[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 26 (Thursday, March 10, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
  REPORT TO THE CONGRESS FROM A VERY IMPORTANT GROUP OF YOUNG PEOPLE: 
 STUDENTS, YOUNG ADULTS OF 19TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF THE STATE OF 
                                  OHIO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Laughlin). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of February 11, 1994, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Fingerhut] is 
recognized for 15 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. FINGERHUT. I thank the Speaker for this time. I thank the 
majority leader for designating this time for me so that I can make a 
few remarks for the Record which really is more than a typical speech 
at this time of our session, but rather a report to this body from a 
very important group of constituents in my district, the 19th 
Congressional District of Ohio, and that is the young people, students, 
young adults in the 19th Congressional District.
  I have never been more proud of my constituents than I have been on 
the many occasions, virtually every week that I have had the chance to 
visit one school or another in my district and talk to the students of 
all ages about their views of their community, our State, our Nation, 
and the problems that face us.
  During the Presidents Day recess, I conducted a series of very 
special seminars with the high school students throughout my district. 
The subject of the seminars was the problem of crime.
  Mr. Speaker, I represent three different counties in the State of 
Ohio: Ashtabula County, Lake County, and Cuyahoga County. In each of 
those communities the superintendents and principals of the high 
schools were good enough to bring together students from all of the 
different high schools, public and private, into a seminar setting 
where I could meet with them, discuss with them the issue of crime and 
learn from them what they would like Congress to do.
  I explained to the students in each of these seminars that their 
views on issues are as important as the views of their parents; they 
are as important as the views of any of my constituents in the 
district; their ideas are as valid, their perceptions about what is 
happening in our community are real. That, I feel, all too often we in 
public life neglect to ask the young people in our communities for 
their opinions.
  I told them that what we are trying to do in these seminars was to 
reinstitute the process of building a community.
  You know, at the beginning of the 19th century Alexis de Tocqueville 
wrote admiringly of the process that Americans go through in their 
communities where they meet together, talk together, discuss, sometimes 
we argue and debate, but we solve our problems through that process.
  Together the students, educators, law enforcement officials in my 
district and I participated in this process. We educated each other, 
learned from each other in a give-and-take that I hope had an impact on 
all of us.
  The students in all of our districts participated, all three of our 
districts, participated in the debate over such issues as gun control, 
drugs in the schools, gangs, criminal sentencing, prisons, community 
involvement, role models, and other questions.
  The students understood, often better than the adults, what common-
sense solutions we need to address this most distressing problem in our 
country, the problem of crime.
  I asked the students three questions: First, what are the problems 
that you face in your communities and in your schools? Second, what are 
your ideas about what we ought to be doing to solve the crime problem 
in your schools and in your communities? And third, what are your 
comments or suggestions about the various issues that the Congress is 
proposing to deal with the problem of crime?

                              {time}  2100

  Let me go through each of these questions and just highlight a few of 
the answers that I received from the students in my district.
  On the question of what the problems are that they face in their 
communities, Mr. Speaker, I was quite disturbed to hear some of the 
answers. First they were concerned about the easy accessibility of 
alcohol, of drugs, and even of cigarettes to minors, to people who 
should not be able to get any of these substances. Mr. Speaker, they 
said that it is not a problem for them to have alcohol brought for them 
by adults, to have alcohol provided to them at events outside of the 
schools, that it is not a problem for them to get their hands on drugs, 
if they need to, and, as I said, even some students mentioned the fact 
that, if they can walk into stores and be sold cigarettes even when 
they are under age, that that in itself sends a message about what kind 
of a community it is that we have provided for them.
  They also mentioned a very troubling thing about the use of drugs, 
and that is that in their opinion the peer pressure that should be 
working against the use of alcohol and other addictive drugs--and of 
course alcohol is an addictive drug. I separate it out only because our 
laws provide a different set of rules with respect to these two 
different kinds of addictive drugs. But they talked about the lack of a 
peer pressure that is working against the use of these substances.
  A number of them referred to the DARE programs in their communities, 
and a number of students commented that they felt that the programs 
were too little and too late, that by the time they actually got to the 
DARE program that their minds had already been formed. Some said that 
the DARE program, after getting off to an initially strong start in our 
communities, seems to have tapered off in its effectiveness.
  Others mentioned the fact that the antidrug advertising that had been 
so prevalent on our televisions and our radios for years past had 
declined. They felt that advertising was effective. They wanted to see 
that advertising back.
  In short, Mr. Speaker, they wanted us to help them with the peer 
pressure, to make it easier for them to stay off the drugs, to stay off 
of alcohol.
  And finally they said that even good students, even people who you 
would think are immune from the problem, have gotten involved in gangs. 
Why? They said two reasons. First of all that even the good students 
have time on their hands, time that they need to fill, and second that 
many, many people are simply afraid, and they turn to gangs for safety 
and the security that they are lacking in the schools, and the parks 
and the environments that we provide.
  Well then, Mr. Speaker, if those were the problems that the students 
in my district talked about, what were some of the solutions that they 
had in mind? And I have to say that it was interesting to me and 
enlightening to me that the students went right to the question of 
prevention of crime. They understand the question of punishment, and I 
will come to some of their thoughts on the question of punishment and 
the question of crime enforcement, but the vast bulk of time and the 
first many comments in each of the three meetings were focused on the 
question of prevention.
  And what is it that they said more than anything else, and if this 
Statement does not wake us up all across America, I do not know what 
will. What they said first of all was, ``Congressman Fingerhut, we need 
role models. We need to see adults in our community. We need to see our 
parents. We need to see the teachers, and the business people, and the 
public figures, and, yes, the entertainers, and the people we see on 
television. We need to see these people involved in our lives, involved 
in our daily lives showing us the kinds of role models that we need to 
stay away from trouble and to be involved in productive and 
constructive activity.''
  Mr. Speaker, every parent, every religious leader, every educational 
leader, every business leader, every community leader should have heard 
the students talking about the need for role models, and then they 
talked about the need for a safe environment. They need a place. They 
want their schools to be safe so they can feel safe in them. They want 
the parks to be safe so they can feel safe when they go off to be by 
themselves, and to play and to socialize. They need to feel that the 
community center are open to them, that the activities that are 
available to them are safe and are free of the outside influences.
  Some went even beyond the need for these facilities to be safe, Mr. 
Speaker, and emphasized the need for them to be available to them at 
all. In fact, one group of students in Ashtabula Country, OH, stood up 
and said, ``We have no place to go. The parks have deteriorated. There 
is no clean, safe place for us to go to be together.''

