am very sorry that time is as limited as it is. TESTIMONY OF PROF. LESLIE T. WILKINS, SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, CALIF. Professor WILKINS. I think, for the record, I will say I am no longer a visiting professor at Berkeley, but a tenure professor. Mr. GREEN. I stand corrected. Professor WILKINS. Thank you. I am very pleased to be here. And since the committee has certain papers that I have handed in, I will limit myself to just a few points. First of all, I would agree with the previous witnesses that the criminal statistics that are available at the moment are almost useless. I am sure the committee may like some evidence on that. Since you are interested in statistics, you may be interested in hard data. A little time ago, I was concerned with investigating juvenile delinquency from a certain particular aspect involving the statistical technique of cohort analysis. It was rather interesting that this study was able to be carried out in England and Wales and in Scotland which has, of course, a different legal system, and also in Denmark and New Zealand. I tried to replicate this in certain States in this country, but the data do not exist. |