Speech #890001723

Yet within this field there Is a neglected area. the area of correctional rehabilitation. and today there is a need for an objective. thorough and nationwide analysis and reevaluation of the extent and means of resolving the critical shortage of qualified manpower in the field of correctional rehabilitation. Last week President Johnson in his state of the Union message called the Nations attention to this matter when he reiterated the right of every citizen to feel secure in his home and on the streets of his community and when he expressed his desire for the recommendations and constructive efforts of the Congress in attacking the national problem of crime and delinquency. I hope that many of us will rise to this challenge. since crime and delinquency indeed constitute a problem of increasing seriousness and magnitude In a society characterized by sharp increases in population. growing concentrations of people in cities and towns. industrialization. automation. assimilation of minority and immigrant groups In the American middle class. and changes in cultural values. All these developments have wide implications for the incidence and nature of crime and delinquency. For example. behavior once regarded as normal in a largely rural and pioneer society. such as discharge of firearms in village streets or the taking of a small amount of farm produce from fields. is now regarded as illegal in a more crowded world. This is true because the danger of wounding another individual or of having ones crop ruined. has been increased by the sharp rise and concentration of population. Industrialization has brought an enormous number of new crimes never known to an agrarian world. such as stock swindles. pure food and drug law violations. and a host of other offenses. Minority and Immigrant groups. with predominantly nonmiddleclass values. have swelled the crime rates because of their lack of understanding of and adjustment to our modern American world. Too often. they lack the resources or skills to employ legal counsel or other kinds of help to minimize prosecution for offenses sometimes committed out of ignorance or apathy. The United States of the 1960s is not necessarily a less moral society than the United States of the 1760s.