  I want to comment that one public official who was there, Ashtabula 
City Manager Joe Varquette, stood up immediately, invited those 
students to participate with him in a task force to build up the 
recreational activities in his community. I want to applaud him for his 
responsiveness, and I want to applaud the students who have taken him 
up on the offer and who, I hope, are working with him on this day to 
improve the recreational activities in the parks in Ashtabula City.
  They talked about sports programs, about work-study programs, about 
youth clubs, about counseling for the people, the students among them, 
the young people among them, who they know need additional help. These 
were the compassionate, yet very sensible and reasonable, ideas of our 
young people focused on prevention, and I think that, as we approach 
the crime debate in this Congress, we need to hear their voices and 
make sure that we are paying attention to the question of prevention of 
crime among our young people.
  But they did also, of course, talk about the issue of law 
enforcement, of punishment, of deterrence, and they were quite 
straightforward and quite perceptive about the failures of our criminal 
justice system. They agreed with Congress' proposals to put more police 
on the streets on foot patrol. They want that kind of safety and 
security visible in their community.
  They are deeply concerned, as are many of the adults I talked to, 
that punishments that are on the books are not punishment in reality. 
They are concerned that the court system, the judicial system, whether 
through plea bargaining or through ineffective sentencing procedures, 
lets criminals off, renders these sentences that are on the books 
ineffective. They were concerned that, if we say that we have a death 
penalty on the books, that we ought to enforce it. They do believe, Mr. 
Speaker, that if someone is in prison, being in prison ought to be 
doing time and ought to be doing hard time.
  Sheriff Billy Johnson in Ashtabula County talked about our Senator, 
John Glenn, who had been a soldier, had served in Korea and had lived 
in quonset huts, and he commented, ``If it was good enough for our 
soldiers in Korea, it's certainly good enough for our prisoners.'' 
Students understood that being in prison has to be something that is a 
serious punishment, that it is not something that is taken lightly in 
any way, shape or form. They felt that if you have money, or if you are 
connected, or if you are a celebrity or somehow you have special clout 
that you can get out of the severity of the sentences that ought to be 
applied to you, and they felt very strongly, very strongly, that, if we 
are going to have sentences, the only way we are going to deter crime 
is by making them real, making them stick and making them tough 
punishment.
  But they also understood, Mr. Speaker, if someone is going to be in 
prison, if they are there as a result of drugs, that they need to have 
the rehabilitation services so that, when they come out, they are no 
longer addicted to drugs and they have a chance at rebuilding their 
life when they get out of jail.
  Mr. Speaker, these are just some of the very thoughtful comments that 
the students in the 19th Congressional District of Ohio had. I offer 
them here tonight on this floor because in a few short weeks we will be 
debating the crime bill here in the House, and I know that there will 
be many debates, and many proposals, and many disagreements, but, as I 
said at the outset of this report, the opinions of the young people in 
my district, and I am sure they are no different than those in the 
districts of each and every one of the Members of this body, are as 
good, they are as intelligent, they are as sound as our opinions and as 
the opinions of their parents and the other adults. They understand the 
Government must ensure the security of its citizens, but also the 
Government cannot do everything.

                              {time}  2110

  They understand that there is a responsibility that they have and 
their communities have to help solve this problem of crime. They 
understand that if we work together, we can prevent crime in the first 
place. They are compassionate, they are caring, but they are tough.
  Mr. Speaker, I intend to take their ideas with me as I enter this 
debate over the crime bill and work to see that the priorities that 
they have set for me become the priorities of this Congress.
  I intend to work together with them to make the streets safe again 
for our children and for all the citizens of my district and of the 
country.
  Mr. Speaker, again I thank you for yielding the time, and I thank the 
majority leader for designating this time for me to make this report on 
behalf of the students of my district.

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