[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 39 (Wednesday, April 13, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 13, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                             THE CRIME BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow as we begin the very important 
debate on a very important bill in Congress, there is an amendment that 
I plan to support and I urge my colleagues to support, and that is the 
one offered by the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum]. His amendment 
actually has different components to it, but I wanted to touch on just 
a few of them.
  One of them is that it gives States Federal funds if they adopt 
truth-in-sentencing laws, and part of the truth-in-sentencing 
requirement is that violent criminals serve at least 85 percent of 
their sentence. What truth-in-sentencing laws are all about is they are 
trying to get to this revolving door problem we are having in prisons 
right now. Currently the average criminal only serves 37 percent of the 
time that he or she is sentenced for, and under the McCollum amendment 
States that adopt truth-in-sentencing laws would have to require that 
the criminals serve 85 percent of their time.
  If we think in terms of bringing us down to a human element, I have a 
constituent right now who had a daughter who was raped, very tragic. 
She was at home. She was watching her infant child at the time, 10 
o'clock in the morning, and the rapist broke into her house, threatened 
to hurt or possibly kill the baby unless the mama cooperated. Well she 
did cooperate.
  Fortunately, I guess, he was caught. Unfortunately, before he was 
caught he had raped somebody else.
  The average rapist, according to some statistics, is sentenced for 8 
years and serves only 3. That rapist is then back on the streets and 
will be back on the streets. How would my colleagues like to be the 
mother, how would they like to be the father, how would they like to be 
the grandparents or the child?

                              {time}  1810

  This is what we are talking about. We are talking about violent 
criminals going back on the street. We are also debating this three 
strikes and you are out. There are no strikes. We are talking victims. 
What we are saying is three victims and then you go to jail for a long 
period of time.
  Mr. Speaker, what I am saying is if we on the very first offense have 
truth in sentencing, the likelihood of these criminals being back out 
on the street to commit violent crimes has greatly been reduced, 
because we are protected from them, because they are isolated from us, 
safely behind bars.
  Now, another component of the McCollum amendments is to allow the 
victims or the victims' families to make a statement at the time of 
sentencing. I think that is important, because what we are talking 
about, what we are becoming is a nation of victims, and we need to know 
what it is like to come home and find out your loved one will never be 
home because he or she was murdered.
  Or what does a rape do to a family situation? We had in the 
neighborhood that I live in several years ago, or, excuse me, a town 
that I represent, a newlywed couple, and actually they had not gotten 
married, they were engaged. They were picking out furniture and 
rearranging their new apartment, and the woman was at home alone, and 
she thought the moving men were coming in, and it turned out a rapist 
came in. A rapist came in and raped her right there 2 weeks before her 
wedding day.
  Would it not be fair to give her and her family and people like that 
in those situations an opportunity to make a statement at the time of 
sentencing? Can we not bring the element of victim's rights into the 
formula?
  Because we in Congress often, so often, debate compassion, and I 
heard one speaker today talk about the moral side of an issue. Well, 
let us go all the way. If we are going to be compassionate, if we are 
going to worry about the moral side, let us give the victims an 
opportunity to make a statement.
  I think because of that, Mr. Speaker, the McCollum amendments are 
certainly proper, and they make the crime bill a better bill, which is 
what we want to do.
  I think that it is important that we as a Congress work on crime in a 
bipartisan fashion. As I sat here and I listened to the debates over 
the last 8 hours, everybody wants to have a tough crime bill, 
everybody, 435 Members of both parties, of all philosophies, of all 
sections of the country.
  That being the case, let us give these amendments a full hearing, a 
good debate tomorrow, and then let us put aside partisan labels and 
vote for amendments based on the substance and not on the party or the 
author.

                          ____________________