    [Senate Hearing 110-303]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 110-303

       RISING CRIME IN THE UNITED STATES: EXAMINING THE FEDERAL ROLE IN
            HELPING COMMUNITIES PREVENT AND RESPOND TO VIOLENT CRIME

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                        SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME AND DRUGS

                                     of the

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                           ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                  MAY 23, 2007

                                   __________

                              Serial No. J-110-39

                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

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                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                      PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
    EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts     ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
    JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware       ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
    HERB KOHL, Wisconsin                 CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
    DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California         JON KYL, Arizona
    RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin       JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
    CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York         LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
    RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois          JOHN CORNYN, Texas
    BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland         SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
    SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island     TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
                Bruce A. Cohen, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
          Michael O'Neill, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director
                                     ------

                        Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs

                    JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware, Chairman
    EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts     LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
    HERB KOHL, Wisconsin                 ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
    DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California         ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
    RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin       CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
    CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York         JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
    RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois          TOM COBURN, Texas
                           Todd Hinnen, Chief Counsel
                      Walt Kuhn, Republican Chief Counsel

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                        STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS

                                                                       Page

    Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., a U.S. Senator from the State of
      Delaware.......................................................     1
        prepared statement...........................................   100
    Feingold, Russell D., a U.S. Senator from the State of Wisconsin.    11
        prepared statement...........................................   131
    Feinstein, Hon. Dianne, a U.S. Senator from the State of
      California, prepared statement.................................   133
    Grassley, Hon. Charles E., a U.S. Senator from the State of Iowa.     3
    Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont,
      prepared statement.............................................   178

                                   WITNESSES

    Epley, Mark, Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General,
      Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.........................     5
    Fox, James Alan, The Lipman Family Professor of Criminal Justice,
      Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts.................    29
    Gregory, Rick S., Chief of Police, New Castle County, Delaware...    21
    Kamatchus, Ted, President, National Sheriffs' Association,
      Marshalltown, Iowa.............................................    16
    Laine, Russell B., Second Vice President, International
      Association of Chiefs of Police, Algonquin, Illinois...........    26
    Nee, Thomas J., President, National Association of Police
      Organizations, Boston, Massachusetts...........................    18
    Palmer, Hon. Douglas H., Mayor, Trenton, New Jersey, and
      President, United States Conference of Mayors, Trenton, New
      Jersey.........................................................    23

                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    Responses of Mark Epley to questions submitted by Senators Biden
      and Kennedy....................................................    47
    Response of James A. Fox to a question submitted by Senator Biden    77
    Response of Rick Gregory to a question submitted by Senator
      Kennedy........................................................    79
    Responses of Ted Kamatchus to questions submitted by Senators
      Biden, Kennedy and Durbin......................................    80
    Responses of Russell Laine to questions submitted by Senators
      Durbin and Kennedy.............................................    86
    Responses of Thomas Nee to questions submitted by Senators
      Kennedy and Durbin.............................................    89
    Responses of Douglas Palmer to questions submitted by Senators
      Biden, Durbin and Kennedy......................................    93

                           SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

    Advancement Project, Constance L. Rice, Los Angeles, California,
      letter.........................................................    98
    Bakersfield City Council, Bakersfield, California, letter........    99
    Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Lorrain Howerton, Senior Vice
      President, Office of Government Relations, Washington, D.C.,
      letter.........................................................   102
    Bratton, William J., Chief of Police, Los Angeles Police
      Department, Los Angeles, California, statement.................   103
    Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., policy brief............   107
    California Gang Investigators Association, Wesley D. McBride,
      Executive Director, Huntington Beach, California, letter.......   114
    California Peace Officers' Association, Paul Cappitelli,
      President, Sacramento, California, letter......................   115
    Chicago Sun-Times, December 28, 2006, article....................   116
    County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, Sachi A. Hamai,
      Executive Officer, Los Angeles, California, letter.............   117
    Delaware News Journal, Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., May 18,
      2007, article..................................................   118
    Dubuque Telegraph Herald, Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., article..   119
    Epley, Mark, Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General,
      Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., statement.............   121
    Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association (FLEOA), Art Gordon,
      National President, Lewisberry, Pennsylvania, letter...........   130
    Fox, James Alan, The Lipman Family Professor of Criminal Justice,
      Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, statement......   136
    Fraternal Order of Police, Chuck Canterbury, National President,
      Washington, D.C., letter.......................................   140
    Gregory, Rick S., Chief of Police, New Castle County, Delaware,
      statement......................................................   141
    Heck, Mathias H., Jr., Prosecuting Attorney, Montgomery County,
      Ohio, statement................................................   146
    Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association (HAPCOA),
      Ray Leyva, National President, San Antonio, Texas, letter......   157
    International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), Joseph C.
      Carter, President, Alexandria, Virginia, letter................   158
    International Association of Women Police (IAWP), Amy Ramsay,
      President, Orillia, Ontario, Canada, letter....................   159
    International Union of Police Associations, AFL-CIO, Dennis
      Slocumb, International Vice President, Alexandria, Virginia,
      letter.........................................................   160
    Kamatchus, Ted, President, National Sheriffs' Association,
      Marshalltown, Iowa, statement and attachment...................   161
    Laine, Russell B., Second Vice President, International
      Association of Chiefs of Police, Algonquin, Illinois, statement   167
    League of California Cities, Maria Alegria, President, and
      Christopher McKenzie, Executive Director, Sacramento,
      California, letter.............................................   177
    Legal Momentum, Lisalyn R. Jacobs, Vice-President of Government
      Relations, Washington, D.C., letter............................   180
    Major Cities Chiefs Association, Darrel Stephens, President,
      Washington, D.C., letter.......................................   185
    MENTOR, Karen Nussle, Senior Vice President, Alexandria,
      Virginia, letter...............................................   186
    National Alliance to End Homelessness, LaKesha Pope, Youth
      Program and Policy Analyst, and Richard A. Hooks Wayman, Senior
      Youth Policy Analyst, Washington, D.C. letter..................   187
    National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives
      (NAWLEE), Laura Forbes, President, Carver, Massachusetts,
      letter.........................................................   189
    National Black Police Association, Inc., Ronald E. Hampton,
      Executive Director, Washington, D.C., letter...................   190
    National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ),
      Hon. Dale R. Koch, Presiding Judge, Multnomah County Circuit
      Court, Portland, Oregon, President, National Council of
      Juvenile and Family Court Judges, statement....................   191
    National Council on Disability, Association of University Centers
      on Disabilities, and the National Center for Victims of Crime,
      Washington, D.C., joint statement..............................   195
    National Latino Peace Officers Association (NLPOA), Roy Garivey,
      President, Las Vegas, Nevada, letter...........................   203
    National Major Gang Task Force, Edward L. Cohn, Executive
      Director, Indianapolis, Indiana, letter........................   204
    National Narcotic Officers' Associations' Coalition (NNOAC),
      Ronald E. Brooks, President, West Covina, California, letter...   205
    National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives
      (NOBLE), Jimmie Dotson, National President, Alexandria,
      Virginia, letter...............................................   206
    National Troopers Coalition (NTC), Dennis Hallion, Chairman,
      Washington, D.C., letter.......................................   207
    Nee, Thomas J., President, National Association of Police
      Organizations, Boston, Massachusetts, statement and attachment.   208
    Palmer, Hon. Douglas H., Mayor, Trenton, New Jersey, and
      President, United States Conference of Mayors, statement and
      attachment.....................................................   214
    Passalacqua, Stephan R., Sonoma Country District Attorney, Santa
      Rosa, California, letter.......................................   222
    Penrod, Gary S., Sheriff, San Bernardino County Sheriff's
      Department, San Bernardino, California, letter.................   223
    Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., October
      18, 2006, article..............................................   224
    Points of Light Foundation, Howard H. Williams III, Interim CEO
      and President, Washington, D.C., letter........................   226
    Police Executive Research Forum, Washington, D.C., report........   227
    Police Foundation, Hubert Williams, President, Washington, D.C.,
      letter.........................................................   247
    Schwarzenegger, Hon. Arnold, Governor of California, Sacramento,
      California, letter.............................................   248
    Stalking Resource Center, Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., January
      26, 2007, article..............................................   249
    The State, Columbia, South Carolina, Senator Joseph R. Biden,
      Jr., August 7, 2007, article...................................   250
    United States Conference of Mayors, January 24, 2007, article....   252
    USA Today, Washington, D.C., article.............................   255

       RISING CRIME IN THE UNITED STATES: EXAMINING THE FEDERAL ROLE IN
            HELPING COMMUNITIES PREVENT AND RESPOND TO VIOLENT CRIME

                                  ----------

                            WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 2007

                                           U.S. Senate,
                               Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs,
                                    Committee on the Judiciary,
                                                       Washington, D.C.
        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:31 a.m., in
    room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph R.
    Biden, Jr., Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Biden, Kohl, Feingold, and Grassley.

    OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., A U.S. SENATOR
                       FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE

        Chairman Biden. The hearing will come to order. I welcome
    our witnesses today, and let me begin by saying that Senator
    Graham, who is the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee--we have
    a mild little issue on the floor called ``immigration'' we are
    debating today, and he has some responsibilities relating to
    that legislation. Senator Specter is going to be here. He is
    at, I think, the Appropriations Committee. And Senator Grassley
    is here. And I am going to make a brief opening statement, and
    I would yield then to Senator Grassley, who has an introduction
    he would like to make.
        Let me begin by saying that I am glad you all could be here
    today to address a subject which this Committee, in the 17
    years I was the Chairman or Ranking Member, spent most of my
    time dealing with, and that is the issue of violent crime in
    America and what role, if any, the Federal Government should
    have in helping States combat violent crime.
        I would like to talk a little bit about that today, but let
    me begin by thanking the witnesses and welcome our
    distinguished experts. There are some old friends here who have
    been working on this issue for a long time, and some new
    friends that I hope will be working with me and others over the
    next couple months to make some real changes in our funding
    mechanisms for local law enforcement.
        Last week we observed National Police Week, and it reminded
    us all of the sacrifices that are made every single day by
    those who are willing to go out there and protect our
    communities.
        I would like to ask the staff to find out who is banging up
    there and tell them they will be arrested. I have a lot of cops
    down here.
        [Laughter.]
        Chairman Biden. And if they do not stop, they are going to
    be arrested.
        But we meet today against the backdrop of an insidious
    resurgence of violent crime in communities across the country.
        For the first time in more than a decade, crime is on the
    rise. The 2005 Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime
    Report found that murders are up 3.4 percent--the largest
    percentage increase in 15 years--with 16,692 murders in 2005--
    the most since 1998. And I realize it is anecdotal, but you
    need only turn on the television in any major metropolitan
    area, and it seems as though the murder rate is up beyond that.
    Again, we have no statistics beyond 2005 nationally, but I know
    in Philadelphia, in Baltimore, in New York City, across the
    country as I travel, that is the banner headline in most of the
    news reports about murder rates exceeding last year's murder
    rates at this point. Again, I want to make it clear. There are
    no uniform statistics yet that I have available to me, but it
    is a problem.
        The report also found that other types of violent crime,
    including forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, rose
    2.3 percent.
        The Police Executive Research Forum's recent study of crime
    in 56 cities found that over the past 2 years homicides
    increased more than 10 percent nationwide and 20 percent in
    major cities. I am troubled, as all of us are, by these trends,
    but, quite frankly, I am not surprised. The Federal Government
    has taken its focus off of street crime since 9/11, asking law
    enforcement to do more with less. And the administration, in my
    view--and we are going to hear from an administration witness
    in a moment--has understandably dedicated vast Federal
    resources to counterterrorism. But it has done it at the
    expense of law enforcement, in my view, robbing Peter to pay
    Paul. I find absolutely no justification for the $2.1 billion
    cut in local law enforcement assistance since 2001,
    notwithstanding the need to vastly increase the amount of money
    to deal with counterterrorism. There has been sort of a perfect
    storm out there. The FBI has necessarily been pulled off a lot
    of work it used to do in local law enforcement. The cities and
    States have had to cut back as we have eliminated programs.
    And, quite frankly, if anyone is likely to find a terrorist, it
    is not going to be some brave Special Forces soldier wearing
    night vision goggles. It is going to be one of your men or
    women, Chief, who are going to be the ones who are going find
    the terrorist occupying an empty apartment building that only
    that cop walking the beat or riding by in his patrol car is
    going to know has been vacant the last 4 years, and all of a
    sudden there is a light on up there.
        The President has killed the COPS program and drastically
    cut the Justice Assistance Grants. And when the program was
    announced by former Attorney General Ashcroft, he said, ``It
    worked marvelously.'' It worked marvelously, and we are cutting
    it? I have never quite fully understood that except for the
    ideological notion that the Federal Government should not be
    involved in dealing with local law enforcement. They call it
    ``devolution of Government.'' I call it the ``increase in
    violent crime.''
        The President has also redirected 1,000 FBI agents from
    crime to counterterrorism, as is necessary, and as a result,
    violent crime investigations by the FBI are down 60 percent.
    have been proposing to increase the FBI by over 1,000 agents
    the last 4 years. What are we doing? But this is what we are
    going to talk about a little bit today. Fewer police on the
    street preventing crime and protecting communities means more
    crime, and it is as simple as that. It is not rocket science.
    We went through this whole debate during the 1980s and 1990s,
    when I was told the Biden crime bill would have no impact
    because we never tried it before. We never increased that many
    cops before. And we increased cops and violent crime went down.
    And so our sheriffs and police officers have done an
    extraordinary job in the face of diminishing Federal support,
    but they also need help, in my view. We cannot focus on
    terrorism at the expense of fighting crime, and that is a false
    choice. We can do both. We need not be put in this dilemma of
    the false choice of you either fight terrorism or you fight
    street crime. We are fully within our capability of doing both.
    As my father would say, ``Show me your budget; I will tell you
    what you value.'' So I find this argument somewhat--anyway, I
    find it difficult to swallow.
        It seems to me we have to get back to basics. More than a
    decade ago, we faced a similar violent crime crisis, although
    the crime rates were much higher. We overcame that crisis by
    supporting local law enforcement with the tools and resources
    they needed to prevent crime whenever possible and to punish
    crime wherever necessary. We passed the most sweeping anti-
    crime bill in the history of this Nation and created the
    Community Oriented Policing Services Program--the so-called
    COPS program. We funded 118,000 local officers. We expanded
    community policing across the Nation.
        And it worked. Crime rates fell 8 straight years. The
    violent crime rate dropped 26 percent; the murder rate dropped
    34 percent. The Government Accountability Office has documented
    the success of these anti-crime measures, and a recent
    Brookings Institution study found that the COPS program was one
    of the most cost-effective programs for combating crime. In
    fact, the Brookings Institution found that for every dollar
    spent on COPS, we save between $6 and $12 for the public
    overall.
        Today we have several distinguished experts to help us
    understand how to best to use Federal resources to reverse
    these trends and to help make our communities safer again. A
    number of experts have also submitted written testimony which I
    will reference during this hearing, and we will submit that
    testimony so it is available for the record.
        I now invite my good friend and former Chairman of this
    Committee, Senator Grassley, to make any opening comments and
    introduce a distinguished Iowan who is here to testify.

    STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
                             STATE OF IOWA

        Senator Grassley. Thank you. I will not give an opening
    statement. I will have to immediately go to serve in my
    capacity as lead Republican on the Finance Committee starting
    at 10 o'clock.
        Mr. Chairman, you are involved in the caucus system in
    Iowa, and I will bet you--
        Chairman Biden. I have heard of it. I have heard of it.
        Senator Grassley. And I will bet you have had people say it
    is like running for sheriff.
        Chairman Biden. Yes, it is, only it is not as hard.
        Senator Grassley. You have one of those 99 Iowa sheriffs
    before you. This stern-looking man over here is really quite
    friendly. He is President of the Sheriffs' Association
    nationally. He is a friend of mine, and he has been a sheriff
    for a long time. So I am pleased to welcome to this Committee
    again--because I had this opportunity a few weeks ago--Ted
    Kamatchus, Sheriff for Marshall County, Iowa, and that is right
    in the middle of our State. So you will be going through it
    several times, and drive carefully. The staff person that
    brought me here today says, ``I got two tickets from him 3
    years ago.''
        [Laughter.]
        Senator Grassley. So he is doing his job, see.
        As I said, just a few weeks ago he was here on another
    subject, so it is great to see him back. This sheriff is here
    today because he is a national leader, as the Sheriffs'
    Association National President. But the most important thing
    for your testimony is that he has got 30 years' experience in
    law enforcement. He is an outspoken advocate for sheriffs
    across the country, from border to border, coast to coast. I
    have known him a number of years and know him to be a straight
    shooter from the standpoint of talking. He tells it like it is.
    You may be a straight shooter otherwise, too. Thank God I have
    not experienced that.
        He relates his practice firsthand, which he has gathered
    from fighting crime, and particularly in Iowa, you have heard a
    lot about the methamphetamine scourge that we have. He is out
    there day in and day out on the front lines witnessing the
    devastating effect of this drug on our communities. Hearing
    from witnesses like the sheriff with experience and know-how is
    essential for us to do our job. As both a sheriff for rural
    Iowa and the President of the National Association, he will
    provide invaluable insight into the necessity of providing
    resources to local law enforcement, including what is always an
    issue around here, the Byrne and JAG grant program and the COPS
    program.
        So on behalf of the Subcommittee, I am happy to welcome
    you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Biden. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and,
    Ted, we are going to welcome you a little later.
        I have had the benefit of meeting with the sheriff, and I
    look forward to his testimony.
        We now have Mark Epley, who is senior counsel to the Deputy
    Attorney General of the U.S. Department of Justice. He joined
    the Justice Department and he is responsible for advising and
    assisting the Deputy Attorney General in the formulation and
    implementation of the Justice Department budget--which is
    always an easy thing to do, right? He also oversees the grants
    that the Justice Department makes to the Community Oriented
    Policing Program and the Office of Justice Programs and the
    Office of Violence Against Women. Prior to becoming senior
    counsel, he served as Chief of Staff to the Assistant Attorney
    General for the Office of Justice Programs. Before he joined
    the Justice Department, Mr. Epley served as general counsel to
    the House Armed Services Committee and as counsel to its
    Military Personnel Subcommittee. He practiced law at Hunton &
    Williams in Richmond, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., before
    embarking on his career in public service.
        We are happy to have you here, Mr. Epley, and we look
    forward to your testimony. The floor is yours.

    STATEMENT OF MARK EPLEY, SENIOR COUNSEL TO THE DEPUTY ATTORNEY
            GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

        Mr. Epley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am glad for the
    opportunity to testify before the Subcommittee about violent
    crime in America and what the Department of Justice is doing to
    assist our State and local partners with the prevention and
    control of crime.
        Due in large measure to the effectiveness and hard work of
    State and local law enforcement, violent crime in America
    remains near historic lows, according to the 2005 National
    Crime Victimization Survey and the FBI's Uniform Crime Report.
    After rising to a dramatic peak in the early 1990s, violent
    crime rates in America have declined steadily since. Although
    in 2005 there were measurable increases in violent crime--with
    regard to homicide, robbery and, to some extent, aggravated
    assault, though rape went down--it is important to note that
    the rate of violent crime in 2005 is the second-lowest reported
    in last 30 years. Only 2004 was lower.
        When we examine this data, we do not discern any nationwide
    trend. Rather, what we see is that certain crimes in certain
    communities are going up. For example, the rate of homicide
    nationwide went up 2.4 percent in 2005. The Northeast, however,
    experienced a 5.3-percent, the South a 0.8-percent increase,
    and the West a 1.7-percent increase.
        Likewise, cities of different sizes were affected
    differently by crime. Very large cities did not see a change in
    their homicide rate. Cities of 100,000 to 250,000 saw a
    measurable increase in their homicide rate. And those 250,000
    to 500,000 saw a decline. We do not see a particular nationwide
    trend, and the data does not point to any particular cause. But
    it is important to note, as the Attorney General said last
    week, it is difficult to hope when you live in fear of crime.
        When you look at the 2005 data, when you look at the 2006
    preliminary data, notwithstanding its limitations, you see that
    many communities face violent crime challenges, and the
    Department is committed to working with those communities to
    meet that challenge.
        To better understand what is going on with violent crime in
    America, the Attorney General asked the Department to go and
    visit communities throughout the country, and we did that. We
    visited 18 cities around the country, some of which had
    experienced increases in violent crime and some decreases, to
    understand what works and what the challenges are. And one of
    the consistent themes that we heard was the value of Federal-
    local partnership. And a specific example of that that was
    raised was Project Safe Neighborhoods, an initiative through
    which local law enforcement and local prosecutors can refer for
    Federal prosecution gun crimes. And through that partnership we
    have doubled the number of gun crime prosecutions in the last 6
    years when compared to the preceding 6 years.
        Another example of partnership is law enforcement task
    force activity, like the FBI's Safe Streets Task Force, the
    ATF's Violent Crime Impact Teams, the U.S. Marshal Service's
    regional fugitive apprehension task forces. Whether partnering
    through operations or prosecution, the Department is committed
    to growing those relationships, but we appreciate that
    partnership on the part of local law enforcement takes
    resources. And the President's 2008 budget recognizes that
    fact. It seeks $200 million to support the Violent Crimes
    Reduction Partnership Initiative. These are funds that would
    support multijurisdictional task forces led by local law
    enforcement, working with Federal law enforcement, to target
    relief to those communities that are facing challenges.
        More immediately, the Attorney General announced last week
    that the Office of Justice Programs would be investing $125
    million through the Byrne discretionary program throughout the
    country. And one of the focus areas of that program is
    targeting violent crime. We hope that those resources will be
    quickly delivered to the field to provide those communities
    facing violent crime challenges relief.
        Mr. Chairman, the Department is committed to working with
    our State and local partners to add value where we can. But it
    is important to understand that not all communities are
    experiencing crime in the same way. Therefore, it is important
    to understand that some communities are affected differently
    than others in order to effectively target relief and in order
    to partner effectively. And we are committed to doing that.
        Thank you.
        Chairman Biden. As the old joke goes, therein lies the
    problem. You have a fundamentally different view of what is
    going on than I do. You know, I kind of view fighting crime
    like cutting grass. You go out there and cut your grass this
    weekend and it looks great. If you do not cut it for another
    week, it looks okay. In 2 weeks, it looks pretty bad. In a
    month, it really gets tattered.
        Why are you increasing the Byrne grants when you tried to
    eliminate them? What epiphany did you guys have?
        Mr. Epley. Mr. Chairman, are you referring to the
    President's request for--
        Chairman Biden. You just said you asked for $125 million
    for the Byrne grants. Isn't that what you just said to me? I am
    sorry. Maybe I misunderstood.
        Mr. Epley. You are right, Mr. Chairman. The announcement
    the Attorney General made last week was that $125 million of
    the Byrne discretionary grant program would be invested across
    the country to prevent and control crime.
        Chairman Biden. What changed? I mean, you all have been
    after eliminating it the last 6 years, so all of a sudden--I
    mean, what was the epiphany? What happened to make you realize
    you needed to do this?
        Mr. Epley. Those funds, Mr. Chairman, were appropriated by
    Congress as part of the joint resolution, the 2007--
        Chairman Biden. Yes, we consistently do not listen to you.
    If you notice, we completely disregard you every year you do
    this. So you should not be surprised that we appropriated the
    funds. I am wondering why you now--why is the Department--this
    is unfair to do this to you. The Attorney General should be
    here answering these questions. But do you know why? If you
    know. I do not mean to be rude, but do you know why this year
    you concluded that you needed that discretionary Byrne grant
    money to get out to the States? Was it political pressure?
        Mr. Epley. No, Mr. Chairman. With regard to the 2007 money,
    the Department is merely seeking to faithfully administer the
    funds that Congress appropriated in 2007. And--
        Chairman Biden. But do you think we should be? What I am
    trying to get at is in the past you have argued this money is
    not necessary. You have argued it is not necessary, we do not
    need it, and that the States and the cities and localities
    could take care of it and you should not be in the business of
    doing it. That is the argument you made, the Justice Department
    under its past two Attorneys General has made the last 6 years.
    And I am wondering why all of a sudden you think that now you
    want to faithfully implement this program. Do you think it is
    worthwhile? Do you think it is a good thing? Do you think the
    Byrne grants are good? Do you think they are necessary?
        Mr. Epley. Mr. Chairman, I need to speak--as far as looking
    forward and the law enforcement investments that the
    President's budget seeks to make--
        Chairman Biden. Let me just ask you a very specific
    question, Mark. And it is OK if you do not know the answer. But
    it would be nice to know whether or not you think now the Byrne
    grants are important. Do you think they are necessary in order
    to fight crime? Or do you still--is the Department doing it
    because of the political pressure we have? The reason it
    matters, it matters in terms of what we can look forward to and
    the kinds of cooperation we are going to get.
        So if we had not put the money in, would you guys have put
    the money in?
        Mr. Epley. The President's 2008 budget request seeks $200
    million to support multijurisdictional task forces led by local
    law enforcement, and so I think that is the best expression of
    the administration's view on how to effectively partner with
    State and local law enforcement.
        Chairman Biden. Now, you make the case that, you know,
    crime varies from locale to locale. That is why I wrote the
    COPS bill the way I did, because communities do not have to ask
    for it. There is no requirement. We do not have to go in where
    crime is not up. I find that it is an interesting thing. Mayors
    and county council persons and county executives, they do not
    ask for the money. The people who have real problems, they ask
    for the money.
        I mean, I think the reason why it has gotten such
    significant, consistent, positive reviews is it did not mandate
    anything. The COPS bill said, gee, if you need cops, go to your
    mayor and see if you can get your city council to come up with
    their piece of it and the Federal Government will kick in their
    piece. So I cannot think of any program--can you think of any
    program that better makes the judgment of whether or not
    additional law enforcement resources in terms of a shield are
    needed than the COPS program? Or do you think you all should
    decide that federally?
        Mr. Epley. Mr. Chairman, based on what we saw in the field
    when we visited 18 communities around the country, some of
    these communities had experienced an increase in violent crime,
    and others a decrease.
        Chairman Biden. Right.
        Mr. Epley. And we observed a very curious thing, and that
    is, in some communities there was both over time, 2000 to 2005,
    a decrease in their staffing and a decrease in certain kinds of
    violent crime.
        On the other hand, there were communities in which there
    were increases in their law enforcement staffing, and they
    experienced increases in violent crime.
        What we took away from that is that there are many factors
    that drive violent crime. It might be demographic changes. Some
    of the communities pointed to loosely organized gangs or street
    crews, increasingly violent juvenile crime, the presence of
    illegal guns, demographic changes, re-entering felons. All of
    these things contribute to the nature of crime in a given
    community.
        Chairman Biden. True.
        Mr. Epley. And based on what we saw and observed in the
    field, the administration's view is that the best way to target
    relief to those communities facing violent crime challenges is
    to support law enforcement task forces. And essentially that is
    an investment in veteran law enforcement for--
        Chairman Biden. Why did you cut those task forces then? Or
    you just think they are needed now? You are coming back with
    $200 million, which is a significantly smaller amount than was
    available for these joint task forces. You eliminated the
    Violent Crime Strike Forces with the FBI. You wiped those out a
    while ago, over my objection, and others' objections. So you
    think that that is the best way to target this.
        Now, you know, you are beginning to sound like a liberal
    Democrat. It took me 10 years to fight the Democrats that there
    are only a couple things we know about crime, violent crime.
    One, after hundreds of hours of hearings, if there are four
    corners at an intersection and a crime is going to be committed
    on one of those corners and there are only three cops, it will
    be committed where the cop is not. That one we know.
        We also know that when people get to be about 40 years old,
    they commit fewer violent crimes because it is harder to run
    down the street and jump the chain link fence. You know, it
    makes it a little more difficult. And so you all are saying
    that what you are going to do is at the Federal level, you have
    made a judgment, after visiting 18 localities, that, in fact,
    there is really no correlation between the amount of resources
    in terms of personnel and whether or not there is violent
    crime. That is your bottom line, is it not? Is that what you
    are saying?
        Mr. Epley. I do not know that I--I would not want to say it
    is--I would provide a more nuanced--
        Chairman Biden. I would like to hear it.
        Mr. Epley.--representation, namely, that when we look back
    over time, we have law enforcement expenditure data up through
    2004 on the dollar amounts spent on police protection by
    Federal, State, and local law enforcement. Looking back over
    time to 1990, we see that in each year the total amount of
    money spent on police protection, adjusted for inflation, has
    increased each year.
        And so one of the conclusions that one can draw is that
    State and local government have raised money and spent it on
    police protection consistent with their primary responsibility
    with keeping the peace and securing public safety. When we look
    at this picture, we see the nature of crime in America--that
    is, different crimes going up in different communities. We want
    to add value where we can and make measurable--and invest in
    things that yield measurable results.
        Chairman Biden. Do you think there is any correlation
    between the fact that we spend considerably more money
    federally which leveraged States' spending more money and the
    violent crime rate for roughly 10 years in a row dropping about
    8 percent per year? Was there any correlation between the
    increase in the Federal resources leveraging State resources
    and the drop in violent crime? What do you think? Because this
    is a basic, basic, basic disagreement here, and I am trying to
    get at the core of where the administration is and where I am,
    at least. So is there a correlation? I mean, to what do you
    attribute that drop in crime?
        Mr. Epley. Mr. Chairman, I do not know, but let me tell you
    some of the observations that one can draw. One can see that
    the rate of violent crime started going south, that is, got
    better in the early 1990s--
        Chairman Biden. Barely. Barely.
        Mr. Epley.--even in advance of--
        Chairman Biden. Barely, and we increased funding then,
    even. That was before the COPS bill. But we increased Federal
    funding over that period, from 1988 to 1992.
        Mr. Epley. But even before the Omnibus Crime Control Act
    money came out in 1994 and 1995 and so on, we began to see the
    violent crime rate going down. There is no doubt about the fact
    that over time--
        Chairman Biden. Well, let me make the point. There was an
    increase in funding commensurate with it going down before we
    did the $30 billion crime bill in 1994. From 1988 to 1994, we
    increased Federal participation and Federal money into local
    law enforcement. And so it was not like we were cutting funding
    and crime was going down. We were increasing Federal funding.
    We did not increase it nearly as much as we did in 1994, but
    beginning in 1995, with the increase, the significant increase
    in Federal funding, there was a significant decrease in violent
    crime.
        Mr. Epley. Mr. Chairman, what certainly you see when you
    look at law enforcement expenditures, the rate of crime, and
    the number of law enforcement sworn officers on board, you do
    see-1995, 1996, and so on--an increase in the number of sworn
    law enforcement members as a proportion of population. So that
    is something that, when you look at the statistics over time,
    you do see a change in that regard.
        During the entire period, back starting in 1993 through
    2005, you see the rate of violent crime declining.
        Notwithstanding changes in the law--
        Chairman Biden. Declining less and less and less every
    year.
        Mr. Epley. Mr. Chairman, I think that statisticians that we
    talk to say that at the rate of crime that is now measured, it
    is difficult to measure meaningful changes in violent crime.
    That is why I think in some communities you actually see the
    homicide rate going up but the robbery rate going down, or vice
    versa. Typically, that--
        Chairman Biden. That has always been the case. You go back
    40 years, there has not been a direct correlation that every
    crime goes up in every category. There are times when crimes go
    up in murder and they drop down in robbery or rape. There are
    times when they go up in rape and they drop down in murder. It
    is not, at least to the best--I have been doing this for a long
    time, and I am using your statistics, and the statistics made
    available from the UCR reports, I just find it interesting.
        In 2000, we had 708,022 sworn officers, and the recent
    report shows that there are 670,000 sworn officers in 2005. But
    what I do not get is the argument you are making--I get it. The
    argument you are making is that there are other things
    unrelated to additional police officers, Byrne grants, law
    enforcement block grants, all the things which you have
    slashed. There are different things than those things that are
    going to be able to impact on keeping the crime rate from
    continuing to go up. Is that what you are saying?
        Mr. Epley. That is right, Mr. Chairman. I think that the
    fundamental point that I would like to share as part of this
    dialog about how best to respond to violent crime is that
    Federal partnership with State and local law enforcement can
    add value and that--
        Chairman Biden. Yes, but you have slashed that. You have
    slashed it dramatically.
        Mr. Epley. But, Mr. Chairman, we would argue that the
    nature of partnership is not always--the nature and
    effectiveness of the partnership is not always measured in
    terms of grant dollars, that, Mr. Chairman, Federal law
    enforcement task forces like the FBI Safe Streets Task Forces,
    the ATF Violent Crime Impact Teams, the Marshals' Fugitive
    Apprehension Program, and so on, the aggressive prosecutions
    that we have been able to pursue through Project Safe
    Neighborhoods, an investment of $1.6 billion in Project Safe
    Neighborhoods in terms of training local law enforcement and
    prosecutors, designating special AUSAs to prosecute these
    crimes--through that partnership we have doubled the number of
    gun criminals in prison. And each and every one of those gun
    criminals, essentially 35,000 more were prosecuted over the
    last 6 years. They were taken out of the community they were
    terrorizing and incapacitated from--
        Chairman Biden. I am very familiar with it. In 2003 and
    2004, you did not want to do that. It was us beating the living
    devil out of you to have the U.S. Attorneys take over more of
    these gun prosecutions because of the Federal laws we wrote,
    because the penalties are so severe. I am the guy that drafted
    that legislation, you know, the legislation laying out the
    penalties and eliminating parole and probation. I actually sat
    in this old place and authored that years ago, and--
        Mr. Epley. It has been an effective tool, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Biden. Well, anyway, look, I think one of the--I
    see my colleague from Wisconsin is here, and I am going to
    yield to him in just a moment? I just can assure you of one
    thing. If we continue to decrease or keep at the reduced level
    of roughly $2 billion a year that is not going from the Federal
    Government to local law enforcement, roughly $1 billion a year
    for hiring additional officers, you are going to see the
    violent crime rate continue to go up. It is a pattern. You
    know, Emerson once said, ``Society is like a wave. The wave
    moves on, but the particles remain the same.'' God has not made
    a new brand of man or woman in a millennia. And the idea that
    we are going to be able to keep violent crime down with fewer
    officers and fewer resources as populations increase, I find
    that to be totally counterintuitive. But we can get back to
    that. I have a few more specific questions.
        Let me yield to my colleague now.

