CRIME IN THE NATIONAL CAPITAL

PART 1-REGIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CRIME PROBLEM AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON CRIME

TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 1969

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

Washington, D.C.

The committee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to call, in room 6226, New Senate Office Building, Senator Joseph D. Tydings (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Senators Tydings, Bible, and Mathias.

Also present: John T. McEvoy, staff director; James S. Medill, assistant counsel; and Edith Moore, assistant chief clerk.

The CHAIRMAN. Today the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia begins its extensive hearings into crime, law enforcement, and the criminal justice system in Washington.

Our purpose is to improve the enforcement of existing laws and to provide new laws where necessary in order to reduce the number of criminals on the streets in the Washington area.

In 1966, President Johnson's Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia made its voluminous report. This report will be the touchstone for these hearings. It recommends the essential framework for the reduction of crime and violence in the National Capital.

We do not need another report and we do not need more studies. What we need is energy and commitment to implement the recommendations which were made in the 1966 report.

We will seek in these hearings to learn how well the Crime Commission recommendations have been implemented by the agencies of the District and Federal Governments. We will learn where new legislation is necessary to implement those recommendations. We will seek to illuminate and find answers to new problems which have arisen since the report was made more than 2 years ago.

For our leadoff witness, we will hear from Mr. Herbert J. Miller who was chairman of the President's Crime Commission in 1966. He was Assistant Attorney General of the United States in charge of the Criminal Divison during the Presidency of John F. Kennedy. He will testify on the implementation of the 1966 report.

Tomorrow we will examine the question of how crime in the District of Columbia affects the entire metropolitan area. Witnesses will include officials of the Council of Governments and local officials from the Washington metropolitan area.

At subsequent hearings, we will examine the rising drug traffic, the prison system, the judiciary of the District of Columbia, the court system, juvenile crime, and police needs and operations. We want to enact whatever legislation proves necessary to get criminals off the streets, into the trial process in 60 days, and if found guilty into a correctional system which actually corrects and trains them to be law-abiding citizens. Our goal is to reduce the threat of crime to every resident in the District, Maryland, and Virginia by making our criminal justice system really work.

Senator Bible, do you have any comments, sir?

Senator BIBLE. Mr. Chairman, only to commend you for starting these all-important hearings. I think we recognize the gravity of the crime situation in the metropolitan area.

I thoroughly agree that the important problem that we face is the implementation of the very fine report that was worked out by the President's Commission on Crime headed by Herb Miller. As is the case in so many of these studies and recommendations, they rest snugly on the shelf and gather dust with nothing further being done.

The real proof of the success of this hearing will be the implementation of the recommendations made within this very fine study and commission which is before us and on which there are some 262 recommendations.

One of the main ingredients, of course, as in all of these problems, is that all-important word "money" and I know that is important here. I noticed in the press in the last few days that Mayor Walter Washington is seeking some $112 million in addition to putting greater emphasis in making our streets safe because this we must do-not only here but everywhere in the Nation.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Mathias?

Senator MATHIAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As we begin these hearings which will cover an extensive period of time, we should take note that we are viewing the crime problem in the Nation's capital on a metropolitan basis. The chairman has very properly, very wisely, called on not only witnesses from the District of Columbia itself but from all of the surrounding areas.

This recognizes the unhappy phenomenon of our time which is that we have beltway crime in existence. Crime does not recognize political boundaries, political jurisdictions and subdivisions, but what affects one part of a metropolitan area affects all of it.

We have to have very clearly in mind that beltway crime poses new and unusual problems for the Nation's capital just as it does for every great metropolitan area in the country. This is in essence what we are recognizing today as we begin hearings which reflect upon this problem.

I would like to say further, Mr. Chairman, I for one-and I am sure I speak for every member of this committee express a very real sense of appreciation to Herbert "Jack" Miller for his participation and for his leadership in the District of Columbia Crime Commission. It was a tough job then. It will be a tough job as we implement the findings and the recommendations of the Commission. Jack Miller not only agreed to undertake that job then, but he has continued his interest. He has considered it as a continuing obligation. He is an outstanding example-when we talk about citizen participation in

fighting crime. He is a man who has plenty to do with his own family and with his own pursuits.

He is sacrificing both in the public interest and as a part of the citizen participation, and I salute him for the efforts he has made in this behalf and thank him for his willingness to be here today.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Mathias.

Mr. Miller, would you be kind enough to take the witness chair? On behalf of the District Committee we are delighted to welcome you here. I might add that while I was U.S. attorney for the district of Maryland, Mr. Miller was one of my bosses as Assistant Attorney General in the criminal division. He had an outstanding record in the Department of Justice duirng his tenure.

STATEMENT OF HERBERT J. MILLER, FORMER CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON CRIME

Mr. MILLER. I thank the chairman and the two Senators very much for their very kind statements.

I would like to start off the hearing today, as a part of my testimony, to give a brief review of where we were in 1965. There was increasing attention being paid to the crime problem. It was decided that there should be a Presidential Commission appointed. This Commission was put into effect by an Executive order in July 1965. I don't think anyone concerned realized the enormity of the problem that we had undertaken. I can assure you that I did not.

The commissioners themselves reflected all viewpoints with respect to the law enforcement problem, not only in the District of Columbia, but nationwide. For example, one of the members of the Commission was the current Secretary of State, Mr. William Rogers. A former juvenile court judge, Judge Lawson, was a member of the committee. We had one of the finest trial judges anywhere in the United States; Judge David A. Pine as a member of the committee.

