Mr. MIKVA. It includes the bill itself, the report of why we came out the way we did on some of these issues, and I understand that Professor Morris will go into some detail on costing which we know, as you know from your own experiences, sometimes ends up being the most important question to resolve on this kind of legislation. We think we came up with some hard nosed figures for that time. I suspect that the costs have gone up, because the statistics have gone up. But, at least, we had some, we thought, fairly realistic estimates of what it would cost.

Finally, I would merely say that I am delighted, from the chairman's comments, that it is clear that he, too, feels that the time for this idea has come, and I cannot think of a better place where the District of Columbia could be the kind of leader for the country that it ought to be. Frankly, with one or two exceptions, most of the stateside experiences that we looked at in terms of these kinds of laws were not as satisfactory as they ought to be. The California statute, for instance, is really a kind of a smear and deceit; it is just an amendment to the welfare laws, really. We are hoping that the District of Columbia's can kind of be a model not only for the citizens who live here but also for the rest of the States to pattern their own laws after. It is clear that this kind of compensation scheme is going to have to grow.

I will not take any more of the committee's time. I will be happy to answer any questions you might have, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have a "Good Samaritan" provision in your law?

Mr. MIKVA. Yes, we do; not drafted the same way, in the definition section of "victim."

The CHAIRMAN. We will put Congressman Mikva's complete prepared statement in the record.

(The prepared statement submitted by Congressman Abner J. Mikva reads in full as follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ABNER J. MIKVA, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

Senator Tydings, distinguished members of the District of Columbia Committee:

I am grateful for this opportunity to testify before this Committee on a subject which I believe is of great importance to the District of Columbia, and which can be of great importance to the rest of the country. I thank the Chairman for his gracious invitation.

In 1966, as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Illinois House of Representatives, I headed a commission to study the possibilities of a criminal injuries compensation act for the state of Illinois. Our commission, known as the Commission on Compensation to Victims of Violence, met and held hearings from late 1965 until early 1967, when our final report was made. The Commission was composed of members of the Illinois House and Senate as well as distinguished private practitioners of law and legal scholars. The Secretary of the Commission was Professor Norval Morris, who is one of the world's leading experts on compensation plans for victims of crime. In its final report, a copy of which I have for insertion in the record of these hearings if the Committee so desires, the Illinois Commission unanimously recommended the adoption of a criminal injuries compensation statute. The report contains a draft of the recommended statute.

Mr. Chairman, the Illinois Commission report summarizes the findings of our investigation and thinking on this important subject. I will not deal here with matters of detail. What I would like to outline briefly for you is the underlying rationale of a compensation plan for victims of crime. Although the plan which

our commission recommended for Illinois is narrower in some respects than the bill S. 2936, I believe that the underlying rationale-a rationale which I heartily endorse is the same.

Compensation for injuries to victims of crimes follows logically from the purposes of social organization and the criminal law. Men organize themselves in societies in order to better protect themselves from the depredations of nature and of other men. This is really the reason that the first men banded together to work, hunt and live in groups: because collective protection from the threat of violence was more effective than the protection that any single man could provide for himself.

If societies are organized at least partly for the benefits of collective protection from danger, the criminal law is the instrument which society has settled upon to define antisocial behavior and to provide sanctions against it. In line with this fundamental function of the criminal law, citizens pay taxes and provide other public support for the institutions and officials which carry out the criminal law. Each citizen contributes some of his time and his resources to insure that the criminal law operates effectively to protect him against the dangers at which the criminal sanction is aimed.

My purpose in this brief excursion into social and political philosophy is to make the point that when a victim is injured by a criminal act, society has failed in its fundamental responsibility to that citizen. Society has failed to carry out the basic purpose for which governments are instituted among men and for which they are supported with taxes, political participation, and in other ways. It is this failure of the system to protect an individual citizen for which we seek to compensate victims of crime. It is natural, of course, to measure the amount of an injured citizen's compensation by the seriousness of his personal injury.

A criminal injuries compensation plan seeks to distribute evenly or proportionally among the members of a society the financial burden of the society's failures to protect individual citizens Without such a compensation plan, the loss from criminal injuries falls unevenly, almost capriciously, upon those unfortunate few among us who are at the wrong place at the wrong time the time when the criminal strikes The very arbitrariness by which the victim of crime is selected should alert all of us to the need which every citizen has for some compensation. It is through sheer mischance that he is injured as a result of a criminal act. The next time it could be any one of us.

