[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 25, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: January 25, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               OVERHAUL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM NEEDED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas, [Mr. Chapman] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CHAPMAN. Mr. Speaker, before my election to the House of 
Representatives in 1985, I served for two terms, 8 years, as the 
district attorney for the Eighth Judicial District in Texas.
  During that 8-year period of time, I had an up close and personal 
look at violent crime, who commits violent crime, and, at least in 
Texas, how prosecution and punishment worked.
  I will say that during that period of time, in fact, when I left my 
duties as district attorney, the Texas law at the time was that 
criminals who were sentenced to prison would be in all cases eligible 
for parole when they had served one-third of their sentence.
  The incredible thing was that in Texas at that same time, each of 
those criminals convicted and serving time in prison could get 3 days 
credit for each day they served. So, in effect, in 1984 and 1985 and 
1986, criminals in Texas serving time in the Texas Department of 
Corrections would be eligible for parole when they had served one-ninth 
of their sentence.
  Now, Texas has changed that law in recent years, and under new 
statutes passed in my home State, now violent criminals and repeat 
offenders have to serve a much larger percentage of their time.

                              {time}  1510

  And guess what? The violent crime rate in Texas has dropped.
  Tonight President Clinton will address the Nation and will talk about 
his initiatives and what we can do together as a country to do 
something about violent crime in America.
  The Senate has already passed a crime bill. The House has passed 
provisions of an anticrime package, and our President will tonight make 
additional recommendations.
  Mr. Speaker, what I would like to suggest is that H.R. 3584, 
legislation that I introduced last November, might be a very positive 
step in the right direction to do something nationally about reducing 
the incidents of violent crime.
  This bill, the Truth-in-Sentencing Act of 1993, would reward States 
that are willing to pass at the State level truth in sentencing laws, 
would reward them with Federal resources to construct the prison space 
that would be necessary, if in fact those States incarcerate violent 
and repeat offenders for a longer period of time.
  My legislation would make those resources available, if the States' 
truth-in-sentencing laws required that convicted violent criminals and 
repeat offenders would serve 85 percent of their sentence.
  Statistics tell us that most crime is committed and prosecuted at the 
State and local level. In fact, whatever we may do at the Federal 
level, 97 percent of the prosecution in this country occurs at the 
State and local level.
  It would seem that a basic responsibility of this Congress and our 
Government is to try to make our homes, our schools, our communities 
and our streets safer for the families in America. One of the ways we 
can do this is use a little common sense in recognizing these 
statistics which have been so true for so many years, that it is 
violent and repeat offenders who commit the vast majority of the 
crimes.
  It should not surprise anyone that if longer prison sentences are 
imposed and then the convicts are required to serve them, that the 
crime rate will go down. In fact, a recent independent study estimated 
that by passage of truth-in-sentencing legislation like I have 
introduced, the violent crime rate could be reduced in this country by 
as much as 60 percent.
  I have asked the President and the Attorney General to look at H.R. 
3584 and incorporate it in the recommendations of the administration. 
And I hope that my colleagues will likewise look at what we can do 
today, what legislation we can pass this year that will make an 
immediate impact on reducing crime in America.
  We really need the law to be and we need the reality to be that if 
you do a crime, you will do the time.
  H.R. 3584 will put that saying into practice in the real world. It 
not only will take the profit out of crime, but it will require repeat 
and violent offenders, those who just do not believe the law applies to 
them, that they have to follow the rules. Once and for all, it will 
help make our streets, our communities and our homes a safer place.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask that my colleagues look at H.R. 3584. I hope that 
we can include this in any crime legislation that passes the Congress 
this year. I would suggest that the best, quickest, and most effective 
remedy that we can impose is to keep the violent criminals in jail.
  If we do that, like the experiment experienced in Texas, we are going 
to find that crime in America will go down.

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