The Dissent: How the Townsend Report Fails to Address the Roots of Juvenile Crime and What to Do About It
About the Authors
Robert M. McCarthy, J.D.
Robert M. McCarthy is the named principal of a general-practice law firm located in Bethesda, Maryland. His particular concentration is in juvenile cases; he has handled approximately 5,000 such cases in the last 15 years. Previously, he was a contract attorney with the Maryland state Public Defender’s Office and the Department of Human Resources.
McCarthy is the prior chairman of the Juvenile Law Section of the Montgomery County Bar Association and was selected to be the alter ego representative of the Montgomery County Juvenile Court Judges to the bar association.
He has taught the juvenile law module of the street law course at the Montgomery County Detention Center, and is a past judge of the Montgomery County Bar Association’s mock trial competition.
He has also been a member of the Montgomery County Commission on Health’s Task Force on At-Risk Youth. He was subsequently appointed by the Montgomery county executive, and confirmed by the county council, to be a member of the Juvenile Court Committee.
McCarthy is the author of the current handbook on the practice of juvenile law in Montgomery County, titled The Nuts and Bolts of Juvenile Law. He has participated in the recording of training tapes for social workers confronting child sexual abuse.
While in law school (Potomac School of Law), he was the editor of the law review and a member of the moot court board. He previously received his undergraduate degree in finance from the University of Maryland, College Park and is a graduate of Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C.
He has provided voluntary legal services to various charities involved with youth, including the Boy Scouts of America, the Boys’ and Girls’ Homes of Maryland, the “Christmas in April” programs in Washington, D.C. and Montgomery County, Maryland, and the Silver Spring Community Vision Homeless Shelter.
He is a prior recipient of a governor’s citation from then-Governor William Donald Schaeffer for his work with youth, and he has been recognized by the Maryland General Assembly.
In 1995, he was appointed by Governor Parris N. Glendening to serve upon the Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform of the Cabinet Council on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, the latter often referred to as the “Townsend Commission.” As a member of this group, McCarthy was uniquely qualified to write this Calvert Issue Brief.
McCarthy is the former president and Paul Harris fellow of a local Rotary International Club. He has been elected by the citizens of Bethesda to be their representative on the local Republican central committee. He is also a past president of the Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School board. He has been knighted by James Cardinal Hickey to the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem and is a regular columnist for Our Parish Times.
McCarthy is married to the former Lori Nelson and has four children, ages two to nine. When not active in the community, he enjoys camping and fishing with his children.
David B. Muhlhausen
David B. Muhlhausen, a research intern for the Calvert Institute, greatly assisted McCarthy with the writing of this essay. Muhlhausen is a youth counselor at the Charles H. Hickey, Jr. School and is a graduate student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is the author of a prior article for the Calvert Institute, “Reform Schools Reformed: How Competitive Tendering Saves Your Money,” Calvert News, Vol. I, No. 3, Summer 1996.
Executive Summary
When I first heard that Bob McCarthy was interested in writing a “dissenting opinion” by way of a response to the Cabinet Council on Criminal and Juvenile Justice’s recommendations for the juvenile justice system, I was more than pleased. McCarthy had been a member of a task force of the cabinet council, generally known as the Townsend Commission, a gubernatorially appointed panel that earlier this year released a report exonerating the state Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) from just about any blame for youth crime in Maryland and rewarding the agency with an additional $6.2 million of taxpayer funds. Though sensitive to the nature of the issues under discussion, McCarthy pulls no punches in this essay. With the invaluable assistance of Dave Muhlhausen, a youth counselor at the Hickey reform school, just outside Baltimore, Maryland, McCarthy exposes exactly what is wrong with the Townsend Commission’s – and, by extension, the Glendening administration’s – plans for the future of juvenile justice in this state.
The central issue is this: Research has unequivocally proven that illegitimacy is a primary cause of juvenile delinquency. This topic is a sensitive one, particularly because Maryland’s illegitimacy problem is not spread evenly across racial groups. The Townsend report (the focus of this essay) and the Curran report (a similar document released a year earlier) decline to address this matter other than in the most glancing manner. Instead, both reports concentrate on side concerns which, if not entirely irrelevant, are not necessarily central to the issue at hand. The reports thus discuss poverty and/or unemployment, firearms possession and poor school performance. The Townsend report also devotes space to blaming high black youth involvement in the criminal justice system on police racism. This contention is successfully debunked by McCarthy and Muhlhausen, who focus solely on violent crimes and serious larceny. Even factoring out drug offenses, African-American young males are still disproportionately involved in criminal activities, McCarthy and Muhlhausen demonstrate, going a long way toward disproving the Townsend notion that police concentration on the drug trade artificially inflates black arrest rates..
The fact is, all sorts of people do badly in school, possess handguns or are unemployed – and most of these folks never break the law. What is it about the adolescent delinquents that sets them apart? The answer is that the vast majority come either from broken homes or, more likely, from homes where no father was ever present. The case McCarthy and Muhlhausen make is that no serious improvement can come about in the juvenile-crime situation until the question of this state’s staggering rate of illegitimacy is addressed. Consider: Maryland has the ninth-highest rate of single parenthood of any state in the Union. Baltimore City has the fifth-highest rate of any city in the country. In 1990, 28 percent of families in Maryland were headed by a single parent. In Baltimore, the figure was 46 percent. Among African-American families across the state, there are almost as many single-parent families as there are two-parent families (88 percent). In Baltimore, there are almost twice as many black single-parent families as two-parent families (186 percent). All of this is entirely ignored by the Townsend and Curran reports, as are the studies supd by McCarthy and Muhlhausen that correlate illegitimacy with high crime.
Instead, the Townsend report falls back on excuses and pleas for more “last chances” for juvenile offenders. This has been tried since the 1960s, with results for all to see. In contrast, McCarthy and Muhlhausen propose a tough-love package of reforms designed to make life safer for Maryland residents, black and white. At the micro level, the authors demand that DJJ be held responsible for past failures. As noted by the state Department of Fiscal Services, DJJ has no consistent means of tracking recidivism and has in fact only ever conducted one examination of its clients’ recidivism rates. Yet, this is the same agency that has the temerity to suggest all sorts of new programs for Maryland – and taxpayers – to embrace, without having the slightest idea how to measure their effectiveness in years to come. McCarthy and Muhlhausen also advocate the adoption of a Serious Habitual Offenders Comprehensive Action Program (SHOCAP). Under SHOCAPs, traditional concerns about confidentiality for habitual youth offenders are set aside to allow for the creation of a data base accessible to all police cruisers and barracks, allowing law-enforcement officials to know whom they are dealing with during altercations. McCarthy and Muhlhausen also determine that DJJ spends far too much time and money trying to rehabilitate the “hard core” of its clients that are beyond redemption. These 2,000-odd individuals should immediately be transferred to the adult system, freeing up DJJ funds for early-intervention programs.
At the macro level, McCarthy and Muhlhausen demand a loud and consistent government public-relations program to bring the stigma back to illegitimacy. As long as nearly half of Baltimore’s babies are born without fathers, as long as this state remains well above the national average for single parenthood, there can be no long-term improvement. Studies upon studies have shown that a broken family leads to a breakdown in the socialization process. Without a reversal of current trends, the future is bleak for civil society in Maryland. Government officials simply must find it within themselves to condemn illegitimacy. No excuses.
– Douglas P. Munro, Editor
I. Introduction
On Wednesday, February 12, 1997, President William J. Clinton and Republican congressional leaders met to forge a consensus on the top issues facing the nation. After the meeting, they agreed that juvenile crime was one of the country’s top five concerns.1 Correspondingly, juvenile crime is one of the most pressing issues for Maryland, too.
One day after the congressional meeting, Thursday, February 13, the Glendening administration released its report on juvenile justice reform, titled Making Communities Safe: Effective Juvenile Justice in Maryland (hereinafter referred to as the Townsend report).2 The report, along with an additional $6.2 million in spending on juvenile justice in Maryland, is held out as the basis for dealing with surging juvenile crime. Tragically, the recommendations put forth constitute neither effective juvenile justice nor a plan to make communities safe.
In January 1995, Governor Parris N. Glendening (D) selected his lieutenant governor, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, as the chairwoman of a new Cabinet Council on Criminal and Juvenile Justice. This in turn created the Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform to carry out research and report its findings back to the cabinet council. The task force was composed of various political, legal and business individuals. (See the appendices.) The lieutenant governor thought it best to select the state agency most responsible for the failure of juvenile justice in Maryland, the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), to provide the staff for the task force. She selected the secretary of juvenile justice, Stuart O. Simms, as co-chairman of the task force. (The other co-chairman, Montgomery County District Court Judge Douglas H. Moore, Jr. retired shortly after the task force was established.) The lieutenant governor had DJJ actually write the report.
The principle failure of the Townsend report is that it does not really know what it wants to say. Building on an earlier report released by the attorney general,3 it takes a stab at identifying a smorgasbord of “root causes” of crime, without being able to suggest any seriously ameliorating measures. The report also presents a pastiche of specific program reforms or creations it considers necessary for DJJ and various other executive-branch agencies. These, however, evidence no consistent theme, in places appearing to favor decentralization; elsewhere, calling for more centralized decision making. Above all, the report does not challenge the amoral framework within which DJJ functions. The Townsend report, like the earlier attorney general’s report, skirts embarrassing issues pertaining to illegitimacy and differing ethnic groups’ involvement in violent crime. These omissions render both reports marginal in the annals of literature on the subject of juvenile delinquency. This essay seeks to demonstrate the flaws in the Curran and Townsend reports, and will in its final section present a package of alternative reforms that should immediately be instituted.
The Townsend report should be seen for what it is: (a) a manifesto attempting to excuse the failed current system and (b) the output of a political establishment too nervous to address the real root causes of juvenile crime. Because the report was actually written at DJJ, the agency is exonerated of all blame for Maryland’s explosion in youth crime. Though the report would like to be considered as an independent audit, it is in fact a whitewash job.
II. Juvenile Crime in Maryland
Maryland has a serious and growing crime problem. Figure 1 shows that, while the number of adult arrests per year stayed relatively flat between 1990 and 1994, overall juvenile arrests jumped by 30 percent.4 Further, the level of youth violence has increased dramatically. Violent juvenile crime arrests increased in Maryland from 2,645 in 1990 to 3,569 in 1994, a leap of 35 percent, as shown in figure 2.5 Worse may still be to come. More than 25 percent of Maryland’s population is under the age of 18. The number will be over 26 percent by the year 2000.6 This may not sound dramatic, but it means that in three years the under-18 population will be larger by at least 120,000 individuals.7
DJJ, the state agency charged with dealing with juvenile delinquents, in fiscal year (FY) 1995 had a total caseload of 49,638 children and a budget of slightly over $116.8 million. It spent $48 million of its budget that year taking care of just 1,991 children in need of residential placement.8 The per child cost for one year of residential placement was $24,108. This compares to the mere $3 million DJJ spent on the 19,335 children dealt with through youth service bureaus,9 at a per capita cost of $155. (Youth service bureaus are non-residential community programs devised to help delinquent juveniles and their communities.) Likewise, the agency spent $1 million for 7,155 children in prevention services in FY 1995,10 at a yearly per capita cost of $140. This is an unfortunate distribution of funding, with too much emphasis in detention and secure residential placement and not enough on the bureaus.