There are numerous practical reasons, beyond the philosophical justifications I have discussed, for instituting a criminal injuries compensation system. Such a system relieves burdens on the welfare mechanism; it allows the offender to contribute (where that is practical) to making his victim financially whole; and it focuses attention on the victims of crime and provides a healthy balance to our proper concern for the rights of criminal defendants-a concern which is all too susceptible to distortion and misinterpretation. Perhaps most important, emphasizing society's responsibility to compensate victims of crime puts the problem of criminal conduct in proper perspective; it shows it as a social problem which all citizens have a stake in solving rather than a problem of "bad guys" or "congenital criminals" who are the worry of the policy and no one else.

Mr. Chairman, I will not take more of the Committee's time. As I indicated earlier, I would be happy to submit for the record the report of our Illinois Commission on Compensation to Victims of Crimes of Violence. I would also be happy at this point to answer any questions which the Committee may have. Mr. MIKVA. A victim means or includes a person killed or injured as a result of a crime or where violence perpetrated being killed or injured while attempting to assist the person against whom a crime of violence is being perpetrated or attempted if the attempt of assistance would be expected of a reasonable man under the circumstances.

I am glad of your concern, because frankly, we had some trouble, with some questions raised by law enforcement officials. I think, as you know, Mr. Chairman, they are not widely enthusiastic about volunteers in some kinds of situations. While they are all Good Samaritans, they do not want private law enforcement to be given any support and credence by this kind of a bill. They were very troubled that we not make the Good Samaritan provision so broad that we would, in effect,

encourage the citizen to take on the role of policeman. Most of them urge that in certain kinds of situations the best thing a concerned citizen can do is call the police rather than to try to handle some of these situations themselves.

In any event, if there are any other questions, I would be glad to answer them.

Otherwise, I will offer this report.

The CHAIRMAN. Fine. Thank you very much, Mr. Mikva. We appreciate your being with us.

We are delighted to have Chief Jerry Wilson, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department of the Nation's Capital.

STATEMENT OF JERRY V. WILSON, CHIEF, METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Chief WILSON. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning, Chief. Nice to have you.

Chief WILSON. For the record, I am Jerry V. Wilson, Chief of Police for the Metropolitan Police Department.

Mr. Chairman, certainly far too little attention has been paid to the victims of crime who suffer injury or financial loss for which no compensation is made.

Daily, I receive letters from residents of the District of Columbia and visitors to our Nation's Capital who have been victimized by vicious criminals. I have great sympathy for many of these people and realize fully that some of the losses which they suffer may have far-reaching results on their lives, and that a criminal act may be the cause for them to suffer pain and great hardship, in some instances. I understand that there is some precedence for this bill in that New Zealand, Great Britain, New York, California, and Maryland, for examples, have statutes for compensating victims of crimes.

S. 2936 provides, in effect, that society rather than the individual victim will bear the economic cost of crime, at least in those incidents covered by the language of the bill.

there is)

in Testifying as an individual citizen, I can see the merit of attempting to shift from the innocent, hapless victim the often major financial cost of his encounter with a criminal from which society has not protected him.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you mean the period of time that he may be out from work recuperating in the hospital?

Chief WILSON. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman, the time he may be out of work, and, of course, his hospital costs. Quite often, individuals are faced with uncompensated medical costs and loss of work. And, of course, there is also a great concern, I think, with property crime which is not covered by this bill. This, of course, would be a much more expensive proposal, however.

I do have reservations, as you have expressed, with the compensation for pain and suffering as set forth in the bill. And, of course, the bill does not advocate compensation for persons bearing an economic loss who are not injured or killed. For example, Mr. Chairman, if you want to talk to a long-suffering victim of crime, you need to hear from a poor person who had his expensive television set stolen and still he is making the payments. This person really sits there with a fester

ing mood in him also, particularly the poor. Property crimes, of course, hit the affluent and sometimes hit them quite hard, but the person who is really hard hit by the crime is the poor person in the ghetto who is the frequent victim of crime and who loses money and personal possessions to criminals.

Testifying as a police official, I would note that the enactment of this bill is not likely to either increase or reduce crime rates.

Therefore, I would go on record as favoring the humanitarian purposes of the bill while stating that it is unlikely to have any direct effect on law enforcement.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Chief Wilson.

On another subject, Chief Wilson-I have been kicking this around for a while. What do you think of a proposal for a standard reward being offered any citizen of the District for evidence or testimony, say $1,000, leading to the conviction of any person involved in armed robbery? Or, say, $150 for any testimony or evidence by a person leading to the conviction of someone for the crime of burglary or theft?

