[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?
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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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