As discussed below, the fact is that DJJ is not very good at handling detention and secure commitments. A more efficient way of conducting business would be for DJJ to focus more on early intervention, a low-cost solution likely to preclude a certain number of adolescents from sliding into a life of crime. This will in the long run reduce the numbers being placed in costly residential facilities. However, early intervention comes at a (short-term) price. Money expended now on intervention is money denied to secure commitments. To be blunt, DJJ should cease wasting money on hard-core cases, stop trying to save them. A number of these youths should be transferred to the adult system, freeing up DJJ time to concentrate on prevention. To maintain the status quo as the crime rate and violence increase exponentially will mean that current spending patterns will further gravitate toward residential and detention placements. This disbursement will be huge and untenable. Unfortunately, the Townsend report discussed below talks approvingly of giving serious offenders “one more chance,” thus maintaining them in the juvenile system at great expense to taxpayers.
It is in the context of soaring delinquency that Governor Glendening set out to solve Maryland’s juvenile-crime problem. By executive order 01.01.95.03, the governor in 1995 established the Cabinet Council on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, chaired by Lieutenant Governor Townsend. To propose and discuss solutions, the council in turn established a task force. One of the authors of this report was a member of the latter group, the Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform. This essay may be considered a “dissenting opinion.”
The Facts about Juvenile Crime
The dominating fact is this: The problem of juvenile crime is at its worst in Baltimore City. Baltimore accounts for only 15 percent of the teenage population of Maryland.11 The annual growth in the size of the juvenile population is not great either, increasing only three percent in FY 1993.12 However, Baltimore witnessed a 73.4 percent increase in juvenile crime from 1991 to 1993 (from 9,774 to 16,946 incidents), while the rest of the state saw only a 10.2 percent increase (from 28,930 to 31,869).13 Baltimore City’s juvenile violent crime rate is more than double the state’s average14 – 155.7 incidents per 10,000 residents, compared with 65.7 per 10,000 statewide. In FY 1993, 68 percent of the admissions to the Charles H. Hickey, Jr. School, which is the facility for juveniles guilty of severe criminal conduct, were from Baltimore.15 Representing only one of the 24 political subdivisions in the state, Baltimore is responsible for about one-third of Maryland’s juvenile crime. Tellingly, its school system has the lowest percentage of on-time graduation of any school district in the state.16 More important still, as shall be discussed in detail below, the number of fatherless children in the city has soared in recent years. Baltimore City’s rate of illegitimacy was 25 percent in 1970; in 1993, it was an excessive 41 percent.17 This is crucial. And, in the Townsend and Curran reports, it is all but ignored.
Maryland’s Status in the Nation
Crime in general is a clear, present and increasing danger in Maryland. As of 1993, Maryland ranked tenth in the nation in crimes per capita.18 It ranked seventh in the nation in violent crimes, sixth in homicides, third in robberies.19 In 1995, violent crime declined nationwide by five percent, but Marylanders saw crime rise in nearly every category.20 Most pertinent to this report, in 1992, Maryland ranked fourth in juvenile crime and third in juvenile homicide.21 In Baltimore City, juveniles commit almost one-fourth of the murders.22 The problem is not one of resources. In 1992, Maryland ranked fifth in the percentage of its funding devoted to the criminal justice system, tenth in per capita expenditures.23 In 1993, it ranked twelfth in arrest rates. Per capita, it ranked eleventh and twelfth in the number of persons incarcerated in jails and prisons, respectively.24 (See table 1)
What, then, is the problem? As we shall discuss below, in essence there has been a complete breakdown of the socialization process for young Marylanders. Children are no longer taught how to function in civil society. This results in social chaos. Absent internalized mores of social conformity, external conformity must be imposed. This is vital for the functioning of a free society. In plain English, without a moral presence in children’s lives, there must be a police presence in inverse proportionality. This is regrettable but necessary. More unfortunate still, the Townsend report calls into question the need even for this. Both the Townsend and Curran reports put themselves in the awkward position of questioning the social discipline imposed by the police force while being too coy to discuss the internalized values that would be necessary to replace it. Instead, the Curran and Townsend reports focus, in least in large part, on only tangentially relevant factors such as material poverty, unemployment and handgun ownership.
III. The Curran Report: Fishing for Red Herrings
For the beginnings of the Townsend report, one must go back a couple of years to a report authored under the auspices of the Maryland attorney general, J. Joseph Curran, Jr. Released in January 1996, the Curran report, Maryland v. Crime: A Battle Plan for a New Year and a New Century, represented the official position of the top law-enforcement officer of the State of Maryland. (This report is hereinafter referred to as the Curran report.) It identified what it believed to be the five “root causes” of juvenile delinquency. These were (a) poverty, (b) low school-completion rates, (c) child maltreatment, (d) possession of firearms and (e) teen and unwed pregnancy.
On the questions of child maltreatment and poor school-completion rates, the Curran report is largely correct in its assessments. On poverty and firearms, the report settles for picking on the political left’s favorite bogeymen. In this respect, Curran is no more convincing than anyone else, as we discuss below. As for teen and unwed pregnancy, the report’s focus is “teen” more than “unwed,” a serious error. Inasmuch as the it avoids the embarrassing issue of soaring illegitimacy, the attorney general’s report renders itself superfluous to the real fight against crime.
The truth is that the root causes of crime involve uncomfortable introspection for Maryland as a community. Indeed, this essay suggests that the current solutions posed, and questions not dealt with because of their political implications, are indeed exacerbating the problem rather than solving it. These unasked questions – including issues of race, marriage, religion and the failed political philosophy prevalent in the juvenile justice system – are paralyzing intelligent discussion on this matter. Put bluntly, the current political thinking on juvenile crime is wrong – unfortunately, in many cases, dead wrong. This is to the detriment of thousands of children’s lives.
Poverty
Poverty is frequently supd as a mitigating factor, relieving criminals of full responsibility for their actions. Such nonsense can be laid to rest quickly. Though it hardly represents a detailed analysis, figure 3 shows that from 1960 through 1990, the number of crimes committed per 10,000 Americans increased from 188.7 to 582.0, a jump of 208.4 percent.25 Meanwhile, adjusting for the value of non-cash benefits such as food stamps and taking into account the consumer price index’s exaggeration of inflation, the poverty rate over more or less the same period fell by 54.5 percent. A 1959 poverty rate of 23.1 percent had by 1988 become a rate of 10.5 percent.26
Daniel Duberstein retorts to the proposition that poverty is the primary cause of crime:
In its simplest form, this contention is absurd: If it were true, there would have been more crime in the past, when people were poorer. In poorer nations, the crime rate should be higher than in the United States. More significantly, history defies the assumption that deterioration of economic circumstances breeds crime (and improving conditions reduce it). Instead, America’s crime rate gradually rose during long periods of economic growth: in 1905 to 1933. As the Depression set in and incomes dropped, the crime rate also dropped. It rose again between 1965 and 1974 when incomes rose steadily. Most recently, during the recession of 1982, there was a slight dip in crime, not an increase. What is true of the general population is as true of black Americans. For example, between 1950 and 1974 the black income in Philadelphia almost doubled, and the homicides more than doubled. Even the Reverend Jesse Jackson, whose prescriptions for social reform mirror conventional liberal ideology, admits that black-on-black homicide is not an issue of poverty.27
The crime rate in other communities also shows no link between low incomes and crime. As James Q. Wilson and Richard J. Herrnstein report, “During the 1960s, one neighborhood in San Francisco had the lowest income, the highest unemployment rate, the highest proportion of families with incomes under $4,000 per year, the least educational attainment, the highest tuberculosis rate, and the highest proportion of substandard housing of any area of the city. That neighborhood was called Chinatown. Yet in 1965, there were only five persons of Chinese ancestry committed to prison in the entire state of California.”28 Simply stated, there is little evidence to indicate that poverty in and of itself is a primary cause of crime. Indeed, in contradiction of the Curran report, the Townsend report admits as much, saying that between crime and poverty “a direct link cannot be substantiated historically.”29
Firearms
The Curran report recommends expanding the laws restricting the purchase, sale, possession and transfer of guns.30 This suggestion is (a) incorrect in its background assumptions about the propensity of gun owners to break the law and (b) likely to be entirely ineffectual.
To take the first criticism, the “philosophical” one, the attorney general’s report falls back on that tried and tested canard, “guns cause crime.” Criminals with the intent to harm other people are the real cause. By blaming an object for the actions of wicked people, the Townsend report’s authors are seriously in danger of denying the importance of individual responsibility. In his exhaustive study, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, criminologist Gary Kleck reviews 29 surveys of gun control over the past three and a half decades.31 Of these, 18 find no relationship between gun control and crime/suicide, eight find mixed evidence and only three find a clear, positive relationship.32
Moving to the second, more practical, critique of the Curran report, juveniles are already precluded from gun ownership, so why the need for new laws? While it would be foolish to deny that teenagers’ easy access to guns is a factor influencing modes of criminal behavior (which is not the same as causing criminal behavior), the fact is that legally we have done what we can. Existing prohibitions on juvenile gun ownership have failed. Why should new laws fare better? The proposed solution of making the illegal possession of handguns by juveniles somehow “more” illegal by means of further legislation is preposterous. It would only jeopardize law-abiding citizens’ constitutional rights.
There are an estimated 200 million privately owned guns in the United States, most of which are used for sporting and self-defense purposes.33 In New York City, handguns have been significantly restricted for half a century and violence in the city remains too high, despite a recent, much-ballyhooed reduction in crime there. In 1976, Washington, D.C. banned handguns. By 1991, the homicide rate had doubled.34 To be sure, guns are available elsewhere for District residents. So perhaps more telling is the Vermont example. In 1994, statistics show, the small New England state, with among the least restrictive handgun ownership rules in the nation, had a crime rate of 3,250.3 per 100,000 residents.35 Maryland, with certain restrictions, that year had a crime rate of 6,122.6 per 100,000. The District, with an absolute ban on handguns, saw a crime rate of 11,085.3 per 100,000.36 The homicide rates for Vermont, Maryland and D.C. in 1994 were: 1.0 per 100,000; 11.6 per 100,000; and 70.0 per 100,000 residents, respectively.37 (As an aside, it appears from some research that there is something of an inverse relationship between the banning of handguns and local violence. This makes sense: If predators know that their victims have been legally disarmed, there is far less risk to their predatory conduct. The data also indicate that, in states where “concealed carry” laws are liberalized, the crime rate drops.38 A “concealed carry” law allows a resident not excluded by reason of insanity or felony conviction to carry a concealed handgun about his person for self-defense.) Simply stated, increased legal firearm ownership appears to have no positive relationship to crime rates. Maryland’s political establishment needs to demonize gun ownership to deflect attention from the true problems: the failed policies of big-government programs and an accompanying erosion of the American moral code.
Teen and Unwed Pregnancy
It is here, on the issue of unwed pregnancy, that the Curran report’s most egregious omissions are clearest. Unwed pregnancy merits precisely five lines in the entire 63-page report. This is nothing short of a scandal. The report correctly identifies illegitimacy as a root cause of crime, but it fails to explain why.39 The issue is so sensitive that the Curran report prefers not to deal with it at all.
However, even if the Curran report had placed more emphasis on this topic, the limited focus on teenage mothers would still have been insufficient. Though the issue of unmarried teen pregnancy touches upon illegitimacy’s key role in crime, it is not necessarily central to it. The “unmarried” component is more important than the “teen” component. Absent fathers are the crucial indicator of delinquency.
The mere fact that a mother is a teenager when she gives birth, or happens to be unwed at the time of her pregnancy (provided the father remains present), is not itself any indicator of vulnerability to delinquency and crime. It is not the age or unweddedness of the mother at the time of conception or delivery that causes the children to be at risk for juvenile delinquency; it is the abandonment of these children by their fathers. This is key. That the Curran report chooses to ignore the issue is testimony to the establishment’s fear of the consequences of tackling sensitive issues head on.
