Senate Unit Asks Tighter Laws on Moral Misfits, The Evening Star (Article, 1950)
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Senate Unit Asks Tighter Laws on Moral Misfits
Demands Increased Efforts to Rid Federal Rolls of 'Risks'
A Senate Expenditures subcommittee today proposed stringent new penalties against sex perverts in the District and demanded increased efforts to rid Government rolls of such persons.
The proposals came in the first report of a committee, headed by Senator Hoey, Democrat, of North Carolina, after an eight-month series of secret hearings to investigate sex perversion in Government agencies.
In a section devoted to sex-perversion cases in the District, the committee proposed:
1. A broad new law providing maximum penalties of a $500 fine or six months' imprisonment, or both, for indecent exposure or committing "any other lewd, obscene or indecent act in the District of Columbia."
Would Raise Penalty
2. That the maximum penalty for disorderly conduct be raised from a $25 fine toa fine of $100 or 90 days imprisonment, or both.
3. That it be unlawful to solicit for immoral purposes anywhere in the District. Under present law in order to gain conviction, the solicitation must take place in specific locations, and at a location different from that at which the "immoral purpose" is to take place.
4. That sex offenses in the District be prosecuted by the United States Attorney, rather than the Corporation Counsel, as at present. Since cases under the sex psychopath law are prosecuted by the United States Attorney's Office, the committee said, placing responsibility for all major sex offenses under a single jurisdiction "should result in a more uniform administration of such cases."
The report was critical of what was described as the tendency of many Government agencies to assume "a head-in-the-sand" attitude toward the problem and their failure to take "firm and positive steps to get known perverts out of the Government and keep them out." In many cases, it was pointed out, known offenders were allowed to resign from an agency and the real reason for the resignation was not entered on the personnel file nor was the Civil Service Commission notified.
Example Cited.
"A glaring example of this latter situation," the report said, "involved the 91 homosexuals who left the State Department between January, 1947, and January, 1950. In most of these cases the known homosexuals were allowed to resign for 'personal reasons' and no information was placed in the regular personnel files of the State Department; nor was the Civil Service Commission informed of the true reason for the resignation. The actual facts involved in the removal of these individuals were entered in certain confidential files of the State Department."
As a result of the way these cases were "mishandle"," the report added, 23 of the 91 State Department [employees] found jobs in other Government agencies.
"The civil service," the subcommittee reported, "happened to uncover six of these 23 cases as the result of independent investigations, but no notification was given to the commission by the State Department concerning the real reason for the dismissal of any of these persons until March of this year.
"At the present time 22 of these homosexuals have been removed from the agencies to which they transferred after leaving the State Department. In one case the individual involved was retained in the new agency after a reconsideration of the facts."
Most of the large Government agencies, the report pointed out, have investigative staffs. But it added that a number of the 41 agencies checked "were unaware of the necessity" of making investigations of morals offenses.
Lack of Liaison Criticized.
The Senators also rapped the lack of liaison between Government agencies and the Police Department in such matters. Of those arrested for morals offenses in the last three years prior to 1950, the report said, 457 indicated they were Government [employees] at the time of the arrests.
By April and May of this year, the report said, when the Civil Service Commission was furnished with police records, only 198 of those previously arrested on morals charges were still employed by the Government. The discrepancy might be explained, it was added, by the fact that some of those arrested had left the Government service or have said they were Government [employees] when they were not. Only the military services, it was pointed out, had maintained regular liaison with the police department to obtain information on the arrest of their personnel on morals charges.
The committee said it porpoised the heavier penalties because of the difficulty in gaining convictions through the specific sex offense statues now on the books.
"As a result of this statutory situation," the report declared, "most of the homosexuals who are apprehended for lewd or indecent acts committed in the District are charged with only disorder conduct," with its $25 maximum penalty.
Of 1,339 known or suspected perverts rounded up by Washington police during the three years ended last August, the report said, only 261 came to the attention of the courts. Of the others, 668 forfeited money at police stations, 356 were released, 34 were turned over to other authorities and dispositions were not available in 20 cases.
Under a recently enacted law, persons arrested in sex cases in the District are given psychiatric treatment.
The committee criticized police for their "slipshod" handling of the cases, but it noted that, since August, no collateral has been forfeited at police stations in sex-offense cases.
The committee, which conferred with medical and psychiatric authorities, said any attempt to estimate the prevalence of sex perverts in Government employment "would be sheer speculation and serve no useful purpose." It made no reference to an estimate last spring by Capt. Roy Blick, Metropolitan Police Vice Squad chief, that the city has at least 5,000 homosexuals, 3,750 of them in Government jobs.
Checks Held Adequate
The report said the present means of checking applicants for Federal jobs against FBI files "is adequate" and that, if officials refuse to hire those with "backgrounds of perversion" the number of perverts who get jobs "can be held to a minimum." During the three years before last April 1,700 applicants with such records were turned down.
It declared, however, that "many civilian agencies have taken an entirely unrealistic view of the problem" and that others have held to "head-in-the-sand attitudes."
The committee gave these two reasons why sex perverts should not be tolerated in Government jobs:
1. They lack the "emotional stability" of normal persons and are not suitable for positions of responsibility. In addition, the pervert has a "corrosive influence upon his fellow [employees]."
2. They represent "security risks."
Their weakness, the committee said, makes them "susceptible to the blandishments of foreign spies."