    STATEMENT OF HON. RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
                           STATE OF WISCONSIN

        Senator Feingold. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I want
    to thank you for chairing this hearing.
        I also want to recognize, because we do not do it often
    enough, the leadership that the Chairman has had on this issue
    of fighting crime and getting this right for his entire career.
    There is no one who has been more dedicated to the issue. I
    benefit from being able to talk about COPS programs and his
    leadership on the Violence Against Women Act every time I am
    home. So, Mr. Chairman, I can finally talk about my 15 years in
    the Senate--nothing like what you can say--and you maintain the
    commitment over time, and I admire you for that very, very
    much.
        Chairman Biden. Thank you.
        Senator Feingold. I would also like to thank all the
    witnesses whose expertise is greatly needed at a time when the
    Nation is struggling with an increase in violence and crime in
    our communities. I would ask that my full statement be included
    in the record.
        While we all hear about the rising crime rates in cities
    across America, one of the cities hardest hit has been
    Milwaukee, Wisconsin. According to a report released by the
    Police Executive Research Forum, Milwaukee's homicide rates
    have increased by 17 percent, robbery rates by 39 percent, and
    aggravated assault by 85 percent, all in the past 2 years.
    These statistics alone are staggering, but the human toll is
    truly heartbreaking.
        On Monday, May 14, 2007, 4-year-old Jasmine Owens was shot
    and killed by a drive-by shooter. She had been skipping rope in
    her front yard.
        On Thursday, February 22, 2007, Shaina Mersman was shot and
    killed at noon in the middle of a busy shopping area. She was 8
    months pregnant, and she died in the middle of the street.
        These are but two of the senseless deaths in a list of
    names that is far too long. It is my sincere hope that through
    hearings like this and legislation such as Senator Biden's COPS
    Improvements Act, Senator Feinstein's Edward Byrne Memorial
    Justice Assistant Grant Program bill, and my own PRECAUTION
    bill, which I am introducing later this week, that we can begin
    to address these very real problems.
        The PRECAUTION Act recognizes that it is far better to
    invest in precautionary measures now than it is to pay later
    the costs of crime--a cost borne not only in dollars but in
    lives. We have mourned the loss of far too many innocent lives
    already. This legislation creates a national commission to
    review the range of prevention and intervention programming
    available, to identify the most successful strategies out of
    that group, and to report on those findings to the criminal
    justice community. It creates a targeted grant program through
    the National Institute of Justice that will fund promising and
    innovative techniques that need Federal dollars to be developed
    into more reliable strategies.
        In general, the PRECAUTION Act provides resources that will
    further the integration of prevention and intervention
    strategies into traditional law enforcement practices. I hope
    that other members of the Judiciary Committee will join Senator
    Specter and me in working to get this modest but important
    piece of legislation passed. I also appreciate the support of
    Ted Kamatchus, the President of the National Sheriffs'
    Association, for my bill, because I believe that utilizing
    prevention and intervention strategies is both smart and
    necessary.
        I would ask the witness to respond. I have mentioned that
    Milwaukee has been particularly hard hit by rising crime rates.
    What is the Justice Department doing to provide additional help
    and resources to Milwaukee?
        Mr. Epley. Mr. Feingold, the Department of Justice, we
    share your concern about the violent crime challenge that
    Milwaukee has been facing. As the Attorney General said last
    week, it is difficult to dream dreams when you grow up in a
    community that is weighed down with the fear of crime.
        As you know, the Department of Justice invested
    specifically in Milwaukee $2.5 million for its comprehensive
    gang initiative--that $2.5 million, $1 million to prevention
    work, $1 million to crime suppression, and half a million
    dollars to re-entry prisoner re-entry. One of the most
    effective ways to prevent crime is to keep those career
    criminals from continuing in a life of crime.
        In addition to those funds, specifically targeted to
    Milwaukee and actually nine other cities around the country,
    the 2007 grant money has begun to be both made available to
    communities through solicitations, but then also the formula
    money has begun to be pushed out to the field. So, for example,
    the Justice Assistance Grant programs that the Department
    administers actually have an increase this year, such that
    Wisconsin will enjoy a $2.3 million increase in Justice
    Assistance Grant money. Milwaukee itself stands to gain about
    $400,000 more than last year in Justice Assistance Grants.
        In addition to that, Mr. Feingold, the Project Safe
    Neighborhoods money for the Eastern District of Wisconsin--a
    lot of those dollars will go to work in Milwaukee--will go up
    70 percent this year, and likewise, the PSN grants effort,
    which is sort of the PSN Task Force effort as against gang
    activity, will likewise increase by about 60 percent for the
    Eastern District of Wisconsin.
        So we hope through these investments--PSN, PSN Gangs, the
    increase in the Justice Assistance Grant program--that
    Milwaukee and Wisconsin will have the resources necessary to
    suppress violent crime.
        Senator Feingold. I appreciate that answer as far as it
    goes. Some of it had to do with what has already been done
    before. Some of it appears to be forward-looking. But the fact
    is that there have been dramatic cuts advocated for some of the
    most important Federal grant programs: the COPS program, the
    Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program. These are important
    programs for Milwaukee. In fact, I am told that Milwaukee
    received zero dollars in COPS hiring funds last year.
        How does that track with the commitment to the problem in
    Milwaukee?
        Mr. Epley. The COPS hiring program, when it accomplished
    its core mission, which was to hire 100,000 sworn law
    enforcement officers, the administration began to invest
    resources in other priority areas, including Project Safe
    Neighborhoods, as a way to target relief to communities facing
    violent crime challenges.
        I believe 2005 was the last year in which Congress provided
    funds for the universal hiring program. It was a small dollar
    amount. Maybe the last year for which a substantial amount of
    money was 2004. But in large measure, that universal hiring
    program has been phased out, both through the administration
    budgets that we have put forward, but also through the spending
    priorities articulated in the congressional appropriations
    acts.
        Senator Feingold. I think it is regrettable that that has
    been done, but let's work together to try to get the help to
    the city that it needs.
        Thank you very much.
        Mr. Epley. Thank you.
        Chairman Biden. Thank you.
        Mr. Epley, do we have enough FBI agents? What do you think?
        Mr. Epley. I think that the President's 2008 budget
    requests resources sufficient to meet the Bureau's mission.
    There are always difficult choices to make in a budget when it
    is taken as a whole. The FBI has been asked to take on a
    significant burden, standing up a bureau within a bureau to do
    effective counterterrorism and counterintelligence work. And
    standing up that bureau takes resources. They do a lot with a
    limited budget.
        Chairman Biden. If I gave you money for another 1,000 FBI
    agents, could you use them?
        Mr. Epley. Mr. Chairman, the funds that we--the resources
    that the Department seeks, the administration seeks for the
    Bureau, are best represented by the President's 2008 budget.
    And--
        Chairman Biden. Well, you know, in 2006, the FBI brought 34
    percent fewer criminal cases to Federal prosecutors than in
    2000. The FBI sent prosecutors only 3,500 white-collar crimes
    in 2005 compared to 10,000 in 2000. And the FBI pursued 65
    percent fewer hate crimes in 2005 than 2002. Director Mueller,
    testifying before this Committee at the end of 2006, said that
    he has to rededicate 1,000 FBI agents to dealing with the
    bureau within a bureau, as you reference it. And my
    understanding from very reliable sources, at least in my years
    of working with the FBI, is that the FBI asked for more agents
    this year and the request was denied.
        I have introduced a bill that would allocate $160 million a
    year to add 1,000 additional FBI agents dedicated to fighting
    crime because, you know, it is kind of fascinating. I do not
    know how--it is just fascinating, you know, only Orwellian
    Washington-speak that we can talk about cutting 1,000 FBI
    agents out of dealing with local law enforcement and say that
    you are sending $200 million to deal with local law enforcement
    problems, and that somehow we are able to do--it reminds me of
    Ed Meese in fighting the crime bill, we can ``do more with
    less.''
        Now, I assume that means that something else is going on,
    that there is no need for these 1,000 agents that were
    involved, that have been redirected to terrorism. Is it that
    the terrorism money is affecting violent crime in the street.
    Is the counterterrorism work of the FBI, you know, impacting
    positively on street crime in Milwaukee or Philadelphia or
    Wilmington, Delaware? Is that part of the argument?
        Mr. Epley. Mr. Chairman, I do not know what effect--we can
    get back to you--the counterterrorism, counterintelligence
    investments that have been made post-- 9/11 have had on violent
    crime.
        Chairman Biden. I can tell you it has not had any, but you
    can check it out. Well, look, there used to be those old
    movies, all those old B movies, ``Smokey and the Bandit.'' What
    we have here is we have ourselves, our communications problem.
    You guys view the world of violent crime and the problem that
    localities and the Federal Government faces starkly differently
    than I do. And the inability to provide the resources that we
    were providing and increase the resources because of the
    increased strain on the FBI I find very difficult.
        Now, I know it is not your job. You are not at OMB. You do
    not get to make those hard decisions. But there is a clear
    distinction here. You know, for example, just providing a tax
    cut--this is above both our pay grades. But just providing a
    tax cut for those who make an average of $1.45 million a year,
    that is an $85 billion a year expenditure. All I am asking for
    is about $2.1 billion out of that for local law enforcement
    like we did before.
        But there seems to be a sense that--and the argument you
    are making--I understand it--is that we really do not need it.
    More cops are not really going to make any impact on violent
    crime in America. The violent crime problem is much lower than
    it has been at any time in recent history, although it has
    gone--there has been an uptick. And, therefore, we are
    copacetic. Things are going along pretty well right now.
        You probably do not have the time, but you might find it
    interesting to hang around and hear the testimony of the people
    who are about to testify.
        For the record, are you at liberty to provide us with the
    18 localities you went to and observed to reach your
    conclusions that there is nothing needed more than what you
    have asked for? Are you prepared to do that?
        Mr. Epley. Yes, sir. We can make those communities
    available.
        Chairman Biden. I would appreciate that.
        Mr. Epley. Mr. Chairman, if you would indulge me just one
    moment.
        Chairman Biden. Sure.
        Mr. Epley. I just want you to know that we do not view it
    as copacetic. The fact that certain crimes in certain
    communities are going up and many communities are facing a
    violent crime challenge, we think that is a serious matter and
    that we are looking for ways to most effectively partner with
    those communities to make a difference.
        Chairman Biden. Well, you know, there is an old expression
    attributable to G.K. Chesterton. He said, ``It is not that
    Christianity has been tried and found wanting. It has been
    found difficult and left untried.''
        I would paraphrase the nice rhetorical comment of the
    Attorney General saying it is difficult to hope when you live
    in fear of crime. I would argue it is difficult to cope with
    fewer COPS and it causes crime.
        But I thank you for your testimony, and like I said, we
    have a fundamental, basic, distinct disagreement. I
    fundamentally disagree with the administration. And I am going
    to do everything I can to make it difficult for you not to
    accept more money.
        Thank you very, very much. I appreciate it.
        Mr. Epley. Thank you.
        Chairman Biden. By the way, as you are leaving, one of the
    other things is that you talked about the DEA and the FBI. Talk
    to your DEA guys about the hiring freeze that is on and tell
    them--just, you know, do your own little survey. Go out in the
    field and ask them whether or not they think they can cope with
    this hiring freeze. The impact of the freeze and the loss of
    the positions that exist is expected to amount to 180 fewer
    primary drug organizations than we are able to disrupt or
    dismantle today and most likely approximately $300 million less
    in revenue they will be able to deny drug traffickers. That is
    the study that has been done by the DEA.
        But, at any rate, you ought to go talk to those guys. You
    know, get in the car and ride with them, like I do. I think you
    may find it is a little bit different.
        Anyway, thank you very much, and I appreciate your being
    here.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Epley appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Chairman Biden. Our next panel, Ted has already been
    referenced about eight times here, so I do not think I have to
    introduce you again, Ted. Tom Nee, the President of the
    National Association of Police Organizations. Chief Rick
    Gregory, Chief of Police of New Castle County, Delaware. Mayor
    Douglas Palmer, Mayor of Trenton, New Jersey, and the President
    of the United States Conference of Mayors. And Chief Russ
    Laine, the Vice President of the International Association of
    Chiefs of Police. And James Alan Fox, a criminologist from
    Northeastern University.
        I welcome you all. I will put each of your bios in the
    record in the interest of time, but it is a very distinguished
    panel. I want you to know I am not being merely parochial,
    having the chief of the second largest police organization in
    my State here. The New Castle County police and his
    predecessors helped draft the Biden crime bill, literally not
    figuratively. They were one of the lead agencies and, I would
    argue, they have one of the best records in implementing
    community policing in the country. That is why I wanted him
    here.
        I see the mayor is not here yet, so we will proceed, and
    when he gets here, if he is coming, we will have him join us at
    the table.
        Why don't we start in the order in which you were--we will
    go left to right, with you, Sheriff, and work our way across to
    you, Professor, and then we will get into some questions if we
    can. Welcome.

