[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 38 (Tuesday, April 12, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
      CANING IS EXCESSIVE, BUT SINGAPORE HAS LITTLE, IF ANY, CRIME

  (Mr. TRAFICANT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Speaker, America is up in arms over the cruel and 
unusual sentence imposed on an American teenager in Singapore: Caning. 
It is painful, it is bloody, it is a whipping of the buttocks.
  The crime: The American teen spray painted several cars, spray 
painted several cars.
  Now the punishment in Singapore for spray painting cars is, in fact, 
caning for everybody.
  Now if this would have been an American teen in our country, in any 
city, he would have gotten, in fact, a token fine and a stern lecture, 
and I do not mean from Howard Stern.
  Without a doubt caning is excessive.
  The truth is Singapore has little, if any, crime, and most of America 
is Dodge City, my colleagues. Evidently America treats it criminals 
with kid gloves. Singapore takes the glove off.
  Mr. Speaker, I say to my colleagues, ``Congress, if you think Amnesty 
International is going to stop the crime problem in America, you're 
smoking dope like a lot of kids in our streets.''
  This is excessive, but I think we are a little too lax, my 
colleagues.

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