IV. The Townsend Report: The Emperor’s New Clothes
The fact is, the cabinet council’s Making Communities Safe report is more interesting in what it omits than in what it addresses. Thus, as with the Curran report, among the topics the task force was too timid to confront – either honestly or, in some cases, at all – are illegitimacy, religion, welfare and minority involvement in the justice system. In our view, the task force members were aware of the importance of these factors, but considered them too explosive to deal with.
The Townsend report has a number of positive points to make. For instance, if it is true, as the report suggests, that the juvenile justice system is currently geared too much toward the needs of offenders and not enough to the needs of victims,40 then this most certainly must be remedied. The report is also correct to encourage the contracting out, to the private and non-profit sectors, of the education of delinquent youth, noting that Maryland law does not restrict the expenditure of public education monies to the public sector.41
On the other hand, the report suffers from notable confusion in places. Its principle failing is that it buys into the Curran report’s “root causes” of crime more or less lock, stock and barrel. Table 2 shows that there is a correspondence between three of the Townsend report’s seven “root causes” and three of the Curran report’s. Another two lesser Townsend causes correspond to Curran causes. The most disturbing thing about the Townsend report, however, is that it really does not say anything. After months of work, the report, in its own words, should be considered no more than “a vision and an intended framework for reform, rather than a detailed blueprint. Translating this framework into operational reality will require a concentrated, multi-year effort”42 – and no doubt a substantial bill to the taxpayer. As for its “root causes,” the Townsend report declines to explore these issues, leading to some internal inconsistencies. In other areas, the report falls back on blaming the police for uneven arrest rates among racial groups. Finally, and most glaringly, the Townsend report cannot bring itself to deal with illegitimacy. It is this latter omission that makes the report, in fact, largely irrelevant.
Unemployment
This is one of the Townsend report’s seven root causes of crime, corresponding roughly though not entirely with Curran’s “poverty” category. This is where the report demonstrates some inconsistency in its thinking. Increased teenage unemployment is directly tied to increases in minimum-wage laws. Politicians and bureaucrats wring their hands at the lack of opportunity in urban areas. The Townsend report is no exception, saying, that “especially the high concentration of joblessness in certain inner-city areas” contributes to crime.43 At the same time, the political establishment makes job opportunities harder to come by. The recent increase in the federal minimum wage is likely to have an adverse effect on the number of entry-level jobs available, those jobs most likely to be filled by untrained, uneducated, undisciplined, inner-city youth.
Mark Wilson of the Heritage Foundation claims that “increasing the minimum wage to $5.15 will harm the non-working poor by raising prices and destroying over 200,000 entry-level job opportunities by 1999.”44 A study by Masanori Hashimoto of the University of Washington found that the minimum wage reduced on-the-job training provided for low-skilled youth and increased their unemployment rate.45 Minimum wages reduce on-the-job training in two ways. First, since the mandated wage above the market price for labor denies low-skilled workers jobs, these thus unemployed people are deprived of access to the training that would have come with the job.46 Second, even when unemployment does not result, the minimum wage takes away money from the employer that could have been spent on boosting the job skills of minimum-wage employees.47 Basically, the extra income mandated to be paid to the employee could have gone to giving him or her additional skills that would help improve the chance for advancement and extra income in the future. Therefore, the employee is given additional income now but is denied training that would be of benefit later in life.
Not to be outdone by the federal government, Baltimore City has enacted a “living wage” requirement of $7.70 per hour for all city contractors.48 This renders illegal whole categories of employment. It fails to take into account that the value of labor is not necessarily the same as the cost of labor. If the value of an employee’s labor to his employer is $5.00 an hour, mandating that this labor’s cost be $7.70 is likely to result in the elimination of a job. These eliminated entry-level jobs would have been the training ground for a better future for inner-city youth. The fact is, the best job-training program is a job. To some, this is not clear.
What the government takes away from the private sector, it gives back in the form of a government program. Many of the current social programs, therefore, involve putting “job training” programs back into the community. It is, quite frankly, unclear what jobs the job-training programs are training youths for, since there are so few low-skill jobs left in the city. They have been priced out of existence.
A Racist System
Another of the Townsend report’s misdiagnosed issues is that of minority over-representation in the juvenile justice system49 The logical conclusion is to let criminals roam free because of their race. The report notes that “for both violent and non-violent offenses, African-American males are over-represented at all levels of the juvenile justice system. A 1995 DJJ research project indicated that African-American males’ over-representation was most significant at the so-called ‘deep-end’ of juvenile justice system, where detention and secure residential services are required. The disproportionate representation of African-American males in the juvenile justice system was found to be significant even when such variables as age, offense history, and county of residence were held constant.”50
The task force notes “the disproportionate representation of minority youth” is a “major problem.”51 Moreover, “In Maryland, the percentage of minority youth in detention is 66 percent.”52 The first thing to note is that 66 percent of minority youths in Maryland are not in detention. What the report means is that, of youths in detention, 66 are from minority groups – a very different matter (and a sad commentary on the status of grammatical education in Maryland’s public schools). Second, details aside, the plain fact is that black youth have higher crime rates than other groups. This is “probably a reflection of police targeting of African-American communities and the drug trade,” tut-tuts the task force. Having thus implied that the “system” is racist, the Townsend report hedges its bets by adding, “More sophisticated research must be done, however, in order to determine whether this is a result of discrimination or of more chronic or serious levels of offending by African-Americans.”53 So, let us apply some of said research here. (The authors are aware that this is not an easy topic to discuss, due to general sensitivity on issues pertaining to race. We thus ask the reader’s forbearance and request that he note that all the statistics described below are taken directly from state police reports.)
The system is purported to be at fault because the percentage of black males involved in the juvenile justice system is disproportionate to their numbers in the general population.54 An examination of Maryland state police reports for 1992 reveals that there were 269,144 arrests of all types in the state that year. Of these, 134,074 were of whites; 133,347, of blacks.55 Each group thus represented one-half of 99 percent of all Maryland arrests in 1992. Asians accounted for 1,046 arrests (less than one percent), with 317 arrestees not attributed to any of these three categories.56 So, sadly, while Maryland’s population is only 25 percent African-American, this group represents almost 50 percent of all the arrests, as shown in figure 4.
It will not do simply to conclude that the justice system is racist and then walk away from the issue. This will solve nothing. It will certainly not help the children. Not only must one consider arrest rates, but the types of incidents for which arrests are made must also be taken into account. Looking to table 3, under murder and negligent manslaughter for 1992, 68 whites were arrested, next to 453 blacks and no Asians.57 For forcible rape, 323 whites were arrested, 688 blacks and only three Asians.58 For motor-vehicle theft, 1,067 whites were arrested, compared with 5,534 blacks and 28 Asians.59 In carrying/possession of weapons, 1,886 whites were arrested, 3,250 blacks and 33 Asians.60 In short, of 14,333 arrests for these serious offenses, black males accounted for 10,925 – or 76.2 percent. In fact, the only significant categories where whites were “over-represented” were: (a) driving under the influence of alcohol, with 21,415 arrests against 4,547 for blacks and 207 for Asians; and (b) general liquor-law violations, where whites represented 4,311 arrests versus 1,179 for blacks and 28 for Asians.61 As for Asians, in every category they were statistically under-represented vis-à-vis their numbers in the population.
It is also important to note that the categories where African-Americans are significantly represented are murder, rape, motor-vehicle theft and weapons charges.62 We have not discussed drug-distribution charges. This is intentional. The case is frequently made – not least by the Townsend report – that the police disproportionately target black drug dealers and, by inference, allow white ones to operate relatively freely. In this case, however, we have mentioned only violent crime and serious larceny. These are not issues the police can fudge, even if they wished to. All murders are investigated – period. It should be a concern that blacks are not only committing a higher percentage of the crimes, but that the crimes they are being arrested for are more serious. In light of these figures, it becomes doubly important not merely to dismiss the system as racist. The task force’s “remedy,” presumably, would be to lower arrest rates among black youths until these were in proportion with white arrest rates, even for the very serious wrongdoings mentioned here. However, as the victims of such black crimes are themselves generally black, it is difficult to see how fewer arrests would benefit the black community overall.
The Townsend report purports to be concerned about the plight of victims. Yet, in making excuses for youthful black criminals, the report commits the injustice of ignoring those most vulnerable to black crime, blacks themselves. A recent article in Baltimore Afro-American newspaper notes that, of the 131 people murdered in Baltimore in the first five months of 1997, 118 were black.63 A new Calvert Institute survey of the families that left Baltimore for the surrounding counties in the last five months of 1996 found that 52.6 percent of blacks gave crime as their primary reason for leaving the city, next to 40.1 percent of whites.64 In short, on this particular issue, the Townsend report is about as wrong as it can be.
Before entirely dismissing this topic, let us turn a moment to the question of drugs – in this case, drug treatment for juveniles in detention. The Townsend report complains that “African-Americans are under-represented among those youths referred to substance-abuse treatment. [Nineteen ninety-five] data indicates [sic] that white youths accounted for 60 percent of the referrals to substance-abuse treatment.”65 This is true, but the reader will recall that the only arrest category in which whites are over-represented is alcohol abuse. The report laments that black youth are under-represented in substance-abuse programs,66 but omits that “substance-abuse treatment” includes alcohol programs. So it is unlikely that there is any inconsistency.
Crime and the Family
Let us now get to the crux of this essay: Crime is a problem of family, not of race. Given that marital stability in black households in Maryland is over six times less prevalent than among white households and, given the effect broken homes have on the crime rate, it is not the melanin content of African-Americans’ skin that is the vital factor here. It is, instead, the fatherlessness of their homes. This issue will be addressed in depth in the following section.
Among married, two-parent families, whether black or white, the crime rate is very low. Critical are the capacity and determination to maintain a stable relationship, not race. The reason race appears to be an important factor in crime is the wide difference in marriage rates among ethnic groups. While the crime rate among blacks has risen sharply, so has the absence of marriage.67 Two researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health, John E. Richters and Pedro Martinez, have researched families in high-risk, inner-city neighborhoods. Their study indicates that only six percent of the children from stable homes, even in the poorest neighborhoods, become delinquents, while 90 percent of the children from homes rated as unstable and unsafe become delinquent.68 The good news is that even in violent, crime-ridden neighborhoods, “good families” are winning the battle even though their six percent delinquency rate is still a tragedy for them.69 But the growing concentration of urban families without husbands and/or fathers is a dangerous portent for future crime. Crime is bad and it is going to get worse.70
The reasons for declining marriage rates (especially among blacks), and the accompanying increase in the numbers of children born out of wedlock, are not entirely clear. Certainly, a disproportionate rate of welfare recipiency among African-Americans must partly be to blame. In 1993, for example, of parents receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the primary form of welfare payment until the reforms of 1996, 36.6 percent were black, according to the Public Agenda group71 The black proportion of the national population is about 12 percent. For decades, women receiving AFDC were given no federal incentive to marry. If she married an employed male, a woman receiving AFDC would almost automatically lose her benefits. Thus, if welfare-receiving mothers’ primary concern was to retain their benefits, and blacks had a greater rate of recipiency than other groups, then illegitimacy was bound to be higher among African-Americans.