       STATEMENT OF TED KAMATCHUS, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL SHERIFFS'
                    ASSOCIATION, MARSHALLTOWN, IOWA

        Sheriff Kamatchus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of
    the Committee. My name is Ted Kamatchus. I am the Sheriff of
    Marshall County, Iowa, and the President of the National
    Sheriffs' Association. I am pleased to have this opportunity to
    appear before you today to express my concerns and what I know
    to be the concerns of sheriffs all across the country with the
    recent increase in violent crimes coupled with severe
    reductions in Federal assistance to State and local agencies.
        The essential message that I bring to you today is that the
    Federal Government needs to play a larger role in crime
    fighting. Together we need a coordinated national attack on
    crime, recognizing that there is no single ``silver bullet''
    solution. Political rhetoric must not prevail over action. This
    is not a Republican or Democrat issue. This is an ``us'' issue.
    It is for the citizens across this country.
        As you may be aware, sheriffs play a unique role in our
    criminal justice system. In addition to providing traditional
    policing within their respective counties, sheriffs also
    facilitate local jails and are responsible for protecting and
    providing security for the judicial system. Over 99 percent of
    the sheriffs are elected and oftentimes serve as the chief law
    enforcement officer of their counties. Consequently, they have
    a keen understanding of the needs of our criminal justice
    system as well as of the local communities which we serve.
        In the early 1990s, Congress joined in a partnership with
    local law enforcement to provide assistance in Federal funds
    for hiring additional officers to put offenders behind bars and
    fight the war on drugs. Unfortunately, in recent years, the
    Federal Government has strayed from its commitment to fight
    crime.
        The majority of violent crimes we have recently been
    experiencing have been related to drugs and an increase in gang
    violence. Sheriffs have not been able to hire the number of
    deputies they need to address these issues, and in many
    jurisdictions, current levels of staffing only allow peace
    officers to respond from one 911 call to another. Stacking
    calls is not safe.
        For nearly 30 years, Byrne-JAG grants have funded State and
    local drug task forces, community crime prevention programs,
    substance abuse treatment programs, prosecution initiatives,
    and many other local crime control and prevention programs. It
    has not just been drug task forces. We perceive these programs
    as the underpinning of Federal aid for local law enforcement to
    address violent crimes. Continued reduction in Byrne funding
    will undoubtedly obliterate the successes that we have all
    helped to achieve together.
        In most States, Byrne-funded drug task forces are the
    cornerstone of drug enforcement efforts. These task forces
    represent the ideal in law enforcement, pooling limited
    resources, sharing intelligence, strategically targeting a
    specific problem, and eliminating duplication of efforts.
    Moreover, these task forces allow Federal, State, and local law
    enforcement and prosecutors to work together and share
    intelligence to stem large-scale organized crime. However, most
    States have had to scale back on the number of such task
    forces.
        Also, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of the COPS
    programs, particularly in the funding for the programs I have
    mentioned distributed directly to local law enforcement
    agencies--those that can best assess and allocate funds where
    they have the most impact. COPS programs assure the quality of
    policing services through better training and the highest
    technology equipment possible.
        We have heard time and time again that ``homeland security
    begins with hometown security.'' Yet vital programs such as
    Byrne and COPS that provide the necessary resources to ensure
    that hometown security have both been cut drastically, and the
    hiring initiatives for COPS have been zeroed out in most recent
    years. It is of no surprise to those in the law enforcement
    community that since law enforcement programs have been
    depleted, the crime rate has been rising. We urge this Congress
    to restore funds for the important public safety programs of
    Byrne and COPS. We want that $1.1 billion for Byrne and the
    $1.15 billion for COPS. We would also like to express our
    thanks to you, Senator Biden, and also to Senator Feinstein for
    taking a leadership role in their efforts to restore funding
    for these two essential law enforcement programs.
        In addition to highlighting the importance of the Byrne and
    COPS programs, I would also like to urge the Senate to take
    action on some measures that we believe will assist local law
    enforcement in helping to address violent crime. The National
    Sheriffs' Association has endorsed the Gang Abatement and
    Prevention Act aimed at increasing and enhancing law
    enforcement resources committed to investigation and
    prosecution of violent gangs; the Second Chance Act which would
    begin to address the Nation's escalating recidivism rates; and
    the Methamphetamine Production Prevention Act, cosponsored by
    my friend from Iowa, Senator Grassley, which would facilitate
    the use of electronic methamphetamine precursor logbook systems
    in order to help States crack down on domestic meth production;
    and, as was earlier mentioned, the PRECAUTION Act. We heard
    earlier from Senator Feingold, and early in his statement, he
    indicated that it will provide guidance in a direct and
    accessible format to State and local law enforcement to ensure
    that the criminal justice community is investing its limited
    resources in the most cost-effective way possible.
        Mr. Chairman, I would like to note that over 20 sheriffs
    from border States were in Washington about a month ago, and we
    are really concerned about this border initiative. The
    immigration problem that we are seeing and the border security
    are major, major issues for us. It is more than just an issue
    of immigration. It is an issue of proliferation of drug
    cartels, drugs, and actually the movement of contraband, which
    are drugs, weapons, and people. We need something done about
    that, and we ask that you hear those sheriffs, because they are
    there every day on the borders fighting to help the Federal
    Government.
        I want to thank you for the opportunity to come before you
    and express my concerns. I hope I have conveyed to you the dire
    situation that sheriffs are faced with across this country and
    how critical Byrne and COPS programs are to us. The strain
    caused by limited funds for law enforcement programs in the
    face of increasing violence and drug abuse in our communities
    should be a major inducement for Government and law enforcement
    alike to share the responsibility for keeping our communities
    safe. I ask for your full consideration on my comments today,
    and I know that through your commitment and the efforts
    together we can make our communities safer.
        I want to thank you very much.
        [The prepared statement of Sheriff Kamatchus appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Chairman Biden. Thank you very much, Sheriff.

    STATEMENT OF THOMAS J. NEE, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
              POLICE ORGANIZATIONS, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

        Mr. Nee. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name is Thomas Nee.
    I am a police officer in the city of Boston. I serve as the
    President of the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association.
        Chairman Biden. I thought you were from Selma, Alabama,
    with that accent.
        [Laughter.]
        Mr. Nee. Not with this accent, sir.
        Chairman Biden. Welcome.
        Mr. Nee. I also have the honor of serving as the President
    of the National Association of Police Organizations,
    representing 238,000 sworn law enforcement officers throughout
    the United States.
        This morning, in my testimony, as police officers, as corny
    as it sounds, we have a duty to serve and protect. As the men
    and women on the front lines to enforce the law, we have a
    right, really, and a need for the Federal Government to stand
    beside us and support us in those efforts in our communities.
    That is why I am here today on behalf of America's law
    enforcement community speaking to you today. America's State
    and local law enforcement are being disregarded by the current
    administration. They are being passed over for critical funding
    to assist them in performing their roles in combating and
    responding to crime and urban terrorism.
        There are three issues that I will address this morning
    that are of increasing concern to us at NAPO and our
    membership: the decrease in funding for vital Department of
    Justice State and local law enforcement assistance programs
    witnessed over the past several years; the additional duties
    taken on by local law enforcement agencies in the post-9/11
    era; and finally, the recent increase in crime rates
    experienced by communities nationwide. These issues are
    interrelated and cannot be separated, particularly when
    addressing the issue of rising crime in the United States.
        The COPS program, together with the Local Law Enforcement
    Block Grant program and the Byrne Memorial Fund, gave State and
    local law enforcement the necessary funding to truly assist
    their efforts in keeping our Nation's communities safe. These
    justice assistance programs have contributed countless
    resources to help us combat and fight crime. I would also like
    to point out, Mr. Chairman, that those funds simply were not
    for hiring. They were also for retention, which is an important
    component of it, and with your support these Federal grant
    programs can be restored.
        With the support of these Federal grant programs, community
    policing has been a dominant force behind the dramatic
    reduction in crime this Nation has witnessed over the past 13
    years. In 2000, violent crime rates were at their lowest level
    in 30 years, particularly in our major cities. More police
    officers patrolling the streets not only provide greater police
    presence in our communities but also increase police knowledge
    of crime as well, thus allowing local law enforcement to do its
    job in its communities.
        A key factor in the implementation and success of community
    policing has been the Federal support through funding and
    resources to State and local law enforcement agencies. It is
    not a coincidence that community policing was at its best and
    national crime rates were at their lowest when Federal support
    for programs such as COPS, the Byrne grant, and LLEBG was at
    its highest. And it is also no coincidence that the steep
    reduction in Federal support for these programs corresponds
    with the increases in violent crime rates nationwide.
        Listening to the earlier testimony, I have an absolute
    positive, fundamental disconnect with what was represented by
    the administration because we have captured a small sample of
    what is going on in the country and some of our samplings in
    some of the major cities.
        A December 2001 study by researchers at the University of
    Nebraska at Omaha found that the COPS program is directly
    linked to the historic drop in U.S. crime rates in the 1990s.
    The ``More Cops = Less Crime'' statistical analysis produced by
    you, Mr. Chairman, together with Congressman Weiner, gives
    further evidence to the link between the COPS grants and the
    decreases in crime from 1995 to 2000.
        According to the ``More Cops = Less Crime'' evaluation, the
    effects of the COPS grants from fiscal year 1994 to fiscal year
    1999 on violent crime during that 1995-2000 period were
    substantial. Approximately $2 billion was provided nationally
    in hiring grants and over $3.6 million was provided in
    innovative grants to cities with populations over 10,000.
    Nationwide, police departments in these cities reported that
    occurrences of violent crimes decreased by well over 150,000
    between 1995 and 2000.
        Phoenix, Arizona, for instance, received $23.5 million in
    COPS hiring grants and $2.34 million in COPS innovative grants.
    Phoenix law enforcement estimates that these funds helped
    reduce reports of violent crime by over 1,500 incidents and
    reduced overall crime by 7,679 incidents. Los Angeles,
    California, received nearly $194 million in COPS grants and
    $2.3 million in COPS innovative grants between fiscal year 1994
    through 1999. And during this time, violent crimes were reduced
    by 10,500 incidents and overall crime in the city by 53,435
    incidents.
        Phoenix, Arizona, law enforcement agencies have had to
    redeploy their officers and resources to infrastructure
    protection such as water treatment facilities, Arizona Public
    Service power stations, airports, among other infrastructure.
    More importantly, they seem to have a pair of handcuffs on them
    with the immigration problem down there. Phoenix has seen
    record increases in violent crime. Again, to show the
    disconnect between the administration and what we are
    experiencing on the street, in 2005-06 the city saw a nearly 5-
    percent increase in violent crime rates, including a 4.5-
    percent rise in homicides and an over 6--percent rise in
    aggravated assault. In 2004 through 2006, Phoenix law
    enforcement saw an astounding 12-percent increase in homicides
    and an almost 20-percent increase in aggravated assault over a
    2-year period.
        Los Angeles, California, has seen a substantial amount of
    resources shifted to homeland security details also. Hundreds
    of law enforcement officers have been assigned to terrorism
    prevention issues to protect infrastructure, terrorism task
    forces, and counterterrorism duties. Although L.A. has seen a
    decrease in the overall level of violent crimes, including
    murder, it has seen significant increases in gang-related
    homicides and violent murders.
        In New York City, the city has lost over 4,000 policemen
    absent from the streets of New York since 1999, and that is up
    to and including the 9/11 era. After 9/11, the city added an
    additional 1,000 police officers to counterterrorism
    activities. So that is 5,000 policemen missing from the streets
    of New York City, and that is not even comprehensible in our
    world.
        In Boston, my home city, the Boston miracle, as it was
    called, in the 1990s, it was a national model for policing
    around the country. Recently, we have seen an increase and a
    spike in violence. Between 2004 and 2006, reported homicides
    alone increased nearly 23 percent in the city of Boston--the
    highest homicide rate the city has seen in 11 years. In 2004 to
    2006, we have seen a 10-percent rise in robberies and a
    staggering 37-percent rise in aggravated assaults involving
    firearms.
        Mr. Chairman, I can add more testimony from Houston, Texas,
    their statistical analysis; Detroit, Michigan. I do not know
    where the administration is sampling, sir, but we are
    experiencing it in the street, and we represent most of the
    major cities in the country, the rank-and-file line officers.
    We have our problems today.
        The biggest problem of all is I think what the chiefs will
    share with you as well as the rank-and-file testimony here
    today. It will be in our major cities around the country post-
    9/11. We have experienced anywhere from 15 to 18 percent of our
    staffing is missing from the streets, and I agree with you, Mr.
    Chairman, as we have in the past. If you do not cover all four
    corners of the blocks, the genie is out of the bottle. And we
    can have all the task forces we want and all the prosecution
    methods behind it, but that is after we lose. That comes in at
    the eleventh hour, and that is not a good thing. We are
    suffering right now out here in the streets. We are doing our
    very best to keep the borders of this country safe, and we need
    the efforts of the United States Federal Government to complete
    the task at hand.
        Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Nee appears as a submission
    for the record.]
        Chairman Biden. I think they spent most of the time down in
    Crawford getting the crime statistics. I do not know.
        I should not be so flippant because this is such a serious
    subject.
        Before we go to you, Colonel, I just want to point out one
    thing, just for the record. If you take a look at the crime
    statistics--I just want this to be in the record. Let me find
    them here. Take a look at the crime statistics. Let us assume
    that what is stated is true. The number of crimes committed in
    the year 2006, whether they are up or down, they are still way
    beyond what a civilized society should be accepting. So this
    premise that as long as--and I will submit that for the record.
    This premise that as long as it is not really going back up
    above what it was pre-- crime bill that somehow things are OK
    is, I find, a preposterous notion. The first primary function
    of Government is to keep folks safe so they can walk the
    streets.
        I thought I had them right at hand. I apologize for the
    intervention, but I will submit them for the record so that we
    know just how high the low is. It is still very high.
        Chief, welcome. And, by the way, I might add I am being
    very parochial here. We have a whole bunch of what I
    facetiously refer to as ``my guys'' here. We have the Chief of
    Dover, Delaware, Smyrna, Delaware, South Bethany, Delaware
    State Police, the Delaware Police Chiefs Council, the
    Lieutenant of New Castle County, and Corporal Trinidad, who
    speaks for all of them when they need to be spoken for. I
    welcome you all here today, and I hope I get a chance to spend
    a little time with you.
        But, again, I am not just being parochial when I do that, I
    say to my friend from Wisconsin. These are the folks that
    helped write that first bill. They really did. This one did not
    come out of--no one handed it down. And, by the way, NAPO was
    the single biggest help at the time when we started this thing
    off. Thank you for your continued support.
        No more advertising. Chief, fire away.

