Mr. VOLKMER. Would you know of any criminal data involving the U.S. district courts that you do not presently incorporate within your system? Mr. SPANIOL. Yes, sir. Mr. MCCAFFERTY. We consider a case when its docketed by the U.S. attorney and brought before the clerk of the court, and filed. Any matters prior to that, you are thinking, I think, of drafting complaints before the U.S. attorney-other matters we would not have knowledge of. Mr. VOLKMER. So you included any type of administration-speedy! Mr. MCCAFFERTY. Under "speedy trial offenses," minor and above, we do include-and misdemeanor, no petty offenses unless they are tried by a judge. Mr. VOLKMER. All right, now. Mr. SPANIOL. I should supplement that by saying that we do have a reporting system for the U.S. magistrates to cover offenses on military reservations. That report comes to us in the form of a summary report showing mostly traffic cases which are petty offenses. We do not have separate individual reports on those cases. For every indictment and every information filed by the U.S. attorney-we do receive a separate report. Mr. VOLKER. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. CONYERS. Thank you again. Our next witness is Dr. Albert Biderman, from the Bureau of Social Science Research. He comes to us in a relationship to his work with white-collar-crime statistics, having authored numerous artcies, surveys, studies, reports, and has worked on a number of projects in this connection. We welcome you before the subcommittee and invite you to proceed in your own way. STATEMENT OF ALBERT D. BIDErman, ConcernING A PROPOSED BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS Is a special pleasure to have the opportunity to present a statement to this mmittee in that I have followed its work closely for a number of years and I aczem the role it has played. 4: regard to both the bill introduced in the Senate by Mr. Kennedy and the uberms.ive provisions in the bill you are currently proposing, Mr. Chairman, I esteve bat either measure, or some combination of provisions of the two, will egresiti, a major step forward in the long history of efforts to build a coherent mami, ystem of statistics on law and justice. I have had the opportunity to disuraeniar provisions at some length with your staff on various occasions ang de past two years and I have also made written response to requests ents both from this committee and from the Justice Department's usion Systems Policy Review Group staff. ON ORGANIZATIONAL SEPARATION BY FUNCTION vasem with the matter you are considering today extends further than ComPrestreint with research and statistics on crime, even though that has sub ntensive involvement for me during the past 15 years. Fundainterest is more general and I was drawn originally to the subject Farough a broader engagement with the question of how the public and public policy come to be informed about the major developments our national life. My inquiry into crime statitics led me to conclude that end up to their bad reputation. I have been concerned about statis tical indicators in other specific areas such as military and international affairs, work, and education, as well as social statistics, generally considered. The same thrust toward achieving some coherence, coordination and improved scope and refinement that the Subcommittee is applying to Justice Statistics is also animating considerable intensive current attention toward the nation's statistical system as a whole. I hope the concerns you have don't get lost in the current gencral planning for national statistical functions which tend to be dominated by more central preoccupations of economists and demographers. Eleven years ago, I gave testimony before the House Subcommitte on Census and Statistics in its excellent "Hearings Regarding a Proposed National Criminal Justice Statistics Center" (90th Congress, 2nd Session, Serial No. 90-38). I am highly adverse to repeating what is already on paper, even if that is quite old paper, but I presented some general views then a few of which may merit repeating now. These are on the implications I saw for statistics organization in the important role that crime and justice statistics play among all the statistics that shape our Judgments regarding where the society and its particular communities stand and where they are heading. Offense counts are the "moral statistic" that for two centuries have been used as a basis for reaching conclusions about the basic vitality of the social order and the goodness of the country's citizens. Because ⚫ crime statistics are so important to these critical social judgments, great weight has been attached to getting statistics that would inform social judgments. The source of data for these statistics, however, had to be data from the agencies with action responsibility-police, courts, corrections, etc. The result has been unsatisfactory for all concerned. Action agencies have not been terribly well-served by pressures on them to collect data that were so general and highly aggregated as to have little fit to their immediate problems and their particular rules and procedures. The general indicator uses of data were also poorly served because the action agencies were suspected of producing only data that would not result in adverse judgment of their needs or their performance. Further, not all agencies had good capabilities as statistical bookkeepers, and national data had to adapt to the lowest common denominator of local agency statistical