1 Amount for 25 additional deputy clerks eliminated in House bill, restoration of full amount, $85,250 requested in Senate.

2 Amount reduced to $75,000 in House bill, restoration to full amount of estimate or increase of $74,375 for 20 additional probation officers and clerks requested in Senate.

3 Estimate may be reduced by $35,000 to amount allowed in House bill.

Amount reduced to $40,000 in House bill, restoration of full amount of estimate or increase of $37,135 for

10 additional positions in District of Columbia court requested in Senate.

Restoration of $196,760 or all but $35,000 of the total reduction made in House bill requested in Senate.

Allocation of additional personnel requested for the district court for the District of

Columbia

Mr. CHANDLER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, first I would say that the United States Customs Court and the United States Court of Claims have authorized me to say that they are satisfied with the appropriations in the bill as passed by the House. The appropriations with which I am concerned are the appropriations for the courts of appeals, the district courts, and other judicial services, and the only appropriations in that group with which I shall deal are the appropriations for salaries of supporting personnel, the appropriation for travel and miscellaneous expenses, and the appropriation for expenses of referees in bankruptcy.

We shall ask for increases in those particular appropriations.

SALARIES OF SUPPORTING PERSONNEL

First we come to the appropriation for salaries of supporting personnel the amount of which is shown on page 29, line 22, of the bill. The appropriation as made is $13,593,240. We ask for an increase in that amount of $196,760 which will bring the appropriation, if allowed, to $13,790,000.

Now, that additional sum which we seek is made up of $85,250 for additional personnel in the offices of the clerks of courts outside of the District of Columbia; $74,375 for additional personnel in the probation offices outside of the District of Columbia; and $37,135 for additional personnel for various offices of the District Court of the District of Columbia.

WORKLOAD OF PROBATION OFFICERS

Senator KILGORE. Let me ask you a question on the probation officers. My understanding is that the probation officers of the courts have turned over to them the supervision of paroices from the penitentiaries and although that is charged to the judiciary personnel, a large part of their work is a function of the Department of Justice, really, because when they send a man out, there is a certain saving to the Government which, of course, reflects in their operating costs, but just simply adds an additional load.

They tell me that they would parole more people but that they already have the probation officers overloaded.

Not

Mr. CHANDLER. Mr. Chairman, that is absolutely correct. only would the Board of Parole release more offenders on parole, if there were sufficient probation officers to give more intensive supervision, but the courts would place more convicted offenders on probation than they do now, if they were sure that there could be adequate supervision.

Senator HAYDEN. On a dollars and cents basis, Mr. Chairman, which would be practicing the greatest economy for Government? To put a man in a penitentiary or jail and feed and clothe and care for him, or to have him on probation and instead of paying for his keep as a prisoner, you employed somebody to check up on him and see that he lived a correct life? Where would you save money?

COMPARISON OF PROBATION VERSUS INCARCERATION COSTS

Mr. CHANDLER. Of course, probation is very much less expensive, and in my letter I set that out.

Senator KILGORE. I think your average cost is $98.26.

Mr. CHANDLER. The average cost of probation per person in 1954 was $98.26 for the year. The average cost of imprisonment for the year was $1,243.19, just about twelve and a half times as much, and in that same year, 1954, 14,736 probationers who reported earnings monthly, reported earnings for the year of $39,039,442.

Senator KILGORE. On which, of course, they paid income tax. Mr. CHANDLER. On which, of course, they paid an income tax. Now, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I want to be entirely candid and I am. I would not, therefore, say that the prisons could be closed and all their present inmates could be released on probation or parole

if there were more probation officers. But I do say that about 37.7 percent of the offenders convicted in the Federal courts in 1954, other than those who were convicted of violations of the immigration lawsand those are not typical and should be laid aside about 37.7 percent were treated by probation. So when we are talking about probation, we are talking about the way in which we treat with a view to prevention of future crime, about three-eighths of the convicted offenders in the Federal courts.