       STATEMENT OF RICK S. GREGORY, CHIEF OF POLICE, NEW CASTLE
                            COUNTY, DELAWARE

        Chief Gregory. Good morning, sir, and thank you for the
    opportunity to be here with you this morning and the
    distinguished members of your panel and Committee and also my
    fellow law enforcement professionals. I am the Chief of Police
    for New Castle County. I have been there since the last day of
    September in 2006. It is the second largest agency in the State
    of Delaware and, as you mentioned, a pioneer agency in
    community policing in the State of Delaware.
        Our agency consists of 364 officers, We cover about 426
    square miles with about 450,000 citizens. During 2006, our
    officers responded to or handled approximately 162,000 calls
    for service. For the year 2007, we will surpass that mark
    considering that we have already handled some 82,000 calls for
    service.
        Recently, we have become predominantly a call-driven or
    911-driven agency. The bulk of our time is responding from one
    911 call to the next. This is not effective community policing,
    as you know. In our agency and in our county, we are seeing a
    level of violence such as the armed robbery of a pizza delivery
    person as a commonplace criminal act. From 2005 to 2006, we saw
    a 38-percent increase in these types of robberies. This type of
    crime has made violence impersonal and second nature to many
    offenders. People are shot for reasons for simply being on the
    wrong side of the street or for saying the wrong things, and we
    must curb this growing trend. While doing so, we have to also
    realize that we are going to be doing it with less Federal
    resources unless we can have some help.
        A recent article in USA Today entitled ``Youth Gangs
    Contribute to Rising Crime Rates,'' May 15, 2007, stated,
    ``increasing violence among teenagers and other youths appears
    to have contributed to a nationwide crime spike.'' This trend
    is only the beginning of what we sure believe is going to be an
    increase for the future.
        We in Delaware, and specifically New Castle County, are not
    immune from the national trend. Last summer one of our
    communities was bombarded with gang violence that eventually
    led to a full-scale brawl between rival gangs. One was on one
    side of the street and one was on the other side of the street,
    not realizing they were rival gang members until they began
    communicating with hand signals that led to a brawl. One person
    was shot, one person was stabbed, one was killed. Twelve
    subjects were arrested for this battle, and of those twelve--
    and this is the alarming part--six of them were juveniles. When
    considering this homicide and the comments from the USA Today
    article, we try to remember that we are discussing juveniles
    with weapons. Firearms in the hands of adults are deadly, but
    consider firearms in the hands of an immature gangster wannabe
    at the ripe age of 13. It is astounding.
        The successful investigation of this case and ultimate
    prosecution was, in large part, due to the expertise offered by
    our federally funded gang officer. The Federal funding for this
    officer from the Edward Byrne Memorial Fund allows us to
    dedicate an officer to the growing problem of gangs and gang
    violence. Additionally, Federal money spent on the community
    crime intervention program allows us to dedicate a Spanish-
    speaking officer to a specific area that is troubled with the
    problems of Hispanic gang influences. Together these officers
    provide invaluable intelligence on our gangs. Communities
    without Federal funding have difficult dealing with these types
    of problems.
        Many of these juveniles, as we know, start their life as
    delinquency runaways. From 2002 until 2006, our agency saw a
    22-percent increase in the number of juvenile runaways. This,
    in effect, is a 22-percent increase in the number of kids
    primed for recruiting by gangs and the gang culture.
        One initiative that is working very effectively in Delaware
    is the Safe Streets program, a collaborative effort involving
    the four largest police agencies and the Department of
    Corrections. Combined Federal money in support of this program
    is close to $1 million. Money spent on ventures such as this
    are truly effective weapons in the everyday battle to reduce or
    contain violent crime. Expanded measures in this regard remove
    repeat offenders from our communities and free up time for our
    officers to return to the job of community policing.
        With that, I come with a request that the expansion of
    programs such as Safe Streets, gang officers, and community
    crime intervention officers. Allowing a small number of
    officers to have a magnified and directed impact on communities
    that are most needing of our help will make an impact. In
    addition, their efforts serve to rid the communities of repeat
    offenders, which frees up the officer on the street to spend
    more time in their communities working to break this increasing
    cycle of violence. While these positions are of great value,
    their longevity is limited due to the funding source. Byrne
    money, which funds these positions, is an excellent resource,
    but it is not a suitable device for hiring officers. COPS
    money, as you well know, with its 3-year hiring grant is a
    better funding source for stability reasons. Federal money
    spent on these proven successful endeavors is money well spent
    on the security of our communities.
        I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for
    allowing me to come today. I want to thank you also for the
    leadership that you have proven time and time again. I am not
    new to community policing. I am new to the area. But I can tell
    you that nationally we appreciate your leadership and support
    in what we do.
        [The prepared statement of Chief Gregory appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Chairman Biden. Thank you.
        Mr. Mayor, you have a job most of us up here would not take
    on a bet, the most difficult job in America. I really do think
    being the mayor of a major city is the epicenter of requiring
    political skill. I am flattered you are here. We had a chance
    to talk when we spoke to the National Mayors Conference, and
    your input and the input of your colleagues is vitally
    important here, and I am delighted you would take the time to
    be here. I know you have got a lot of other things to do, but
    thank you very, very much for being here. I am anxious to hear
    what you have to say.

       STATEMENT OF HON. DOUGLAS H. PALMER, MAYOR, TRENTON, NEW
       JERSEY, AND PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF MAYORS

        Mayor Palmer. Thank you, Senator, and it is a pleasure for
    me to be here. My name is Douglas Palmer. I am the mayor of
    Trenton, New Jersey, and I have the honor of being the
    President of The United States Conference of Mayors, whose
    membership represents 80 percent of the population of the
    United States of America. We also want to thank you, Mr.
    Chairman, for coming to our January meeting and discussing our
    ten-point plan, one point of which we are talking about, the
    COPS program, strong cities, strong families, for a strong
    America. And quite frankly, you cannot have strong cities if
    you do not have safe cities.
        As you were talking to Mark Epley--and he seems like a nice
    enough fellow. I had the opportunity to serve on a few panels
    with him. And I was just realizing as you were grilling him--I
    mean talking to him, President Bush does not pay him enough
    money for what he has to do. And, actually, what he has to do
    is really go against logical thinking in what we see the trends
    are.
        We want to also thank you for your leadership, and I know
    President Clinton talks about the Clinton crime bill, and he
    certainly was a large part in that. But we also know that it is
    the Biden crime bill that helps put us on the right track.
        You know, a little over 400 days ago, while I was in Los
    Angeles with Attorney General Gonzales at an event talking
    about crime, my police director got a call. It was a Friday
    afternoon, a lovely spring afternoon. I think it was the 1st of
    April. And he got a call, because we had experienced some gang
    violence and retaliation earlier in the week that a 7-year-old
    girl by the name of Tajhanique Lee, while riding her bike, what
    every young child should be doing on a nice warm spring day,
    was caught up in the crossfire of two rival gangs, and this
    beautiful young girl was shot in the face. Fortunately, God
    spared her life, and she is still a beautiful young lady. But I
    had the task, like many of my colleagues, mayors and police
    chiefs--and I am really honored to be with these individuals--
    to talk to her mother about 2 hours after it happened in the
    hospital. Far too often, mayors have to make these calls.
    Mayors have to go to the funerals of law enforcement people, of
    law-- abiding citizens and children far too often. We certainly
    are on the front lines.
        I would ask Mark--and I know he left, but I would like him
    to come to Trenton. If he thinks things are copacetic, the
    status quo is acceptable, I plead with him to come to the city
    of Trenton where we have seen a reduction in crime, almost 27
    percent, but an increase in homicides directly attributable to
    drugs, illegal guns, and gangs. Our homicide rates go up, as I
    think these individuals can tell you, fueled by guns, illegal
    guns in the hands of criminals, and drugs, which is a part of
    that, and gangs.
        While we have reduced crime, the fear level is as high as
    ever. It is not American to be afraid to sit out on your porch
    in the afternoon. It is not American to have your children not
    use a park that we have paid for because it is not safe. This
    is just not American.
        We also see that this is attributable in part because of
    the rise in juvenile crime. We see a culture today that is
    almost a subculture, and we see young people very willing to
    join gangs, to be lured into gangs, use illegal weapons and to
    shoot each other. It is just astonishing to me that the
    administration would think that because certain areas in this
    country are not experiencing an increase in violent crime that
    everything is OK. It is almost like if you have heart problems,
    do not take any medicine, wait until you have the heart attack.
        Well, we need medicine. We need the kind of support that
    you have had and shown over the years. We urge Senate passage
    of the COPS reauthorization bill sponsored by yourself, urge
    passage of your Second Chance Act to help with prisoner re-
    entry, which is critically important. And the U.S. Conference
    of Mayors has endorsed Senator Feinstein's Gang Abatement and
    Prevention Act of 2007 and urge passage. And, of course, the
    COPS and the Byrne block grants should be fully funded this
    year.
        You cannot have homeland security and not have hometown
    security. And the point you made was very well taken. We do
    need 1,000 more FBI agents because our police will tell you
    that when they used to have the partnership with the Federal
    Government to have FBI work with them on these very serious
    cases, now they are fighting counterterrorism. And that is
    fine. But we need additional FBI agents to come and work with
    our local law enforcement to help federally put these bad guys
    away.
        We truly need this Federal partnership. When we see school
    violence is on the rise, we know our police have to use more
    resources there. And what is also troubling for us without a
    Federal partnership is that the police--and they will tell you,
    and mayors will tell you--we will have to spend whatever we
    have to make our citizens safe, and that means a lot of times
    using resources that we would have for parks, for economic
    development, for senior citizen programs, for things that are
    the lifeblood of a city, that help sustain a city, that help
    make cities livable, we have to take those moneys away for law
    enforcement because our Federal partners are not at the table
    with us.
        So we urge that through your leadership this be done. It is
    unfortunate that the administration--I hope somebody from the
    administration is here to listen to these individuals whose
    officers put their lives on the line each and every day, whose
    mayors fight the good fight each and every day. But like in
    everything else, we need a Federal partner. This is a Federal
    responses needed in a partnership to deal with this problem. It
    has worked in the past, and we know with the resources that it
    will work for all of us in the future.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mayor Palmer appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Chairman Biden. Mr. Mayor, I am going to place in the
    record, by the way, for each one of you your bios and what I
    had prepared for you. But I must say you have done a remarkable
    job. I know Trenton relatively well. I know New Jersey pretty
    well. And with all due respect, Mr. Mayor, not every mayor in
    America is making the choices you have made. You are making
    some tough choices between, figuratively speaking, street
    lights and cops. And you are making them for cops. But a lot of
    other mayors are not either able to or think they should make
    those choices, and it is truly remarkable that you are running
    against the trend here because your crime rate is down. Your
    crime rate is down.
        But one of the things that caused me to draft that
    legislation back in the early 1990s was the thing that
    frightened people the most is the randomness of crime. The
    randomness. All the studies that we have done and read and all
    the hundreds of hours of hearings, most people thought they
    could protect themselves against being victimized by putting
    themselves in a position where they avoided the bad
    neighborhood, the bank teller, the ATM machine at midnight,
    walking in a certain--they thought they could do that. But what
    happens in your city and every other city, and the nature of
    the change in the crime, demonstrates once again it is totally
    random. There is nothing you can do in many cases to give
    yourself the sense that you are out of harm's way. It is not
    just avoiding ``the bad neighborhood.''
        So, anyway, I just wanted to state for the record that I
    think your leadership of the National Conference of Mayors has
    been remarkable. But, more importantly, your day-to-day hands-
    on leadership in Trenton, New Jersey, has been remarkable. And
    I just want to note that for the record. And I am sure my
    Republican colleagues, if they were here, would say the exact
    same thing. It has been remarkable.
        Mayor Palmer. Well, Senator, I just would like to say our
    homicide rate is up, though. Our regular--
        Chairman Biden. I know that. But your overall crime-- but
    my point is that is what is happening all over. What is
    happening all over is you see these trends. The homicide rate
    is up, gun crimes are up. You also find gangs are up. MS-13 is
    becoming visible. It is a little bit like when-- Ted will
    remember--15 years ago--that is not true--17 years ago, I was
    in Iowa--having nothing to do with what Senator Grassley
    referenced of running for President--as a United States Senator
    in Iowa and warning that ice was coming, methamphetamine was on
    its way, and how it was coming and wrote a very extensive
    report.
        And you look around the corner, juvenile crime is up. I
    would argue one of the reasons juvenile crime is up is because
    community policing is down, because school resource officers
    are not available any longer, because the gang initiatives have
    been cut, because when you make choices, you have got to make
    very hard choices in the allocation of these moneys.
        So I do understand certain aspects of crime are up, but
    overall it has been remarkable what you have done in the face
    of these significant cuts. Chief, welcome. It is great to have
    you here.

         STATEMENT OF RUSSELL B. LAINE, SECOND VICE PRESIDENT,
       INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CHIEFS OF POLICE, ALGONQUIN,
                                ILLINOIS

        Chief Laine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, and
    good morning,
        Senator Kohl. My name is Russell Laine, and I serve as the
    Chief of Police in Algonquin, Illinois. For those of you
    unfamiliar with the area, Algonquin is a community of
    approximately 33,000 located about 40 miles northwest of
    Chicago.
        I am here today as the Vice President of the International
    Association of Chiefs of Police representing over 20,000 law
    enforcement executives throughout the world. I am pleased to be
    here to discuss the challenges currently confronting the U.S.
    law enforcement community and our need for an increased level
    of support from the Federal Government.
        In the United States, there are more than 18,000 law
    enforcement agencies and well over 700,000 officers who patrol
    our State highways and the streets of our communities each and
    every day. During the past 15 years, these officers, and the
    law enforcement agencies they serve, have made tremendous
    strides in reducing the level of crime and violence in our
    communities. This has been accomplished in part because these
    officers have an intimate knowledge of their communities and
    because they have developed close relationships with the
    citizens they serve.
        Yet despite the best efforts of our Nation's law
    enforcement officers, the disturbing truth is that each year in
    the United States, well over a million of our fellow citizens
    are victims of violent crime. Unfortunately, in the last 2
    years we have seen a steady increase in the rate of violent
    crime in the United States. According to the Uniform Crime
    Report, violent crime rose at a rate of 2.5 percent during
    2005. To put that in perspective, that is an additional 31,479
    victims.
        Unfortunately, this increase in the crime rate appears to
    be accelerating. For the first 6 months of 2006, the crime rate
    rose at a rate of 3.7 percent, when compared to the same
    timeframe in 2005. If this rate holds for the final 6 months--
    and I am sorry to say that I believe it will--it will mean that
    an additional 47,000 Americans will find themselves as victims.
        While there are many different theories as to why violent
    crime is increasing in these communities, after years of often
    double-digit declines, there is one fact that we all can agree
    on: no one is immune from crime. What were once considered
    ``urban'' problems--drug addiction, drug distribution, violent
    crime, gangs, and poverty--have migrated to suburban and even
    rural communities. Gangs, guns and drugs are everywhere.
        In many ways, my hometown of Algonquin typifies the
    problems that are plaguing many American communities.
    Traditionally, the Algonquin Police Department has not had to
    deal with the same level of crime and violence that has
    confronted larger communities and cities. For example, nearly
    22 years ago when I first arrived in Algonquin, the pressing
    issues facing the department were dealing with curfew
    violations, traffic issues, parking issues, and stray cows and
    horses that wandered onto main thoroughfare.
        Today, that thoroughfare is an eight-lane highway, and the
    Algonquin Police Department is dealing with more dangerous
    criminals who are committing increasingly violent crimes. For
    example, Algonquin just experienced a rather infamous first in
    the history of our community: our first drive-by shooting.
        In years past gang activity within Algonquin could be
    accurately described as local youth wannabes who thought they
    were acting cool and seeking an identity for themselves, and
    sometimes we had the random contacts with hard-core gang
    members from other towns who were merely passing through
    Algonquin going from one community to another. Today there is
    an active gang presence within our community, and the attendant
    violence is increasing both in frequency and intensity.
        I think it is safe to say that the days of worrying about
    stray cows are over.
        And it is not just gang-related and other violent crimes
    that are on the increase. We are witnessing a rise in property
    crimes and, like many communities around the country, a new
    wave of financial and identity crimes.
        Another example of this chilling trend in the Midwest is a
    new drug called ``cheez,'' a mix of black heroin and Tylenol.
    It is mostly sold to minors and is becoming available in the
    high schools. As you can imagine, responding to and
    investigating all of these crimes is labor intensive and a
    time-consuming process.
        Unfortunately, our ability to do this is becoming
    increasingly strained. To be blunt, our resources are stretched
    to the limit. As a result, we have not been able to add the
    additional officers that would allow us to combat these
    criminals aggressively. We have not been able to take advantage
    of necessary training that would leave our officers better
    prepared to confront the new breed of criminals operating in
    our community. And we have not been able to acquire the
    sophisticated technology to help us in our crime fighting and
    which is available to the bad guys.
        It is telling that this increase in violent crime, drug
    sales, and gang activity in America corresponds directly to the
    substantial decline in funding for State, tribal, and local law
    enforcement from the Federal Government assistance programs.
        I will not use my time here this morning to enter into a
    prolonged discussion of the current budget situation, but I
    would ask that I be able to submit a copy of the IACP's Budget
    Analysis for the record.
        Chairman Biden. Without objection, it will be placed in the
    record.
        Chief Laine. Thank you.
        I do believe it is important to note that when compared to
    the fiscal year 2002 funding level of $3.8 billion, the
    administration's fiscal year 2008 proposal represents a
    reduction of more than $3.2 billion, or 85 percent, and,
    unfortunately, no program has been hit harder over the last
    several years than the COPS program.
        These cuts are particularly troubling because the IACP
    believes that the COPS program played an integral role in our
    ability to reduce crime rates in the past. By providing law
    enforcement agencies with the necessary resources, training,
    and assistance, the COPS program has become an invaluable ally
    to State, tribal, and local law enforcement agencies. It is
    this fact that makes the current situation completely
    unacceptable, not only to the Nation's entire law enforcement
    community, but also to the citizens we are sworn to protect
    from both crime and terrorism. It is an undisputed reality:
    State, tribal, and local law enforcement agencies are on the
    front line of effective terrorism prevention. If you recall
    earlier, it was brought up that--the question was whether
    terrorism affects violent crime on the street. I would suggest
    that what really happens, it is the work that the men and women
    in law enforcement do on the street in their communities and
    the State highways that really affects how effective we are on
    terrorism.
        We willingly accept the new responsibilities in combating
    terrorism, but our ability to continue with traditional
    policing is our best weapon against terrorism. For this we need
    your assistance.
        State, tribal, and local law enforcement are doing all that
    we can to protect our communities from increasing crime rates
    and the specter of terrorism, but we cannot do it alone. We
    need the full support and assistance of the Federal Government.
    That is why programs like the COPS program and the Byrne-JAG
    program have been so successful and so popular in the state and
    local law enforcement community. And that is why it is so
    essential for these programs to be fully funded in fiscal year
    2008 and the years that follow.
        Unfortunately, as the IACP Budget Analysis makes clear, the
    reductions these critical programs have suffered in recent
    years and the cuts contained in the proposed fiscal year 2008
    budget have the potential certainty to cripple the capabilities
    of law enforcement agencies nationwide and force many
    departments to take officers off the streets, eliminate the
    promise of vital communications between agencies during a major
    public safety emergency or natural disaster--all leading to
    more crime and more violence in our hometowns and, ultimately,
    less security for our homeland.
        I want to thank you for the opportunity to present our
    comments today, and I also appreciate your leadership in our
    efforts. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Chief Laine appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Chairman Biden. Thanks, Chief.
        Professor, great to have you as the clean-up hitter here,
    seriously.

