[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 109 (Tuesday, August 9, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 9, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                             THE CRIME BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Barlow). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. McCollum] is recognized during morning business for 5 
minutes.
  (Mr. McCOLLUM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk for a moment about 
the crime bill that we are maybe going to see out here on the floor 
this week, and why most Republicans do not like this bill, think it is 
a bad bill, and would like to see it sent back to conference to see if 
we could not correct some of the problems with it.
  It is a $30 billion-plus spending bill, and probably as illustrative 
of anything of the differences between Republicans and Democrats. This, 
combined with the health care debate in the next couple of weeks, 
should give the American public a clear-cut distinction between those 
on the one hand, who are most Democrats, who favor continuation and 
expansion of the Great Society, welfare spending programs, and 
Republicans, at least most of us on the other hand, who believe we 
should reduce the size and scope of the Federal Government.
  In the crime bill area, most Republicans believe deeply in 
prevention, but our interpretation of prevention is far different than 
that of the Democrats. We believe that to have prevention of crime, you 
must first put swiftness and certainty of punishment back in the system 
again. You have to have deterrence. You have to send a message when you 
do the crime, you do the time.
  We have 6 percent of the criminals of this country who commit 70 
percent of the violent crimes and are serving only about one-third of 
their sentences. We think the most important thing and the absolutely 
essential thing a crime bill must do is to provide sufficient resources 
to the States to build the prison space that is necessary to take those 
6 percent of criminals off the streets, lock them up and throw away the 
keys. Make them serve at least 85 percent of their sentences.
  There is not enough resources in this bill to do that; $10.5 billion 
at least is what the Bureau of Corrections at Federal level tells us 
the States need to do this. For the second time, not the first, but 
second time violent repeat offender, we only have about $6.5 billion in 
this bill for this purpose, about a fifth of the total bill that came 
out of our conference, compared to about $13 billion that was in the 
House bill that was passed to begin with.
  What we do have in the bill is $8 or $9 billion in welfare spending 
programs, new programs that are created, largely pork. One is called 
the Local Partnership Act, has $1.8 billion in it. One is the Model 
Intensive Grant Program, almost a billion dollars. This particular 
program provides money for grants to provide meaningful and lasting 
alternatives to crime, whatever that is.
  The Local Partnership Act is largely a local jobs program. Youth in 
Employment Skills Program, another $650 million to test the proposition 
that crime can be reduced through a saturation jobs program for youth. 
And the National Community Economic Partnership, another $630 million 
to community development corporations chosen to upgrade the management 
and operating capacity of community development operations to mobilize 
resources, to provide business and employment opportunities for poor 
people. And on and on.
  I want to say on the record that since 1965, we have spent $5 
trillion on social welfare spending the Federal Government has. And 
during that same period of time, we have had a 500-percent increase in 
the rate of violent crime in this country. Spending more money on 
social welfare programs is not the way to address the crime problem in 
this Nation.

  We already have 266 programs in the Federal Government dealing with 
at-risk youth, 117 of them in the Justice Department alone, spending $3 
billion at the present moment. We do not need $8 or $9 billion more in 
the social welfare programs of this country to so-call fight crime.
  What we need are more prisons. What we need is something that is not 
in this bill at all. We need a provision to end the endless appeals 
that death row inmates have; to send that message when you get the 
death penalty, it is going to be carried out with certainty and 
swiftness, so we can get deterrence in that most violent crime area of 
all, where murder and violent crimes urging the death penalty are 
involved. And we need to change the rules of evidence so that evidence 
from searches and seizures that the local police would like to get in, 
instead of letting people off on technicalities, can be put in 
evidence. That is not in this crime bill. It was not even allowed for a 
vote on the floor of the House.
  Like I said, most of all we need to get the money necessary for 
prisons; that does not begin to come into play out of the conference 
report that came out of committee.
  This is largely a pork bill. These programs are designed to go to 
targeted areas; the Model Intensive Grant Program, for example, goes to 
15 selected cities. All of the criteria listed out there for these 
programs are designed to go to very targeted areas of the country where 
I would suggest very senior Democrats are present in the large cities 
to do so-called jobs at work programs that look good.
  It is pure pork. It is not designed and not really going to do 
anything to get at the underlying cause of crime. You want to get at 
the root causes, then we have to pass meaningful welfare reform 
programs. We need a welfare reform bill out here that will put families 
back together again, get the young people of our country with the 
father again in the household, begin to teach moral values, change the 
structure in our school systems, and so on.
  That is not what is in this bill. This is more of the same old tax 
and spend kind of idea around here for the last 30 years adding to the 
Great Society with more so-called jobs programs.
  And I would suggest that that is the reason, if my colleagues want to 
know why so many of us say we need to defeat the rule on the crime bill 
when it comes out here in a few days, send the bill back to conference, 
and do something right to really put deterrence and swiftness and 
certainty back in this punishment system. Not this bill.

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