at maximum and was constructed after the Boys' Village management
and the State Department of Public Welfare had given extensive
study to the matter. Rather than construct another standard boys'
cottage. It was definitely determined that the total Boys' Village pro-
gram would be greatly improved if this new unit were designed to
perform an admission-diagnostic function.
The implications are rather important as one looks to the future
and considers that the juvenile population in Maryland will increase
over 50 per cent by 1970, and that the only alternative to building
new institutions for the care of delinquent children is to organize
more effective prevention programs or to shorten the length of stay of
children in institutions. Boys' Village has been singularly successful with
respect to shortening the length of stay. In 1951, for example, boys
remained on the average over a year, while in 1961 this length of stay
average has been successfully reduced to approximately 8 months. It
is felt that the new admission cottage will enable Boys' Village to
maintain this average length of stay, and perhaps even further reduce
it. Boys coming into the Howard H. Murphy Cottage will remain about
four to six weeks and will undergo certain tests, will be oriented to the
program while a special program is planned for and with them based
on their needs and the resources of the institution.
With the completion of the Howard H. Murphy Cottage, Boys'
Village will become a ten-cottage training school. With its modern
physical plant, and under the dynamic direction of its Superintendent,
this State institution will rank as one of the outstanding institutions
of its kind in America. Boys' Village, along with the Maryland Training
School for Boys, Barrett and Montrose School for Girls, the State Forestry-
Camp for Boys, the Maryland Children's Center, and eventually the
Southern Regional Detention Center—soon to be placed under con-
struction—will give to Maryland a family of juvenile institutions.
These institutions should give Maryland one of the finest institutional
systems in America for the care and treatment of children who have
appeared before the courts of the State and for good reasons have
been removed from the community for special care and training before
being returned as junior citizens.
At this point I should like to make a personal observation. I am
delighted that the Board of Boys' Village is naming the new cottage
the Howard H. Murphy Cottage. Mr. Murphy has rendered as-
sistance to the State government in Maryland in many areas. He well
deserves the kind of honor that the Board of Boys' Village is conferring
upon him today. I want to join with his many other friends in saying
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