This said, Christopher Jencks, a sociology professor at Northwestern University who may by no stretch of the imagination be dismissed a reactionary, convincingly argues that the welfare explanation is not enough. He notes that African-American – and other races’ – rates of illegitimacy have risen constantly since the 1960s, showing no correlation with the rising and falling purchasing power of welfare payments. Theoretically, as the value of benefits decreases, marriage should appear more economically appealing, leading to increased rates of matrimony.72 Jencks also notes that the ratio of employed black men to all black women has remained reasonably constant over the past three or four decades (varying between .70 and .63).73 In other words, it is not as though there are now proportionately fewer black men available and able to support a family. Professor Jencks settles for a cultural explanation, to wit, that we are currently witnessing the culmination of the revision of sexual attitudes that started in the 1960s. Jencks continues, “These changes almost certainly improved the lives of the educated elite…. For less privileged couples, however, the demise of traditional norms about marriage and divorce posed more serious problems.”74 These problems today include crime, poverty and a host of other social pathologies.
The research is clear: The best indicator of future criminality is single-parenthood, which is unfortunately epidemic in the black community. Using racism as an explanation of criminality, particularly in Baltimore City, is unconvincing. A black mayor, a black prosecutor, a black cabinet secretary at DJJ and substantial representation in both the police force and the judiciary – all these make the racism excuse untenable. The Townsend and Curran reports fail to see – or at least to tackle – the issue of fatherless homes. The subject is too sensitive, too uncomfortable. It is easier to blame police targeting of black neighborhoods and the drug trade for African-American “over-representation” in the juvenile justice system.75
Conveniently, the data used by the task force to conclude that blacks are disproportionately in at the “deep end” of the juvenile justice system did not control for family structure. The author of the research utilized by the task force, Lakshmi Iyengar, when questioned at a meeting on November 20, 1995 by Lieutenant Governor Townsend, acknowledged – astonishingly – that she had not controlled for family factors, such as single parenthood.76 A one-hour trip to your local library provides the answers that Dr. Iyengar was unable to ferret out.
Illegitimacy
There are corroborating statistics that indicate that fatherlessness is the real factor influencing delinquency. The facts are stark and the facts are these: Over the U.S. as a whole, 25.3 percent of families with children are headed by single females. Not to be outdone, that proportion in Maryland rises to 27.9 percent. Maryland ranks ninth-highest among the states in terms of families headed by single mothers.77 But this pales to insignificance if Baltimore is considered separately. In Charm City, in 1990, no fewer than 46.1 percent of all families with children were headed by a single parent, the vast majority of them female. This is illustrated in figure 5. Among American cities, Baltimore ranked fifth.78
According to the last census, in Maryland in 1990 there were: 3,396,261 whites; 1,188,930 blacks; and 137,663 Asians and/or Pacific Islanders. These represented the three largest racial groups in the state.79 Naturally, these figures are by now slightly dated, but let us assume that the racial proportionality has remained the same. That is, Maryland is 72 percent white, 25 percent black, and 3 percent Asian, with all other ethnic groups amounting to less than one percent.
However reluctant we as a society may be to discuss it, there are significant statistical differences in marriage patterns among these groups. According to the census, and as shown in Table<4/a> , there were in Maryland 348,819 white, married-couple families with their own children under age 18 in 1990. There were 49,049 white, female-headed households with no husband present with children under age 18.80 In other words, the number of white, female-headed households came to 14 percent of the number of white, married households. That same year, there were 77,184 black, traditional-family households with children. But there were also 67,922 black female-headed households with children. This figure represented 88 percent of the number of two-parent black families.81 In the Asian community, there were 17,538 married families with children versus 1,492 female-headed households with children, representing only 8.5 percent of the Asian married households.82
The ratios for Baltimore City are even more pronounced. In 1990, there were 19,486 two-parent white families with children, compared with 5,034 white, female-only households with children. The latter represented 26 percent of the two-parent white families.83 Of the black households in Baltimore City, there were 16,623 married families with children. But there were 30,851 black female-headed households with children, representing 186 percent of the stable, two-parent black families.84 Put another way, Baltimore City’s African-American community has about twice as many female-headed families as traditional two-parent families. This is a calamity. The absence of a father in the home has repeatedly been correlated with teenagers’ propensity for crime. That the Townsend report does not discuss this issue is an oversight indeed – if a politically correct oversight.
Fatherlessness is a root cause of crime neglected by the Townsend report. In the 78-page report, illegitimacy is touched upon a mere five times. This is a scandal. For the problem of illegitimacy is as overwhelming and as important as it is sensitive. According to Heritage Foundation analyst Robert E. Moffit:
The professional literature shows that the failure of fathers to care for the children they bring into this world is at the heart of violent crime. Absent fathers, absent mothers, parental fighting and domestic violence, lack of parental supervision and discipline of children, and criminality among parents themselves all are conditions that contribute to the creation of a violent criminal, and all are most present in the social atmosphere created by broken families and illegitimacy.85
Both the Curran and Townsend reports sidestep the relationship between illegitimacy and delinquency.
The mere fact that a mother is a teenager when she gives birth, or happens to unmarried at the time of the pregnancy, is not crucial to delinquency. The permanent lack of a father is the significant portent. In short, the growth of the number of juvenile delinquent males today is linked directly to the growth of the female-headed family. Without adult male supervision, young men soon stray from the straight and narrow. Males consistently represent 80 to 90 percent of the juvenile delinquency problem.86 Meanwhile, according the U.S. Census, in 80 percent of the single-parent households in Maryland with children under 18, that parent is the mother, not the father.87 Granted, correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Nonetheless, the implications are clear: Being brought up by a single mother is a good indicator that the son will become delinquent.
This modern form of family disintegration – or more accurately non-formation, for generally the families were never intact to begin with – has its consequences on criminal behavior patterns. The growth in crime is paralleled by the growth in families abandoned by fathers. Figure 6 makes this plain. Moffit further explains:
While crime is highest in socially disorganized, largely urban neighborhoods, however, its frequency is not a function of race. The determining factor is the absence of marriage. Among broken families, with their chaotic, “dysfunctional” relationships, whether white or black, the crime rate is very high; among married, two-parent families, whether white or black, the crime rate is very low. The capacity and determination to maintain stable, married relationships, not race, is the pivotal factor. The chaotic, broken community stems from these chaotic, broken families. The reason race appears to be an important factor in crime is the prevalence of wide differences in marriage rates among ethnic groups.88
There once was a time when the connection between fatherless homes and neighborhood thuggery would have been considered axiomatic. Sad to say, such times are no longer. Now, the issue is clouded by the political agenda of sociologists and by the red herring of race. Regardless, the results of illegitimacy are dire. In 1992, “the poverty rate for single-parent, female-headed families with children (46%) was nearly six times higher than the poverty rate for married-couple families with children (8%).”89
The 1988 National Health Interview Survey on Child Health compared children from never-married mothers with children living with both birth parents. The survey found that the children of never-married mothers were (a) more likely to be in the lower-achieving half of their class in school, 60 percent to 38 percent; (b) more than twice as likely to have repeated a grade, 33 percent to 13 percent; and (c) three times more likely to expelled from school, 17 percent to five percent.90
Moreover, research done by Congressional Budget Office Director June O’Neill, found that being born out of wedlock and raised in single-parent homes: (a) tripled children’s level of behavioral and emotional problems, (b) tripled the level of teen sexual activity; (c) doubled the probability that young women would themselves bear illegitimate children; and (d) doubled the probability that boys would engage in crime.93
Likewise, Wade F. Horn, a child psychologist, reported to Congress last year: “Violent criminals are overwhelmingly males who grew up without fathers, including 60 percent of America’s rapists, 72 percent of adolescent murderers, and 70 percent of juveniles in state reform institutions.”94 Additionally, William Niskanen of the Cato Institute conducted a scientific study of the root causes of crime in which he found that “a 1 percentage point increase in births to single mothers appears to increase the violent crime rate by about 1.7 percent.”95
To restate the issue, it is not the age or unweddedness of the mother at the time of the pregnancy that is important; it is the abandonment by the father that is crucial. This is not discussed in the Townsend and Curran reports. Responsibility dictates that it should be.
It is interesting to note that, while the task force cannot find it within itself to condemn illegitimacy, it does hint at the problem. Reference is made to “family breakdown,”92 for example. Similarly, “developing family problem-solving abilities” is held to be an effective way of reducing recidivism.93 In these instances, family ties are acknowledged to be important. So why stop there? If family values may be described as an effective means of addressing recidivism, why can the report not go one step further? Why can it not see illegitimacy – the inverse of traditional family norms – as being a seriously contributing factor to delinquency in the first place? In fact, the Townsend report is all too well aware of the illegitimacy’s detrimental effects upon social order but, fearing liberal disapproval should light be shed on the situation, its authors have chosen not to discuss the issue.
V. Action Plan: For Maryland and the Future
In this section, the authors make various proposals, ranging from specific policies to larger-scale societal changes, that Maryland needs to adopt in order to combat juvenile crime. Broadly speaking, we start our recommendations with the narrow and specific and progress to the broader and philosophical.
- Maryland Must Learn the Facts about DJJ and Hold It Responsible.
The task force report contains a laundry list of specific program options,96 but then notes that “…many of the programs have not undergone empirical evaluation for effectiveness in reducing recidivism.”97 Translation: We want to believe these programs work – even though there is no evidence that they do work – so please consider these specific programs as options. This sort of trusting attitude pervades the report, especially in relation to the way it handles DJJ – with kid gloves.
It is the responsibility of the Department of Juvenile Justice to handle juvenile criminals. Part of this responsibility requires DJJ to develop programs and to evaluate them to figure out if they reduce recidivism. DJJ has been neglectful in the evaluation of its programs. A significant part of this negligence results from DJJ’s own mismanagement and a lack of oversight by the governor and attorney general. In March 1996, the Department of Fiscal Services (DFS), the General Assembly’s accounting arm, justifiably criticized DJJ for not having any way to track recidivism or the effectiveness of its programs.98 DFS notes that DJJ “continues to spend money on programs without knowing how effective they are or how many of the children return into the juvenile justice system.”99 DFS further reports that in a 1993 General Assembly “oversight committee report on the juvenile justice system, DJJ reported that tracking recidivism was an uncharted territory.”100 As of December 1996, according to DFS, “existing recidivism data consist of unreliable information or hearsay about a small number of success stories at a particular facility.”101 Additionally, DJJ “has never had a system or ongoing method for consistently determining recidivism rates, nor has it ever undertaken a system-wide review of recidivism rates to be able to determine the cost-effectiveness of treatment options and facilities.”102
Only bureaucrats could spend $116,804,685 in FY 1995 without knowing if the money was being well spent!103 And only DJJ bureaucrats would advocate policies with no knowledge of the programs’ likely impact on clients and society. In all fairness, DJJ has managed to publish a one-time recidivism cohort study.104 Nonetheless, with millions of taxpayer dollars thrown each year into juvenile programs, one limited recidivism study constitutes extremely poor management. The administration, rather than rewarding DJJ with a whitewash report and an extra $6.2 million, should have taken the opportunity to use the Townsend Commission to hold DJJ accountable.
The Townsend report and DJJ’s incompetence can be explained by public-choice theory. According to this theory, politicians and bureaucrats are motivated by self-interest, survival and expansion of their power.105 The same factors – wealth, power and prestige – that operate in the private sector operate in the public sector.106 “The bureaucrats who staff an agency,” according to economists James Gwartney and Richard Stroup, “usually want to see their department’s goals furthered.”107 Bureaucrats accomplish this by requiring larger budgets and more authority. Further, Gwartney and Stroup add that expanding power enhances the career opportunities and increases the personal aspirations of bureaucrats.108 This is exactly how DJJ is behaving. And the administration has rewarded it handsomely.
