. PATTISON. Senator, the Agriculture Department develops gh research a better kind of seed for a farmer to sow. This does mply in any way, that we are going to buy the seed for the rest of xistence. We help him by providing him with some information s perhaps information he would not have received otherwise. But loes not mean he will be constantly coming back for some more of good seed.

ce he learns how to plant it and use it and grow a good crop, he d be on his own. I think it should be very clear that this is not an ss program. I know that there is a great danger in any program it will be an endless one. I think it is a risk worth taking, but I the emphasis should be very clear at the outset and clearly stated legislation.

ator BIDEN. Thank you very much. I appreciate your coming over thank you for your work in this area.

PATTISON. Thank you.

ator BIDEN. Now we will proceed to our panel. Gentlemen, I I suggest that we proceed in the order in which I call the names, you would like to change that order for some reason, that would

WORK. We made an arrangement with your staff, Senator, to nt this testimony as a panel. With this in mind and with your ssion, we would like to do so. I will present an overview and some y of the program with some thoughts about future implications. Tamilton will discuss some of the research which led up to the -pment of the program and some of the future implications of t and ongoing research in this area. Mr. Silbert will then discuss rrent status of the progam in the District of Columbia. ator BIDEN. That will be fine.

MENT OF CHARLES R. WORK, ESQUIRE, PEABODY, RIVLIN, LAMBERT AND MEYERS

WORK. Mr. Chairman, it is a privilege to appear today to present ony on this important program of the Law Enforcement Assistdministration. With your permission, I will not read my prestatement in total, but I will summarize it and elaborate on it. tor BIDEN. With your permission, and without objection, we like to place your entire statement in the record at this point. WORK. That would be fine.

terial follows:]

STATEMENT BY CHARLES R. WORK, Esq.

THE CAREER CRIMINAL PROGRAM

hairman, Members of the Committee, it is indeed a privilege to appear ou today to testify on the Career Criminal Program. ugust 7, 1974 in a memo to then Attorney General William B. Saxbe, I ended that the Attorney General direct LEAA to design a new program to e problem of the dangerous, sometime professional, recidivistic and career 1. The hypothesis for the program, developed from new research into the and from our own firsthand experience, was that a substantial, indeed,

inordinate, amount of serious crime in America is committed by a relatively small number of "career criminals".1

The Attorney General followed our recommendation. The program was announced on September 24, 1974 by President Ford in his speech to the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The focus of the program is the prosecutor. It was our perception that the role of the prosecutor, especially in the big cities, had evolved to the point where the prosecutor's administrative decisionmaking determined to a greater extent than any other single factor the quality of justice in America's courts. As proof of that, one need only cite the number of cases dismissed outright by the prosecutors in America's big cities, as well as the number of cases disposed of in the plea bargaining process.2

Further, it was our perception that the increase in crime over the past twenty years resulted in a proliferation of caseloads which far out-stripped the growth of prosecutorial and court resources. The day when every defendant went quickly to trial against a prosecutor who had prepared the case from its inception has long since passed in America's urban jurisdictions. In those jurisdictions, cases are handled on an assembly-line, mass production basis. Most cases never reach the trial stage as the prosecutor, operating under the sheer weight of an enormous caseload, engages in plea bargaining, jettisoning half of his caseload in an effort to salvage any of it.

Figures from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, where both common law and federal crimes are prosecuted, are illustrative as well as representative. During fiscal year 1972-1973, a total of 11,800 felony cases were disposed of by the U.S. Attorney's Office in both the Superior and Federal District Courts. Of these total felony dispositions, 25.6 percent of the common law and only 19 percent of the federal crimes were disposed of by trial. And the District of Columbia boasts of the highest trial rates of any urban area in the country.

In most urban prosecutor's offices, because of the calendaring system that the courts employ, advance assignment of cases to individual prosecutors is not feasible, except perhaps in major felony cases at the post-indictment stages. Consequently, many serious criminal cases in our big cities, if they go to trial at all, are tried with very little preparation, usually by the most inexperienced assistants in the prosecutor's office, "off the top of their head," as the case comes into the courtroom.