Do you think that would be of help to you in solving crimes?

Chief WILSON. Mr. Chairman, I do not know about that being a great help. We do have some rewards; in fact, the Police Department makes rewards from time to time to individuals who come forward and give information.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you give it some thought?

I wonder, with the number of unsolved crimes that we have, if we could get the cooperation of the media, television and radio, and if we could pass a law in the District where a citizen would know there is a standard $1,000 reward for evidence leading to the conviction of any person involved in armed robbery or armed assault. That is, assault and robbery with a weapon. And, say, maybe, $100 reward for evidence leading to the conviction of anybody involved in a theft or burglary. It might, in the community, itself, put a lot more pressure and a lot more assistance would develop in solving some of these cases. I do not know whether it would or not.

Chief WILSON. I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, but there are problems with it.

We do, as I say, make some relatively minor rewards in the Police Department itself in some cases. We make some fairly major rewards in some other major cases. The liquor dealers, for example, have a standing offer for rewards in terms of holdups of liquor stores.

The problem with a broad program for arrest and conviction is going to be, I think off the top of my head, such that the individual citizen who comes forward is going to have to have a good deal of conversation to make him willing to go through the many appearances that are involved, as you well know, in our present court system.

Another problem is quite often we do get information from citizens but, for one reason or another, the cases do not get prosecuted, not related to the fact of the system.

I think there is conceivable merit to what you are saying, but I think we would have to find ways to compensate witnesses, particularly to overcome the process by which criminal cases are now defended in this jurisdiction, and that is the process of delay and repeated appearances of witnesses.

I think there may be some merit to it, and I will be glad to talk with our own police officials about it and discuss it with you further. The CHAIRMAN. Fine. I did not mean to get into that.

Thank you very much, Chief Wilson.

We have a representative of the Mayor, Mr. George Porter.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE PORTER, ASSISTANT CORPORATION COUN-
SEL, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA GOVERNMENT, REPRESENTING
WALTER E. WASHINGTON, MAYOR-COMMISSIONER OF THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Porter, we are delighted to welcome you.
Do you have a letter from Mr. Duncan?

Mr. PORTER. Yes, sir; I do.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have anything in addition to that?
Mr. PORTER. May I say what is in the letter?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. We will incorporate the letter in the record at this time.

(A letter dated December 17, 1969, from Walter E. Washington, Commissioner, by Charles T. Duncan, Assistant to the Commissioner, follows:)

Hon. JOSEPH D. TYDINGS,

THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Washington, D.C., December 17, 1969.

Chairman, Committee on the District of Columbia,
United States Senate, Washington, D.C.

DEAR SENATOR TYDINGS: The Commissioner of the District of Columbia has for report S. 2936, 91st Congress, a bill "To provide for the compensation of persons injured by certain criminal acts in the District of Columbia." The bill, the short title of which is the "District of Columbia Criminal Injuries Compensation Act," would establish a Presidentially appointed three member District of Columbia Violent Crimes Compensation Commission. The Commission could order payment of compensation, up to $25,000, in any case in which a person is injured or killed as a result of certain specified offenses which occur within the District of Columbia. The Commission could order the payment of compensation to or on behalf of the injured person, or in the case of death of the victim of the offense, to or for the benefit of the victim's dependents or closest relative. Payments would be made by the Commissioner of the District of Columbia, upon order of the District of Columbia Violent Crimes Compensation Commission.

The Commissioner is sympathetic to the fact that all too often the victim of a criminal offense must himself bear the cost of medical treatment and other costs resulting from the commission of such offense.

Several States have studied the subject of compensation of victims of crime and four States (New York, California, Massachusetts, and Maryland) have enacted legislation establishing a crime compensation program, with California's program, which began on January 1, 1966 being the first State program. In addition, New Zealand enacted a compensation plan in 1963 and Great Britain put a similar program into operation in 1964. The Commissioner believes that the experience of these other jurisdictions should be carefully considered particularly with respect to the effectiveness and the cost of these various schemes that have been adopted. Until this study has been made the Commissioner believes that the funds could be better utilized in crime prevention.

With respect to funds for the administration of the bill and payment of compensation awards, enactment of the bill could well result in the need for rather large sums of money. Since the District Government is to be responsible for such costs, the Commissioner is quite concerned with this added demand on the financial resources of the District of Columbia. This feature of the bill would be particularly troublesome since the Commissioner would be required to pay the compensation determined by the Commission without being able to review the Commission's actions in a particular case.