Other than sheer incompetence, we believe that one reason DJJ has not evaluated its programs in the past is because such evaluations would give DJJ a failing grade. Any failures made public would hurt DJJ’s rank among other agencies, and diminish its clout with the governor and the General Assembly. If nobody knows that DJJ has failed in its mission, then DJJ can go forward in expanding said mission, so the personal aspirations of DJJ bureaucrats can be achieved at the expense of taxpayers. Gwartney and Stroup add, “Without good data and the need to reconsider their operations, [bureaucrats find] it is very easy to gloss over inefficiency. While bankruptcy weeds out inefficiency in the private sector, there is no parallel mechanism to eliminate inefficiency in the public sector.”109 When poor performance by government is recognized, “the failure to achieve objectives is often used as an argument for increased funding in the public sector.”110 The Townsend report piously sings from this hymnbook – to the tune of $6.2 million.
Nonetheless, it should not be impossible for DJJ to evaluate itself. Many of DJJ’s services are now contracted out, especially residential placements. A condition of each contract should be that the contractor devise an evaluative program to assess long-term recidivism rates. Thus, DJJ will not even have to create an evaluation program itself; it will simply have to review would-be contractors’ suggested evaluation programs.
- Maryland Should Employ a Special Prosecuting Unit Focusing on Violent Juvenile Offenders.
The city of Jacksonville, Florida has instituted a special prosecuting unit with much success. In 1992, state’s attorney Henry Shorstein assigned veteran attorneys to prosecute violent juvenile offenders.111 The special unit made sure that violent juveniles received stiff penalties for harming citizens. Violent juveniles got the message and crime in the city dropped by thirty percent.112 The state, and more especially Baltimore City, would benefit from a similar program. The ability of the unit’s staff to concentrate solely on juvenile crime enhances their expertise and makes prosecution more effective.
- Maryland Should Employ the Serious Habitual Offenders Comprehensive Action Program (SHOCAP).
SHOCAP uses sophisticated information technology to identify and track serious habitual offenders. “Through computer analysis and effective local policing,” according to James Wootton and Robert O. Heck,113 SHOCAP “enables state and local law enforcement officials to identify, target, arrest and incarcerate teenage criminals.”114 In order to institute SHOCAP, case files of serious habitual offenders are shared among juvenile probation agencies, prosecutors, judges, schools, social services and public housing projects,115 as follows:
A SHOCAP case file should include the following types of information: biographical data; a description of prior and current offenses, including criminal history; a listing of known and suspected associates and confederates; any gang or drug involvement; a description of any “fencing” activity; a concise, comprehensive narrative portrait; field investigation data (FI cards); motor vehicle ownership and violation information; whether the subject has been named as a suspect in other crimes; victimization history; the status offense history of the victim as well as the SHO [serious habitual offender]; any active warrants; school, employment, and family histories; social and medical services history; and prior conduct in detention and correctional facilities.116
Once SHOCAP is established, it “provides accurate, documented support to police in tactical operations focused on their most active criminals.”117 Wootton and Heck add that “SHOCAP provides field forces with comprehensive information on a SHO’s criminal activities beyond beat or shift boundaries. The system works because a computerized case file – either on-line in a police cruiser or accessible by police dispatchers – can be punched up by the police within seconds.”118 If this jeopardizes the customary confidentiality of juvenile records, so be it. The success of SHOCAP has been demonstrated in Oxnard, California. Oxnard experienced a 38 percent reduction in violent crime and a 60 percent decrease in its homicide rate after three years of implementing SHOCAP.119
- Maryland Must Face Up to the Truth in Racial Differences Related to Crime.
While this essay may present hurtful truths, the Townsend report deludes itself about minority involvement in the juvenile justice system. In celebrating the politics of victimization, the report embraces the politically comfortable theory of minority over-representation in the juvenile justice system, despite the fact that Asians, as a minority, are dramatically under-represented in the system – in large part as the result of their close family structure. The minority over-representation issue should be finally put to rest. The situation will right itself when fewer crimes are committed by black youth, not when the police make fewer arrests for crimes committed at current rates. Ultimately, the solution to this problem realistically must come from the black community itself. The answer probably lies in exploiting some of the unique strengths of the black community that simply do not have corollaries in the white community. African-American religious institutions and social fraternities spring to mind in this respect.
- The Department of Juvenile Justice Should Focus on Prevention and Transfer Secure Confinement Responsibilities to the Adult System.
The entire philosophy of the department should be shifted from treating a few of the children that are broken beyond repair to concentrating resources on prevention. This would avoid children’s getting broken in the future. Marylanders are sophisticated enough to recognize that the adult criminal justice system fails to rehabilitate. Its purpose is to keep criminals off the street. This is as it should be. Similarly, we should be sophisticated enough to realize that there are a lot of teenagers that are broken beyond repair in the juvenile justice system. In the future, this category of offender should be transferred immediately to the adult system by means of waivers. This is regrettable, but necessary for the sake of the other youths for whom resources and bureaucratic effort would thus be freed up.
Such waivers are currently used to a limited degree. Unfortunately, the Townsend report condemns the waiver system as “entirely illogical.”120 Instead, the task force falls back to the trench lines of the 1960s – competence development and conflict resolution.121 In the view of the authors of this report, this is all very well – but only if it occurs behind prison walls. Instead, the Townsend report recommends – or at least appears to recommend, though the vague wording of the paragraph in question is confusing – what is called “dual sentencing.” Under dual sentencing, juveniles who are waived to the adult system – that is, the most serious and chronic offenders – are sentenced as adults. The sentence is then suspended, and the youth is transferred back to the juvenile system for treatment (with the threat of being returned to the adult system for misbehavior). Apparently approvingly, the Townsend twice notes that states that have introduced dual sentencing see it as giving offenders “one last chance.”122 In our view, offenders are given all too many “last chances,” which is one of the reasons repeat offenders get the chance to repeat. The recent, horrific disemboweling of real-estate agent Michael McMorrow in Central Park, Manhattan by two 15-year-olds of his acquaintance is a case in point.123 The actual perpetrator of the grizzly deed, Christopher Vasquez, had repeatedly been put on probation previously.
Consider the following facts about DJJ’s failures. According to its sole recidivism study: (a) about 82 percent of the youth in the cohort had subsequent contact with the juvenile and/or criminal justice system after being released from DJJ’s control; and (b) about 58 percent of these reoffenders have since been readjudicated delinquent or convicted in the adult system.124 In other words, most of these delinquents have not been reformed. Nowhere in the Townsend report is this failure acknowledged. So the state should transfer approximately 2,000 of the 55,000 youths DJJ deals with every year to the adult system. That would allow the department to focus on prevention.
As an interesting sidebar to the question of what impact on race relations such a large-scale transfer would have, Wootton and Heck suggest an ultimately beneficial effect. As we have discussed, a disproportionate amount of youth crime is committed by African-American males. However, it would be wrong to infer from this that most young black males are delinquent, for most certainly they are not. However, there is currently an astonishing rate of repeat offending by a small hard core of youthful criminals, who rarely, if ever, are asked to pay the consequences for their actions due to a juvenile justice system and an army of social workers unwilling to “give up on them.” (“In every community,” note Wootton and Heck, “there is the potential for only 2 percent of the juvenile offender population to be responsible for up to 60 percent of the violent juvenile crime.”)125 This repeat offending paves the way for a relatively uninformed general public to form the opinion, at least unconsciously, that, because much juvenile crime is committed by blacks, most black juveniles must be criminals. Wootton and Heck intimate that getting the hard core of juvenile delinquents off the streets and into prison would reduce the amount of black youth crime substantially (because the repeat offenders would be out of temptation’s way, behind bars), thereby leading the public to reconsider its unflattering views about young African-Americans.126
Prevention was once the focus of DJJ and its predecessor agencies. In Maryland, out-of-control but not-yet-delinquent children are legally classified as “children in need of supervision” (CINS). The Townsend report touches upon DJJ’s abject failure in handling CINS cases. The report claims that “DJJ has never committed adequate resources to create wraparound, mentoring, respite care, or other services that might help the family’s situation.”127 DJJ wrings its hands at “the relatively few CINS referrals (2,960 CINS referrals out of 50,299 total cases in FY 1994 statewide) mask what may be only the tip of the iceberg of children and families experiencing serious problems at home, at school, and in the community.”128 That is because, as identified in footnote 11 on page 76 of the Townsend report, DJJ promulgated policies and procedures on October 1, 1984 that were designed to prevent CINS cases from coming to court. In fact, the authors have learned from conversations with more experienced members of the juvenile justice system in Maryland, 25 years ago approximately half of the DJJ’s predecessor’s cases were CINS related.129 DJJ has simply abdicated its responsibility in this area and uses that neglect to support its request for more authority. DJJ should do what it can to get out of the incarceration business, concentrating far more of its energy on CINS.
There is, say Wootton and Heck, “a reluctance on the part of juvenile justice officials to admit that there is a point at which a delinquent youth becomes such a threat to the community that he or she must be held accountable and incarcerated.”130 Yet, justice and safety dictate that the decision must be made. All pretense of rehabilitation for the worst juvenile offenders should be abandoned. They should be irrevocably transferred to the adult system, allowing DJJ to focus its energies on lesser offenders. No more “last chances.”
- Maryland Should Understand that the Best Method for Protecting Society from Hard-Core Criminals is to Incarcerate Them.
One primary function of the state is public safety. If liberty is to flourish, then the state must punish those who initiate coercion against innocent citizens. Instead, the Townsend report suggests intermediate or “graduated” sanctions as a possibility.131 What the task force fails to tell the reader is that “intermediate sanctions” is generally just another term for increased probation. Intermediate sanctions result in the placing of criminals on probation or requiring them to do community service, pay restitution, participate in drug and alcohol treatment, house arrest, etc.
Do intermediate sanctions work? No. A national study of adult intermediate sanctions by Patrick Langan of the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice found that “49 percent of sanctioned subjects had not fully complied” with their sentences when their supervision was terminated.132 Consider the following data: (a) 24 percent of offenders failed to participate in court ordered alcohol treatment; (b) 32 percent failed to complete drug treatment; (c) 31 percent failed to stay on house arrest; (d) 35 percent failed to follow their day reporting requirements; (e) 21 percent failed to do their required community service; and (f) 40 percent failed to pay restitution.133 Another study by Susan Turner and Joan Petersilia found that intermediate sanctions did not differ in lowering recidivism rates when compared to traditional forms of parole.134 Basically, criminals reoffended at the same rates under loose and strict supervision.
Clearly, intermediate sanctions do not work in the adult system, so why does the task force think intermediate sanctions would work in the juvenile system? Probation for juveniles in Maryland has not worked. According to DJJ’s sole recidivism study, 67 percent of the secure-commitment delinquents released in FY 1994 had been placed on probation at least once before their commitment.135 Surely the task force does not think DJJ sufficiently competent to supervise intermediate sanctions with the department’s record of failure on other forms of probation. So why advocate more probation as yet another “one last chance”?
The public at large is unlikely to sympathize with the Townsend recommendations in this respect. A number of polls show that Americans are unhappy with the current emphasis on rehabilitation and various assorted “last chances.” Forty-nine percent believe rehabilitation programs for juveniles are not successful, according to the Gallup polling firm. Fifty-two percent believe that juveniles should receive the same punishments as those given to adults. No fewer than 83 percent think juveniles who commit two or more crimes should receive the same sentencing as adults.136 A 1995 Gallup poll found that 72 percent of Americans also advocate the death penalty for juveniles who commit murder; this compared to 24 percent in 1957.137 Juveniles themselves have no sympathy for their criminal peers either. Over 93 percent believe that those accused of murder or rape should be tried as adults. They do not believe these offenders should receive special consideration because of their age.138
- Moral or Values-Based Instruction Should Be Provided for Juvenile Delinquents.
