to increase all efforts to prevent diversion, traffic and abuse of methadone.

(2) The Runaway Youth Act, S. 645 (Report No. 93-191) was reported by the Subcommittee on May 1, 1973 and by the Committee to the Senate on June 4, 1973. It was passed by the Senate on June 8, 1973. This bill provides temporary shelter, intensive short term counseling and follow-up counseling to runaway children and their families. It is also designed to strengthen interstate reporting of runaway youth and to conduct research on the size of the runaway youth population.

In addition to these measures which were reported by the Subcommittee, 21 other measures, many developed by the Subcommittee staff were referred to the Subcommittee and are presently under consideration. These are listed at the conclusion of this report-Section V.

II. THE PREVENTION AND CONTROL OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY During the past year, the Subcommittee has devoted a major portion of its time to the question of prevention and control of juvenile delinquency in the United States with a continuing review of the adequacy of the response of the Federal government to this problem. We have proceeded with our investigation of the juvenile delinquency crisis in this country by examining in depth the problems of juveniles in jails and school crime and vandalism. Our study has affirmed the need for a comprehensive, coordinated, suitably funded Federal response to these problems.

A. JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN THE UNITED STATES

Crime by young offenders has increased alarmingly during the period 1960-1973. Violent crime by persons under 18 jumped 246.5 percent. Over the same period, property crimes such as burglary, largency, and auto theft by youths under 18 increased 104.6 percent. Persons under 25 account for 50 percent of all crimes of violence and for 80 percent of all property crimes each year, those under 21 commit nearly 62 percent of all serious crime and those under 18 commit 45 percent of all serious crime. Thus, young people remain proportionally the most important contributors to the crime problem.

Approximately 1 million juveniles will enter the juvenile justice system this year. Although 50 percent will be informally handled by the juvenile courts' intake staff, 40 percent will be formally adjudicated and placed on probation or other supervisory release. Ten percent, or approximately 100,000 young people, will be incarcerated in juvenile institutions.

The cost of maintaining the juvenile justice system is enormous over 1 billion dollars a year-and it is increasing at a rate of $50 million a year. By far the most expensive and wasteful part of this system is the institutions in which juveniles are incarcerated on a longterm basis. The average annual cost per youth is $5,700-far higher than the average cost of halfway houses or group homes ($1,500 per youth) or probation services ($500 per youth). Yet it is in these larger institutions that most young people are placed, and most damage is done. This is made clear by the startling fact that recidivism

among juveniles is far more severe than among adult offenders. While revidivism among adults has been variously estimated from 40 to 70 percent, recidivism among juveniles has been estimated at 74 to 85 perecnt.

Juvenile crime comprises only a part, although the most dramatic part, of all delinquency offenses. There is an entire range of "juvenile status offenses" which subject children to the juvenile court process. The most common juvenile status offenses include ungovernability, truancy, and running away. The distinguished characteristic of these offenses is that if they were committed by an adult there would be no legal consequences at all. While the effect of these offenses on society is not as serious as criminal offenses, the child often suffers permanently damaging legal and emotional consequences. It is commonly acknowledged that at least half of the children in our institutions have been incarcerated for juvenile status offenses.

B. REVIEW OF FEDERAL JUVENILE DELINQUENCY EFFORT

A major area of Subcommittee activity during the past year has been a continuing oversight of all Federal juvenile delinquency prevention and control programs. The Subcommittee has continued to investigate Federal juvenile delinquency programs, presently divided among many different agencies, which lack any central direction or coordination. The Subcommittee has been particiuarly concerned by the confusion of roles between the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), which administers the Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Act of 1972 and the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) in the Department of Justice, established under the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968.

