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The purpose of the seminar is quite simple. Its function is to provide a forum in which social welfare issues of critical importance to Boston and the Commonwealth can be aired and discussed. Moreover the aim is to bring together leaders in business industry government and social work for cooperative discussion and rational analysis of such issues. In this way we hope that the Boston College Graduate School of Social Work can contribute to the development of more effective social programmes for the Commonwealth. Now let me introduce Mr. Joseph Levy the moderator moderator of today's seminar. Mr. Levy is the acting commissioner for the Department of Youth Services equally important he is a graduate of the Boston College Graduate School of Social Work. So I present. I'm happy to present to you is to just leave you. With. Thank you for a couple of hundred years in the state. Where I
had men locked up in prisons and nobody was really too concerned about them. And here we have at this gathering about 300 people who are concerned. We have panelists who are ready to speak. And it gets to be my job to be making sure they don't talk too long. And to make sure that you people get a chance to get some questions and I'm sure you'll hear some answers. The way we're going to run the format today is that each speaker will talk for about 15 minutes. I say above that I'll be the person making sure it is the 15 minutes. And then when they have completed their talks we will try to have questions and answers for about a 15 or 20 minute period. I'm not going to spend a long time on the resumes of these speak as I was talking to them beforehand and they said well if they didn't know we were they probably wouldn't be here to listen to us. And I'm going to go along with that. The first speaker to be secretary Peter Goldmark and I will say a few
words about Secretary Peter Gold Maxence among other claims to fame is my boss. Grew up in. Connecticut area but came to our state in July one thousand seventy one. And since that time has been very actively involved in trying to reorganize our social services. The secretary to Human Services consists of the Department of Public Welfare mental health public health my own department a few others and what he is trying to work towards is the day when we'll all be one big happy family. And I'd say that just pointing out he's got a great task in front of him. But without further comments I'd like to introduce Peter goldmine. I'm for the. Thank you Joe for the veiling. See if I can stick to the 15 minutes of this. I'm very pleased to be here today to discuss what I guess all of us know is a pretty timely question
what do we as a society do with those members of our society who violate the law in a few areas of social concern. Is there greater disparity between conventional wisdom and conventional practice and in the correctional field for 10 or 15 years now. Conventional wisdom is held that the traditional method of dealing with criminals was bankrupt Commission report after Commission Report national state local. Have documented the failure of the traditional system. I feel your consist primarily in the fact that between 60 and 70 percent of all inmates commit new crimes after their release and wind up back in prison. Despite this awareness reform of the traditional system has been astonishingly slow. Why is that. Why have we failed to change the system. What is the traditional prison system. Prison
administrators usually have prepared to keep the have preferred to keep the public in the dark about answers to these questions. And the public. Has been more than content. To be kept in the dark. It was enough to know that a prison was a maximum security institution which presumably meant that society would be forever protected from incorrigible criminals locked behind those massive concrete walls. As a grain of truth to that image. It is for example virtually impossible for an inmate to escape from most maximum security prisons. They are secure from the outside. But what are they like inside. That's the part you never hear about. That's what everyone has had a stake in keeping quiet about. The answer is simple but a little bit brutal. It's a jungle inside many large and secure prisons. The threat of violence pervades these prisons. Very often a
small group of boss convicts can wield power over the vast majority of inmates. There can be private deals between these Boss cons and some of the guards. Drugs and weapons are often smuggled into prisons or distributed their rackets can flourish. Other common elements are harassment of officers by inmates and of inmates by guards. Occasional beatings of recalcitrant inmates assaults on guards. Gang rapes of newer young inmates. We've been content for quite a while to describe all of that with some much gentler and euphemistic terms of violence and corruption flourish in the traditional penal system. As long as
that is taken place inside prison walls without too much light being shed on it society has been content to look the other way. Inmates after all are the victims of most of the violence so not all behind those walls. But to keep on looking the other way is wrong. It's wrong on moral grounds and it won't work. Anymore. A growing number of people throughout the country have begun to recognize that fact and in Massachusetts we have made the decision to discard this brutal and unproductive system. And move in a more humane and effective direction. The main tool at our disposal is the corrections Reform Act. Passed by the Massachusetts legislature six months ago. And I see the faces of several people in this audience who worked very hard. Both in the drafting and toward the passage of that act. Now many of the legislators are claiming that the Department of Correction is moving too fast that the department is coddling criminals or letting murderers out on the street. And this reaction is part of a larger public concern about prison reform.
