[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 97 (Friday, July 22, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


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

 
   CHARLES W. COLSON ARTICLE ON PUTTING NONVIOLENT CRIMINALS TO WORK

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, the Washington Post recently carried 
an article by Charles Colson, who once was on President Nixon's staff 
and spent some time in prison, and since that time has been doing very 
constructive work heading a group called, Prison Fellowship.
  His article in the Washington Post had a title I don't like, ``Let's 
Get Soft On Criminals!'' but it is designed as an attention-getter, and 
what he is really saying is, ``Let's get smart about how we deal with 
criminals.''
  The reality is that we in politics, to much too great an extent, are 
demagoguing on this issue because it is so easy to pander to public 
opinion rather than to lead public opinion to come up with responsible 
answers.
  I ask to insert the Charles Colson article into the Record at this 
point, and I urge my colleagues to read it.
  The article follows:

               [From the Washington Post, July 17, 1994]

        Let's Get Soft On Criminals!--Put the Nonviolent to Work

                         (By Charles W. Colson)

       I was once federal prisoner 23226: a resident of Dormitory 
     G at the Maxwell Federal Prison Camp in Alabama. I was 
     surrounded by 45 criminals--I should say other criminals--a 
     collection of human beings as pathetic and forlorn as I've 
     encountered anywhere.
       To be sure, the camp contained a handful of stereotypical 
     thugs: burly, tattooed men who had committed violent crimes. 
     But most were like Cecil, a white-haired, Kentucky 
     mountaineer who could not write and could scarcely read. 
     Cecil's chosen occupation was making whiskey. It was an 
     altogether honorable profession in his part of the country, 
     but the revenuers took a different view of it. And so Cecil 
     was quietly doing his time, as had several of his friends and 
     an older brother before him.
       Then there was Pete. He was doing his third stint for 
     passing bad checks and other penny-ante scams. Pete was a 
     pudgy-faced fellow with a wonderful laugh. He pursued his 
     illicit profession apparently out of sheer enjoyment. ``I 
     can't help myself,'' he told me. ``It's so easy--and fun.'' 
     After my release I kept in touch with Pete for a while; like 
     a compulsive gambler, he kept returning to prison.
       One of the brighter personalities I met was Jerry, a 
     handsome young man who had been raised by his mother and a 
     succession of her male companions. Jerry managed to land a 
     scholarship to a state junior college, where he was caught 
     transporting $30,000 worth of drugs. A first offense, it got 
     him three years. Jerry was typical of many young men behind 
     bars: not smart enough to be a successful crook, not bold 
     enough to do any big-time stuff and not rich enough to snare 
     a good lawyer to get him off the hook.
       None of the boys of Dormitory G would have committed a 
     violent crime. Night after night, I listened as they replayed 
     their cases, fervently protesting their innocence. Many 
     received Dear John letters from wives or girlfriends. They 
     lost touch with their children. Those who had careers saw 
     their life's work slip through their fingers. And over time 
     they grew bitter. Many talked about getting even with ``the 
     system'' when they got out, or outsmarting it the next time 
     around.
       I served my sentence nearly 20 years ago, but today's 
     prisons are still filled with the same kind of low-level 
     criminals I knew. The dirty little secret of the American 
     prison system is that two out of three prison inmates are 
     sentenced for nonviolent offenses. The cost of their 
     incarceration is high. Taxpayers shell out an average of 
     $20,000 per year per inmate in state prisons, roughly $30,000 
     in the more modern and humane federal prisons.
       Looking around at my prison mates, I wondered at the time 
     why our system fails to distinguish between the hardened, 
     dangerous criminal and the nonviolent offenders I was rubbing 
     shoulders with. Yes, society must punish lawbreakers; justice 
     requires it. But is prison really the most effective way to 
     punish nonviolent offenders who pose no direct threat to the 
     community? Many states have strictly supervised, successful, 
     community-based programs where offenders can work, support 
     their families and compensate their victims. Why can't many 
     more?
       In prison I manned the laundry alongside a man named Doc 
     Crenshaw. Doc had been an eminently successful obstetrician, 
     a former chairman of the American Medical Association. A 