      STATEMENT OF JAMES ALAN FOX, THE LIPMAN FAMILY PROFESSOR OF
          CRIMINAL JUSTICE, NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, BOSTON,
                             MASSACHUSETTS

        Mr. Fox. Thank you very much. I am pleased to be here today
    alongside these law enforcement representatives from
    communities around the country.
        Now, I do not work the streets like these brave men. I live
    and work in the city of Boston, though. I do actually patrol
    the halls of the campus, a 31-year veteran of the lecture
    halls. I live and work in Boston, and Boston, of course, is a
    city that has grappled with a disturbing increase in gun
    violence, especially related to youth and gang activity, as
    Officer Nee has described.
        You know, they say that misery loves company. Well, for
    whatever consolation it is--and I am not sure it is any
    consolation--Boston has lots of miserable company, based on the
    crime statistics that we have for 2005 and the preliminaries
    for 2006 and some other reports, such as the PERF report.
        Just about a year ago, I was here to testify for the
    Democratic Policy Committee of the House about specifically the
    issue of the cuts in the COPS program and Byrne program, and
    what is interesting is if you look at the decline in police
    resources, it has not been across the board. Since 2000, the
    number of police officers per capita in cities, large cities,
    the 58 cities, the largest American cities, has been a 10-
    percent decline. The rest of the Nation, there has been no
    change at all. So it is the cities that have seen this big
    downturn. And, of course, it is the cities where we are seeing
    the big increases in gangs, guns, and violence and homicides.
        Now, you also, Mr. Chairman, pointed out that it is not
    only the decline in resources that we are robbing Peter to pay
    for Paul, to use your phrase. I think it is more--not just
    robbing. We are robbing, raping, and murdering Peter to pay for
    Paul, the shift in resources from hometown security to homeland
    security. And I think to understand why this has happened, you
    have to consider who is at risk for these different types of
    criminal, terrorism versus street violence.
        The people most at risk for terrorism, of course, are the
    wealthy, the powerful, those who commute on the airlines, those
    who work in our financial hubs. The people who are most at risk
    for ordinary street violence are poor. They live in certain
    sections of D.C. and Baltimore and Newark. And when you really
    look at the numbers, you know, it is tragic, the thousands of
    deaths that occurred on 9/11. But many more people are gunned
    down every year in America in ordinary street violence than
    what happened in 9/11. And I do not want to weigh one death
    against another, but again, the people who are at risk for the
    kinds of tragedy we see every year are poor and powerless, and
    that is where we are seeing the problem.
        What is particularly disconcerting--I do not want to get
    too political about this, but I know that President Bush was
    discussed earlier and the fact that he was making cuts. It was
    so disingenuous. He was running for re-election, standing
    shoulder to shoulder with New York's finest at the same time
    cutting the Federal budgets for law enforcement that was
    supporting New York City.
        The other thing about it is I know people want tax cuts.
    You mentioned tax cuts. A few hundred extra dollars in your
    pocket is not very much consolation if you are staring down the
    wrong end of a gun.
        The thing about all these cuts is we may wake up someday
    and decide, gee, you know, maybe we should not have cut all
    that money, all the COPS money, it was so successful, we made a
    mistake. Well, you cannot just flip the switch and return the
    staffing in quick form. It takes time to recruit. It takes time
    to train. It takes time to provide those new recruits with
    experience. So it is unfortunate that we did this, and we are
    going to have to get back to the--turn the clock back.
        Now, I am here not so much to talk about policing, because
    certainly we have heard that. Smart crime fighting involves a
    balanced between enforcement, from community policing to
    identifying illegal gun markets; treatment, from drug rehab on
    demand to prisoner re-entry services; as well as crime
    prevention, from family support programs to summer jobs for
    high-risk youth. Regrettably, the prevention approach has at
    times been disparaged as a waste of money, it is worthless, it
    is soft on crime. Yet this cynical perspective reflects gross
    misunderstanding of the process and goals of prevention and a
    selective examination of the evaluation outcomes. Simply put,
    prevention programs can work; good prevention programs that are
    well implemented and well funded do work.
        Too often, prevention initiatives are implemented on a
    shoestring, a very short shoestring, with a brief window of
    opportunity to show results. It is a recipe for failure.
        Now, I am going to talk about five principles of crime
    prevention and violence prevention that are really critical to
    this investment.
        First of all, no program is successful all the time and for
    all individuals. No matter what the initiative, there will be
    failures. Rather than focusing on the failures, as the media
    likes to do--those ``bad news bearers,'' I call them--the goal
    should be a reasonable reduction in offending rates. In light
    of the enormous social and administrative costs and human tolls
    and suffering associated with each criminal act, even modest
    gains are worthwhile.
        Secondy, prevention should have an emphasis on the prefix--
    on the prefix ``pre'' as in prevention. The greatest
    opportunity for positive impact comes with a focus on
    children--those who are young and impressionable and will be
    impressed with what a teacher, a preacher, or some other
    authority figure has to say. Youngsters, as we know, are often
    drawn to gang activity. It is actually for positive reasons.
    They are drawn to gangs because of the camaraderie, the
    respect, the status, the excitement, the protection. Our
    challenge is to find other ways, alternative means that
    youngsters could derive the same kinds of need fulfillment in
    programs that foster positive development.
        Third, patience is much more than a virtue. It is an
    essential requirement. Prevention is not a short-term strategy.
    Unfortunately, many prevention programs are given short windows
    in which to show progress, and they are often terminated before
    the final results are in.
        Fourth, prevention should take a multifaceted approach.
    There are many points of intervention for successful crime
    prevention. I do support the gang abatement program, but we
    should also look for promising programs for young children.
    Several proven and promising strategies are directed at at--
    risk youth, at families with young children. Rather than assail
    young mothers who are unable to deal with their children, we
    need to assist them in trying to raise healthy children. In
    addition, we have school-based initiatives that enhance well-
    being of large numbers of children. Behavioral skills training
    at the elementary school level, anti-bullying curricula at the
    middle school level. We know about the connection between
    bullying and later offending. Peer mediation and after-school
    programs targeted at the prime time for juvenile crime. All
    these things have payoff far greater than the investment.
        Fifth, and finally, prevention is significantly cost--
    effective. Virtually all assessments of crime prevention
    confirm the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a
    pound of prison time. It is, however, a political reality that
    sound investments in prevention take years to reap the
    benefits. It takes bold leaders like you to earmark funds today
    for tomorrow's success, maybe 4, 8, 10 years down the road,
    when perhaps your successor will reap the benefits and derive
    pleasure.
        So, to conclude here, the recent upturn in youth violence
    was anticipated years ago. As you know, I have been here
    several times to talk about demographics and other factors, and
    even while the rates of crime were dropping in the 1990s,
    criminologists like myself warned about the potential for
    another wave of youth and gang violence. This not-so-perfect
    storm combining the growth in the number of at-risk kids and
    cuts in social and educational programs, we were so complacent,
    we cut the anti-gang programs because we did not think gangs
    were a problem anymore. And like your grass analogy, it comes
    right back.
        The encouraging news, though, is that the crime problem is
    not out of control, at least by contrast to the early 1990s
    when the Nation's murder rate was twice what it is today. It is
    not surprising that a small bounce-back will happen, but let
    this small upturn serve as a thunderous wake-up call that crime
    prevention, police funding, and dealing with illegal guns need
    to be priorities once again.
        At this juncture, we can look toward immediate solutions
    like the gang abatement program and easy access to illegal
    firearms--approaches that depend heavily on police personnel,
    intelligence, and deployment. But at the same time, we must
    maintain a long-range view toward the future. The choice is
    ours: Either pay for the programs now or pray for the victims
    later.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Fox appears as a submission
    for the record.]
        Chairman Biden. Thank you very much. I am going to yield to
    my colleague, Senator Kohl.
        Senator Kohl. Thank you so much, Senator Biden, and,
    gentlemen, it is good to have you here today. Am I hearing from
    all of you that the most important thing we need to do is to
    increase funding for the programs that we all know or feel work
    well? Is that the major thing that we are hearing here this
    morning, that it is the lack of funding that is causing the
    upsurge in crime in our communities, lack of Federal funding?
        Mr. Fox. It is juvenile justice funding, the OJJDP, lack of
    COPS funding. It is basically the idea that we thought we had
    solved the crime problem. You know, crime rates went down for 8
    straight years, and we said, Hey, we do not need to spend money
    on crime fighting anymore, let's pay attention to other really
    important things like who is going to win ``American Idol'' or
    something.
        But we really got complacent. We took our focus off the
    crime issue. You do not solve the crime problem. You do not
    solve the gang issue. You only control them. And so long as you
    are dealing with it, you are seeing success, and we had success
    and we said, oh, let's move the money elsewhere.
        You know, the one thing about youth is that we have a new
    group of teenagers every 5 years. You know, we did a great job
    in the 1990s in Boston and elsewhere in investing in those kids
    and making sure that they were not as violent as their
    predecessors, that they saw alternatives to joining gangs. But
    now we have a new group of kids, and they are too young--they
    do not know what it was like in 1990 when joining a gang could
    mean an early grave. They were like 2 years old. And so we cut
    back on the anti-gang initiatives in Boston and elsewhere, and
    lo and behold, that is where they are going again.
        So you have to keep on working at it, and because we are
    seeing success, we should redouble our efforts, not cut them.
        Senator Kohl. Is the prevalence of guns on the street a
    major, major issue here? Does anybody want to say anything
    beyond what is commonly said about guns? Is the prevalence of
    guns--do we need stronger gun laws? Do we need just stronger
    enforcement?
        Mayor Palmer. You know, I think we need stronger
    enforcement. There is no doubt about that. We need to enforce
    the laws that are already on the books. But we also need to
    aggressively go after straw purchases. In New Jersey, in my
    city, Trenton, New Jersey has very strict gun laws, but 5
    minutes from Trenton across the Delaware Bridge and into
    Pennsylvania, their laws are much more, in my estimation,
    lenient, where an individual can buy hundreds of guns and then
    sell them illegally, you know, to gang bangers in the cities.
        So I think that we have to close the gun show loophole. We
    have to go after straw purchases. And we have to make sure that
    people that commit crimes with guns, that they go to jail and
    not be out.
        One of the things that was just remarkable to me,
    unbelievable to me, was just about 2 months ago we had a press
    conference because the police finally arrested a person who was
    allegedly involved in two homicides, gang-- related homicides.
    This individual was out on bail--and this is the court system,
    too. But this individual was out on bail, committed two
    murders, and he was out on bail after having shot a cop three
    times. How could this guy be out on bail?
        So there is a whole disparity there as well, but certainly
    illegal guns are a focus. Mayor Bloomberg and Mayor Menino and
    other mayors are working with mayors against illegal guns,
    fighting the good fight. But we need to look at, you know, the
    Tiahrt amendment and those kinds of things as well, and go
    after these straw purchasers and make committing crimes with a
    gun as serious if it is happening in a poor neighborhood as it
    would be in an affluent one.
        Senator Kohl. Before I ask you, Mr. Fox, are you saying,
    Mayor, that the issue of guns, who has them, how they get them,
    whether it is legal or illegal, and then what we do with people
    once they are convicted of gun crimes in terms of
    incarceration, is among other things central to this whole
    discussion we are having here today?
        Mayor Palmer. Yes, absolutely. I had the experience of
    going with Mayor Bloomberg, Mayor Street from Philadelphia, and
    some Philadelphia councilmen to Harrisburg last September to
    talk about an idea of one gun a month. I met with Democrat and
    Republican State Senators. They almost laughed us out of the
    room and said, no, that is not going to happen, you are wasting
    our time if you are talking about one gun a month. And if you
    are married, that is like two guns a month, 24 in a year. And
    they said, no, I just bought three guns this weekend.
        And so they did not even want to put an amendment so that
    if you lost your gun or it was stolen to report it. They said
    no, we are not even reporting lost or stolen guns. You know
    what happens. People buy guns legally, sell them illegally, and
    if you go to trace it back, they say, well, now that this gun
    was involved in a crime, we found it was yours, oh, I lost that
    gun, or it was stolen. Well, if you report it when it happens,
    then that is a way of tracing it, too.
        Senator Kohl. Mr. Fox?
        Mr. Fox. I can put some of the onus here on the Congress
    and some of your colleagues. You know, in the last couple of
    years, it has been kind of disturbing to see some of the change
    in terms of the posture of the Congress toward guns. And I do
    not blame the NRA. You know, they have a right to have their
    opinion. But what I am concerned about is how so many Members
    of Congress seem to be willing to pass things like the immunity
    law, the gun immunity law that--you know, when they talked
    about tort reform 4 years ago in a campaign, who knew that is
    what they meant, that they would just protect the gun industry.
        I understand the logic of the debate on the other side, but
    so many of the advances that have been made in terms of guns in
    this country have been with the threat of lawsuits.
        Second, the whole area of gun tracing and efforts in
    Congress to trim and curtail the extent to which police
    departments can use gun tracing efforts, we know--you know, I
    have done a lot of work at the Brady Center, and we know that
    these rogue dealers, that 1 percent of the gun dealers are
    responsible for over half the guns used in crimes every year.
    We need to be able to identify these people.
        Boy, if there was a liquor store where all the 14-year--
    olds are going to buy beer, we would do something about that
    liquor store.
        And I do agree wholeheartedly with the idea about
    prosecuting gun crimes, but let's also keep in mind that so
    much of the increase we have seen is in kids carrying guns.
    They do not really care, many of them, about what the criminal
    justice system might do. They are carrying guns because they
    feel they need it to survive. You know, the criminal justice
    system, the Federal Government can just take a number and wait
    in this line with all the other people out to get them. So they
    feel they need the gun to live, and whatever prosecution there
    is--they may not even be aware of what the Federal Government
    is doing--is not a priority.
        So we need to find out the process by which the guns are
    getting into this illegal market, and investigate it and deal
    with it, and deal with the rogue dealers.
        Senator Kohl. Anybody disagree with that or want to offer
    additional comments on this issue, gun availability? Crimes
    committed with guns and people not being sufficiently long
    incarcerated?
        Sheriff Kamatchus. If I might just make a comment on it, I
    own well over 100 firearms, and I have been a competitive
    shooter for a long time. And I am a firm believer in the fact
    that the old adage that guns do not commit crimes, people do.
    But I also am a firm believer in what was said earlier in the
    fact that you have to have strong, just--you know, we have to
    commit these individuals to a facility so they cannot get back
    out so quickly. We have to make sure that the individuals who
    perpetrate the crimes are handled harshly so that if there is
    any potential for a deterrent factor in that, it is real, it is
    not talked about.
        Recently, in a neighboring county to mine, we had some
    young teens at a party, and one young gentleman simply walked
    up--and this case is still active, so I do not want to get into
    it too much, but walked up and pulled a gun and shot another
    kid right in the head, in rural Iowa. Dropped him right there.
    And I know the family that had the loss personally.
        The bottom line on it is that we need to do something with
    those type of people so that those young individuals who are
    coming up that was mentioned earlier who do not have an
    understanding of what it is like to be involved with gangs or
    such, that those individuals have a better understanding of
    what can happen to them if they perpetrate those crimes.
        So, you know, I just want to make sure that we do not end
    up in a situation here where we evolve it into the banning of
    weapons or something that is so restricting that we do not have
    firearms anymore. That is just what I want to make sure is
    said.
        Senator Kohl. Oh, yes. No question about it. Your comment
    is--Mr. Nee?
        Mr. Nee. You know, it is the unlawful guns that we have the
    problem with up there in New England, firsthand knowledge. I
    can give you by way of example, the other night, Thursday
    night--I am certain Professor Fox could add. Within a ten-
    square-block radius, within an hour and a half of time, we
    seized nine illegal guns on the street. Three were used in acts
    of violence; the rest were seized through aggressive police
    tactics that night because of the many shootings that we had
    that night.
        But I firmly believe being, again, a sportsman, somebody
    who enjoys that way of life, being around firearms for the past
    29 years of my life, I am not afraid of them. I believe that
    there has to be an understanding, and they do have a lawful