A key fact that we have to contend with is that more than 95 percent of all prison inmates return to society after serving out their sentences if they return bitter and vengeful and schooled in violence and with no viable alternative to pursue. The odds are high and they we have learned that they are high. Year after year decade after decade the odds are high that they will commit another violent crime. And claim another innocent victim. It's only a matter of time before the violence inside the prisons extends beyond those walls. Yet public officials and private citizens rail against the rising crime rate and call for tough action against criminals if tougher action means sentencing them fenders to prisons as we have traditionally known them. Then we will only be fueling the crime rate. This administration has taken a different course course designed to help inmates bridge the gap between prison life and the responsibilities and difficulties of
freedom. In the end the inmate alone has to make that leap if he's to succeed. But we can help him by changing our large prisons and by creating more importantly new programs in controlled settings. These programs assist the inmates in developing the necessary self-discipline. They test him measure his preparedness to return to the responsibility of living outside prison. Not everyone can make the grade. Moore can make the grade and are making it now. We in Massachusetts then are trying to reform the prison system on two major fronts. First by changing the environment in the large institutions in some cases including reduction of the population. And second by setting up a number of new programs tied to community living. Let me give you a couple of examples. In January the department closed the infamous East Wing at the Concord reformatory the wing with the oldest coldest cells in the Commonwealth at Framingham the department is
gradually converting the women's reformatory into a co-educational institution. The first of its kind in the country aimed at preparation for return to the community. After July 1 when public drunkenness is no longer a crime apartment plans to phase down the alcoholic unit at Bridgewater State Hospital. Department is establishing a reception diagnostic center. To screen and classify all inmates sentenced to the state's prison system. And in the community area there are under way five halfway houses and pretty really centers for inmates who are near parole or who have just been released on parole here. Very crux of what the department is trying to do. To create a bridge rather than asking these men to return upon their release to the towns from which they came with no preparation. No discipline for the tests and the Temptations they'll receive and no resources with which to pass those tests.
About 30 inmates from Norfolk Framingham in the Monroe forestry camp are taking part in educational release programs attending day or night classes at UMass and Boston Framingham State College. And the North Adams community college. Fifty men and women now hold jobs outside prison walls. In various programs of work release. And perhaps most important inmates are now eligible for furloughs away from prison for up to 14 days a year. The furlough program is an important tool in helping an inmate rehabilitate himself. Furloughs can also help cut down the violence inside prisons. A furlough allows an inmate to look for a job. Or find a place to live as he nears parole. It gives them a chance to spend a night with his wife. In prison he was torn between abstinence. And homosexuality. Of course furlough should not be granted to all inmates in the Department of Correction has attempted to place meaningful limits on since the program began last November.
More than 3000 inmates have been released on furlough and 99 percent have returned without incident. That's a remarkable record better than either supporters or critics of the program had predicted. Unfortunately as you know and I know the ugly mistake now looms larger than the run of the mill successes. As we've seen in the case of Joseph simple asking. Before rushing to judgment however let's remember that the old prison system had been releasing a dozen super Lasky is a week. When their sentences came to an end. And let's acknowledge another startling fact which is beginning to emerge from six months of experience with a furlough program. Namely that younger inmates with relatively short sentences who are nearer parole eligibility. Turn out statistically to be greater for a low risk than older inmates with long sentences. Nor for prison for example a total of 18 men serving life sentences have been released on furlough. And to date only one has failed to
return at Walpole 25 lifers have been furloughed. Twenty four have returned so the law school is the 25th. This is a time of tremendous upheaval in the state's correctional system as it is in states across the country. Changing as far reaching as the ones I've outlined don't come easily. Many persons have a vested interest in the old system. Others simply feel more comfortable doing things the way they've always been done. Regardless of motives however the effect can be the same. To place obstacles in the way of prison reform. Which promises more humane treatments of inmates and a safer public. But is the reality of prison life is stripped of its veneer of respectability. People react with horror at what they see. In some cases they blame reforms for what has been the reality of prison life in most large institutions for decades. We have seen that recently at Walpole.
Well Paul is the citadel of the old prison system in this state. It is the bastion of traditionalism. It has the most rebellious officers and the most unruly inmates. And as we move to change that system many longstanding problems have come to light and some new ones created by the process of a change of the change itself. These ills are not the product of prison reform. It is through reform. We attempting to come to grips with it when we get through the smoke of charges and countercharges surrounding Walpole or the furlough program. What do we have. I think we have in this commonwealth the beginnings of a serious effort. To reform. The state's prison system with some notable successes. The closing of the east wing network of 5 community centers and programs which are now beginning to work with people who are returning to the communities and from which they originally came.
A 99 percent success rate in the furlough program. I suppose that a year from now we can show what we cannot show today because the programs are too young that these changes succeed in cutting the recidivism rate. That's the rate. Of the commission of crime. Is that worth fighting for. I'm gambling that it is. In the end what we're talking about is the safety of the public. And the chance for offenders to break the cycle of crime. I believe those two are synonymous and I believe they're worth fighting for even taking some risks for it starkly most prison reforms have failed. The reform efforts here will not succeed unless we have the discipline and the strength to see just how far we have to go. And that may mean starting by acknowledging how ineffective the old system is. And how hard and disturbing.
