Miller's Method

Juvenile crime surges upward each year. Violent teen-agers terrorize communities. The number of youths arrested for murder, robbery, rape and assault has leaped 254% since 1960. An aroused citizenry, politicians, judges and police are now talking tough. Bills have been proposed in California, Illinois and New York to try "dangerous" teen-agers in adult courts and hit them with adult sentences.

Would such harsh measures work? One man who insists they will not is Jerome Miller, Pennsylvania commissioner of the office of children and youth. Says he: "Locking up most juveniles is nonsense, unless you intend to keep them in jail until they're 60. The kid locked up is more likely to be trouble once he's freed." Jerry Miller, 45, a pudgy, rumpled ex-Maryknoll seminarian, has acted on that philosophy through seven tumultuous years as a juvenile administrator dedicated to keeping kids out of primitive lockups.

In 1969 Miller, who has a doctorate in social work, became head of Massachusetts' department of youth services and set out to reform the state's Dickensian juvenile prisons. Some 800 teenage inmates were locked in the concrete cottages of 10 institutions, where their keepers could have them kicked, beaten and put into solitary cells called "the tombs." Miller tried to turn these juvenile warehouses into "therapeutic communities" run by staffers who cared about rehabilitation.

But after 15 months of bureaucratic blockades, open warfare with state legislators, and sabotage by entrenched employees, Miller abandoned reform and elected revolution. By the time he was lured away to Illinois in 1973, he had closed down the Bay State's reformatories, scattering inmates among group and foster homes, shelters and day-care centers. Only 120 hard-core delinquents remained confined in the small, "secure" lockups. Said the Boston Globe of the Miller revolution: "He has left a legacy of humanity and hope where there had been regimentation and cruelty."

But has the Miller method worked? Researchers at Harvard's Center for Criminal Justice who have studied the new system offer a qualified yes. Overall juvenile recidivism rates are still about the same as in 1968--with one significant difference. For delinquents now in "open" experiments, recidivism is 50% less than for those in "secure" programs. Miller had banked on better results, but he claims he proved that "most kids do not have to be locked up."

Miller's strongest critics will not buy that, and there is a growing clamor in the state for more lockups. Miller himself has been attacked for being a poor administrator. A legislative audit of his tenure produced 334 pages documenting mismanagement. Miller is alleged to have spent $65,000 without the legislature's go-ahead, and to have left behind $600,000 in unpaid bills.

Taking Heat. Miller insists that he had to "go for broke" in order to change things drastically. He has steadfastly stuck to that tactic, and hubbub follows him like a swarm of hornets. When he left Massachusetts to head the Illinois department of child welfare, he soon alienated the state's social workers, put the child welfare system into a swivet, and was forced to resign. But Pennsylvania quickly hired him.

After 18 months in Harrisburg, Miller is already taking a lot of heat for closing down a juvenile prison that housed 400 of the state's toughest youths. Most are now in Massachusetts-style group and foster homes. Though some legislators grumble about Miller's pushy style and say he has yet to provide an alternative to the closed reformatory, he still has Governor Milton Shapp's support. Yet the battle-weary Miller worries about his future. Says he: "The more you try to do in this field, the less likely you are to build a career. I just hope I can keep enough of my adolescent spirit going and not give in."

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