The burgeoning caseloads and lack of ability of prosecutors to adequately prepare have fostered the ominous situation whereby guilty defendants, a "protective coloration" within the confusion which results and thus have a substantial chance to escape conviction. Court-wise recidivists, often with other cases already pending before the court, can and do exploit the anonymity which the large-scale, assemblyline system of case processing affords in order to escape prosecution. Most repeat offenders learn that by securing the services of a heavily committed defense counsel, they can increase their chances of gaining a series of continuances or postponements. A clever offender, by a calculated series of requests for continuances in the face of an uninformed and hence unsuspecting judge and prosecutor, can delay the start of a trial often enough until, either exasperated or their memories obscured, the Government witnesses refuse to appear and the charges are dismissed.

Even without these efforts by defendants to frustrate the system, effective administration of justice is often obstructed by management and operational problems. There are scheduling conflicts that require police officers, expert witnesses and defense attorneys to appear at the same time in different courts on different cases, with the court too often unaware that the conflicts exist until the day of the trial. With massive and constantly shifting calendars, police officers, wit

1 The hypothesis was based in part on preliminary findings from a study of the Promis data base in the District of Columbia by the Institute for Law and Social Research which revealed that in Washington, D.C., seven percent of those arrested for serious crimes accounted for 24 percent of all such arrests. Some criminals were arrested up to 10 times during that period. Also, at about that time, a new study of 10,000 youthful offenders was released by Marvin Wolfgang which found that 650 chronic offenders accounted for % of all of the arrests and % of the crime committed by the group over a five year period. See, Brian Forst, Judith Lucianovic, and Sarah J. Cox, "What Happens After Arrest? A Court Perspective of Police Operations in the District of Columbia," Publication No. 4, Promis Research Project. Washington, D.C., Institute for Law and Social Research, 1977.

2 See, "What Happens After Arrest? A Court Perspective of Police Operations in the District of Columbia, supra," note 1.

, defendants and defense counsel often are not notified of expected court rances or of changes and cancellations. Analysis of evidence by chemists, writing experts and other specialists, as well as vital reports on additional investigative work, are often unavailable on the day of a trial because of the lty of scheduling, coordinating and monitoring the completion of these ties for large volumes of cases at a time. Finally, essential records or files Ten misplaced or lost.

his era when the taxpayer is by and large unwilling to increase the rees available to any governmental organization, perhaps the most advantageeapon we can utilize to improve the administration of justice is technologicided prosecution. It was in 1969 that a number of us then in the United Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia perceived an urgent need for chniques to manage our rapidly increasing caseload. With a grant from the Enforcement Assistance Administration we recruited a team of prosecutors, cement analysists, a criminologist, a statistician and a computer science list to develop new case management tools. This effort lead to the developof an innovative, computer-based information system for the prosecutor as Promis (Prosector's Management Information System). In addition sting the prosecutor to achieve improvements in scheduling, coordination, ication, notification, cataloging and resource allocation, the Promis system e ability to automatically designate pending criminal cases as priority cases on the seriousness of the crime and the crimina lhistory of the defendant. s not only supplies the prosecutor with a highly efficient data retrieval sysut also enables him to quickly identify those cases from among his stagcaseload that involve serious crime or habitual offenders and those most ly requiring intensive preparation and expeditious trial.

his Committee is well aware, in 1971, the courts of the District of Columbia vent a massive expansion and reorganization. The staff of the prosecutor's vas more than doubled. The result was that the number of persons indicted ied as felons was also dramatically increased. But, of course, even this cant increase in resources did not enable us to handle each and every case, larly misdemeanors, as it ought to be handled. The fact that we had a n and it was not going to be solved easily was confirmed what we were g in developing the Promis system.

result, we in the U.S. Attorney's Office established a Major Violators edicated to the tracking and preparing of cases involving repeat offencareer criminals". Prior to this time, all misdemeanor cases (amounting e 60 to 75 a day on the courts' calendar) were tried without advance prepbefore the day of trial by the most inexperienced of new prosecutors, ctive of the nature of the offense charged or the status and previous record ffender charged.