Among the issues not even considered by Townsend report is religion and the importance of attendance at religious institutions. Any discussion of religion is simply anathema to Maryland’s political establishment, though some research indicates that religious practice may be an important contributing factor in a successful life. According to the Heritage Foundation’s Patrick F. Fagan, first, “the family unit is strengthened with practice of religion.”139 Second, “Church attendance is the most important predictor of marital stability and happiness.”140 Third, “The regular religious practice generally inoculates individuals against a host of problems including suicide, drug abuse, out-of-wedlock births, crime and divorce.”141
Also, William Niskanen found that “a percentage point increase in church membership reduces [the welfare] dependent population by about 0.7 percent.”142 Regardless, neither the Townsend or Curran reports even casts a glance toward religion.
Despite the two reports’ reluctance to address the issue, the state should remove all barriers to the practice of religion by incarcerated juveniles. Specifically, any agency incarcerating juveniles should respect the religious wishes of the parents of the children in its charge. Deliberate provisions for religious practices must be available in the juvenile system. For those juveniles who opt out of religious practice, a formal, mandatory program of morality and virtue instruction should be required to teach the children their obligations to themselves, their families and their communities. This need not involve forcing anyone to say bedtime prayers who does not wish to. What is required, nonetheless, is some consciousess effort to move DJJ out of the amoral world of social work and into one where the differences between right and wrong are taught.
If internalized mores – religious or otherwise – can be utilized to ensure conduct compatible with the functioning of civil society, surely this is preferable to compatibility enforced externally – by the police. A free society is dependent on popular adherence to the law. It clearly is preferable that such adherence be voluntarily undertaken. If this requires teaching virtue, we should not be too squeamish to address it.
- Maryland’s Elected Officials Need to Combat the Federal Criminalization of Entry-Level Jobs.
The minimum wage hurts Maryland citizens in general by raising labor costs, therefore raising the cost of goods. More pertinently, minimum-wage regulations deny entry-level jobs for unskilled juveniles and diminish on-the-job training for them as well. The best job training for unskilled youth is not a government program, but an actual job. Crime, says Baltimore City Council President Lawrence A. Bell III (D), “will only get worse if there aren’t more jobs. We need to hire these young men….”143 He is right. The best way to pull it off is to reduce the cost of labor.
- Maryland Needs to Recognize the Importance of Fathers in Preventing Crime.
This essay has pointed to the key relationship between the absence of the father and crime. The Townsend report’s handling of the touchy illegitimacy issue is clearly its greatest failing. With 27.9 percent of families headed by a single mother, Maryland is 2.6 percent above the national average. In Baltimore City, the figure is over 46.1 percent, ranking it fifth among all American cities. The authors of the Townsend report do not see fit to dwell on this. However, for as long as government officials remain too timid to address sensitive issues such as these, so the problem will continue. Looking to all the world like an ostrich with its head planted firmly in the sand, the Townsend report should impress no one. Government officials are uniquely placed to take the bully pulpit and address issues of citizens’ moral conduct head on. Inasmuch as the Townsend report fails to square its shoulders and face up to its admittedly delicate responsibilities, so Marylanders should not trouble themselves even glancing at it. It is just not worth the effort. Only when fatherlessness is recognized as a major problem in Baltimore City and, in particular, within the black community can solutions be found.
Maryland should undertake a major public-relations campaign, abandoning moral relativism in favor of a drumbeat for shaming those not living up to their responsibilities. The theme must be loud and it must be continuous. True, there now appear around the state a few billboards exhorting parents to talk to their children about sex before “they make you a grandparent.” This is hardly enough. For a start, it only addresses the question of teenage childbearing which, as we have mentioned previously, is merely part of the problem. Such billboards present teenage parenting as a matter presenting practical difficulties, not an issue to be stigmatized in and of itself. Such billboards may also inadvertently give the impression that illegitimate childbearing by adults is acceptable. It is not if the children and mothers subsequently become, to use a rather quaint 19th-century term, “burdens on the parish” (in the form of the taxpayer, in this case).144 Our use of such terms as “stigma” and the like are strong, we concede, but this is what it will take to bring about the sea change in public attitudes necessary to bring about the modification of a current mode of social conduct truly deleterious to the rest of society.
We must recognize that this is a cultural problem that government alone will not be able to solve. Communities afflicted with fatherlessness need to find their own solutions. Work is being done in this respect. Professor Robert B. Hill, director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University in Baltimore, has undertaken research on the strengths of black families, even those headed by single mothers. He is correct to caution against exaggerating the problems of single-parent families. However, he concedes that he is “not advocating the single-parent household.”145 He agrees that a self-help component is vital to efforts to strengthen African-American families. Civic associations based on voluntary cooperation are the best course for these communities. Civic associations include churches, charities, schools and families. Two examples come to mind in fighting fatherlessness.
First, the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, headed by pastor Frank M. Reid III (city Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke’s stepbrother), sets strict standards of individual responsibility.146 According to Herbert Toler of the Heritage Foundation, “Reid teaches men to be protector, priest, provider and partner of the household.”147 The men in Reid’s congregation have responded to his teachings by resuming their responsibilities to their children.148 (It is worth noting, however, that, as of early summer 1997, Rev. Reid was considering setting up a second campus for Bethel AME in Baltimore County. Almost 50 percent of Bethel’s congregation lives in the county, as does Rev. Reid himself.149 Perhaps they, like about 1,000 other Baltimoreans a month,150 were driven out of the city in part by crime.)
Second, authors Bill Bennett, John DiIulio and John Waters point out the success of the Big Brothers/Big Sisters mentoring program, according to an evaluation study by Public/Private Ventures. Most of the children in the study came from single-parent homes.151 The study found that children who participated in the program were: (a) 46 percent less likely than their peers to use illegal drugs; (b) 32 percent less likely than their peers to assault someone; and (c) less likely to skip school, earn poor grades or abuse alcohol.152 Fathers and father role models need to step up to the plate to help young boys learn how to be men. No bureaucratic solution can match voluntary, civic associations.
VI. Conclusions
The juvenile-crime problem is chronic, so the solution will also have to be long-term. This does not excuse failing to start now. First, Baltimore City should be used only as an example of what does not work. True, overall crime – adult and juvenile – appears to have been dropping quite substantially in 1997. However, the fact remains that in 1996 Baltimore was the fifth-deadliest city in America, according to the FBI.153 So the city has a long, long way to go. Instead, one should look at some of the more successful counties, like Howard. Second, somebody, somewhere, sometime should objectively look at and critique the management of the Department of Juvenile Justice and its oversight by the governor and the attorney general. None of this – repeat, none – is mentioned in the Townsend report. But then so few things are, at least in any meaningful way.
As noted above, the Townsend report is more noteworthy for what it omits than for what it includes. There is no discussion of the importance of religious practice and fatherhood in the prevention of juvenile delinquency. The conclusion of the Townsend report demands full evaluation and accountability in all juvenile programs. It then promotes the continuation and expansion of a large list of existing programs – without any appraisal or evaluation. How can any resident of Maryland take the report’s demand for the evaluation of juvenile justice programs seriously, when DJJ has not even bothered seriously to track recidivism rates or program effectiveness in the first place? The exquisite absurdity of this report is unappreciated. Dismiss it.
Appendix I: Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform
- Co-Chairmen
- Hon. Stuart O. Simms, Secretary, Department of Juvenile Justice, State of Maryland
- Hon. Douglas H. Moore, Jr., District Court Judge (Ret.)
- Members
- David Altschuler, Ph.D., Institute for Policy Studies, Johns Hopkins University
- Hon. Harrison C. Bristoll, Jr., Council Member, City of Chestertown
- K.C. Burton, Parent Action of Maryland
- David Fishkin, J.D., Office of the Public Defender, City of Baltimore
- David Goad, Sheriff, Allegany County
- Ernie Grecco, President, Metropolitan Baltimore Council, AFL-CIO Unions
- Hon. Leo E. Green, Maryland State Senate (D-Prince George’s)
- Rev. Norman H. Handy, Unity United Methodist Church
- Hon. Susan B. Heselton, Council Member, Harford County
- Glen Ivey, Staff Member, Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate
- Hon. Patricia C. Jessamy, State’s Attorney, City of Baltimore
- David Kreek, U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Maryland
- Gail Lankford, Somerset County Health Department
- Susan Leviton, J.D., School of Law, University of Maryland
- Luis A. Luna, Director, Greater Salisbury Committee
- Robert M. McCarthy, J.D., Law Offices of Robert M. McCarthy, Montgomery County
- James McComb, Maryland Association of Resources for Families and Youth
- Howard Merker, J.D., Deputy State’s Attorney, Baltimore County
- Hon. Kenneth C. Montague, Jr., Maryland House of Delegates (D-Baltimore City)
- Wayne E. Mullinex, Stephanie Roper Committee and Foundation
- Scott Phillips, IBM Corporation
- Emily Rody, J.D., Prisoners’ Assistance Unit, Legal Aid Bureau
- Calvin Street, Chief Assistant, Department of Human Resources, State of Maryland
- William Struever, President, Struever Brothers, Eccles and Rouse
- Staff
- Alexander J. Palenscar, J.D., Special Assistant, Department of Juvenile Justice, State of Maryland
- Various Personnel, Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention, State of Maryland
Appendix II: Committee on Serious, Violent & Chronic Offenders
- Chairwoman
- Hon. Patricia C. Jessamy, State’s Attorney, City of Baltimore
- Members
- Cynthia Banks, Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention, State of Maryland
- William Dickerson, Department of Juvenile Justice, State of Maryland
- John S. Farrell, Chief, Police Department, Prince George’s County
- David Fishkin, J.D., Office of the Public Defender, City of Baltimore
- Deborah Gayles, Department of Juvenile Justice, State of Maryland
- David Goad, Sheriff, Allegany County
- Hon. Leo E. Green, Maryland State Senate (D-Prince George’s)
- David Kreek, U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Maryland
- Delores Kozloski, Community Representative, Montgomery County
- John Lang III, Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, State of Maryland
- Martha Mazzone, Community Representative, City of Baltimore
- Robert M. McCarthy, J.D., Law Offices of Robert M. McCarthy, Montgomery County
- Howard Merker, J.D., Deputy State’s Attorney, Baltimore County
- Kathryn Savage, J.D., Assistant State’s Attorney, Montgomery County
- Mark Schindler, J.D., Office of the Public Defender, City of Baltimore
- Jearl Ward, Special Assistant, Department of Juvenile Justice, State of Maryland
- Linda J. Willis, Chief of School Police, Baltimore City Public Schools
- Joyce Wright, J.D., Assistant State’s Attorney, City of Baltimore
Appendix III: Committee on Prevention and Early Intervention
- Chairman
- Luis A. Luna, Director, Greater Salisbury Committee
- Members
- Barry Barrell, Department of Juvenile Justice, State of Maryland
- Eric Clay, Civic Works
- Marian Daniel, Department of Juvenile Justice, State of Maryland
- David Fishkin, J.D., Office of the Public Defender, City of Baltimore
- Heather Ford, Advocates for Children and Youth
- Hon. Susan B. Heselton, Council Member, Harford County
- Linda Lombardo, Lighthouse, Inc., Baltimore County
- James McComb, Maryland Association of Resources for Families and Youth
- Mindy Mintz, Greater Baltimore Committee
- Hon. Kenneth C. Montague, Jr., Maryland House of Delegates (D-Baltimore City)
- Scott Phillips, IBM Corporation
- Richard Rowe, Project Raise
- Calvin Street, Chief Assistant, Department of Human Resources, State of Maryland
- Ed Trumbell, Governor’s Workforce Investment Board
Appendix IV: Committee on Graduated Sanctions
- Chairwoman
- Susan Leviton, J.D., School of Law, University of Maryland
- Members
- David Altschuler, Ph.D., Institute for Policy Studies, Johns Hopkins University
- Timmerman Daugherty, J.D., Department of Juvenile Justice, State of Maryland
- Audra Davis, J.D., Office of the Public Defender, City of Baltimore
- Gloria Eaddy, Department of Juvenile Justice, State of Maryland
- David Fishkin, J.D., Office of the Public Defender, City of Baltimore
- Pat Flanigan, Department of Juvenile Justice, State of Maryland
- Heather Ford, Advocates for Children and Youth
- Sheryl Imhoff, School of Law, University of Maryland
- Janet Jackson, Advocates for Children and Youth
- Bart Lubow, Annie E. Casey Foundation
- James McComb, Maryland Association of Resources for Families and Youth
- Alexander J. Palenscar, J.D., Special Assistant, Department of Juvenile Justice, State of Maryland
- Carolyn Quattrocki, J.D., Office of the Attorney General, State of Maryland
- Michael Sarbanes, Comprehensive Communities Program, City of Baltimore
- Mark Schindler, J.D., Office of the Public Defender, City of Baltimore
- Hank Sosinski, Department of Juvenile Justice, State of Maryland
- Calvin Street, Chief Assistant, Department of Human Resources, State of Maryland
End Notes
[Top] 1. Brian Blomquist and Laurie Kellman, “Clinton, Congress Set Common Goals,” Washington Times, February 12, 1997, p. A1.