The changes can be. If we are to succeed this time. It will take the efforts of all of us. If we watch from the sidelines. Our effort is doomed to fail. Thank you very much. Thank you. It was. Thanks Peter. As Peter mentioned during any period of change and transition it becomes a sport for people to Stott polarizing the various factions involved in the change. And you can usually get the picture of the administration the liberal permissive administration just cares about the prisoners and does not care at all about public safety. And you get an equally polarized image if you start talking about the gods who are just concerned about public safety and don't care anything about the prisoner. Well this
can happen also between the judicial fields of various disciplines a judicial field and one of them that comes up over and over is a feeling that the police department is constantly concerned about public safety and their whole image of saving the public is to catch these criminals and then they're into competition with say Department to use services or the pop into Corrections who really just want to let these people out. And I think that we have to stop talking about public safety and I think we have to start seeing that in adult corrections and in juvenile corrections. The ultimate goal is to improve public safety just as it is with the police department. The next speaker is the commissioner the new commissioner of the Boston Police Department. He was appointed commissioner on November 15th 1970. So background was he was. Grew up in San Francisco and has had a lot of experience as a
deputy sheriff and also as a superintendent of police in Missouri. And I just tell you personally from my discussions with the new commissioner. I think that his idea of what a police officer is in the role of a police officer is really geared very much towards this entire concept of public safety. And I think what he's trying to do is broaden the role of the police to really get it make sure it's an all inclusive kind of image like like the president you know Commissioner Robert the Grazia. I. Thank you Joe. Father Bailey. One of the things that people have said when I've had to sit through one of my speeches is that I speak without any notes. I beg your indulgence they wanted a prepared text today so I'll be reading and I'll try put you to sleep. But I hope that you'll find some of the things said here worthwhile and they will then engender some questions at the end.
It is not possible to talk about prison reform and the DNC to tional lies ation of the prisons without speaking of what I call the entire non-system of Criminal Justice. I call it a non-system because there is actually little coordination between any of the agencies involved in criminal justice. Each part of the non-system sees their own role and little else. This is certainly true of the police. And this is also true of the community itself. As an example the community sees the police as having responsibility for doing something about crime. They fail to recognize that the effectiveness of the police in dealing with serious crime is largely dependent upon the effectiveness of other agencies within the criminal justice area. As another example the community sees the correctional responsibility as having to do with custody with little consideration of the fact. That custody is almost always a temporary affair. But the success of the corrections
effort can all too often affect what the police are being held responsible for eliminating crime. It is obvious then that all agencies involved in criminal justice must work together. Even if to improve their own success. We must all be willing to accept criticism from other agencies in criminal justice and most of all we must be willing to be critical of our own efforts. When a police service must be concerned about other areas of criminal justice we have to look at the total problem and we have to make efforts at improvement. It is with this in mind that I want to comment on the goal of the institutionalizing the presidents three specific issues come to mind. They are citizen fair a community based corrections police misunderstanding of the correctional role and corrections misunderstanding of the police role. These issues must be dealt with if correctional reform is to occur because without citizens support. Coupled with police cooperation no prison
program which is really correctional will be possible. The first issue of community fear is a difficult problem. Citizens don't want to see convicted criminals residing within our neighborhoods. They don't want halfway houses because they perceive them as being dangerous to citizen security. The community is generally intolerable and tolerant she has me of correctional approaches that permit the convict to move freely throughout society. Like going through the correctional process. We need only to look at the public reaction to the recent furlough programme of the State Department of Corrections reaction to the furloughing of prisoners who were serving long prison terms with little chance of early release was negative. It became even more negative when some furloughed prisoners didn't return. Quite correctly the plot the public saw citizen security endangered when men who had little chance of early release from prison were Sunday given furloughs. It should be obvious that a furlough program handle in this way is not only not going to work but will also endanger the whole
concept. Of the institutionalizing the prisons. Public sentiment is now against furlough programs. Yet a properly managed furlough program for prisoners near the end of the sentences would make their return to society easier and more likely to be successful unless prison reform programs are thoughtfully and carefully thought out and a massive educational program is mounted to get the public to understand that corrections must be more than incarceration. Community based programs will never get off the ground. At the present time. The public does not understand the basis for community corrections program. Efforts must be made to ensure. That the community recognizes that most convicted criminals will eventually be released. That Corrections is not a life time lock up of any errant person and that persons cannot be expected to exist in a prison
environment one day and then upon release be expected to immediately adjust to the community environment. Citizens must come to recognize that one carefully administered a community based correctional program has a better chance of eliminating criminal repeaters than has the present system. Citizens should be less afraid of the offender who is in the community under controlled circumstances undergoing correctional programming than the offender who has spent his entire term behind bars and then is simply released. A Polk a program of public education is imperative if prison reform is to be successful. Failure to deal with the issue will by itself. Cause correctional reform to become hopelessly bogged down in politics. Citizen protest. And other conflict. The second issue that must be dealt with is police misunderstanding of the correctional role in the criminal
justice system. The police view of Corrections is much the same as the public view. It is tempered however by the unique position of the police in arresting offenders and sending them through the criminal justice system to be incarcerated. The police hold a great deal of anger for the court system especially when they see criminals ever arrested in the act of a serious crime. Released time and time again. This is difficult for them to understand. It has sometimes been difficult for me to understand also but I was recently speaking with a judge who asked me How can I send a man to prison and what will happen is for him to become become educated in more sophisticated criminal techniques. The judge felt he had little choice but to place on probation many criminals because the correctional system was such a failure. The police see this failure too but most don't perceive the types of reform suggested by community based corrections as being a solution to the
problem. They don't see community based corrections as being an answer to the problem because they rarely understand the type of frustration felt by the judge. And they don't see corrections as having the responsibility of reintegrating an offender back into society. To the police. And I suppose to many others the prison is a place of punishment where criminal pays his debt consistent with this line of thinking. The criminal has few if any rights. He shouldn't have privileges he shouldn't have any comforts he should suffer. And he certainly shouldn't have furloughs. The rationale for this view is not very complex. The criminal was caught in the act of committing a crime. He was arrested and he was sent to prison in order to keep him off the streets. Corrections doesn't even enter into the argument. How can we deal with this police misunderstanding. Police administrators concern and do something about. Through the police training process.
