[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 80 (Wednesday, June 22, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                 MOST PRISONERS ARE NOT CHOIR BOY TYPES

  (Mr. MAZZOLI asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MAZZOLI. Mr. Speaker, there has been a fairly steady drum beat of 
comment around the country, misinformation, maybe even disinformation, 
to the effect that our prisons, both the State and Federal, are teeming 
with choir boys, first time, nonviolent offenders. Wrong, Mr. Speaker, 
dead wrong.
  Our prisons, and some 90 percent of all the prison population is 
housed at the State level, are full of people who are there following 
earlier convictions or because of violent activities. Ninety-four 
percent of all of those in the state level penitentiaries and prisons 
are there because of violent crimes or because they are serving 
sentences following earlier crimes. Only 6 percent of these people are 
first-time offenders.
  In the Federal prisons, 35 thousand were admitted in 1991, and only 2 
percent of them, 700, were there because of mere drug possession or 
simple drug possession. Otherwise, they are violent people or have 
earlier convictions.
  So we cannot forget, Mr. Speaker, as we deal with crime control, that 
one of the aspects, one of the very important factors is to have 
adequate prison facilities to take care of these violent offenders, to 
keep them off the streets and to keep them from marauding and 
terrorizing all of us.

                          ____________________