Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Remarks to Members of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

June 21, 1967

Mr. Attorney General Clark, members of the Council on Crime and Delinquency:

I welcome you here as companions in concern for America's future.

Maintaining public order is the basic need of society. Your concern for that basic issue-as citizens and as leaders of the business community--is a promise that this Nation's attack on crime and delinquency can and will succeed.

The work the National Crime Commission just completed this spring threw light on some very dark landscapes. One lesson became clear: If we can reduce delinquency, we can have the key to reversing the rising rate of crime.

The facts are tragic and here are some of them: --400,000 American boys and girls were behind bars last year awaiting trial in this country. 100,000 of them were locked up in jails with hardened criminals. They were in jailhouses instead of schoolhouses--where they should have been.

--One out of every six boys in our land will go to juvenile court before his 18th birthday.

--The rate of repeated crime is highest among criminals who began as juvenile delinquents.

These are confessions of failure. If I could have my wish granted this morning, I would wish that every parent in this country, every citizen of this land could be familiar with these facts, could have them brought to his attention, could understand them--and would do something about them.

The day a boy appears before the bar of justice to answer for a crime, that day that boy has failed. But on that same day, somebody else has failed, too--you have failed, and I have failed, and we have failed as a society, because we did not successfully prevent that confrontation.

Before Congress today is a major Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Act. For the first time, it will enable communities to plan their own assaults on delinquency--to .prevent careers in crime, not just to punish them.

I hope the time for talking is coming to an end and the time for doing is starting. To all those people who say to their followers that they are against crime--let's not just say it; let's do something about it. Let's show it by our votes as well as our voices.

Before the Congress today is the Safe Streets and Crime Control Act. That is a proposal to strengthen our police forces, our correctional systems, to strengthen the courts of this country. The House Judiciary Committee this morning reported the Safe Streets and Crime Control Act of 1967. This is a major step toward crime control and toward safer streets for our citizens.

I hope that everyone in this country will become alarmed at what is happening and will ask their representatives in Congress to do something about it.

This legislation is important. This legislation is overdue. This legislation is needed. And we ought to work--and vote--and pass this legislation during this session.

The problem of crime is imbedded in the conditions of our society. It involves the question of how people live, what kind of stake they have in the life of their country.

Most juvenile delinquency is rooted in poverty.

Most careers in crime begin in a world that has no hope.

The most urgent picture of delinquency is of a boy, trapped in that world, who doesn't know how to find his way out of it.

He is surrounded by all the abundance that the great resources of America can produce--but he knows in his own heart he has failed.

Before he is a man, he faces his future over the point of a knife or at the end of a gun.

We can never conquer delinquency unless we can find some way to help him break out of that cycle.

That is why the problem is more than just improved courts. That is why it is more than correctional systems. That is why it is more than police procedures. These are all fundamental.

But our task really is to build a ladder for the young Americans who are born into that dark and hopeless world.

For most boys and girls in this country, the rungs of that ladder are normal conditions of life:

--They need medical care to provide health for their bodies;

--Adequate schools with the right kind of teachers;

--A decent home to live in;

--The opportunity to train for a good job at a good wage.

Programs to provide these are now before the Congress.

I don't know why some people sit idly by and are willing to take the more expensive route--the delinquency route, the jail route, the penitentiary route.

It takes more of our money to take care of a convict in a penitentiary than it does to prepare a boy to be a good taxpaying citizen who can read and write.

But today, if you will carefully examine the political mimeographs, you will see the old voices of fear, distrust, propaganda, prejudice, and politics blocking progress. They do it several ways.

Some do it by objecting to the model cities program, finding a thousand reasons why we shouldn't do anything. They say we do too little, or we do too much, or we do nothing, or we ought not to do anything at all. But it all adds up, in the end, to the same thing--nothing.

They object to the War on Poverty. They talk about the mistakes we made yesterday and the day before and the week before. Sure, we make mistakes. But point them out and we will correct them. Let's not throw the baby out, though, with the dishes.

Let's correct the mistakes where we find them. Maybe we don't save but half of them, but if we save 10 percent of them, it is worth everything we have spent.

They object to the Teacher Corps. There is not enough money involved in the Teacher Corps to pay for one dam. But there are thousands and thousands of boys and girls who are going to be delinquents, unless we can get good teachers who are willing to volunteer to go into these communities and provide the leadership that we need.

Some people take great pride in opposition for opposition's sake. You don't have to be very brave to finally whip the Teacher Corps. But, what have you done? You have developed some more juvenile delinquents.

When we get up and talk about doing nothing with our cities, doing away with our poverty program, forgetting our Teacher Corps, I think that we ought to be willing to bear the responsibility and wear the badge of delinquency and of failure.

The voice of the people--willing to plan and invest in the future of this Nation-must be rallied, must be led, and must be louder than those who complain, those who object, and those who write political platforms looking out for themselves instead of the people of this country.

When you have a Teacher Corps program, or a poverty program, or a model cities program you are not looking after parties and you are not looking after Presidents. You are looking after just one thing--the human beings who live out there, regardless of their religion, their color, their geography, or their race. They are all human beings.

I hope that those of you who are giving your time by coming here with the Attorney General today will take this message back to the communities in which you live. I hope that you will try to lead your neighbor, inspire your neighbor, and persuade your neighbor to give us understanding and to awaken to the fire that is burning in this country.

I hope that you will pledge yourselves to help your neighbors see that we can stop careers in crime before they start. They don't start here in the Cabinet Room. They start out where you live. You would like to dump them here sometimes. You like to say that the President is responsible, or that someone else is responsible. But they start right in your own front yard, or maybe in your back street, or maybe the alley across the way.

You can help these folks by seeing that we nip crime in the bud, before it starts to grow and spread like a fire in the forest.

There is no reason in this atmosphere of affluence, there is no reason in this rich land of ours why we should have the high percentage of delinquencies that we have, why we should have the high, increasing crime rate that we have.

It means we have been failures. We have got to do something about it. We have asked the Congress to do something about it. We believe before this year is out that we will have a program in our cities, that we will have a Teacher Corps, and that we will have an adequate poverty approach.

If we do, it is something that you men and women will be able to take justifiable pride in.

None of us can be pleased with producing a convict. And when we do nothing, that is what we produce.

Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 1:20 p.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White House to members of the Council's National Emergency Committee. In his opening words he referred to Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

The National Council on Crime and Delinquency was founded in 1907. It is a voluntary organization with citizen action programs operating through 19 State councils, and with citizen committees in 135 communities.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks to Members of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238286

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