in building up these necessary court services in the last ten years. Con-
siderable help has been given to the courts in this progress with the
establishment in 1955, within the Bureau of Child Welfare, of the
Division of Consultant and Prevention Services.

Another group directly concerned with the attack on delinquency is
the State and local police. The policeman is likely to be the first public
official to come in contact with the child, who has committed an act of
delinquency. The way he does his part of the job can be of great sig-
nificance. It is generally recognized that police departments should
have special units to deal with juvenile problems or special officers with
this function where the department is small. Within recent years,
Maryland. has made some progress in this direction and there are now
four counties in addition to Baltimore City which have such units.
Although most jurisdictions have not yet taken this step, much interest
has been taken by State and local police in obtaining special training in
work with juveniles.

Substantial progress is being made on another problem which faced
the courts in 1950—the problem of temporary detention of juveniles.
At that time, nothing but makeshift and sometimes harmful arrange-
ments were available to the courts when it was necessary to hold delin-
quent children. This is still true. Some of them are held in training
schools and unfortunately many are placed in jails. Much, however,
has been done in relation to this problem since 1950, and I am happy
to announce that on Wednesday of this week, the Division of Training
Schools of the Bureau of Child Welfare, will open the first modern
scientifically planned detention center in the State.

This has become possible through the appropriation of money to the
Department of Public Welfare for construction of a 40 bed detention
center to be erected accessible to Anne Arundel, Prince George's and
Montgomery Counties, to meet the detention needs of these counties,
the other southern Maryland counties and, insofar as possible, other
counties in the State. In the 1959 fiscal year, there were 1, 233 boys and
girls committed to Maryland's four training schools for delinquents.
This was almost twice as many as the 652 who were committed in 1950.
These numbers are clearly indicative of the increasing task of those
who are engaged in the treatment and control of delinquency, and there
is reason to think that in spite of all efforts to prevent, these numbers
will continue to increase for some years to come.

Any discussion of progress in the attack on delinquency would be
incomplete without consideration of the Maryland Commission for the
Prevention and Treatment of Juvenile Delinquency. A few months ago,

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