mis is described in William A. Hamilton and Charles R. Work, "The Prosecutor's the Urban Court System: The Case for Management Consciousness," Journal of 1 Law and Criminology, June 1973; also Institute for Law and Social Research, Briefing Paper, nos. 1. 13-16, (Washington, D.C., 1975).

technique of specialized or selective prosecution began with the development of ed crime strike forces within the Department of Justice in the mid-1940's. Designed ify major cases at an early date so that adequate prosecutorial resources could be to them, these major

d, white-collar

e of the pros

ning such sp s. these un the organ nos

me units concerned themselves, almost exclusively, with idea of having an organized crime strike force within uickly, with most large urban U.S. Attorney's Offices crime units in the late 1940's and early 1950's. But in against the federal, rather than the local, offender, criminal rather than against the habitual street that the idea developed whereby special prosecutorial habitual and the more dangerous street criminals. in ich prosecutorial resources had been mobilized against figures thirty years earlier. With the incease in street that severely taxed prosecutorial resources, many of secutor's offices sought a method whereby they could al violators from among the vast numbers of offenders separated out from the great mass of relatively less e case of the major violator could be given additional

prosecutor's offices throughout the country established or Violators Unit, including the prosecutor's offices of an, Baltimore County and Philadelphia.

The Major Violators Unit (a team of about six attorneys and support personnel) devoted its entire energies to insuring that cases involving the serious misdemeanor offenses and serious offender were properly prepared and that the defendants charged in these cases were brought to the bar of justice. Of course, the Promis System was used to help identify these defendants.

After the identification of the most important cases, the Major Violators Unit specially prepared those cases prior to the date of trial, called witnesses to insure their presence, arranged transportation for them where necessary, resolved conflicting appearance dates for police witnesses where possible, and contacted and negotiated with defense counsel for pretrial disposition of these serious cases. The results obtained by the unit were gratifying. The conviction rate was increased and the average time from arrest to trial was reduced. Where necessary, members of the Unit participated in the trial or actually tried the serious offender themselves. In a short time both defense counsel and career criminals themselves became aware that these serious cases would not simply "slip through the cracks of the criminal justice system," with the end result being dismissal.

The Major Violators Unit in the District of Columbia was the model for LEAA's career criminal program. It was and remains unabashedly an idea designed to promote the setting of priorities and to improve management generally in the prosecutor's offices.

In developing the program at LEAA, we met with prosecutors from all across the country and reviewed the research with them. We found a number of jurisdictions with units similar to D.C. Major Violators Units and strong support for the idea from every quarter. With the prosecutor's help, we developed a number of central notions which we urged be adopted by all of the career criminal cities. The first was that this so-called career criminal offender should be a person who would, in most circumstances, have more than one serious case pending in the system. Second, central to the operation of each unit, would be a process for the earliest possible identification of career criminal defendants based upon the jurisdiction selection criteria. Third, with only a few exceptions, all of the units would utilize a system of "vertical prosecution" whereby the prosecutor makes the initial filing or appearance in the career criminal case. and he will handle all subsequent appearances on that particular case through its conclusion. Fourth, each career criminal unit would utilize a significantly lower caseload per prosecuting attorney than is normal for felony trial attorneys in the office. Fifth, any plea bargaining would be very carefully supervised by the Chief of the career criminal unit. Sixth, all prosecutor offices would accord priority settings for court events to career criminal cases; that is, if several cases are set for trial on a certain day, the office would elect to proceed with the career criminal case first. Seventh, if the defendant is found guility, the career criminal unit would have a standard policy of requesting the longest possible sentence. Eighth, every career criminal unit would engage in post-sentencing and prison commitment tracking of career criminal defendants.