recording capability. In my 1968 testimony, therefore, I stressed the importance of some organizational separation of crime statistics in accordance with the different levels of social organization they were to serve. Separate organizational systems are needed for (1) the informational data necessary at the operational level, for example, the police precinct or the jail, (2) the intelligence statistics needed at intermediate levels of administration, such as for heads of large police departments or the planning offices of counties or states, (3) the knowledge applicable to formation of broad social policy and for the enlightenment of public debate and consensus to which such policy formation is responsible. The last and most crucial function is perhaps stated even better by the language of Sec. 4(a) of H.R. 2108. The issues remain with us to the present day, and, in different ways, each of the proposals relating to Justice Statistics activities attempts to deal with them. In 1968, as now, I would prefer to see at least part of the social indicator mission insulated more completely than in the Kennedy-Rodino proposal. In addition, at least for the most general level of analysis and social reporting for broad policy and enlightenment functions, I would like to see adequate attention to crime and justice indicators by some general statistical agency with broad purview for integrated social reporting across the entire range of economic and social concerns, rather than one solely preoccupied with justice matters. I hope the current effort in the Executive Office on national statistical reorganization will recommend such an agency. Whether or not a new general statistics agency is created, there will remain a need for more specialized attention to justice statistics for "informed public consideration of the problems of crime and justice" and for appraisal of the workings of our institutions in these fields. Such functions deserve some independence and buffering from politics as Congressman Conyers' proposal advocates, or that Senator Bayh's bill also aims toward. But it does not follow that all statistical activities in the justice area should be so divorced from the direction and control of the Attorney General. To do so is either to deny the importance of statistical functions to the exercise of the responsibilities of the Department for which the Attorney General is responsible or else to strip the responsible officer of control over an important set of tools needed to exercise those responsibilities. H T To Regreta, for example, we probably will MSPs of the country to collect the data with tenses, arrests, dispositions, These working relationships with wse FBI probably the most suitable gs Decessary for this important 3. excently red to carry out anlayses The aw enforcement system. Such uses of Ana and reporting of the highly aggregated earance rates as a measure of general amy that might be more suitably performed TS med and is conducted along lines largely set . It world well benefit from further advice and ac. Stanstes Bureau could provide. This autonomous early with regard to the function of these This ring on in society at large, with the law be responsibility for handling these data in the de peting function and best inform government and prociems. st une ns, such as those stated in Sec. 304 (a) (2) measure have to depend upon the data produced by strative and operational system, agencies having stave collection resources that are totally autonomous strative agencies, as well. The National Crime Surve would well use others. Perhaps the National Electronic e suggests a model. It is designed to collect data on products. It uses its own statistical personnel in a hospitals from which the data are collected. This kind of collecting information on crime from, but not through sample of law enforcement agencies. Analogous efforts are the government to gain data on highway accidents, un mony on a National Crminal Justice Statistics Center, I disities in more detail. I also stressed that such systems can Potection of the anonymity of sources and subjects (whether localities) and other devices which obviate many sources ate uses of the data furnished. ON DEFINING TOPICS AND OBJECTIVES Another important concern is that the language of legislation will not be interpreted as too specifically restrictive with regard to permissible objectives and topics for statistics, as well as for research and categorical programs. It is important that legislation not choke off prematurely some orientation to problems that may prove to be most productive in substantially relieving the country from the burdens of crime or for elevating the level of civility in our social life. For example, I wonder if the language used in H.R. 2108 is sufficiently conducive to following-up in statistical activities some important suggestions from previous research. I have in mind various findings with implications for the crime field that may be described by an analogy to medicine. Medicine recognizes that many symptoms may be misread, that often the symptoms are the major problem rather than the disease (as in the case of the common cold), and that some attempted cures can be worse than the disease. In past studies of the effects of crime, for example, it has been found that many people impoverish their lives to a degree totally out of proportion to the hazards they face from the crime they fear-particularly as considered in relation to other hazards of their environment. In a study I