[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 96 (Thursday, July 21, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 21, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                                 CRIME

  Mr. DOLE. Madam President, although violent crime is America's No. 1 
concern, the jury is still out on whether Congress is up to the crime-
fighting challenge.
  Although the crime conference has been delayed and delayed and then 
delayed some more, it appears the conferees are trying to resurrect 
last year's defeated stimulus package, pouring billions and billions of 
dollars into a hodgepodge of at least 15 so-called prevention programs.
  If you read the fine print of these programs, here is what you might 
find:
  The $2 billion Local Partnership Act would favor cities with high 
unemployment rates and high per capita tax rates. So, if you are a city 
like Wichita, KS, that has managed to keep its economic house in order, 
you are out of luck.
  Another program, the ounce of prevention council, would advise the 
Secretary of Health and Human Services on how to administer and 
coordinate all the other prevention programs established by the crime 
bill. In other words: a program--I think it is $125 million--to 
coordinate other programs.
  Also, $40 million would be devoted to midnight sports leagues run by 
the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Each player in the 
league would be required to attend employment counseling, job training, 
and other educational classes ``to be held in conjunction with league 
sports games at or near the site of the games.'' Perhaps HUD officials 
will be called into service as referees.
  The Model Cities Intensive Grant Program, with a $900 million price-
tag, would address a whole range of urban problems, including the 
``deterioration or lack of public facilities'' and ``inadequate public 
services such as public transportation.'' Maybe it is something we 
ought to be debating on the bill before us today, but certainly not the 
crime bill.
  Then $80 million would be spent on community-based justice grants for 
prosecutors. This new program envisions prosecutors working side-by-
side with social workers in order to ``focus on the offender, not 
simply the specific offense,'' and to impose ``individualized 
sanctions'' such as ``conflict resolution, treatment, and counseling'' 
for young people who have committed violent crimes.
  And let us not forget the Employment-and-Skills Crime Prevention 
Program, which would spend $900 million of taxpayer funds on such 
activities as ``apprenticeship programs linking work and learning,'' 
``entrepreneurial and microenterprise development,'' ``transportation 
links to jobs in the labor market area,'' and ``job placement and 
related case management, followup and other supportive services.''

  Worthwhile programs? Who knows?
  Most of them did not even have a hearing. They just put in $900 
million, $2 billion, $1.5 billion--somebody else is going to pay the 
bill, the taxpayer is going to pay for it. If it does not work, we will 
find out in 5 or 10 years after we have spent $30, $40, $50 billion.
  But I do not believe they belong in legislation that calls itself a 
crime bill. In the crime bill we want tough sentences for those who use 
a gun in the commission of crime, mandatory sentences, truth in 
sentencing, more prisons built. We want to lock up criminals, violent 
criminals. We know if they are locked up they are not committing 
crimes.
  These days there are almost as many theories on how to stop violent 
crime as there are criminals. But, when all is said and done, no one 
can dispute that the most effective deterrent to crime is not the pork 
barrel, but the prison cell. A violent criminal, kept behind bars, 
cannot terrorize a single law-abiding citizen with rape, with murder, 
with battery, with assault--they cannot do it.
  So, if--and when--the crime conference resumes, it is critical for 
the conferees not to shortchange the American people. The American 
people are not interested in crime pork. They are interested in crime 
control. And the best way to achieve this goal is to give the States 
and the cities the resources to put violent criminals exactly where 
they belong--behind the bars of a prison cell.
  Finally, it appears the administration is backing off from the so-
called Racial Justice Act.
  Although I have not been a party to the negotiations, it is critical 
for the crime conferees to keep a wary eye on any alternative 
proposals, such as a Presidential directive or a Federal commission.
  Like the Racial Justice Act, these proposals could end up becoming 
nothing more than a back-door way of gutting the Federal death penalty.

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