     cultured man in his late fifties, his big mistake was to 
     serve on the board of a bank that misused depositors' funds. 
     The entire board went down. Behind bars, Doc repeatedly 
     begged to be allowed to work in the local hospitals, which 
     suffered from a shortage of obstetricians. He was told to 
     shut up and do his time. So taxpayers footed the bill for a 
     trained obstetrician to spend two years folding undershorts.
       Doc Crenshaw is the quintessential example of an offender 
     who should have been sentenced to community service. 
     Alternatives to prison save money and reserve prison space 
     for truly dangerous offenders. They also serve a powerful 
     redemptive function. My group, Prison Fellowship, runs scores 
     of community service projects that put nonviolent prisoners 
     to work with hammer and nails, renovating houses for poor 
     families. I've talked with hundreds of inmate patients who 
     say they feel good about the chance to help others, to 
     contribute in a positive way to society, instead of sulking 
     in a cell like the men I knew in Dormitory G.
       Sensible as these policies may sound, they are not likely 
     to strike a chord in today's climate of panic over crime. In 
     response to the public's fear of crime, politicians are doing 
     what politicians always do: talking tough and proposing tough 
     new laws. Therefore we have the budget-busting, billion-
     dollar omnibus crime bill.
       In a perverse way this bill may compound our current prison 
     problem, producing a lot more places like Dormitory G. While 
     some funds are earmarked for alternative forms of punishment, 
     the overall thrust is for more police, more prisons, longer 
     sentences. For example, the Senate version expands mandatory 
     minimum sentencing. But mandatory minimums toss people into 
     prison with no regard for individual circumstances. Take the 
     case of Richard Anderson, a 48-year-old longshoreman with no 
     previous record, no evidence of drug use and 24 years of 
     employment. In return for $5 in gas money, Anderson drove a 
     friend to a fast-food restaurant where the friend sold drugs 
     to a DEA agent. Under a mandatory sentencing law, the judge 
     had no choice but to give Anderson a 10-year prison sentence 
     with no possibility of parole.
       Later, Anderson's sentence was reduced; not all prisoners 
     are as lucky. Even the chairman of the U.S. Sentencing 
     Commission, Judge William Wilkins, has said mandatory 
     minimums lead to ``unfair sentences.'' Under current federal 
     law, every year 3,200 first-time offenders are given minimum 
     sentences of five years or longer. Do we really want to 
     increase the number of laws that impose such draconian 
     sentences? If so, we'd better be prepared to build a lot more 
     versions of Dormitory G.
       Still, the most dangerous aspect of the proposed crime bill 
     is the brazen federal takeover of state systems. The bill 
     provides for 10 new regional prisons for violent offenders. 
     That sounds good until you read the fine print. To transfer 
     inmates to the regional prisons, states must first qualify by 
     bringing state sentencing policies in line with federal 
     practices--precisely the kind that put people away 10 years 
     for a $5 offense.
       Today the federal system holds a much higher percentage of 
     nonviolent offenders than do the states. But under the new 
     system, the feds will require states to follow suit, filling 
     their already glutted prisons with Cecils, Jerrys and Docs. A 
     study conducted for the National Legal Aid and Defender 
     Association found that the new regional prisons will absorb 
     an average of 375 prisoners from each state--but the state 
     will have to add 12,000 new prisoners to its own system. The 
     upshot is that for every $1 of federal help, states will have 
     to shell out $30. Not much of a bargain.
       Since serving my own sentence, I have worked in prisons for 
     20 years, visiting 600 prisons in 35 countries, and I have 
     discovered that the old strategies for getting tough on crime 
     don't do the job, no matter how politically attractive they 
     may be. For far less money, we could create tough, supervised 
     community work programs for nonviolent offenders--programs 
     with teeth, holding offenders accountable and requiring them 
     to pay compensation to their victims. As for the real 
     predators in our communities, we'd then have the prison space 
     to keep them locked up for a good long time.
       Take it from Prisoner 23226. If the House and Senate 
     conferees want to break their deadlock and produce an 
     effective crime bill, they should talk with the boys in 
     Dormitory G.

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