    purpose. But it is uniformity in gun laws in the United States
    that has to be brought in line. You can go to a neighboring
    State, and I see some of these places popping up now where they
    are teaching kids to shoot AKs. They have got to be 21 years
    old, and they are up there taking tactical training and courses
    where they are not licensed, there is no understanding, and
    then they get into these underground railroads with these
    firearms that are coming up out of some of the communities in
    other parts of the country. And we are lacking right now the
    ability to track and trace these underground networks of guns
    that are coming out of other parts of the country.
        You know, I watched the gun purchase program that we used
    up in Boston several years ago. No one was turning in the guns
    we were looking for. They were turning in black powder muskets
    and things, you know, things that were prehistoric, for sake of
    a better term.
        But, you know, these guns are still being used, and just to
    a slight degree I would disagree with the Professor in this
    sense, that these guns are not used just to keep kids alive. A
    lot of these guns are being used in aggressive acts of
    violence. What is extremely disturbing to me is up in Boston
    proper--and I am hearing it from a lot of the major cities--a
    lot of these kids today have no fear of taking up arms against
    an armed police department, an armed officer. And if the
    country--if people do not get that, if they are willing to take
    up arms against a uniformed officer, trained, they have no
    problem taking it up against the rest of society. That message
    has got to be sent with firm, swift convictions,
    incarcerations. The message has got to be clear. We can blame
    the guns all we want. It is the kids behind the guns that are
    using these things. Again, like you said, nine guns within 90
    minutes of a ten-square-block radius part of the city. It was
    very disturbing to the policemen involved, and we are finding
    it more and more common that these young gang members are
    taking firearms up against our police officers, our colleagues
    around the country. And it is very disturbing to me.
        Mayor Palmer. And I would say you need a comprehensive
    approach. The U.S. Conference of Mayors understands that. You
    need job training, re-entry is very important, drug treatment,
    housing when people get out, and all those things. But you have
    to make--police will tell you. What is really disturbing is
    before, if you were getting robbed, you would say, OK, stick
    'em up; here, here is everything, I am not arguing with you,
    here is everything I have. And they shoot you anyway. Why? That
    is a sociological thing, because they are mad--
        Mr. Fox. Eliminate the witness.
        Mayor Palmer. Well, no, they will shoot you in the butt.
    They will not kill you, maybe, but they are mad. They are just
    mad because you have it and I do not and I had to get it.
        So we need to do more in the prevention, education, and
    those things, but we also have to send a strong message, and I
    am--look, I never thought in my days I would be so conservative
    on this issue, as tough as I am on crime, but I know what it is
    doing to innocent people. But you have got to make sure these
    juveniles that shoot somebody, you got to lock them up for a
    long time so they get it out of their system, and when they are
    in jail, then you give them programs and try to help turn them
    around, because these kids have no fear using guns. They see it
    on videos. They see it on TV, MTV, and they think it is cool.
    To get bones, being in the gang, they make you shoot somebody.
    That has got to stop. You have to make these kids afraid if
    they get caught shooting a gun or having a gun that they are
    going to jail.
        Then we have to rehabilitate them when we fail before that.
    But it is just like why do teenage--no, I might get a little
    over my bounds here, but it is like why did teenage pregnancy
    at one point go down? It was because teenagers were starting to
    use condoms. Why were they using condoms? Because they were
    scared to death at the time of getting AIDS, because they
    thought, if I get AIDS, I am going to die. So they got scared
    and they started wearing condoms.
        Now, I know that is an overgeneralization, but you have got
    to make kids scared, teenagers, juveniles, scared to be in a
    gang, scared to use a gun because of the consequences. How we
    do that is up for debate, but we have got to scare them
    straight, in my opinion.
        Mr. Fox. You know, it is interesting--you mentioned the
    media. What is interesting is that so many kids will hold guns,
    because they see it on TV, it looked really cool, like sideways
    or upside down. Actually, you know, do not tell them this, but
    it is actually not good in terms of their accuracy. The gun can
    actually jam. But it looks good because that is what they see
    on TV.
        But I wanted to say something. You know, I used to write
    for a rather conservative newspaper, the Herald. I used to
    write a column, and anytime you say anything about guns, you
    get deluged with, you know, pro-NRA people. I did not know they
    had so much time on their hands. They are always cleaning their
    weapons. But they certainly have time to write me.
        I think it is very possible to be in favor of things like
    gun tracing and against the immunity law, yet respect the right
    of decent, law-abiding people that own guns. No one--I will not
    say no one, but so many people who are gun control freaks, I
    guess, we have no problem with people owning guns, so long as
    they use them right. And we are only looking to try to break
    down and interdict the illegal gun markets, and trying to do
    that is not--you know, the slippery slope and all that kind of
    garbage, there is no slippery slope. We are only interested in
    finding guns that are illegal, how do people purchase them. No
    one here is interested in trying to deprive law-abiding
    citizens of their guns.
        And it is not a panacea. The one gun a month, let's keep in
    mind that Virginia has one gun a month, and that is why Mr. Cho
    down at Virginia Tech had to wait a month to buy his second
    weapon. And I know in Massachusetts they talk about one gun a
    month. It is a small piece of the puzzle. We need, I agree,
    something comprehensive, something national, because every
    State is as weak as the weakest link in the chain. But we can
    indeed focus on dealing with illegal guns and respect the
    rights of gun owners. I wish we were all on the same page here.
    We should be. But for some reason, everyone wants to get
    painted into corners, like you are either against them or you
    are for them.
        Chairman Biden. Thank you very much, Senator.
        I would like to pursue--and I know your time is valuable,
    but if you would give me a few more minutes, I would like to
    pursue a couple things here, more in sort of a generic sense
    here, before we get into specifics.
        I am making this statement to invite response, and, look,
    as my colleagues from Delaware can tell you, I always say I am
    a United States Senator, I am used to not being taken
    seriously, so I really do want your critical comments, if you
    disagree with the assertions, the broad assertions I am going
    to make.
        For 17 years, I chaired this Committee and/or was the
    Ranking Member, and it took a long time to get a consensus
    between then the Chairman or Ranking Member, Strom Thurmond,
    and Joe Biden, which was an interesting combination at that
    time. And all through the 1970s and all through the 1980s, we
    had this constant, ongoing fight about, on the one side, what
    we have to do is look at the source of crime and deal with that
    because there is not much you can do in dealing with crime once
    it occurs; and the other side was hang 'em high, make the
    penalties tougher, put people in jail longer.
        And it took a long time to get what I thought was a
    consensus that from police to social workers agreed on. And
    that was there are three pieces of this puzzle. One piece,
    which is very important and could have real payback and was
    cheaper if you invested in it, was prevention. The other point
    was the apprehension of the bad guys. And the third point was
    incarceration of the bad guys.
        And so the original crime bill, which caused me so much
    trouble and took literally 6 years to get done, it is the first
    time we combined all three of those things. And that bill said
    three things--and it equally distributed the money. It was a
    $30 billion bill--and, by the way, this is not a pride of
    authorship thing. This is trying to get a sense of what seems
    to me to be happening, and I would like you to comment on it.
        And so we reached this sort of grand compromise, something
    we never really tried before: one, the Federal Government had a
    significant responsibility to deal with local crime, the reason
    being, Mr. Mayor, you can do everything right, but if we do not
    control cocaine coming out of Afghanistan, if we do not control
    cocaine coming out of Colombia, heroin coming out of Colombia
    and parts of Venezuela, coming through the port in Trenton, you
    cannot do much. There is nothing you can do about our porous
    borders and all the drugs that are coming through those
    borders, no matter how good you are.
        And so it seems to me there is a Federal responsibility. We
    went through this fight. The Federal Government has a
    responsibility, even though the ultimate local responsibility
    is the crime committed on the street, that is literally local.
    But all the factors that go into why that crime was committed,
    a lot of it had to do with the failure of Federal policy.
        So we fought through this whole thing about whether or not
    the Federal Government has a role in dealing with local crime.
    And the second thing we fought through was how you get my
    conservative friends, who wanted tougher enforcement, and my
    liberal friends, who wanted more prevention, whether it is drug
    rehab or whether it is after-school programs or a whole range
    of other things, how you get them on the same page. And it
    really was a tortuous undertaking. It took 6 years to get it
    done.
        And the third part--the part that nobody really liked--was
    providing more money to States to build prisons, because as the
    great Senator from the State of Maryland, Senator Mathias,
    pointed out when I authored the bill that became the Sentencing
    Commission, he said it is going to cause more people to go to
    jail, and he was right. It is. And we can argue whether the
    Sentencing Commission--but it had an effect. It had an effect
    at least while you are in jail. The only thing we do know is if
    you are in jail behind bars, you are not committing crime in
    the streets. You may be committing crimes in jail, but you are
    not committing them on the street.
        And so the one thing I was not able to get done in that
    bill was to deal with what Senator Specter and I are trying to
    do now, and that is, invest money in reintegrating people back
    into society when they get out of the prison--housing, jobs,
    drug programs, because all of you know drugs are rampant in
    prisons right now. If you are not addicted, you might get
    addicted in prison.
        And so we had this thing, and the formula seemed to work.
    We seemed to have arrived at a consensus, Democrats and
    Republicans, that there was some Federal responsibility. You
    needed to do all three pieces in order to impact on crime. And
    it was not just cops, more cops. It related to prevention, and
    it related to incarceration.
        Now, at the Federal level, we did the things you are
    looking for, Mr. Mayor. Use a gun in the commission of a crime,
    you go to jail. Bingo, you go to jail. You do not pass go. You
    go to jail. Most of your States do not do that. I say ``your
    States.'' Most States do not do that.
        We also suggested that there is no probation or parole in
    the sense that you look out there, and we did not know what
    caused recidivism, we did not know what the measure was, so I
    admit, I am responsible for it, and I sometimes wonder whether
    I was right, Professor, saying same time for the same crime,
    you know, and you go to jail. Or if it is not jail, if that is
    not the sentence, whatever that crime is.
        Now, here is my dilemma, what I really do not understand. I
    am wondering whether--I would ask from the police enforcement
    officer's standpoint and from an elected official's standpoint
    and then from a criminologist's standpoint. What happened? What
    happened that would lead anyone to believe that that formula
    was not a legitimate formula? When that formula, the
    combination of all those things was employed, when money was
    put behind it, States took advantage of it, crime actually went
    down at the very time those in the crime-committing years were
    going up. So what happened? What kind of discussions took place
    in the squad room, you know, over the last 10 years to say we
    have got this under control? What happened with--you know, did
    mayors and elected officials say this is not our biggest
    problem now? Did criminologists conclude this formula is not
    the proper formula?
        That is what I would like to talk about, because it seems
    almost like--you know, they talk about the Know--Nothing Party
    in the 1880s. It is kind of like we have become anti-
    intellectual here, that, you know, the facts seem so obvious to
    me, and yet there is this consensus among many people,
    including my colleagues in Congress. You know, look, that
    formula does not work anymore, or that formula is not
    necessary.
        What is going on? Ted, did you want to make a comment?
        Sheriff Kamatchus. Well, it baffles me as much as anyone in
    this room and anyone who is listening or watching this today.
    Being a sheriff, I am a peace officer, but I am also a 20-year
    veteran of the political field. I have been elected five times.
    So I have to also balance that whole issue of the utilization
    of the taxpayers' money probably a little bit more because in 4
    years I may not have a job.
        But I have to tell you something. I am baffled as much as
    you are, and the reason I am baffled as much as you are is
    because look at who is at this table, and then think back into
    the 1990s and who was at the table. And what happened then was
    the proverbial squeaky wheel got the grease, and maybe we as
    organizations, maybe you as--I will call you the father of this
    COPS program, and more. Maybe we got complacent and quit
    squeaking. Maybe we got quiet because--and that allowed the
    people, for whatever reason who are opposed to it, to turn
    around and beat the drum about the success. And they became
    louder. And somewhere along the line, they began robbing from
    Peter to pay Paul, as you said.
        It does not make sense to me either. You know, the COPS
    program was not perfect. It had its flaws. But, you know, a
    neat thing about the program was it was self--healing. When we
    could not hire people quick enough and train them quick enough,
    we shifted funds. And when we arrested a bunch of people and we
    could not prosecute them quick enough, we shifted funds. And
    then all of a sudden when we needed technology, we shifted
    funds. And that is the positive thing about the COPS program.
        And I think what happened was it became so easy to shift
    those funds and so successful that it became more the norm, the
    standard, if you will.
        I do not know what the answer is other than to say that I
    hope your colleagues--I hope that they look at this panel and
    they look at what is going to happen in the months ahead and
    they hear us. And I look back to the same argument that
    happened in the 1990s. And if there are some experts out there
    who walk the street like we do who are opposed to this and who
    have got a better answer than we do, I would like to have them
    come up. I have traveled across this country. I have been to 38
    States in the last 11 months. I have driven a car from State to
    State. I have talked to people in small rural Kansas, all the
    way to Orlando, Florida, and L.A. and all over. And I do not
    see anybody against this, the funding.
        So to answer your question, I do not know. It has to be the
    fact that we have not beat the drum loud enough, and maybe we
    should take the blame for that. But I am here to tell you, you
    can see today, and you are going to hear more of it, we are
    going to beat the drum, sir, and we are going to stand with you
    on that issue.
        Chairman Biden. Thank you.
        Mr. Mayor?
        Mayor Palmer. I will say something that is obvious to
    everyone. Before I was a mayor, I was African-American. Or in
    my day I was a Negro, I guess, in the 1950s. And after I am
    mayor, I will be an African-American male as well. And it is
    very troubling as an African-American--take away being an
    elected official, a mayor--to see so many African-Americans and
    Latinos and poor people incarcerated. It breaks my heart that
    we would have to choose between prison and school. And I think,
    Senator, the question you ask is a good one, but it goes beyond
    your Committee. It talks to what we are dealing with in terms
    of race and racism and poverty. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who
    is the mayor of the great city of Los Angeles, and Kwame
    Kilpatrick of Detroit and Francis Slay of St. Louis and others
    are on a task force about poverty within the United States
    Conference of Mayors. Poverty is at the root of all of these
    things, and poverty has to be addressed--how we look at
    poverty, how we get people out of the cycle of poverty, how we
    make sure that we have health benefits and those kinds of
    things, how we look at early childhood education, how we look
    at after--school programs, how we look at growing our economy
    in a green way that will produce more jobs. I mean, it goes
    beyond this Committee.
        And I think what has happened is the squeaky wheel does get
    the grease, but we have to recognize that in order to have
    strong cities, strong families, and a strong America, you are
    going to have to deal with the issue of race, racism, poverty,
    and getting our economy back on the right track, and that we
    are all our brother's keepers.
        You reap what you sow. You cannot have people living in
    abject poverty concentrated in cities and other areas, poor
    education systems without the resources needed to get the best
    teachers in the most challenging situations, you cannot
    continue to have drugs and those things happen, you cannot
    continue to have single parents and that whole moral issue, you
    cannot abandon kids and have people live in poverty and have
    drugs and illegal guns and expect that these individuals are
    going to grow up and be good. They are not. It requires a total
    comprehensive response, a total comprehensive commitment on
    behalf of all Americans--liberal, conservative, Democrat,
    Republican, Independent--in order to address it.
        So what we are talking about here is just the tip of the
    iceberg, but in order to do what really needs to be done, we
    need, in my opinion, and in the opinion of the mayors across
    this country, we need a whole comprehensive not only plan, but
    we need a new vision and a real commitment for America that
    says we are our brothers' and sisters' keeper.
        Chairman Biden. You know, Mr. Mayor--and before I go to
    you, Professor, and I am anxious to hear what you have to say,
    but this is on point. The irony was, in all those hearings--and
    literally probably a thousand hours of hearings I held in the
    1980s and early 1990s--one of the things that we did in this
    Committee and through the crime bill was actually try, to be
    very blunt about it, to embarrass the rest of society into