You will see in coming years more and more training program for the police that are oriented toward providing a better understanding of all aspects of Criminal Justice. We may even find ourselves moving toward criminal justice training rather than simply police training or correctional personnel training. This type of effort can help increase understanding among criminal justice system employees of each other's roles. But more important is the necessity for cooperative effort in the planning and in the implementation of community based correctional programs. These programs cannot be designed by corrections people without the active involvement of other segments of the criminal justice system and the general public. Community based corrections will occur in the neighborhoods of our cities among our citizens. Therefore they must be involved. The police are responsible for crime
detection and Criminal Apprehension. The police can either be involved in this decision making or they can be kept apart from it. If kept apart. The police will fail to understand prison reform and will not support it. We must strive for the police to have a meaningful role in the community correctional process. This can only be achieved through massive cooperation and complete understanding between our agencies. The final issue in which what we must be concerned is Correctional misunderstanding of the police role. And we must recognise that the policeman is not just a man interested in re-arresting offenders. As soon as he hits the street after the correctional process. Actually the role of the police is both but is both protected and service to the citizens. The police need the full backing of all the agencies involved in criminal justice justice. If they are to be successful. Much like the police misconception of the correctional role there is a lack of
understanding among correctional administrators of the police role and the demands made upon the police by the community. This failure to comprehend the complexities of the police role is not limited to correctional administrators but is common throughout the society. It seems that the common perception of the role is that of the crook catcher and nothing could be further from the truth. Less than 20 percent of a police officer's time concerns crime. Actually the police officer spends most of his time dealing with a wide range of social problems. He does not like to be considered a social worker but it is the police officer who has the first contact with a wide range of conflicts social crises such as the family fight. The intoxicated person the neighborhood quarrel and a mentally ill person. When confronting problems of this type. The police officer is expected to take some action. Because the law doesn't prescribe a course of
action. He is often left to his own devices in deciding what ought to be done. And frequently his choices are rather limited. For example he might want to refer a family fight to a professional consular but at 3am the consulates are all asleep. So we find just choice is often limited to arrest or no action. If a rest is used when then the offender enters the criminal justice non-system and this may not have been the best way for him to enter. If the system was prepared to deal with some of these problems in other manners than arrest prison reform might be less complicated. But since we have so many people entering the system through arrest. It is all the more important that we make progress in prison reform. That we rehabilitate the prisoner before his return to society. We have to make this effort. All of us. For my part I assure you that the Boston Police Department
will train its men to understand all aspects of Criminal Justice. We will bring into the training process educational institutes and other agencies concerned with criminal justice. We will do our part to assure that the Boston police receive the possible the fullest possible exposure and understanding for all parts of Criminal Justice. We must all do our part. For not only must the present system be reformed but the entire system of criminal justice must be made into a really workable system. If it isn't then all of us have failed in our duty to society. Thank you. Thank ye. Thank you. Thanks Bob. Our next speaker is Robert Palmer who was raised in the Boston area which I guess
is getting unique for the panel. Well I graduated from Columbia University and has been involved in with various citizen groups and very much involved prison reform. Presently He's president of the Massachusetts Council on Crime and corrections. I'd like to present you know Robert Thomas. Thank you Mr. Levy. There's no problem with the prepared text what all you do is you just send an old speech and then come and say whatever you want to say. I'd like to comment on. Two efforts one very briefly and that's the Massachusetts Council on Crime correction and then go into further detail on the Polaroid experience. With hiring inmates which has been very successful. Originally the mass Massachusetts Council. Was the old watch and warts society. Of New England and I read the 1923 annual
report. Which said We will now attempt to be the agency in the Boston area which will stamp out all sin. Where we find. Our priority for 923 will be concerned with the fallen woman. I think it depends on your point of view but we've come some distance. I hope since then. Most of our efforts in the last two years was the alcoholism bill which you're familiar with which was past. The closing of the county training schools which I'm very proud. Of and a lot of effort as secretary mentioned on the what we call the omnibus prison reform bill of the last session. I'd like to go into more detail on the efforts of Polaroid in hiring the ex-offender. I would particularly like to cite our failures. I believe in failure. I believe in the failures that we have in corrections now. Because the only way
we're going to have success. So I'll start with them. Originally. We set up a sub contract with one of the institutions where we took work that we needed to beat to have done send it into the institution with someone from Polaroid who started to train them inmates about a dozen on making this product. And as usual look the person who was in there got very interested in the men and got to know them not as convicts but as men. Who wanted to be treated as human beings and wanted some kind of a skill or a hope of getting a job when he got out. Several of these people were hired. By Polaroid when they came out on parole and all failed. We found very quickly that the reason was the failure for the failure was that we were setting up entirely phony work conditions that the atmosphere within the institution was so different from Polaroid where it was in the institution it was controlled. It was ordered. There was only one supervisor. There
was no freedom of change or movement. On coming into the company this was very hard to handle without previous training. The second thing we tried to do that also failed. Was we did set up some training but then set up a program to hire inmates coming into the company. We brought in I think about a dozen all at one time told the company ahead of time that we were going to do it that we thought we ought to do it. Polaroid has a policy that's called a policy of special effort that we will set aside some jobs for what we call handicapped people in the very broadest sense of the word not only minority members deaf blind or tardy. And in this case inmates they were brought in and. I might I might add a side issue. Everybody knew that they were ex inmates they were pointed out as inmates. And having a very valuable and very small product. Stealing that goes on within our company is a daily event and continuous.