The effectiveness and problems of the juvenile delinquency programs administered by HEW and LEAA were carefully examined at hearings conducted in June 1973. In reviewing the juvenile justice programs of LEAA, the Subcommittee has been troubled by the fact that LEAA funds were not allocated to juvenile delinquency in proportion to the seriousness of the juvenile crime problem. This concern was reflected in the Junvenile Delinquency Prevention Amendment to H.R. 8152, introduced by Senators Bayh, Cook, and Mathias, which required a state to allocate 20 percent the first year, and 30 percent in every subsequent year of the LEAA block grants it received to a comprehensive program to improve juvenile justice. This amendment passed the Senate on a voice vote, June 28, 1973, but was defeated in the Senate-House Conference on the LEAA extension bill. (P.L. 93-83). The Conference Report, however, retained the mandate that each LEAA state criminal justice plan include a juvenile delinquency component. Unfortunately, the juvenile delinquency effort in HEW also remains grossly inadequate relative to the size of the problem. Appropriations of only $10 million, out of the total $75 million authorized, were requested for the Youth Development and Delinquency Prevention Administration (YDDPA) for fiscal year 1973. Although this program was extended for two years in 1972 (Public Law 92-381 and Senate Report 92-1003) a majority of the Committee agreed that a much more comprehensive approach to the problems of juvenile

delinquency at the Federal level was necessary and that this interim period would permit the Committee to develop a full hearing record on the type of restructuring needed to accomplish this objective.

C. DEVELOPMENT OF COMPREHENSIVE JUVENILE JUSTICE LEGISLATION—

S. 821

A major legislative proposal resulting from the Subcommittee's two year review of Federal delinquency programs is S. 821, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. During the past year, the Subcommittee redrafted this bill, which was introduced in the 92d Congress as S. 3148, to reflect the constructive recommendations of witnesses before the Subcommittee on the four days of hearings conducted on the bill during 1972.

S. 821 now provides for the comprehensive coordinated Federal response needed to prevent juvenile delinquency, rehabilitate juvenile delinquents, and improve the quality of juvenile justice in this country. It completely restructures the Federal approach to juvenile delinquency by providing effective coordinating, budgetary and supervisory authority in a new national office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to be established in the White House. In addition it authorizes substantial resources to assist state and local governments as well as public and private agencies in developing an effective approach to the multifaceted problems of juvenile delinquency. This bill achieves such vital objectives as coordination of Federal delinquency programs; authorization of additional resources for community-based prevention, diversion, and treatment programs; creation of centralized research, training, technical assistance and evaluation activities; development of national guidelines for the administration of juvenile justice including conditions of confinement; and finally, adoption of basic procedural protections for juveniles under Federal jurisdiction.

During the past year, the Subcommittee conducted five days of hearings on this proposal, taking testimony from 36 witnesses. These expert witnesses, including state and local officials, representatives of private agencies, social workers, doctors, judges, and juvenile correctional experts, agreed that the present scattered and uncoordinated Federal approach to the problems of juvenile delinquency was inadequate and should be restructured along the lines suggested in the Subcommittee bill. They emphasized the need for a centralized Federal office solely responsible for developing, reviewing, and administering the Federal juvenile delinquency prevention and treatment effort. They strongly advocate adoption of many of the treatment techniques supported by S. 821, such as foster care, shelter-care, group homes, halfway houses, diagnostic facilities and expanded use of probation services and probation subsidy programs. It is important to note, however, that representatives of LEAA and HEW testified against S. 821. The need for dealing with delinquent youth in community settings. rather than in large institutions was repeatedly emphasized at the hearings. Approximately one-half of the 100,000 juveniles presently confined in large correctional institutions are runaways, truants, or are not wanted or cannot be cared for at home. Rather than being locked

up, these children, who are victims of parental and societal neglect, should be offered the help they need in their own communities. The Subcommittee heard testimony regarding state and local efforts to treat young people outside the traditional juvenile justice system including the closing of all juvenile correctional facilities and the transfer of children into programs in their own communities.

Similar emphasis was given by these experts to the fact that programs and services to prevent juvenile delinquency and to divert juveniles from the traditional juvenile justice correctional system (such as those provided for in S. 821) have been largely overlooked in the allocation of federal funds. Many witnesses for example stressed the shortsightedness of LEAA policy, with its vast appropriations, which has limited its already restructured juvenile justice activities to juveniles in the juvenile justice system and emphasized the need for allocating massive resources for keeping children out of the juvenile justice system.

