(Testimony of John Carro)
Mr. Carro.
this was one of the problems, this was just initially a truancy situation, not one of real disruptive or acting out delinquent behavior. No; I would definitely not put him among those who acted as--I also have had boys whom we have placed who turned out to be mentally defective, mentally retarded, quite psychotic, and who really had gradations of mental illness, of disturbances that were far, you know, greater in depth than those-displayed by Oswald; and the behavior which brought them before the court was certainly of a much more extreme nature.
Mr. Liebeler.
Than his?
Mr. Carro.
Yes.
Mr. Liebeler.
He did not in fact appear to you at that time to be a real mental problem or prone to violence or----
Mr. Carro.
No. He appeared to have problems, but one of the problems in the situation seems to be, why wasn't this boy sent to, the New York Training School for Boys at Warwick? And the fact is that the New York Training School for Boys at Warwick is for delinquent boys who commit crimes, really, and whose behavior is such that it is really criminal behavior; and you brand it delinquency because of the tag that attaches because he is under 16. You don't normally send a boy who just stays out of school. It is for boys who commit serious acts. And as a matter of fact, Warwick did not have what this boy needed: extensive psychiatric help. And that is why he was not sent to the only school we have in the city, which is Warwick, for the more serious boy. More seriously, it is even a drastic action to place a boy away who comes in for truancy, because truancy is itself a passive delinquent act. It is not an act which vitiates against society or mores or does harm to other people. It is an act of omission, a failure to go to school rather than an aggressive acting out, where you are destroying property or injurying persons or other things. And this is one of the factors in here.
It was surprising in this instance that we wanted placement and the reason we felt placement was needed in this instance was because although you may get boys acting out in other areas, there is always someone in the community who can help out, and the court will hesitate to put a boy away if some plan can be formulated within, because the court in social work feels that there is no substitute for love and parents, even in the best of institutions that you can place children.
But here the boy had no parents; he had no father; he wasn't going to school; he had no friends; he had--no agency was working with the family. He was on his own. He was just watching television all day. He wasn't mixing with anybody. He was an extremely introverted young man. He didn't want to go to school. So that in effect he had nothing going for him outside.
Mr. Liebeler.
And in addition to, all that, that his mother didn't show any inclination to cooperate.
Mr. Carro.
She was ineffectual. She didn't want to cooperate and there was nothing that I as a probation officer could hang my hat on to say, "Keep him here in New York City. The mother will see him through, between his mother and I, this agency and I." There was nothing there out of the total community that would be a prop or a crutch to help him see these things through.
Mr. Liebeler.
And it was these reasons that prompted you to recommend placement rather than a peculiar extreme mental disturbance in the boy himself, you would say?
Mr. Carro.
Yes; it was just the sum total of the environmental factors rather than the boy's own inward manifestations of mental disturbance or psychotic disorder.
Mr. Liebeler.
You mentioned before that his particular type of truancy was different from the kind of truancy that you many times run into where the kids will just take off and go fishing or just go out----
Mr. Carro.
Fly kites or pigeons, you know.
Mr. Liebeler.
Did you think it was different because Oswald just had a tendency to stay home and watch television?
Mr. Carro.
No----
Mr. Liebeler.
Wait, please----
Mr. Carro.
I am sorry.
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