When the inmates were brought in the stealing within that plant rose dramatically. All in the part of our regular employees who quickly pointed to the inmates and said it would never have happened if you hadn't hired them. And I would ask the Boston Globe to please not run a headline to morrow that. Says Polaroid executive cites rising crime rate as result of hiring. This failed really for the same reason because once again we were making somebody different it was like bringing a person in without any clothes on or neon light on his head saying he's a con he's different. It was impossible for him to work onto this and it was very hard on members of the company. The success began shortly after that. We stopped all programs and stopped all discussion outside and inside the company about hiring inmates we hired a number from Concord in Norfolk primarily two from Walpole each on an individual
basis. Each person who came in came in and filled out two applications. One was all his record on it. Everything about it this was locked in a vault and was known only to the hiring supervisor personnel director and the general manager. The other application we either fate which we did and signed off on or we left place is blank such as Have you ever been arrested for other than a minor traffic violation. This was left in his personnel file and anyone who checked him and apparently the great fine. It has very good access to all personnel files. Nothing would show so the person came in no different than anyone else. It was then he was treated as anyone else who was hired and it was left entirely up to him whether he wished to discuss his background and not many have. Many have not. There are well over 100 within the company in a little less than a decade. We have had two failures and by failures I don't mean people that have left for another
job and a better job and several have I mean two that are returned institutions and we're talking if I may. Recidivism if we have 90 percent coming out on the street and 90 percent will come out on the street whether we have reform or not. Seventy percent return in our case we find it just remarkable of how many did not return because they got trained. Got a job and were treated the same as anyone else we also found very quickly which is interested. I hope will interest other businesses in general. We found the inmate to be ignorant but bright and by ignorant I mean many inmates were ignorant in terms of power. What we see as a proper education. Most had no education. And other handicaps. Most had never had a full time job. Most had no skill or training. But this is entirely separate from being extremely bright.
We found our training costs were low if there was a training program with 15 people this was simply adding another as we would with anyone else. The absenteeism is substantially under our regular rate and there has been almost literally no turnover which is most certainly because of the need itself for the job. I think what the businessman and this audience and the state has to learn. Is that we're talking about costs not only the human costs but the economic costs. Our prisons for only a couple of thousand people cost twenty seven million dollars. That twenty seven million dollars is separate from all the additional costs of the family on welfare or aid or some other kind of. Problem I would guess that it's close to 50 million dollars and cost to do what we've been doing. We think that business has to learn to accept its. Share of society's problems and in this case this is one that is so easily solvable. If every business in the Commonwealth simply hired two to five
inmates as they came out. That would end this particular problem. It's so simple it's hard to. To deal with. I'm just asking that. People who are in here support reform and support the efforts to get people out who are coming out anyway and get them the help training and placement. In closing I want to add a couple of comments on a couple of our problems as we face social issues. And I guess I say it as a citizen and part. Coming from a business. I hope the media and I'm not talking about television I'm talking about the Globe and The Herald will pay a lot more attention to the separation of what is opinion versus what is an event. I think the public's getting to understand it too and spending in the past. People in the company would come up and say. I read in the paper this morning about that isn't that awful. And that's all changed in spending a lot of time in Walpole in the
last six months now. The question is always I read about Walpole in the globe. Were you out there what really happened. I think there is a worry about this and I hope the press will examine. Second. I don't think the culprit or the problem is the big it is the chi who says coon or uses other some other kind. Of racist remark. He isn't a problem because you know where he stands. And you know what to do about him or how to get around him in many ways in the last two years. My own problem has been a worry about the professional quite liberal. Who is so adept at recommending solutions for everybody else. Well versed in formulating studies commissions committees discussions reports which I think all of been done before particularly in this field. And the real danger to the enemy and it's a tragic danger. Is that it creates an illusion of action. When in fact
it's only motion and these efforts have created hope where there is no result and the despair is worse. I think in our state Massachusetts our one of our major problems is that we react and work on political needs rather than human ones. And the reason is we have no political parties at all in Massachusetts. What we have is political individuals each with his own backing in his own party. Each trying to find an issue on which to base a platform and run for office. And this is where we get into the problem of simply spending all of our time attempting to destroy each other rather than to help each other succeed. We did a good job and Jerome Miller and in not being able to get at him we finally just called him just a lousy administrator. We're in the same process with the commissioner. And it's tragic for reform and the state. I think when you look at the names of appointments in Massachusetts Steve Minter. And Ryan in insurance Nancy
Beecher Glendora Putnam all three people on this stage Secretary Commissioner Joe Charles Foster Mary Newman. You can go through a list of 15 or 20 people dug in sand in George Ballinger superintendence of Concord in Norfolk which has been so successful in their both in the audience today the list is so long it may be the best talent. In any state in the country. And one by one we're finding ways to not let them succeed and destroy them in the process. My point is very simple. Sooner or later we have to stop trying to destroy them and therefore each other and we've got to try and learn how to fix the problem and not the boy. Thank you. Thank you Ira. Thank you. A lot of the speakers
kept their time limits and we now have about one half hour one of these in the five. About half of the questions or comments leave the microphones of working right at the desk and so I. Was standing. Right there. You're real right you were rude. All right well let me just interrupt you. Your first. Question. Night. Here was. What. Do you mean. Is is this working. You know this is this one where I'm going to give you what you'll probably not consider a satisfactory answer to that question.
