[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 4 (Friday, January 28, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: January 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                           POLICE AND PRISONS

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, in today's edition of the New York Times, 
columnist A.M. Rosenthal argues persuasively for more police and 
prisons as the most effective ways to fight violent crime.
  As Mr. Rosenthal explains, ``A criminal on the loose costs society 
twice as much as a criminal in jail--in stolen goods, smashed property, 
and of course the medical care for the victims * * *. Yes, a lot of 
Americans are in jail. A lot more should be. If your house is burbled, 
there is a 1 in 80 chance the criminal will serve time.''
  Attorney General Reno and other liberals in the Clinton 
administration may say that more prison space can be made available 
simply by imposing alternative sanctions on first-time, nonviolent 
offenders. This proposal sounds good, but as Mr. Rosenthal correctly 
points out, ``All those crowded jails are not filled with pot smolders 
caught by cops on patrol:'' 93 percent of the prisoners in State 
prisons are either repeat offenders or offenders convicted of a violent 
crime.
  Congress must not delay in enacting the Republican regional-prison 
initiative. This initiative will encourage the States to adopt 
important reforms, such as truth-in-sentencing, in exchange for more 
prison space to house violent criminals convicted in State court.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of Mr. 
Rosenthal's column be inserted in the Record immediately after my 
remarks.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                           Police and Prisons

                          (By A.M. Rosenthal)

       More and more billions for prisons to lock up more and more 
     Americans who never had a decent chance at life. Are we mad? 
     Why not use those billions to build more schools to give more 
     young people living in poverty the education to climb out of 
     it? It costs as much to keep a convict in prison as to send 
     him to Yale, for Heaven's sake.
       And despite all the other billions the U.S. spends on the 
     drug war, narcotics still flood the country, users are still 
     being put into prison, crowding out violent criminals. Why 
     not legalize drugs and use the anti-drug money on therapy for 
     addicts and to improve the neighborhoods that create them?
       And why those long sentences for convicts? Every year 
     behind bars makes them more bitter. They return to the same 
     hard streets. Save money by cutting sentences. Spend the 
     savings to give released convicts training for decent jobs.
       Those three paragraphs sum up a belief important in 
     American liberal intellectual life--the belief that war 
     against crime and drugs is largely aimed at and hurts the 
     poor and wastes huge amounts of money that could be used to 
     fight the poverty, discrimination and education deprivation 
     that are the root causes of crime.
       The argument is false factually. Worse, it is damaging to 
     people it is supposed to benefit--Americans, all skin shades, 
     who live in the streets of poverty and killing.
       Economically the struggle against crime is the biggest 
     bargain the taxpayer gets. A criminal on the loose costs 
     society twice as much as a criminal in jail--in stolen goods, 
     smashed property and of course the medical care for the 
     victims.
       The drug war has not yet been won. But it has saved 
     hundreds of thousands of Americans from lives of addiction 
     that would have cost the country scores of billions. Nobody 
     knows exactly how much because drug abuse is the cause of so 
     many other crimes like family violence, robberies and 
     muggings.
       Most of the crime takes place in poor neighborhoods. Drug 
     addicts gobble up hospital space and time that would have 
     gone to the people of those neighborhoods. Fighting crime and 
     drugs is one tax expenditure that benefits the poor most of 
     all.
       All those crowded jails are not filled with pot smokers 
     caught by cops on patrol. Prof. John J. DiIulio Jr. of 
     Princeton and Brookings reports that 93 percent of convicts 
     in state prisons are violent criminals, many of them 
     repeaters.
       Yes, a lot of Americans are in jail. A lot more should be. 
     If your house is burgled, there is a 1 in 80 chance the 
     criminal will serve time.
       The trouble with long sentences is that they turn out not 
     to be all that long. Convicts serve about one-third of their 
     sentences. A rapist can expect to be out in 5 years, a 
     convicted murderer in 10.
       President Clinton now recognizes the dreadful importance of 
     crime in American life. But if he is to lead, as he should, 
     he ought to make sure his top officers are following on 
     close.
       About mandatory sentences, his Attorney General is known to 
     law officers as Waffle General. His Surgeon General boosts 
     another study of the much-studied legalization of drugs. Then 
     after he properly says ``nothing doing,'' she boosts it 
     again. Either she does not believe what the President says or 
     just does not care very much.
       Most of all, he should tell us the hardest truth of all--
     how deeply criminals have hurt the already wounded of 
     America, the poor.
       The President should tell us that criminals who have stayed 
     out of jail and criminals who got out too early have turned 
     large parts of the inner city into war zones. ``Build 
     schools, not prisons''--that's not a choice now, it is a 
     hoax.
       In war zones the money and energy of government and the 
     people go to surviving, fighting and winning. Sometimes a 
     little extra money and energy are spent to keep up spirits. 
     But was there ever a case where in a war zone under attack 
     there was enough money to make life decent and build for the 
     future?
       The criminals have deprived other citizens of the greatest 
     civil liberty--the right to live in peace. They have also 
     deprived citizens of the treasure to build for the future.
       That is what the President should tell the country, for it 
     is the plain truth and will be so until the winning starts.

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