[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 gentlewoman from 
Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized during morning business for 5 
minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I am very honored to take the floor 
again to talk about the crime bill because there has been so much 
misinformation out here. I think any American who knew what was really 
in this bill would be absolutely insensed that we have not gotten it 
passed long ago.
  Obviously crime basically is dealt with at the State and local level. 
But some of the things that Americans are most upset about we address 
directly here through Federal help.
  One of the things Americans get really furious about, including 
myself, is when you constantly read about criminals who win out and 
perform some terrible crime and find out that they have been caught 
before but were released because there was not prison space or because 
of overcrowding or whatever.
  So what can the Federal Government do to help in that case? This 
bill, this bill that is being held up, has $6.5 billion, billion with a 
big B, to go to State and local governments to help deal with the 
backlog on prisons so that when people are sentenced and caught, we 
keep them off the streets.
  It also has some very tough provisions like three strikes and you are 
out. It tightens many other crimes that we really have not paid much 
attention to at the Federal level.
  One is tightening the offenses against people who molest children. We 
know that there have been a lot of people that move over State lines 
and they have a record. This tightens the kind of penalties when we 
catch them.
  It also deals with violence against women and family violence, 
domestic violence, whether it is perpetrated on a man by a woman or a 
woman by a man. We know that many of the criminals that you are much 
more apt to deal in violence when you grow up, if you grew up in a home 
that had violence going on every day. If every act is solved in the 
home with violence, then you are not going to do some kind of little 
hours teaching and teach children to deal with their emotions in some 
other way.
  So finally getting onto this is very important. And just yesterday 
the American Bar Association put out a report saying how important this 
bill was and how long it has been that the law had ignored, ignored the 
whole area of domestic terrorism.
  What does this bill do? It gives money to State and local governments 
to help train prosecutors, to make courts more sensitive, to build more 
shelters.
  I have said over and over again, there is three times as many 
shelters for dogs and cats in this country as there are for family 
members suffering from any kind of violence.
  And it puts in a 1-800 number so we begin to get a real offensive on 
that at the Federal, State, and local level. It puts another 100,000 
policemen in cities, cops on the beat. We know if there are police 
present, it is much less likely to be crime present. It puts in any 
number of preventive programs we know work, youth jobs programs, all 
sorts of sports programs, and all of these things are really not funded 
at that great of an amount, because basically they are all done with 
volunteers. But this money can keep those volunteers focusing on the 
young people rather than trying to do what they want to do with the 
young people but having to have a carwash every other day and a bake 
sale every other day and whatever. It is to just get the money to rent 
the space or do whatever they need.

  So this goes a very, very long way and has all sorts of ripple 
effects through the young people that the community is trying to reach. 
It also deals with international terrorism. We toughen up a lot of the 
things that we needed to have done a long time ago on terrorism. When 
we just saw the blowing up of different facilities in both Buenos Aires 
and London, we ought to be doing everything we can to get tougher on 
terrorism. These are all the things this bill does, along with limiting 
assault weapon sales.
  Certainly we ought to be doing that. What are we going to do, go back 
to the Old West where everyone just gives up on the whole legal system, 
where we run around with our own assault weapons shooting and killing 
each other? I do not think that that is a good idea, and I do not think 
anyone else does either.
  There is mandatory sentencing. There is all sorts of critical issues 
in here that should have been done. But the most important part is the 
balance between punishment and the balance between prevention.
  I spent a lot of time with parents in my district of young people who 
are in trouble with the law. I found out that due to budget cuts, our 
schools had cut back on so many things that would have prevented these 
kids from getting in trouble. Here is a way we can reinstate those 
programs. I certainly hope we get a speedy enactment of the crime bill.

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