Public officials are supposed to know what they think and a supposed haven't answered every question. I'm torn on that one and I'm torn for this reason I think. I think one element that's desperately needed in the situation we're in now is some. Source some voice who can begin to speak with some credibility about the simplest events. Now let alone some of the more complicated ones to transpire. But from the. But my Instinctively I worry about the commission and much the same sense Bob Palmer talked about I worry about the commission. I worry about the blue ribbons. I worry about waiting for yet another report which I believe in some and some cases won't be able to answer many of the questions of fact or events. And in terms of general conclusions I believe can only come to the same ones that all of us going back 5 10 15 years have come to before. Reason I think you find the answer on satisfactory is because a number of people have discussed this and I honestly don't know what side of it I come down on right now.
I hope I've at least told you why I'm torn both ways on. The rest of the mission very closely. Maybe a little light on it. It was followed very closely. Oh I am a legislator. Reply. Have patience. Oh man. I am going to ask you to roll over. Do you know why I want you to. Write. I agree with you. We have made no attempts on the first part and we are making an attempt on the second. We're trying to use our own experience that this should be like some. If all of us have a failure failure should be private and kept that way and that that would be stopped. We think the institution that if you will makes the contract that hires the person has the right and should know that. But the public should not.
I can kill that Congress the feeding system from our society built up all our correctional institution. Maybe we have a ongoing problem. There can never be solved. And while I fully believe that we need because other institutions to close support group to take place if you will what you are going to use must go towards preventive services for example the public school system. Which is one of the strongest social forces that we in our society. Unless before you get the. Schools with family. You for them. Program we help them to live and grow within the self then we will always be a Philly institution. You Russians hold still to develop we are the future for the development of all the all the molecular beginning to take a look at some of the
reasons why people want to go in jail. What you could wind up with that we could be I think we need a broader former. BRIEFLESS perhaps. To evaluate what the services of the cool those Munley the people who do. Not agree with you fully. Would that I think one of the sad truth of society though is that we react to crisis and one of the reasons that people for years over the installment plan was spending an awful lot more money than we would if we have a did really get some good prevention programs but when you look at the job that adult corrections is done in the state and juvenile corrections is done in the state and you have a said well did we get our money's worth we didn't. But rather than trying to put a lot of funds into prevention really trying to do something there people are much more satisfied just to say well let's keep that budget at the 12 million and keep it going in for Needham. I agree with you I think this to be tremendous work in the prevention area. Possibly this could be coming
from the schools. I'm just telling you one of the realities and one of the political realities is it's very difficult to get funds for prevention programs. The remarks commissioner Grazia made made made me think again something I thought often in this whole subject. It really there's there's another very important way to look at the difficulty of the role of both the policeman and the correction officer. The reason I say that is because we don't have the kind of broad early intervention or preventive frameworks or mechanisms you're talking about because we're just groping for them. There's a real sense in which I think what this society is saying to the police officer and to the correction officers words saying is no we don't really know how to handle all these problems. Several people have tried down the line of a failed and they keep slipping to a to another level and pretty soon they wind up either on the street in the arms of the policeman or in the in Walpole in Norfolk in the arms of the correction officer and they're to someone whom we have equipped very poorly in some
cases deal with these problems we say well we all give up we we who have 18 more degrees and you know who are paid five times as much to try and worry about these things we couldn't do it. So guess what my friends you've got it and you've got it without a name without a label without a category without a program with 18 policy Labick titles in it. You've got to take care of it you've got to walk into that cell block with a flicker of fear in them in the pit of your stomach every time you do it. You've got to walk down the street and handle you know handle a problem in a house you walk into that a team of five psychiatrists or family counselors would have trouble handling. If you really got the problem of these people who are at the end of the line of what the rest of us can't deal with and I think it's I think it's fitting sometimes remember what a lonely and what an on. Appreciated and what a difficult situation I was in and I wonder I wonder how many of us could function well or effectively in that situation. It would be a good there's no need to tell the world so what's next
going to be the meek always knows our next God you know I think you did say it is a good thing. For me to say my right to be where the next conflict know what you want. I don't think that's in conflict. I think if someone is hiring someone for a job regardless of the job and they're always specific whether it's research or engineering or accounting or anything where there is a field you want and should be able to know all you can about someone's background. There are some restrictions on where an inmate might work for instance in it in a company depending on what he was incarcerated for. I'm saying that that failure is also private and it can be kept private. It's if it's between him and who has hired him who has a right to interview him. No as background as anyone else. I think that's very different from him being made an issue and have his failure pointed out within the company or the community. Further I think I would leave it to him and we have
found that most after they've been hired for awhile have told it anyway. Good will be well over the first place but it varies. We have a very tough fall here. You might ask. And have all the success in my life. What bothers me is the lawyer with the bombers coming out having very good people. My first experience of working with the law. Is that the delivery system. Is damn near breaking down. Because of the original individuals to find the problems. Of the job as a crime. Simply by
giving away most of our so hard to get away from. But but there's a very real problem lies. In part we have some of the best laws. In the state. Here are some of the most people we have some of the worst of ministration because of our our ministry of structure and delivery system the civil service as a whole. I was sort of. Arguing Are you sure there exists a government. I wonder whether you because you have a good idea but Mr Powell would have could address the question about how we're going to address the problem of improving total limbic system so we can make things really happen at the end right now. Firstly watching the destruction of a 17 year old kid who has been with the wires for a suit here and his apparent barrier to do I ask for your advice we have her here and I have he's going to pay sooner or later. But a moment later saying that's critical because we cannot have a list you know