[Top] 2. State of Maryland, Cabinet Council on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, Making Communities Safe: Effective Juvenile Justice in Maryland, Report on Juvenile Justice Reform ([Baltimore, Md.: State of Maryland, Department of Juvenile Justice], January 1997). Hereinafter referred to as the “Townsend report.”
[Top] 3. J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Maryland v. Crime: Battle Plan for a New Year and a New Century, Report of Attorney General J. Joseph Curran, Jr. (Baltimore, Md.: State of Maryland, Office of the Attorney General, January 25, 1996). Hereinafter cited as the “Curran report.”
[Top] 4. State of Maryland, State Police Department, Central Records Division (CRD), Crime in Maryland, 1994, Uniform Crime Reports series (Pikesville, Md.: CRD, 1995), p. 100.
[Top] 5. Townsend report, p. 85.
[Top] 7. Douglas P. Munro, “No U-Turns: Why Welfare Reform Must Not Be Undone,” Calvert Institute Calvert News, Vol. I, No. 4, Fall 1996, pp. 6-7, 14-15, at 7.
[Top] 8. State of Maryland, Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), “DJJ FY95 Funding By Service Type & Youth Served,” Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) Three-Year Plan, 1996, unpublished document presented to the Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform. Hereinafter cited as “DJJ FY95 Funding.”
[Top] 11. From information provided by the Department of Juvenile Justice to the Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform.
[Top] 12. From information provided by the Department of Juvenile Justice to the Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform.
[Top] 13. From information provided by the Department of Juvenile Justice to the Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform.
[Top] 14. Greater Baltimore Committee (GBC), Smart on Crime: A Public Safety Strategy from the Greater Baltimore Committee (Baltimore, Md.: GBC, September 1995), p. 10.
[Top] 15.15 From information provided by the Department of Juvenile Justice to the Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform.
[Top] 16. From information provided by the Department of Juvenile Justice to the Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform.
[Top] 17. From information provided by the Department of Juvenile Justice to the Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform.
[Top] 18. Curran report, p. E.1.
[Top] 19. Curran report, p. E.1.
[Top] 20. Curran report, p. E.1.
[Top] 21. Curran report, p. E.1.
[Top] 22. Curran report, p. E.1.
[Top] 23. Curran report, p. 4.
[Top] 24. Curran report, pp. 7-8.
[Top] 25. William J. Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators: Facts and Figures on the State of American Society (New York, N.Y.: Touchstone Books, 1994), p. 18.
[Top] 26. Christopher Jencks, Rethinking Social Policy: Race, Poverty and the Underclass (New York, N.Y.: HarperPerennial, 1993), p. 147, table 5.1.
[Top] 27. Daniel Duberstein, “Cultural Roots of Rising Crime,” Insight, August 8, 1994.
[Top] 28. James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein, Crime and Human Nature (New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, 1985), p. 473.
[Top] 29. Townsend report, p. 18.
[Top] 30. Curran report, p. 28.
[Top] 31. Gary Kleck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America (Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991).
[Top] 32. The studies in question are listed here. The words “no,” “mixed” or “yes” indicate whether a survey found a relationship between gun control and violence. See James Beha, “And Nobody Can Get You Out,” Boston University Law Review, Vol. 57, 1977, pp. 96-146, 289-333 (mixed); Philip J. Cook, “The Effect of Gun Availability on Robbery and Robbery Murder,” in Robert Haveman and B. Bruce Zellner (eds.), Policy Studies Review Annual (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1979), pp. 743-781 (no); Stephen Jay Deutsch and Francis B. Alt, “The Effect of Massachusetts’ Gun Control Law on Gun-Related Crimes in the City of Boston,” Evaluation Quarterly, Vol. 1, 1977, pp. 543-568 (mixed); Matthew R. DeZee, “Gun Control Legislation: Impact and Ideology,” Law and Policy Quarterly, Vol. 5, 1983, pp. 367-379 (no); Martin S. Geisel, Richard Rol and R. Stanton Wettick, “The Effectiveness of State and Local Regulations of Handguns,” Duke University Law Journal, Vol. 4, 1969, pp. 647-676 (no); Richard Hay and Richard McCleary, “Box-Tiao Times Series Models for Impact Assessment,” Evaluation Quarterly, Vol. 3, 1979, pp. 277-314 (no); Edward D. Jones III, “The District of Columbia’s ‘Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975’: The Toughest Handgun Control Law in the United States – Or Is It?” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 455, 1981, pp. 138-149 (mixed); Roy S. Jung and Leonard A. Jason, “Firearm Violence and the Effects of Gun Control Legislation,” American Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 16, . 1988, pp. 515-524 (no); Gary Kleck and E. Britt Patterson, “The Impact of Gun Control and Gun Ownership Levels on Violence Rates,” unpublished paper, School of Criminology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, 1991 (no); Alan S. Krug, “A Statistical Study of the Relationship Between Firearms Licensing Laws and Crime Rates,” Congressional Record, July 25, 1967, pp. H9366-H9370 (no); David Lester, “An Availability-Acceptability Theory of Suicide,” Activitas Nervosa Superior, Vol. 29, 1987, pp. 164-166 (no); David Lester, “Restricting the Availability of Guns as a Strategy for Preventing Suicide,” Biology and Society, Vol. 5, 1988, pp. 127-129 (yes); David Lester and Mary E. Murrell, “The Influences of Gun Control Laws on Suicidal Behavior,” American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 137, 1980, pp. 121-122 (no); David Lester and Mary E. Murrell, “The Relationship Between Gun Control Statutes and Homicide Rates: A Research Note,” Crime and Justice, Vol. 4, 1981, pp. 146-148 (mixed); David Lester and Mary E. Murrell, “The Preventive Effect of Strict Gun Control Laws on Suicide and Homicide,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, Vol. 12, 1982, pp.131-140 (mixed); David Lester and Mary E. Murrell, “The Influence of Gun Control Laws on Personal Violence,” Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 14, 1986, pp. 315-318 (no); Colin Loftin, Milton Heumann and David McDowall, “Mandatory Sentencing and Firearms Violence: Evaluating an Alternative to Gun Control,” Law & Society Review, Vol. 17, 1983, pp. 287-318 (no); Colin Loftin and David McDowall, “The Deterrent Effects of the Florida Felony Firearm Law,” Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Vol. 75, 1984, pp. 250-259 (no); Joseph P. Magaddino and Marshall H. Medoff, “Homicides, Robberies and State ‘Cooling-Off’ Schemes,” in Don B. Kates, Jr. (ed.), Why Handgun Bans Can’t Work (Bellevue, Wash.: Second Amendment Foundation, 1982), pp. 101-112 (no); Joseph P. Magaddino and Marshall H. Medoff, “An Empirical Analysis of Federal and State Firearm Control Laws,” in Don B. Kates, Jr. (ed.), Firearms and Violence: Issues of Public Policy (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1984), pp. 225-258 (no); Lee R. McPheters, Robert Mann and Don Schlagenhauf, “Economic Response to a Crime Deterrence Program,” Economic Inquiry, Vol. 22, 1984, pp. 550-570 (yes); Douglas R. Murray, “Handguns, Gun Control Laws and Firearm Violence,” Social Problems, Vol. 23, 1975, pp. 81-92 (no); George D. Newton and Franklin Zimring, Firearms and Violence in American Life: A Staff Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1969) (no); Robert Nicholson and Anne Garner, The Analysis of the Firearms Control Act of 1975 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Conference of Mayors, 1980) (mixed); Glenn L. Pierce and William J. Bowers, “The Bartley-Fox Gun Law’s Short-Term Impact on Crime in Boston,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 455, 1981, pp. 120-137 (mixed); Stephen T. Seitz, “Firearms, Homicides and Gun Control Effectiveness,” Law & Society Review, Vol. 6, 1972, pp. 595-614 (yes); Paul M. Sommers, “Deterrence and Gun Control: An Empirical Analysis,” Atlantic Economic Journal, Vol. 8, 1980, pp. 89-94 (mixed); State of Wisconsin, Legislative Reference Library (LRL), “The Regulation of the Firearms by the States,” Research Bulletin, No. 130, 1960 (no); and Franklin E. Zimring, “Firearms and Federal Law: The Gun Control Act of 1968,” Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 4, 1975, pp. 133-198 (mixed).
[Top] 33. James D. Wright, “Ten Essential Observations on Guns in America,” Society, Vol. 32, No. 3, March/April 1995, pp. 64-65.
[Top] 34. U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Crime in the United States, Uniform Crime Reports series (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office), editions of 1976 and 1991.
[Top] 35. FBI, Crime in the United States, 1994 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1995), p. 77.
[Top] 36. FBI, Crime in the United States, 1994, pp. 72, 69.
[Top] 37. FBI, Crime in the United States, 1994, pp. 69, 72, 77.
[Top] 38. John R. Lott, “More Guns, Less Violence,” Wall Street Journal, August 28, 1996, p. A6.
[Top] 39. Curran report, p. 9.
[Top] 40. Townsend report, pp. 6-7.
[Top] 41. Townsend report, p. 50.
[Top] 42. Townsend report, pp. 2-3.
[Top] 43. Townsend report, p. 18.
[Top] 44. Mark Wilson, “The Folly of Increasing the Minimum Wage,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder Update, No. 275, April 22, 1996, Internet (http://www.heritage.org).
[Top] 45. Masanori Hashimoto, “Minimum Wage Effects on Training on the Job,” American Economic Review, Vol. 72, December 1982, pp. 1070-1087.
[Top] 46. Hashimoto, “Minimum Wage Effects on Training on the Job,” p. 1084.
[Top] 47. Hashimoto, “Minimum Wage Effects on Training on the Job,” p. 1084.
[Top] 48. Kathy Lally, “Working Toward a ‘Living Wage,'” (Baltimore) Sun, September 1, 1996, p. 1A.
[Top] 49. Townsend report, pp. 15, 45-46, 51-52.
[Top] 50. Townsend report, p. 15.
[Top] 51. Townsend report, p. 51.
[Top] 52. Townsend report, pp. 51-52.
[Top] 53. Townsend report, p. 52.