did in 1965, and in others subsequent studies summarized by Prof. DuBow of Northwestern University, it was evident that many people react to what they see as disorderliness in neighborhoods as signs that the neighborhood is a dangerous one. The perceptions are not always correct. In such instances, the best program activity may be symptomtreating-for example tidying-up streets, buildings and grounds, providing alternatives to street loitering and drinking, segregated locales and outlets for youthful boisterousness, etc. In the same situation, certain kinds of "anti-crime" programs might exacerbate misplaced alarm and provoke the hostility of youth or of groups with life styles that are not sufficiently sedate from the perspective of dominant middleclass norms. Resources also get misdirected from the true dangers of crime. In the area of public safety, as in medicine, there are conditions where the most useful thing to do may be to control the "fever" or control "allergic overreaction." Our statistics program should be encouraged to take "fever and symptom" readings in its surveys, as well as direct measures of crime. That means indicators of attitudes toward crime and data on what people do to try to ward off the threats of crime they perceive. In the National Crime Survey, for example, while I would put lower priority on such measures than on perfecting the counting of victimization and explanatory variables for understanding crime incidence distributions, it is important to pursue the repeated finding that levels of fear and costly protection do not correlate well with actual victimization experience. Because of the occasonally-held view that federal statistics should stick to simple, objective data, I would prefer it to be clear that some “subjective" data are extremely useful in the crime statistics field just as consumer intentions and confidence are in the economic field. I would also prefer the language of the Administration's proposal that would place civil and administrative aspects of the system of justice within the Office of Justice Statistics domain. It is not easy or wise to separate out for statistics things that are so intertwined in the real organization of our legal and enforcement systems. I will return to this matter in connection with white-collar crime statistics. In looking at the lessons of the past for future guidance regarding the programs you are considering, the record this Subcommittee has compiled suggests caution regarding overly-sweeping conclusions regarding how well the country has been served by its LEAA programs. If the data on crime and techniques for assessing program effects are as feeble as it is suggested they are, may our judgments be off? I would not quarrel with many judgments that particular activities were off the right track or worse. What would have been true had we not had the LEAA programs, however? If we examine historical demographic charts for the past 30 years, it is apparent that we are now just about at the end of long-sustained period of increase in precisely those components of the population that are most productive of crime statistics. This development was part and parcel of other radical changes affecting our society including the adjustment we have gone through from a heavily-defense oriented nation to a peacetime economy. One aspect of this process has been that we have moved out of the armed forces and retain in civil society that large percentage of the youth population which once da. len o mniform. Over 80 percent of men in my age WHITS-COLLAR CRIME STATISTICS as suggested that I might present to the Subcommitt we are doar or white-collar crime statistics as it may keep my remarks brief at the risk of being the work underway solely for its bearing on the Collanttee have deplored the lack of any stati iform. Crime Reports" that might continuousy and public officials to the magnitude and the i wante-coliar crime problem. With financial assĮST Lejeriment's National Institute of Law Enforcement we are exploring the availability of data on white-collar Debena, perė, tue quality of the data, and the prospects for their sysmega" it into generally useable, comprehensible and digestibie we are exploring " I refer to a one-year project begun last Den of Social Science Research which is directed jointly by Beiss Jr. of Yale University and myself. Because the list is fairly de tates and qualifications of the three other members of the the consultants to our project in writing to the Committee if note that these consultants are all scholars who have conmeore this Committee has built on this topic and we are pleased „ “ue Committee's choice of witnesses affords endorsement to ASUTADES Attachment A). to the Committee that we approached this project with consider* Eidence because we knew at the outset that we faced a ated job. We will have to deal with massive amounts of inforamong almost innumerable offices of the Federal establishment. rude of different forms of information and reporting systems ered as wrong by hundreds of different statutes-acts which der or as victim any level of actor from a single individual social organization and in which these levels may figure as vicjer in almost every conceivable combination. I have just begun to plexities of the problem of which we were aware at the outset examinantly tax the time of this Committee, if not its patience, were g all of them here. If it pleases the Committee, I can submit for er we prepared for this project which examines many of these |