In sum, what I am trying to emphasize when we talk in terms of polarization on ideas of law enforcement-the so-called liberal, the so-called conservative view-I am trying to indicate that the Commission had the advantage of all viewpoints. It not only took advantage of those viewpoints but it held extensive public hearings and held extensive private conferences with interested citizens of the District of Columbia.

The report is more of a factfinding effort than anything else as far as I am concerned.

I have found, and I am sure both of you Senators have found, that once you find what the facts are; the recommendations, the solutions, are fairly easy to come by in most instances. What took us so long, what resulted in such a voluminous report, was that we had to find out what the facts were-what the facets were of the crime problem in the District of Columbia. I was surprised indeed that we knew so little about how the system worked and about the crime problem itself.

Prior to the release of the full report which was released on January 1, 1967, an interim report on the police department was released. This report of the Commission was based substantially on an exceedingly fine research job done by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. I am happy to say that the police department started almost

immediately in terms of attempting to implement that part of the report.

Perhaps the best part of having a report such as we have here in the District of Columbia is that it gives everybody a basis for intelligent action. This is a very important thing in the criminal law field. It is so easy to take the approach that we should throw everybody in jail, that we don't have to worry about the peoples' civil rights being violated, there is no police brutality, or preventive detention.

These are all catch words and yet if you look at what the basic facts are, you can take those who consider themselves liberals and conservatives and middle-of-the-roaders, and in practically each instance you will have an agreement as to what should be done once you know what the facts are.

But if you are ignorant of the facts, if the facts have not been made. clear, then you end up with meaningless controversy in the District of Columbia and which, frankly, is divisive and is not helpful to the crime fight at all.

I am surprised, I am disappointed in what has happened since the report has come out. It would be easy to sit back and compliment those aspects and parts of the District of Columbia Government and the Federal Government who have in fact taken vigorous action, who have attempted to fulfill the obligations which the facts of the crime report laid bare.

But the trouble is there has been too little of this type of vigorous action. There has not been enough attention paid to long-range planning, to looking to the solution of the immediate problem but rather we have had a system of further studies, further studies, and further studies.

What concerns all of us is that when we are talking about the crime problem in the District of Columbia, we are talking not about some esoteric, sociological, philosophical matter. We are talking about basically people being hurt.

I can remember years ago there was much controversy about criminal responsibility. Where you have a Negro youth who never had a chance, no education, no family background, undercultured, no training whatsoever that would qualify him for a job and he ends up as a defendant in a criminal case.

The thinking was that he should be somehow treated in a way which would guarantee that his rights, whatever they were, were not in fact violated.

The problem with that was the society felt they owed that man a debt which, in fact, they may. But what we found out subsequently and what has really now come home to roost, and I think has caused a substantial reassessment in this community, is who in fact are the victims of crime in the District of Columbia.

Over 80 percent of the murder victims are Negro. Over 86 percent of the rape victims are Negro. Even in the stolen-car area, well over 75 percent of those who have their cars stolen are Negro, so we are not talking about a white vindictive society versus the Negro community. What we are talking about here is how are we who have responsibilities in this area as citizens or as Government officials are going to take steps to insure that the residents of the ghetto area have what

they do not have now, and that is the right to walk their streets, the right to be free from fear and the right to be free from being harmed by other individuals who prey on them in the ghetto area. It is basically that simple.

When we in the Crime Commission had a survey made of some of the high-crime-ghetto areas, we did not get back complaints about police brutality at all. What we got back were citizens demanding more policemen better trained policemen-stiffer sentences and in fact requesting that there be a stepup in the law enforcement process, not because they wanted somebody to go to jail, but because they thought the Government should guarantee them, to a certain extent at least, the right not to be hit on the head as they were walking down the street or to have their daughters raped as they were coming home from school.

I submit that is not much to ask in terms of governmental concern for an individual.

It always bothers me and I am sure it must everybody who has looked at the problem, that in the District of Columbia we have 800,000 citizens. We have 69 square miles. We have a substantial budget. We have the power of the Federal Government located here. Yet, in this limited geographic area, with this really small population, there has been an absolute abysmal failure to meet and to take on the crime problem and to resolve it for the protection of our citizens.

I would like to go back and talk in terms of 1965 or 1966. We talk in terms of the law enforcement process as a method whereby the rights of individuals whether they be defendants or whether they be members of society are protected.

Let us look at what the Commission found. In 1965 you had some 25,000 felonies committed in the District of Columbia. You had approximately 6,000 adult arrests, 1,500 indictments, and approximately 987 convictions, so you are talking about less than 1,000 convictions out of 25,000 felonies.

Under those circumstances, it is perfectly apparent to anybody who looks at it that the system is not providing the deterrent effect that it is supposed to provide and is designed to provide.

Unfortunately, if the problem was bad 2 or 3 years ago, the problem has gotten substantially worse today.

Senator MATHIAS. Mr. Miller, while you are pausing for just a moment, let me ask one question to put your testimony in the national context.

You have said, and I certainly agree, that the principal victims of the high crime rate today were the ghetto dwellers. This is not anything unusual in the Washington area. This is reflected in Baltimore and other large areas of the country.

Mr. MILLER. Yes; I do not have actual statistics but I am sure this is true.

Senator MATHIAS. This is the urban picture of which Washington is a typical example.

Mr. MILLER. It is the inner-city Negro that is bearing the brunt of the crime problem. When the community fails to take action to bring under control this menace, it is those individuals who are bearing the brunt of it. It is not the suburban dwellers. It is not the upper northwest dweller. It is the people in the downtown and residents of the ghetto areas who bear the brunt.