[Top] 54. U.S Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Minorities in the Juvenile Justice System: Research Summary (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, December 1993).
[Top] 55. CRD, Crime in Maryland, 1992 (Pikesville, Md.: CRD, 1993), p. 105.
[Top] 56. CRD, Crime in Maryland, 1992, p. 105.
[Top] 57. CRD, Crime in Maryland, 1992, p. 105.
[Top] 58. CRD, Crime in Maryland, 1992, p. 105.
[Top] 59. CRD, Crime in Maryland, 1992, p. 105.
[Top] 60. CRD, Crime in Maryland, 1992, p. 105.
[Top] 61. CRD, Crime in Maryland, 1992, p. 105.
[Top] 62. CRD, Crime in Maryland, 1992, p. 105.
[Top] 63. Ursula V. Battle, “Startling Facts on Black-on-Black Violence,” (Baltimore) Afro-American, June 7, 1997, p. A1.
[Top] 64. Douglas P. Munro, “Reforming the Schools to Save the Cities, Part II: Survey Shows School Choice Would Prevent Middle-Class Flight from Baltimore,” Calvert Issue Brief, Vol. I, No. 2, August 1997.
[Top] 65. Townsend report, pp. 45-46.
[Top] 66. Townsend report, p. 46.
[Top] 67. Patrick F. Fagan, “The Real Root Causes of Violent Crime: The Breakdown of Marriage, Family and Community,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, No. 1026, March 17, 1995, p. 25.
[Top] 68. John E. Richters and Pedro Martinez, “Violent Communities, Violent Family Choices, and Children’s Chances: An Algorithm for Improving the Odds,” Development and Psychology, Vol. 5, 1993, pp. 609-627.
[Top] 69. Richters and Martinez, “Violent Communities, Violent Family Choices, and Children’s Chances,” pp. 609-627.
[Top] 70. For further details, see Munro, “No U-Turns,” p. 7.
[Top] 71. Public Agenda, “Clarifying Issues ’96,” Poverty and Welfare Snapshots – AFDC Recipients, from Internet (http://www.accesspt.com/civic/voters-guide/poverty/povertysnaps/povertysnap2.html).
[Top] 72. Jencks, Rethinking Social Policy, pp. 130-131.
[Top] 73. Jencks, Rethinking Social Policy, pp. 132-133.
[Top] 74. Jencks, Rethinking Social Policy, pp. 134-135.
[Top] 75. Townsend report, p. 46.
[Top] 76. Lakshmi Iyengar, presentation before the Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform, November 20, 1995, a meeting one of the authors attended.
[Top] 77. Harold A. Hovey, CQ’s State Fact Finder, 1996: Rankings Across America (Washington, D.C.: CQ, Inc., 1996), table L-7.
[Top] 78.78 U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, Bureau of the Census, County and City Data Book, 1994: A Statistical Abstract Supplement (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, August 1994), p. xxix, table 3.
[Top] 79. Bureau of the Census, 1990 Census Populations and Housing Summary, Tape File 3A. Hereinafter referred to as “Census, Tape File 3A.”
[Top] 80. Census, Tape File 3A.
[Top] 81. Census, Tape File 3A.
[Top] 82. Census, Tape File 3A.
[Top] 83. Census, Tape File 3A.
[Top] 84. Census, Tape File 3A.
[Top] 85. Robert E. Moffit, “Crime,” in Stuart M. Butler and Kim R. Holmes (eds.), Issues ’96: The Candidate’s Briefing Book (Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation, 1996), pp. 227-260, at 234.
[Top] 86. FBI, Crime in the United States, 1993 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1994), pp. 221-226.
[Top] 87. Census, Tape File 3A.
[Top] 88. Moffit, “Crime,” p. 235.
[Top] 89. Nicholis Zill, Vice President and Director of Child and Family Studies, Westat, Inc., prepared statement before the U.S. House of Representatives, House Committee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Human Resources, March 12, 1996.
[Top] 90. Zill, statement before the House Subcommittee on Human Resources.
[Top] 91. Robert E. Rector and Patrick F. Fagan, “How Welfare Harms Kids,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, No. 1084, June 5, 1996, Internet site(http://www.heritage.org).
[Top] 92. Wade Horn, Director, National Fatherhood Initiative, prepared statement before the U.S. Senate, Labor and Human Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Children and Families, May 23, 1996.
[Top] 93. William A. Niskanen, “Crime, Police and Root Causes,” Cato Institute Policy Analysis, No. 218, November 14, 1994, Internet site (http://www.cato.org).
[Top] 94. Townsend report, p. 1.
[Top] 95. Townsend report, p. 42.
[Top] 96. See Townsend report, appendix III, pp. 57-61.
[Top] 97. Townsend report, p. 57.
[Top] 98. State of Maryland, General Assembly Department of Fiscal Services (DFS), Analysis of the Maryland Executive Budget for Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1997, Vol. 3 (Annapolis, Md.: DFS, March 1996), p. 810.
[Top] 99. DFS, Analysis of the Maryland Executive Budget for Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1997, Vol. 3, p. 810.
[Top] 100. DFS, The Department of Juvenile Justice: Profile of Recidivism Tracking and Aftercare Services in Maryland (Annapolis, Md.: DFS, December 1996), p. 15.
[Top] 101. DFS, The Department of Juvenile Justice, p. 15.
[Top] 102. DFS, The Department of Juvenile Justice, p. 16.
[Top] 103. State of Maryland, Department of Budget and Fiscal Planning (DBFP), Maryland Operating Budget: Part Two, Fiscal Year 1997 (Annapolis, Md.: DBFP, 1996), p. 748.
[Top] 104. DJJ, Maryland Department of Juvenile Justice Recidivism Analysis: A Program-by-Program Review of Recidivism Measures at Major Facilities for Department of Juvenile Justice Youths (Baltimore, Md.: DJJ, January 1, 1997).
[Top] 105. James D. Gwartney and Richard L. Stroup, Microeconomics: Private and Public Choice, 7th ed. (Fort Worth, Tex.: Dryden Press, 1995), pp. 514-515.
[Top] 106. Gwartney and Stroup, Microeconomics, p. 515.
[Top] 107. Gwartney and Stroup, Microeconomics, p. 522.
[Top] 108. Gwartney and Stroup, Microeconomics, p. 522.
[Top] 109. Gwartney and Stroup, Microeconomics, p. 527.
[Top] 110. Gwartney and Stroup, Microeconomics, p. 527.
[Top] 111. William J. Bennett, John J. DiIulio and John P. Waters, Body Count: Moral Poverty and How to Win America’s War Against Crime and Drugs (New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, 1996), p. 121.
[Top] 112. Bennett, DiIulio and Waters, Body Count, p. 123.
[Top] 113. James Wootton, now the president of the Safe Streets Alliance, served as deputy administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the U.S. Department of Justice during the Reagan Administration. Robert O. Heck, a partner in Moore, Bieck, Heck Associates, was the project manager for the department’s serious habitual Offenders Comprehensive Action Program (SHOCAP) from 1982-1994.
[Top] 114. James Wootton and Robert O. Heck, “How State and Local Officials Can Combat Violent Juvenile Crime,” Heritage Foundation State Backgrounder, No. 1097/S, October 28, 1996, Internet site (http://www. heritage.org).
[Top] 115. Wootton and Heck, “How State And Local Officials Can Combat Violent Juvenile Crime.”
[Top] 116. Wootton and Heck, “How State And Local Officials Can Combat Violent Juvenile Crime.”
[Top] 117. Wootton and Heck, “How State And Local Officials Can Combat Violent Juvenile Crime.”
[Top] 118. Wootton and Heck, “How State And Local Officials Can Combat Violent Juvenile Crime.”
[Top] 119. Wootton and Heck, “How State And Local Officials Can Combat Violent Juvenile Crime.”
[Top] 120.Townsend report, p. 39.
[Top] 121. Townsend report, p. 40.
[Top] 122. Townsend report, pp. 4, 40.
[Top] 123. Mona Charen, “The Price We Pay for Prosperity,” (Baltimore) Sun, June 8, 1997, p. 3G.
[Top] 124. DJJ, Maryland Department of Juvenile Justice Recidivism Analyses, p. 8.
[Top] 125. Wootton and Heck, “How State And Local Officials Can Combat Violent Juvenile Crime.”
[Top] 126. Wootton and Heck, “How State And Local Officials Can Combat Violent Juvenile Crime.”
[Top] 127. Townsend report, p. 25.
[Top] 128. Townsend report, pp. 25-26.
[Top] 129. From coauthor Robert M. McCarthy’s conversations with various retired juvenile court judges.
[Top] 130. Wootton and Heck, “How State And Local Officials Can Combat Violent Juvenile Crime.”
[Top] 131. Townsend report, pp. 29-37.
[Top] 132. Patrick Langan, “Between Prison and Probation: Intermediate Sanctions,” Science, Vol. 264, May 6, 1994, p. 791.
[Top] 133. Langan, “Between Prison and Probation: Intermediate Sanctions,” p. 791.
[Top] 134. Susan Turner and Joan Petersilia, “Focusing on High-Risk Parolees: An Experiment to Reduce Commitments to the Texas Department of Corrections,” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 29, No. 1, February 1992, p. 34-61.
[Top] 135. DJJ, Maryland Department of Juvenile Justice Recidivism Analysis, p.8.
[Top] 136. David W. Moore, “Majority Advocate Death Penalty for Teenage Killers,” Gallup Poll Monthly, September 1994, p. 2.
[Top] 137. Moore, “Majority Advocate Death Penalty for Teenage Killers,” p. 3.
[Top] 138. George Gallup, Jr. and Alec Gallup, “Teens Say Youths Should Be Tried as Adults for Serious Crimes,” Gallup Youth Survey, March 8, 1995.
[Top] 139. Patrick F. Fagan, “Why Religion Matters: The Impact of Religious Practice on Social Stability,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, No. 1064, January 25, 1996, p. 2.
[Top] 140. Fagan, “Why Religion Matters,” p. 2.
[Top] 141. Fagan, “Why Religion Matters,” p. 2.
[Top] 142.142 William A. Niskanen, “Welfare and the Culture of Poverty,” Cato Journal, Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring/Summer 1996, Internet site (http:// www.cato.org).
[Top] 143. As quoted in Battle, “Startling Facts on Black-on-Black Crime.”
[Top] 144. The term, “”burden on the parish,” is used in Ivan Bloch’s history of sexual practices in England. See Ivan Bloch, Sexual Life in England: Past and Present (Royston, U.K.: Oracle Publishing, 1996 [orig. 1938]), passim.
[Top] 145. As quoted in James Boack, “Sociologist Touts Strengths of Black Families,” (Baltimore) Sun, July 7, 1997, p. 2B.
[Top] 146. Herbert H. Toler, Jr., “Fisher of Men: A Baltimore Minister Promotes Black Christian Manhood,” Heritage Foundation Policy Review, Spring 1995, Number 77, Internet site (http://www.heritage.org).
[Top] 147. Toler, “Fisher of Men.”
[Top] 148. Toler, “Fisher of Men.”
[Top] 149. Jill Hudson and Kevin L. McQuaid, “Church Said to Be Near Deal in County,” (Baltimore) Sun, June 17, 1997, p. 1A.
[Top] 150. From data supplied by State of Maryland, Office of Planning.
[Top] 151. Bennett, DiIulio and Waters, Body Count, p. 59.
[Top] 152. Bennett, DiIulio and Waters, Body Count, p. 59.
[Top] 153. Peter Hermann, “Crime Declines Sharply in City,” (Baltimore) Sun, July 19, 1997, p. 1B.
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