ADDITIONAL PROBATION PERSONNEL NEEDED FOR ADEQUATE SYSTEM

Senator HAYDEN. I am looking at it from just a dollar-and-cents point of view, the point of view of the American taxpayer. If you had your own way about it and could fix this appropriation the way you think it would do the most good to save the taxpayer money, how much would you allow for probation officers as compared to what was in your budget?

Mr. CHANDLER. Mr. Chairman, may I ask Mr. Sharp, the Chief of the Probation Division, to indicate about the number of officers that we really, if we were establishing what we should regard as an optimum system or a completely adequate system, should need.

Mr. SHARP. There would be needed about 140 more probation officers, Senator, and about 98 more clerk-stenographers. It would bring the per officer workload down to a point which we think would be most effective in doing a good probation job.

NUMBER AND COST OF PERSONNEL NEEDED

Senator KILGORE. The record will show at this point the additional personnel and related costs needed in the probation system to adequately staff their offices.

(The information referred to follows:)

Statement showing the additional funds that would be needed to comply with the recommendation of the subcommittee on juvenile delinquency of the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the probation system

Additional personnel (salaries of supporting personnel, the judiciary):

140 probation officers at $4,205 (GS-7).

98 probation clerks at $2,950 (GS-3)

Total (238).

Additional travel and impersonal facilities (travel and miscellaneous expenses, United States courts):

Travel...

Miscellaneous expenses_

Total_

Grand total__.

KEY TO SITUATION

$588, 700

289, 100

877, 800

107, 000

143, 000

250,000

1, 127, 800

Senator HAYDEN. That, of course, is the key to the situation. If you have a larger number of probationers assigned to a probation officer and he cannot get around to check on them, then the probation system is falling apart.

59824-55- -53

On the other hand, if they were properly supervised and a man did not go right, you would get him back into prison where he belongs. If he is going right, you would encourage him and save money for the taxpayers.

As a dollars and cents proposition, Mr. Chairman, I think we should put in more money on our own.

Senator ELLENDER. Why could we not look into the phase of transferring money that we use to take care of prisoners to this work? You could do that without the necessity of increasing the appropriation. They come here asking for X dollars to feed the prisoners and they estimate that so many will be incarcerated.

If, as the judge states, with more officers you would have less in prisons, we might take away from one and give to the other on a small scale.

Senator HAYDEN. The only flaw I can find in your argument is that I cannot remember a year in a long time that we have not had a supplemental estimate for feeding prisoners. The Congress never apparently in the initial stage provides enough money to feed prisoners. You get more and more crime increase and need more money.

Senator ELLENDER. There would be no sense in increasing this and leaving your food bill the same. I am trying to follow your argument to see which would be less expensive to the Government.

Senator HAYDEN. If I thought the amount of money that came up in the budget estimate was sufficient to feed the prisoners, I would say you were right.

My recollection is that about every time we have had a supplemental bill, the Department of Justice has come in to say that, "We have had so many more people in jail that our guess last year as to how many has been wrong, and we have to have more money."

COURTS POSITION ON PROBATION PROBLEMS

Judge MARIS. Mr. Chairman, there is no doubt, and I am sure I can say this for the judiciary, that many district judges are loath to place convicted prisoners on probation because of the overload upon their probation officers, and the fear that they will not be adequately handled.

If there were adequate staffs undoubtedly many prisoners would be put on probation. I am sure that is true with the parole boards. This plan is to help the prisoner to rehabilitate himself.

Senator KILGORE. I have talked to wardens and parole officers in the penitentiaries and one of their jobs is to get a man employed if they put him on parole. To do that they must rely on the district courts and their probation officers to supervise him in employment.

When they only see him about once a year or once every 15 months, he can go bad on them. If they can keep him straight for a couple of years, he usually goes straight.

INCREASED WORKLOAD UNDER YOUTH CORRECTIONS ACT

Judge MARIS. Mr. Chairman, there is another factor here, too. That is the fact that the Youth Authority Act is imposing an additional burden, and rightly so, upon the present staff or probation officers. That is a very significant matter in the future of the country, the problem of juvenile offenders.