Weed custom administered through the opinion research Corporation of America on national public opinion poll on public attitudes toward youth crime. And one of the questions that we asked was whether the public believe that there had been a steady an alarming increase in the rate of serious juvenile crime and 87% responded affirmatively and only 6% disagreed and so the bulk of the American public certainly does believe that use crime has been increasing at a tremendous rate and that's really inconsistent with the with the facts because the rates of juvenile arrests per hundred thousand youth Rose by 17% between 7174 but has remained basically unchanged from 74 to 79. Also what we see the same pattern with respect to a raise for violent arrest for juveniles.Increase sharply from 71 to 74 and then they leveled off at the end of the decade idea why people have to do with a number of factors one is a certainly by what they are here and what they see radio television and news and the highlighting of the cases. I think also it has to do with the fact that the public I don't think is being well-informed by elected public officials and those who work in the criminal and Juvenile Justice System about what the facts are regarding youth crime. And I think that this is very unfortunate because public opinion does Drive public policy and generally we are spending a lot of money on Prosecuting the kids locking them up in institutions building new institutions and really this is taking away a lot of hisHorses that oughta be used Elsewhere for more preventive programs in a granted there are some kids and no question. We're dangerous and have to be off the street but it's far less than the numbers that were actually seeing go to the Juvenile Justice System. The statistic that is not so surprising to me is that people think that juvenile crime is increasing but the fact that it is not going up as fast as people think you have any ideas about why it's not going up so fast probably again several factors related to that one is certainly the declining youth population. We've had a significant decline in the number of young people ages 10 through 17 nationally and we are expecting to have a further decline throughout the rest of this decade. So I think probably accounts for for some of that I work for the large part of it, but there are also other factors. So I think for example some of the prevention programs that we might have been started in the early 70s are also beginning.What's a declining population accounts for the bulk of it? It's not so much. The kids are behaving better. It's just that there are fewer of them. How do you say this is a nationwide survey? Yeah. This was a public opinion poll conducted by the opinion research Corporation of America and they use some of the most advanced the sampling techniques used around the country and it was a telephone survey and it was completed in during March and April of 1982. So it's fairly recent material.Over what. Of time do they suggest that crime went up in the survey, you know, whether or not you know, the public perceives that over the past few years. There has been a steady rise over the past few years. You mentioned earlier that this perception of an increase in two little crime has an impact on public policy What specifically are you talking about? And what kinds of adverse public policy decisions are being made as a result of this one set of policies has to do with all the cutbacks in federal programs. Generally speaking what we see are cutting back and some of the prevention programs but people are not looking at uvinul Correctional institutions to see if the cuts can be made there. I think that's one example, we have a you know, right here in Minnesota for instance.Southwest are talking about closing 18 Public Schools, but you have no one is talking about cutting back on some of the institutional correctional institution resources another example that Hennepin County friends. That's just talking about building a new Juvenile Detention Facility. I'm with 87 bets which is larger much larger than the old facility they have at a time when the u.s. Population is declining when youth crime is pretty much leveled off and there aren't many people that are concerned about the expenditure of millions of dollars for that facility when in fact, we probably could use a much smaller institution that would not increase the risk of Public Safety and could use the money elsewhere. Do you know for a fact that the facilities we have in Minnesota are being underutilized.It's not just the issue of whether they're underutilized. I think what's happening in some of the facilities is that we're putting the wrong kids in them because of the perception that you've no crime is rampant. We tend to process more kids through the system and we tend to put kids in much higher levels of care than they really need and that's where we're wasting. A lot of money. We really ought to reserve institutional care for the kids would really pose a serious risk of the public and I'm afraid that nationally in Minnesota. That's probably not the case that works with some of the more common kinds of juvenile crime.Kinds of things are neighborhood prevention programs block watch programs have been many examples around the country of our local neighborhoods have been mobilized to help prevent youth crime in the wrong neighborhood. And I think that's one very positive step. Another is in the whole area of Education. I think we need to look at ways of helping to keep kids in school of making a school experience is more exciting and also developing more attractive alternative education resources. So that's another area in the area of violence their number of examples around the country of where neighborhoods have organized themselves to prevent violent crimes. So did you know there are lots of examples also we're finding that for you to do commit crimes. We're much better off by providing them with supervision.Community greater use of restitution and payment back to the victim kinds of things that will help, you know train use to learn that they can't just simply rip somebody off without paying something back and it's a lot cheaper to supervise them in the community and have them do restitution in the community then pay a hundred or $150. Is that the most common type of juvenile crime theft robbery time common kinds of crimes the violent crimes are very very small. In fact in the whole state of Minnesota in 1981. There were only 731. I believe juveniles even arrested of part 1 violent offenses and that's murder rape armed robbery and aggravated assault. So where we talked about violent crimes were talking about small number.And less than 500 where I can get you to cater to the found guilty of those offences. So again, you know, the numbers of the kids who the public is really concerned about it have to be off the streets are really very small number.