priated nearly $300,000 into the budget, the budget that was adopted yesterday by the full city council. It will go to the mayor, now, and the mayor will then take action on it. I have talked with people in his office, and I intend to talk to the mayor when he returns from Washington, and tell him that he should not veto that portion of the budget. It was almost a unanimous vote in the city council for this unit. If he vetoes it, we still have the opportunity to override the veto, but I am hopeful that he will not veto it. Mr. JEFFORDS. How many personnel will this add to the force? Mr. FERRARO. There will be eight police officers and one civilian. Mr. JEFFORDS. Now, is this plus the existing six? Mr. FERRARO. Well, they will go into this unit. And the purpose of this was to call their attention to the problem, and they wanted their own special unit. We have talked with the police department, and felt this was the best way to go. Mr. JEFFORDS. So, the total increase in number of personnel will be three working in this area? Mr. FERRARO. Three right now; yes. In talking with the chief of police, and talking with the members of this unit, they felt that this would be we felt we had better take a smaller step than take a giant one, and lose it all. Mr. JEFFORDS. Thank you. Mr. MILLER. Mr. Kildee? Mr. KILDEE. At this point, the special unit would be involved more with the direct, physical abuse, the misuse of children in a sexual way, the activity of picking up young children for sexual abuse, rather than pornography as such; am I right on that? Mr. FERRARO. No; it is going to be involved in all phases of it, Congressman. As you know, it is very difficult to detain children who are runaways now. They come to this area, Hollywood, especially, and they are without money, and a lot of things happen to them; our police department has all those details. I want to, again, thank you for the introduction of your bill; and we have supported a motion that I brought into the city council to support legislation to try to alleviate this problem. Mr. KILDEE. Do you find that the greatest percentage of the children being abused in this area are children who come from other areas, or are there a number who have been right from this area? Mr. FERRARO. I think Chief Gates or Lloyd Martin could answer that better than I. I would just be making a guess. But it is a big problem, the runaways. Mr. KILDEE. Yes. That is all. Mr. MILLER. Mr. Heftel? Mr. HEFTEL. Mr. Ferraro, is the problem one of a lack of legislation on the books, or a lack of manpower and dedication of funds to put to work the existing legislation? Mr. FERRARO. I think there is a lack of legislation, frankly. Under the guise of the first amendment Mr. HEFTEL. What kind of legislation are you thinking of in terms of your own locale, independent of Federal legislation, that you don't now have? Mr. FERRARO. Well, I think that if we had the ability to detain the young people who come here as runaways, it might help. And, again, I think that Chief Gates would be in a better position to give you that kind of information. But, I think, not being able to detain children, not being able to try to contact their parents, wherever they may be, makes it difficult. Mr. HEFTEL. Thank you. Mr. MILLER. Just quickly, does the city also make money available for runaway facilities for young people who come to the city-halfway houses, or centers? Mr. FERRARO. I think that comes under the State and the county, Mr. Chairman. Mr. MILLER. They are operated by the State and county? Mr. FERRARO. Yes, sir. Mr. MILLER. Well, thank you very much, John, for your testimony, and for your support of our efforts. In terms of what is going on in the rest of the country, that is not a minor appropriation Mr. FERRARO. That is right. Mr. MILLER [continuing]. So far; and I think everybody on this committee understands it is going to take some money to deal with the problem. Our concern will be how we apportion that out in terms of results. Mr. FERRARO. Yes; thank you, again, Mr. Chairman and members. I welcome you to Los Angeles, and I think it is significant that you came here first. Mr. MILLER. Thank you. Before we hear from Mr. Martin and Miss Pruitt, Congressman Dornan has arrived, and I would like to ask him to come forward to present his testimony. Welcome you to the committee, Bob. Mr. DORNAN. Thanks. [The prepared statement of Robert K. Dornan follows:] ROBERT K. DORNAN STATEMENT BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON Mr. Chairman, I would like to take this opportunity to photographs. I believe that we are all aware of the disgusting aspects of the "sexploitation" of children. The newspapers, - as we shall see this morning - magazines and the television networks have done much to bring to light this perverted practice. Those of us here know the horror stories. Our outrage and the outrage of Americans across the country is only natural. It is the natural reaction to an attack on the moral fiber of our nation and our youth. But, in the few minutes alloted me this morning, I would like to address myself to another reaction which I anticipate will occur before we in the Congress have completed action on legislation prohibiting child pornography. I am talking about those people who hide behind the pillars of the First Amendment and whimper that this legislation is a violation of Freedom of Speech. These people will defend reluctantly they will assure us because it this filth - - is in violation of the inalienable rights of the smut peddlers. -2 That statement is patently false and is one of the grossest distortions of the intent of the First Amendment ever voiced. As anyone with the merest understanding of the Constitution knows, the First Amendment was never intended to protect gross indecency and the corruption of public morals. Even the Supreme Court--no bastion of reactionary conservatism by any standard has insisted that hard-core -1 pornography does not, should not, and will never receive protection under the First Amendment. To put it quite simply: freedom is not license. The Founding Fathers who wrote the First Amendment never endorsed unlimited freedom. They upheld legal sanctions against libel, indecent speech and conduct, profanity, and other abuses of free speech. They knew freedom can be abused. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated years later, no one has the right to shout "fire" in a crowded theatre. I feel certain that both he and the Founding Fathers would also reject the idea that adults should have unlimited freedom to perform obscene acts in public. Of course, it is not always easy to decide which conduct is "reasonable" or what process is "due" or what material is pornographic. It is not easy but we must try to distinguish. -3 The defenders of thus smut will disagree with me on this point. They will say that we cannot draw the line anywhere. They will cry plaintively, "If you take Hustler magazine off the market, my Esquire magazine will not be safe." "If you take 'Sexy, Horny Tots' out of the movie theatre, 'Camelot' will not be safe." This is a wild-eyed statement and one which is easily discounted. In a democracy such as ours, why should the minority who cannot distinguish between taste and trash dictate to the majority who rightly recognize filth for what it is: filth. In our Country, the legislatures attempt to reflect in the laws the majority's morality and attitudes toward the necessary limitation of freedom. It is up to our judiciary to decide whether or not the laws, as written, do indeed, reflect the greater right of society to protect itself against a destructive minority. What must be balanced is not just a publisher's or film maker's rights against a prosecutor's zeal, but also the harm to society from a few unwarranted obscenity convictions against the harm to society if that society is inundated with vile smut. Certainly, our courts could convict innocent persons. That is always possible in an imperfect human society such as ours. And certainly, a code of law can be written poorly. But that is not the fault of Justice or the Higher Law. We |