under the policy because it's going to cost sila or. Inmost or him or some other place to come. Down. How have you been able to do something from what we have to do you want us to meet I think you know one of. The best music. Tough job but you know we feel so low that one of the reasons we feel we're not getting my liberty lovin me. I don't know how to answer you. Course one of the beauties of being with a profit making institution is that when you're inefficient you can charge more for your product. Forget about it. Secretary Goldmark has a different problem. I agree that middle management is of concern for us
because it's far more cautious. The backing of this kind of effort that we've been involved in is certainly not come from the ground up comes from the top down or won't happen. I would rather back off and let Secretary Goldmark talk about civil service or his. Middle class. OK you better watch me again Joe I try and keep this to a couple of minutes. One time I wanted I was going to get to a whole afternoon without talking about reorganization. I guess I'm not but I'm going to do it quickly. One time I was describing the reorganization plans for human services and somebody said you know what you're trying to do you're trying to destroy the civil service system so you don't understand this plan and all I'm trying to modernize it. The most important part of the reorganization plan that we've proposed in human services is
not the changes in the designations of the central agencies or the combination or the elimination of those agencies. It is not. The fact that we have tried to revamp the citizen advisory structure so that there is a greater and a well a better defined citizen and so on. I consider the most important part of the reorganization plan the most central to getting at the problems you're talking about be that this government has finally had the guts for a few less of you here I'd use a different word. I mean have the guts to propose to change the way power to make programs work and run all those administrative things hiring personnel deciding whether someone is qualified for a job deciding where somebody can be assigned transferring $600 from one account when it's a leak to prevent it from being a flood and so on all those key powers that it takes to make a program work. Has decided to redistribute the proposed redistribution of those powers in the government. I find the present state system and I'll let the commission DeGrazia talk about the municipal one. I find the present state system to be
based on a system of deed retail transaction review. It's a system designed by France Kafka in his wildest nightmare. You cannot buy a wastebasket without having it reviewed at 5 or 6 levels of government and then having it approved by a man whose name you don't know and whom I barely know and who was not responsible for making the programme that has that wastebasket in it work. You get as a result of that a government that works by layers of deception. The layer that's operating the program cannot afford to tell the truth to the lawyers reviewing its actions or those action or its proposals in order to provide service to take the example of your seven 17 year old case might be denied. I'm trying to get anything done as like as if my trying to throw an arrow here through ten successive hoops between here and a back of the back of the Roman be a matter of accident if I did. How many people in this room. Probably better of the horror stories than I am I'm not going to tell any today I just want to say that I consider that I consider the problem you mentioned to be the number one problem of our state government. The present
system a state government designed when it was about a twentieth of its size in terms of budget number of employees and we when we were not in the business of managing change when we were in the business of operating a fairly static operation we did much with much reduced functions and when we were not in the kind of close and increasing partnership with the federal government that we are now in. And if we're going to have the slightest chance of doing some of the things and responding to the problems that the previous speaker mention then we better face this route. But very difficult and abstract and unpleasant and boring to talk about subject which is who has the power to make programs work in this government. We better get those powers hiring firing reassigning budget transfers within limits down to the people who operate the programs and put the policy review in the evaluation where it belongs for the first time which is in the central agencies if you will of philosophy in general we continue to be the same. The fact is going to progress what we're going to do is continue to work with community based programs I think we're going to be into a
period of just trying to get up some better support for those community based programs use was going to be based a lot on the previous discussion. We are not going to go back to training schools at all I can guarantee you that as long as I am here and I think also as long as secretary gold and others are here I think what we have to do though we were know we were in a period of closing closing down systems and although we have built up a lot of group homes foster homes everything else. I kind of see it as half way into the community to tell you the truth. Geographically the kids are no longer in line in school and they are in the community. I think we have to start building in ways that the community really starts to take some responsibility for these kids and some of the private agencies are only in those communities almost because theyre fighting the local community every day. I want to get to the point where we start saying that possibly universities are going to start taking responsibilities for blocks area we get UMass with
and now maybe they could take over Columbia Point to handle all the social problems they have and handle any of the kids who. On probation start helping out the courts a little bit. I think possibly B.C. school is so short to take over Rossendale. I think there'd be a nice nice thing to do you have got more educated as you've got more psychiatrists to get more teachers than any state the pattern has. So I think they could do it. I'd like to get to the point where we start talking about some of the groups that I talk to and usually get into fights with like the veterans clubs is something that I go out to speak with rather than them just keep saying well what about crime in the streets. I'd like to see them take a couple of blocks and say OK why don't you handle this I'm not talking vigilante crews now but I'm talking about a a a a social bawdy a community group really taking responsibility. And when I think what the state has to do is just to make sure the funds are getting out they make sure the technical assistance is getting out there and do a good evaluation job. And then the
state could even get to the point where we really became the advocates for the kids which would really be where I want to see it. That's not by next week but that's where we're going to go. Any other questions. Yes. Oh I would relate to this correct. Oh right you're right. It would. This is going to be a really good thing. What was the feeling you're going to have to write better on someplace. Like what you had. Read. I was hoping I'd get out of answering any questions today things would be going so smoothly.