    dealing, through the crime bill, with things that really were
    not within the purview of the crime bill.
        For example, in the prevention program, I put in money for
    after-school programs. That should not be coming from the
    criminal side. That should be coming from the education side of
    the equation. We put in $20 million, which was a small amount
    then, for Boys and Girls Clubs, because we found that studies
    done on public housing projects that had them and did not have
    them, there was a 33 percent less crime rate, arrest rate, of
    folks, the same economic circumstance, same inner-city
    circumstance, where there was a Boys and Girls Club in the
    basement of a public housing project.
        So what we tried to do--and you have hit on what I was
    trying to get at. What we tried to do through the crime bill,
    as a weak read and weak vehicle, was to get a change in
    attitude about the overall point you are making. How can we
    have in this society a circumstance where the one thing every
    cop here will tell you, you see a direct correlation between
    truancy and juvenile delinquency. As the professor pointed out,
    I remember when I wrote a report 20 years ago saying everybody
    thinks most violent crime occurs in the deep of the night. It
    occurs between the time the kids get out of school and before
    their parents come home, including rape, including other
    violent crimes.
        And so what we tried to do was put in initiatives that were
    designed to deal with--for example, we know if you start kid in
    a troubled neighborhood in school at age 3, they have got
    something like--do not hold me to the exact number; I do not
    have it in front of me--something like a 70-percent better
    chance of finishing school than if you start them at age 6 in
    school. I mean, these are things we know.
        But I just want to make it clear to you all, I do not see
    adding cops as the answer. I see adding cops as the bridge
    here, as the dam, because the irony is--and I want to say this
    with the police officers here--they will be the first one to
    tell you, give them a chance to have full-blown treatment
    programs in their communities. Give them a chance to have full-
    blown after-school programs. Give them a chance to have full-
    blown early education programs. Give them a chance to have
    full-blown summer work programs versus adding 10 percent more
    cops. They will take the former, not the latter.
        Mr. Fox. In fact, the organization Fight Crime, Invest in
    Kids that you know of--they are centered here in D.C. It is an
    organization of crime victims and police officers and
    prosecutors. It has polled police officers and police personnel
    and supervisors and chiefs. Overwhelmingly, the belief is that
    the best way to solve the crime problem is not with more cops
    but prevention.
        May I respond to your question?
        Chairman Biden. Yes, sure. Professor, you are allowed.
    Professors are allowed to do that. Fire away.
        Mr. Fox. It was a great question about what happened to
    those three parts to the stool in the crime bill. It had a
    balance, the crime bill, and, by the way I remember even there
    was money in there for dance programs, because not every kid
    was looking for midnight basketball. Some kids were looking for
    dance and music and art.
        Let me take each of the three. In the prevention area,
    there was $9 billion of prevention money in the 1993 crime
    bill, and then what happened is the 1994 takeover of Congress.
    I do not want to make this too political, but it really is. You
    know, the Contract With America. ``Prevention'' is now a bad
    word, a dirty word.
        I remember, for example, that Vice President Gore was
    supposed to be coming up to Boston for a conference and give a
    talk to criminologists about prevention. Canceled right after
    the election. Cannot talk about prevention.
        I was on several committees for President Clinton, and I
    remember his frustration about how although $9 billion was
    authorized for prevention, what started to happen after 1994 is
    a lot of that money was moving away from prevention. There was
    this whole belief that, oh, it is all midnight basketball. Of
    course, most of it--that was sort of the rallying cry. It was
    all midnight basketball, and it was silly. Most of it was not
    midnight basketball, and the basketball was not even at
    midnight. It was in the after-- school hours. It just got sort
    of a bad name, and the administration, frankly, did not want to
    talk about prevention.
        In fact, I was working with Rahm Emanuel, who was the chief
    domestic policy adviser, and he said to me, ``If we can push
    one prevention program, what would it be?'' And that is, in
    fact, when I talked to Rahm about the after-school program, the
    fact that 49 percent of juvenile crimes occur between 2 and 8,
    and that led to the 21st Century Schools Initiative, and you
    may remember that the President in the State of the Union
    address in the late 1990s sort of advocated for after-school
    programs. So you basically could not talk about prevention
    because there was this belief that prevention is just soft on
    crime.
        Policing. Again, political. I know that you had a strong
    hand in the crime bill. Let's also recall that President
    Clinton campaigned on this idea of 100,000 cops. And when the
    new--
        Chairman Biden. Let's get it straight. He did not adopt the
    crime bill until September, and he had a very good idea. He had
    a good idea. He called me on the phone and said, ``How many
    cops will your bill buy?'' I said, ``A hundred thousand.'' And
    he was very smart. He said, ``Why don't you call it the 100,000
    COPS program?'' That was the totality of the commitment.
        Mr. Fox. OK.
        Chairman Biden. Keep going.
        Mr. Fox. But he did sort of talk about it, and it would
    seem that when the new President came in, you distance yourself
    from one of the pet projects or ideas of the previous
    administration, and I think that part of it was playing
    politics with protection and the fact that that was such--that
    was the last administration, and you throw out the last
    administration, and you sort of change the equation.
        Finally, in this whole area about corrections, I remember
    talking with Adam Walinsky, who you know is heavily behind the
    Police Corps idea. We were talking about the fact that so many
    more Americans were going to prison. We had 2 million Americans
    behind bars, and the idea was that people were not thinking
    about what is going to happen when these people eventually get
    out down the road. It was, like, well, we will deal with that
    bridge when we come to that. That was the bridge to the 21st
    century. Well, that bridge is here, and it is as firm and
    fortified as the Ted Williams tunnel in Boston, which, of
    course, as you may know, is falling apart.
        What happened is we did not take--we said let's put them in
    prison, but let's ignore them once they are there. Citizens
    said, I do not want to spend my tax dollars on education
    programs for inmates. I cannot afford to send my own kid to
    college. Why should I be spending money for education for
    inmates? They did not want to spend money for job training or
    other skills for inmates. And so we just basically housed them.
        It is great now that we are deciding that re-entry programs
    are critical, because they are now all getting out, but the
    process begins not the day they are released from prison, but
    the day they go into prison.
        So I think also, besides having re-entry programs, we have
    to do something more about rehabilitation programs in prison,
    which, again, do work, but we are kind of shortsighted there.
        Chairman Biden. Well, the reason I ask the question is I
    think there has been a fundamental philosophical change that
    took place over the last 6 to 8 years, and it did begin in
    1994, although it was not successful, and that was that, first
    of all, this is a State responsibility, not a Federal
    responsibility, the devolution of government argument, the
    neoconservative notion to devolve power to local government.
        The second thing I think that happened is that there is
    this emphasis on sort of a self-improvement as if somehow kids
    in the ghetto can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and
    make it out.
        And, third, there was this fundamental shift, Mr. Mayor,
    from any focus on cities and the problem about cities. We just
    walked away--housing, every other aspect of what you deal with.
        And so I guess the reason I ask the question is mainly for
    the record, because I think as we begin to try to rebuild--what
    I think the public is ready to do. I think the public is ready
    to go back and look at this comprehensively again. I do not
    think they are afraid. I think they get it. I think that the
    election in 2006, having nothing to do with the partisan
    notion, but every once in a while, the American public closes a
    chapter on a political philosophy. They closed the chapter.
    They closed the chapter on the New Deal in 1980. They closed
    the chapter on compassionate conservatism in 2006. They are
    waiting for us to construct a new paradigm, as they love to say
    here in Washington.
        And so what I would like to do, as a prelude to this
    question, and you do not have to answer it here, but I have
    ``redrafted'' a comprehensive crime bill that I would like to
    get to you all. I know it is a whole lot of work to go through
    it and read it. You know, I understand I am asking a lot. But I
    would like you to take a look at it and get your eyes on it and
    give me an honest assessment of whether or not you think I am
    barking up the right tree here, number one.
        Second, I do think there is a change. Whether or not the
    change would be enough for us to be able to do something in 20
    months, I do not know. When I reintroduced the new crime bill
    to add 50,000 cops, a new COPS bill, we were able to get the
    money for it in the budget. Both the House and the Senate
    passed the bill that I introduced, passed the resolution
    authorizing the Budget Committee to spend money on it. Now we
    have got to go back and fight it through the Appropriations
    Committee. But there is a $1.15 billion per year for each of
    the next 5 years for hiring cops.
        I want to make it clear for the record, I do not see that
    as the end. I do not see that--but we have to begin to rebuild
    this sort of dike.
        The last point I will raise here is one of the things that
    has disappointed me the most--and I have to take blame for it--
    is I am the guy years ago that crafted the drug czar
    legislation, the idea of getting one person in charge of all
    the Federal agencies, cooperating with the States and the
    cities about the drug problem. One of the reasons for that was
    to force the Federal Government to look around the corner, to
    look down the road and anticipate what was likely to come, like
    we did with ice, what used to be called ice, then meth. And one
    of the things I somehow think we have missed--and I need your
    help. I need your help. In particular, I need help from cops.
    They expect mayors to be enlightened. They expect
    criminologists to get it right. They expect you guys only to be
    asking for--I mean, when I say today that cops helped me write
    the prevention money into the crime bill, people look at me
    like I am lying. That was a cop idea. That was cops. Your
    predecessor as President of the Sheriffs, your predecessor as
    President of NAPO, your predecessor, the predecessor of the
    Chiefs, FOP. They were the ones who insisted on the money, and
    that is the only reason it got done, because you all showed up
    in people's offices wearing your uniforms, and you said we not
    only want more cops, we want the money for prevention in here.
        You know, I do not know what--because I do not do this
    every day like I used to because I am now the guy that does
    Foreign Relations, foreign policy stuff. It used to be the
    statistic, Professor, was a drug addict, meaning someone who
    consumed a controlled substance more than 3 times a week out
    there, committed on average 154 crimes a year, some of which
    related to just purchasing the drugs, others related to getting
    the money to get the drug.
        When they put him in drug treatment programs and you just
    kept them there for 6 months, what happened is you found that
    dropped down to about 22 crimes per year. Even if it was wasted
    time, it was cheaper than prison. It was cheaper than hiring
    more cops to figure out how to solve 125 of those crimes a
    year--if my numbers are correct. I used to know them off the
    top of my head.
        But the bottom line here, and somehow the thing that
    disturbs me the most about this is you guys see what is coming.
    You guys see what the professor said is that you had these
    teenagers 15 years ago who got into a system whereby we gave
    them some help, they ended up not being--or 10 years ago. But
    now you have got a whole new cadre coming up, and they did not
    hear of any of this stuff.
         And so it just disturbs me, and it--I do not know, it
    disappoints me that somehow we can so quickly forget the basic
    lessons we learned just 10 years ago. I wish old Ronald Reagan
    were around because he was the guy that coined, at least in the
    political context, ``If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'' This
    thing wasn't broke, but we have got to fix it.
        And so what I have done here--and I am not going to keep
    you--I have half a dozen specific questions that I would like
    to submit to you, and over the next couple weeks, if you get a
    chance, I would like you to respond to them for the record. But
    I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the fact that you
    uniformed officers are talking not just about more cops, and,
    Mr. Mayor, that you have, along with your fellow mayors,
    pointed out that--I mean, one of the senior colleagues on this
    Committee sits right here, Ted Kennedy, who has helped me and
    been a leader in this area, points out that one of the
    significant correlations that has occurred now is the increased
    dropout rates. The increased dropout rates in major cities in
    America have fueled this crime surge, that the idea we are just
    going to have more cops and think we are going to do something
    fundamental about this without dealing with the dropout rate,
    without figuring out these kids we are just dumping like a
    bucket on a front-end loader, you know, onto the street is, I
    think, very, very shortsighted. So hopefully--I do not want
    to--you have never heard me use the phrase ``war on crime'' or
    ``war on drugs.'' It is a daily battle every day. There is no
    such thing as a ``war on crime.''
        But there are incremental things we can start to do right
    now to stem what is the reverse of a trend. The reverse of the
    trend for 10 years was crime was going down. We had ourselves
    in a situation where things were getting a little better. And
    now it is starting to tick back up, and I think that is just
    like a little bit of--you know, being at a dike where there is
    a little bit of a leak and a small hole. That hole is going to
    get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And we are going
    to be right back to the flood we had in 1989 in terms of crime.
        So I want to submit three things to you all: a copy of the
    COPS bill that has been authorized, at least in terms of
    funding in the budget, not done yet but I will need help on it.
    And I may very well be asking you all to come up in uniforms
    again. You know, you all have an effect when you show up in
    uniforms. I mean, you really do. You really do. That is what
    happened last time, if you remember. You kept marching up here
    and going into offices, you know, people get the message.
        Secondly, I would like you to take a look at this
    comprehensive piece of legislation I have put together, have
    not introduced yet, and I genuinely am inviting constructive
    criticism of it and things you think should change. It is
    working off of a template that I think would work, but it may
    change.
        And, third, I am going to, especially with you, Mr. Mayor,
    if I may, as the President of the Conference of Mayors, lay out
    some matters that do not relate to the criminal justice system
    that I believe impact significantly on the criminal justice
    system, to see if we can get your input, because this time I
    think there has to be companion legislation introduced as well
    to re-engage the public in the debate about things we know, if
    we do, if we spend the money on, they work. And I think it is
    pretty important we change--my conservative friends love this
    word--the paradigm. We have got to change the paradigm here.
    You have got to invest money to save money. You have got to
    invest money to save money.
        If we can do something to keep your kids in Trenton in
    school through grade 12, the cost savings for the expenditure
    needed to do that is astronomical. It is a factor of 10 or 12.
    A kid drops out of school in ninth grade, the cost associated
    with that kid dropping out is gigantic. And so we have got to
    change the debate, like we did last time. We changed the debate
    so it was not liberal-- conservative. It was practical, when we
    put all three of these things together.
        I think you have got to change the debate. Mr. Mayor, I am
    going to, with your permission, submit ideas not all of which
    are original to me by any stretch of the imagination, but ones
    that I think that maybe we can get a--when we get the mayors
    and the cops, we get the sheriffs and the county executives, we
    get the local people sitting down, again, and working out some
    basically grand compromise here as to how we should be spending
    what is not a lot of money relative to a several trillion
    dollar budget, but it is important to do it.
        Anyway, I cannot thank you all enough. I promised I would
    have you out by 12 and it is 1 minute after. I have breached my
    promise. I apologize. But I thank you very much. I know how
    busy you are, and unless any of you want to make a closing
    comment, I would--yes, Professor.
        Mr. Fox. Professors always like to have a closing comment.
    I am glad that you mentioned that about other things we can do.
    You know, we have changed the way that we run our schools. We
    have gotten rid of all the extracurriculars. We do not want to
    pay the money. Also, we are so focused on test scores, some
    kids are dropping out because they just cannot--they are not
    going to make it to graduation, other kids because we have
    taken away from school all the things that gave them a sense of
    pride, satisfaction, and maybe even enjoyment of school, the
    music and drama. We need to put these things back into the
    curriculum because it will keep kids engaged. And I know that
    is not crime fighting, but in the long run it is. I will
    address that in my comments.
        Chairman Biden. I would ask you--I was just reminded by
    staff. The statements of Senator Leahy and Senator Feinstein
    will be entered in the record as if read. They both offer their
    apologies. They are in other committees. I do not want you to
    think that lack of participation here is a lack of interest.
    There is a real interest here. I think there is a resurgence,
    Mr. Mayor. I think we are finally getting it again. I hope that
    is what it is. If it is not, we are in deep trouble. We are in
    deep trouble if it is not.
        I thank you all. We are adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:01 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
        [Questions and answers and submissions for the record
    follow.]

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