This bill after a total of nine days of hearings and additional research and investigation by the Subcommittee now reflects the general consensus of juvenile delinquency experts and concerned officials and citizens on approaches that are necessary to reduce the spiraling juvenile crime rate.

In 1974, the Subcommittee will complete an examination of S. 821 to reflect the latest recommendations with regard to this bill, preparatory to its consideration by the Subcommittee and the Judiciary Committee. A major activity of the Subcommittee in 1974 will be the continuing work required to complete the legislative process with regard to this measure.

D. CONDITIONS OF JUVENILE DETENTION

In 1971 the Subcommittee conducted hearings on juvenile confinement institutions and correctional systems. As part of this continuing study of the conditions of juvenile institutionalization, the Subcommittee held three days of hearings in September during which 22 witnesses testified on the pre-adjudication detention of juveniles.

On a given day, there are close to 8,000 juveniles held in jails in the United States. It is estimated that more than 100,000 youth spend one or more days each year in adult jails or police lock-ups. In addition, the average daily population in juvenile detention facilities is over 12,000, with close to 500,000 held annually in such facilities. During these hearings we heard shocking stories regarding brutality and abuse, as well as about the boredom of isolation in jails. It was evident that many juvenile detention facilities and jails do not provide medical and educational services required by children who are detained, and that the inability of jails to provide adequate supervision of inmates often results in tragedies such as gang rapes or suicides. The Subcommittee learned that a significant number of the youth detained in such facilities did not require secure detention and that others who were detained, some for more than 30 days, required no detention; but that in most such instances no alternative to detention was available. These youth are incarcerated prior to any conviction

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for a wrongful act and frequently have not been accused of a crime. but of a status offense such as running away.

In the coming year the Subcommittee will continue its investigation by exploring methods to make available more rational and humane alternatives and eliminate the unnecessary detention of children, which too often introduces them to a life of crime.

E. INVESTIGATION OF SCHOOL VIOLENCE AND VANDALISM

In response to the increasing incidences of violence and vandalism in our nation's schools, the summer of 1973, the Subcommittee initiated a nationwide inquiry to assess the extent to which school property is being damaged or destroyed; the level of personal violence on the campuses; the role of juvenile gangs; the impact of these phenomena on the educational system; and those methods or techniques which have effectively dealt with these problems.

Because of a dearth of current comprehensive data on these problems, the Subcommittee developed a questionnaire which was sent to 750 superintendents of representative school districts. To date the response has been excellent. The results of this survey and other information gathered during the investigation will provide the basis for a Subcommittee report which will assist in the development of legislative proposals to deal with the critical problem of youth crime in our schools.

F. RUNAWAY YOUTH ACT

Over a million children leave home without parental consent each year and, living on the streets of strange communities, become easy victims of street gangs, drug pushers, delinquents and criminals. The tragic 1973 murders in Houston of almost thirty young people who disappeared from home has underlined the desperate need for action with regard to the runaway problem. Long before this tragedy, this Subcommittee in 1971-72 conducted an extensive investigation of the runaway problem, including two days of hearings, and developed legislation, S. 2829, the Runaway Youth Act, to help solve this problem. This Act which provided for Federal assistance to local groups to establish temporary shelter facilities and counseling services for runaways and their families passed the Senate for the first time on July 31, 1972, and at the time of congressional adjournment had been favorably reported by the General Education Subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee.

As serious as the numbers involved is the developing trend toward younger runaways. Although a few years ago the typical runaway was 16 or 17, today's runaway is probably no more than 15 years old. Moreover, there has recently been a marked increase among very young runaways. New York City has reported that 43 percent of its runaways are in the 11 to 14 age category. Further, available evidence indicates that the majority of runaways are female. In some cities, such as San Diego, the ratio is as high as two females for every male. Since running away is a juvenile status offense, it has serious legal consequences for the young people involved. While the applicable age varies somewhat from state to state, a runaway under 18 years old