If you want to have something to you know to help someone you're not going to put them out know Woods because that's not going to bring him back to where they will eventually move when they are completely released. So it has to be neighborhood based. I think what what I was was referring to earlier of course was that there has to be a selling job. I think the same way that with the police that I referred to earlier with not knowing what the total programs are I sat at a meeting of police officers I should say police administrators when they talked to commission aboon about furloughs and it was very obvious that. Most them did not recognize did not understand what was going on. And I think that if it had been if the time had been taken to discuss it fully that there certainly still would have been negative reaction from a lot from a great number but I think that some of the people would have understood what the situation
was and they could have help to sell it to the other members of that group and I think this is what's important that we can't forget that we can just you know go out and undertake a program. And have people just accept it because we say that this is the way should be. One of the biggest things that we all have to fight and I guess it's evident from some of the notoriety Disick been occurring in the last few months is that everybody has the security blanket of status quo and any change of course disrupt some completely. And we have to do a selling job and that's what we must do in any type of program I think that is if it's moving into a neighborhood we must get to all of the people. Asked leaders asked church groups whatever and I particularly get people together and try to talk to him I think that you'll find that then it's accepted a lot more readily than if you just say that it's moving into that area. You said you know there's more to
life understand what is the role. This morning when we. Return. Well just like with Joe said you won't see it tomorrow but certainly one of the things that we're working towards is training that we consider is applicable to police work. One of the things that we have been at fault in police work across this nation is that we've told police Sausan First of all when we've brought them into the field we've talked all about the Adam 12 streets of San Francisco Colombo syndrome. Instead of saying you know what the total job is and we've made them all believe that they're crook catchers from day one and they don't understand what their job is when it get when they get out there. So training has to be upgraded that's what we will be doing in the Boston Police Department not only basic
academy training but continuous in-service training supervisory training. And it's something that you see all the time not only in police work but in other areas of the criminal justice system they promote someone and they don't really tell him what he's going to do they just say here's your three stripes and added salary and now you're a sergeant and nobody bothers tell him that. That man now has to be a motivator of personnel has to be a trainer of personnel have has to be a consular. So they'll be upgrading in that regard They'll also be training in middle management and also executive development. This sort of rosy is changing the profile of our police force. Do you want to see a change in hormones. Well again you're running into a little problem with civil service. That's state wide. Again I don't want to take the same
tack is as Peter here and that you know we're not trying to do away with civil service system. But I find it very difficult to have the Boston Police Department operating under the same system statewide which is really directed towards a very small police departments and I think that the city of Boston should have its own civil service system. This is something that you'll see in many areas that in most areas of the country that a large city such as ours has its own civil service system so that we can set up the type of requirements that we need in a city such as the size of Boston. And I certainly until we have that type or maybe still functioning out of a state wide civil service commission but different requirements because of the size and the needs of our community I think we'll continue to have difficulty in an area.
Series
Sunday Forum
Episode
Boston Social Welfare Seminar
Producing Organization
WGBH Educational Foundation
Contributing Organization
WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/15-67wm3n3w
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Description
Series Description
Sunday Forum is a weekly show presenting recordings of public addresses on topics of public interest.
Created Date
1973-04-12
Genres
Event Coverage
Topics
Public Affairs
Media type
Sound
Duration
01:08:28
Embed Code
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Credits
Producing Organization: WGBH Educational Foundation
Production Unit: Radio
AAPB Contributor Holdings
WGBH
Identifier: 73-0107-04-22-001 (WGBH Item ID)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Generation: Master
Duration: 01:08:00
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Citations
Chicago: “Sunday Forum; Boston Social Welfare Seminar,” 1973-04-12, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-67wm3n3w.
MLA: “Sunday Forum; Boston Social Welfare Seminar.” 1973-04-12. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-67wm3n3w>.
APA: Sunday Forum; Boston Social Welfare Seminar. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-67wm3n3w