Of course, the details of how the career criminal units were to be organized and what precise criteria would be used for selecting particular cases for treatment were left up to the individual jurisdictions. In short, what system they used was up to them, but we did require that they did have a system and that it be even-handedly and consistently administered.5

Finally, we felt there was a need to collect data, provide technical assistance and do evaluation. To that end, we established a clearinghouse. The data collected by the clearinghouse detailed organizational structures, problems and successes in implementation, and statistical evaluations of the impact caused by the units. The National Legal Data Center was selected to perform this function and has done it admirably. Other evaluations have also been commissioned and I am certain you will hear more about them later.

In this era of continued crime concern, prosecutors and courts must make the most of their scarce resources. This will never be done without improved management in the office of the prosecutor, and the development of techniques which will bring to justice those criminals who seriously and continuously impact on society. It is in these areas that the Career Criminal Program has focused.

5 It is important to note here that we urged that if cases in particular jurisdictions were defended on a "mass produced" basis that a career criminal unit be established in the public defender's office so that a complete and adequate defense could be prepared.

vever, other components of the system also must take part in this program ler that major impact is levied upon the career criminal. We are just beg to see progress in some of these areas. Police departments, which are often zed for low, overall clearance rates of crime, must intensify their efforts rove the clearance rates of crime committed by career criminals perhaps at pense of reduced efforts in other less significant areas. Court systems must on the historical methods of chronological case scheduling and give pristatus to the timely disposition of career criminals.

career criminal also requires different techniques for probation super. No longer can the career criminal be assimilated into a probation officer's ad and be given the same status and lack of attention as the amateur. etional administrators should develop new and better programs for the criminal and should abandon the rehabilitated through identical programs. reer criminal should no longer simply be "warehoused".

will hear from others concerning the success of the current program. Sufto say here that in virtually all respects it has succeeded beyond my fondest ations. What is significant to me though, is not necessarily the conviction or the longer sentences, but the fact that prosecutors are trying to find out is really happening to the serious cases in their offices and then actually g to their assistants these cases will have priority. In short, the career al is a management idea which we lawyers can understand. The fact that communities are using their own funds to establish these programs is also cant in my mind, as is the fact that California has made it a priority m by legislation.

cord of caution is in order, however; I am not a methodologist, but I am rtain we will ever be able to demonstrate that the program by itself actually es crime. There are so many factors that actually affect crime rates. I e we can say, however, that virtually in every city where the program es, it has improved, and often, in fact, rejuvenated the administration of al justice. It is surprising what a boost to morale a small but successful m can provide.

h respect to the future, it is my hope that the career criminal program will ue to flourish. I firmly believe that LEAA should continue to fund these ams even though they might be considered by some to be beyond the soexperimental stage. Of course, I therefore applaud the provision in Senaathias' bill, S. 28, for the continued annual funding for career criminal ts as long as they are needed and operated in conformity with the bill. re is no question in my mind but that the career criminal program in one or another should be written into the new LEAA legislation.

lly, and perhaps most importantly, I should say that I regard the career al program as only a beginning. It is my view that some of the research EAA has done over the past twelve years is finally beginning to point the o other programs that could be as successful as the career criminal proIn short, LEAA should take the career criminal program as a model and p other programs like it.

d research takes a long time to do. And, as you know, reliable data about al justice has been particularly hard to find. The Promis system has now n place long enough and in enough cities that we are able to do the first effective cross-city research, comparing apples to apples and oranges to es in many of our major jurisdictions.

results of researching these data bases point to possible programs that e just as effective and important as the career criminal program. You will bout some of these research results in more detail when my colleague, m Hamilton of the Institute for Law and Social Research, testifies in just moments, but I would like to suggest two possible programs that seem are obvious responses to these results.

t, you have heard that in these major cities approximately 50 percent of jor felony cases are dismissed outright by the prosecutor-not plea bar-dismissed outright. We know that the most significant single reason is is lack of witness cooperation. For the most part, lack of witness coion, Inslaw found, boils down to poor witness management. In my view, or program should be developed to improve witness management all the country.

nd, Promis research has found that a very small percentage of the police s in America's big cities make a very high percentage of all of the arrests