[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 117 (Thursday, August 18, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 18, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
              EXAMINING THE CENTERPIECE OF THE CRIME BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Thurman). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Manzullo] is recognized for 30 
minutes.
  Mr. MANZULLO. Madam Speaker, crime is serious. It is very serious in 
this country. We have been wrestling with a crime bill for some time in 
the U.S. Congress. It has been touted that the centerpiece of the crime 
bill are the cops on the beat and the prisons.
  Tonight I want to take a look at this in depth, to describe exactly 
what this means. The crime bill states on its face that there will be 
100,000 new cops on the beat, and they will be involved in community 
policing, but nowhere is community policing defined. The bill states 
what the cops must be doing. They must be involved in community 
policing, but we wrestle with the definition, and then find out in 
Title I, part Q, section F, ``Technical Assistance,'' subparagraph 2, 
model, which states, ``The Attorney General defines what is community 
policing,'' how it will be implemented. This means a Federal bureaucrat 
decides what a community means, as opposed to a community.
  For example, cities may use the funds in the following ways: They can 
go to enhance police officers' conflict resolution, mediation, problem 
solving, service, and other skills needed to work in partnership with 
members of the community; to develop new technologies; to assist State 
and local law enforcement agencies in reorienting the emphasis of their 
activities from reacting to crime to preventing crime; and to develop 
and establish new manage administrative and managerial systems to 
facilitate the adoption of community oriented policing as an 
organization-wide philosophy.
  Madam Speaker, this means that a Federal bureaucrat can tell local 
police officers how to resolve conflicts and solve problems. It also 
means a Federal Bureaucrat could tell a community that instead of 
apprehending criminals, it should be preventing crimes from taking 
place. Granted, both are necessary, but why should the Federal 
Government be involved in telling the police force what it needs to do?
  Second, the bill sets up a quota system for hiring police. Section 
1702(c)(11) states the hiring guidelines by the Attorney General must 
``provide assurances that the applicant will, to the extent 
practicable, seek, recruit, and hire members of racial and ethnic 
minority groups and women in order to increase their ranks within the 
sworn positions in the law enforcement agency.''
  That quota section speaks for itself.
  Third, the Clinton crime bill provides only seed money for a 
community that wants to hire police officers. Here is the irony. For a 
community to get a grant to hire police officers, it must show a 
specific financial need. The grant runs out in equal stages over 5 
years.
  However, a community must also show that as a grant runs out in 
steps, the community must be able to afford to keep the cops 
permanently. This does not make sense. A community applies for a grant 
because it needs the money, but must show that as the money runs out, 
it has the financial ability to continue the program.

                              {time}  2140

  If a community has the money in the first place, then it could not 
receive the grant, yet it has to show it has the money in order to 
continue the program.
  Fourth, the actual amount of money allocated in the crime bill for 
cops will hire 20,000 at most, not 100,000 cops. The reason is in the 
application. The Clinton administration itself estimates it will cost 
$75,000 per year to hire one cop. So if you stretch out the money 
allocated for the program over 5 years, it comes out to $14,500 per 
cop. That is why we have police officers all the way from down in 
Florida from a city that employs 17 police officers, to say that we are 
in a tight budget now, so why should we hire more policemen on this 
program when the money will be whittled away in a short period of time, 
essentially leaving us with an unfunded mandate? These are the words of 
Terry Chapman, acting police chief of the Brooksville, FL police 
department.
  And Paul Logli, the State's attorney for Winnebago County, IL, which 
I represent, the county that leads the State in crime, and he is saying 
we have all these programs and yet the money that is held out is just 
seed money and after a few short years, it is reduced on a periodic 
basis, still leaving the city and the municipalities involved with the 
prospect of raising all this money, essentially an unfunded mandate, to 
keep the programs going.
  Who runs community policing? Do local law enforcement agencies or 
social agencies? We have probably never heard this argument before. The 
application and the proposed statutory language show how little 
emphasis is placed on the crime rate in a community.
  Here are some of the 11 mandatory requirements to get a grant. The 
police department has to have a long-term strategy that is devised not 
by the police but by ``community groups and appropriate private and 
public agencies.''
  What does that mean? Those words are not defined. It means the 
Federal Government is saying the sheriffs and chiefs of police do not 
know how to use police officers but ``community groups and appropriate 
private and public agencies''--which are never defined--do. And the 
police department has to identify related governmental and community 
initiatives which complement or will be coordinated with a proposal.
  This is the United States Congress empowering the Attorney General 
and bureaucrats to micromanage local police departments. This 
application process demonstrates the hoops through which a municipality 
must jump to get the money that already belongs to the citizens.
  Madam Speaker, there is no Federal money, only money provided by the 
ordinary taxpayer that is sent to Washington, legally shrunk and then 
waved by a Federal bureaucrat in the face of local officials who fight 
like heck to get back money that already belongs to them.
  Sixth, to implement the cops on the beat, the bill states the 
Attorney General shall have access over the purpose of audit and 
examination to any pertinent books, documents, papers or records of a 
grant recipient under this part and to the pertinent books, et cetera 
or records of State and local governments, persons, businesses and 
other entities that are involved in programs, projects or activities 
for which assistance is provided under this part. ``The Attorney 
General may promulgate regulations and guidelines that carry this 
out.''
  This is called red tape. This conceivably means that a businessperson 
who has a contrast with the local or State police could have their 
entire operations audited by the Federal Government if the law 
enforcement agency participates in this program.
  What is the other half of the centerpiece of this crime bill? 
Prisons. The Clinton crime bill claims that $10.9 billion will be spent 
on building prisons. But a closer look shows that $2.2 billion is 
authorized but not funded. $8.7 billion would then be left allegedly 
for building prisons. However, $1.8 billion of that goes toward 
refunding States incarcerating illegal aliens. That leaves the bill 
with a total of $6.5 billion for prison construction. Or is it really 
for prisons?
  Title 2 Prisons authorizes funding with the following language:

       The Attorney General may make grants to individual States 
     and to States organized as multistate compacts to develop, 
     expand, operate or improve correctional facilities and 
     programs including boot camp facilities and programs and 
     other alternative confinement facilities and programs that 
     can free conventional prison space for the confinement of 
     violent offenders to ensure that prison space is available 
     for the confinement of violent offenders and to implement 
     truth-in-sentencing of violent offenders.

  At this point it appears the Clinton crime bill will allow the States 
to spend the prison money the best way the States see fit. However, a 
further reading of the bill shows the Federal strings attached to it. 
For example, if a State qualifies for assistance to build a prison, it 
must still come up with 25 percent of the funding.
  The Federal Government must approve the manner in which the State 
prison is operated or in which the local jail that applies for these 
grants is operated.
  From Section 20101, Grants for Correctional Facilities, B-4, the 
States must have a ``comprehensive correction plan which represents an 
integrated approach to the management and operation of correctional 
facilities and programs which include diversion programs, particularly 
drug diversion programs, community correction programs, prison 
screening, security classification systems, appropriate professional 
training for corrections officers in dealing with violent offenders, 
prisoner rehabilitation and treatment programs, prisoner work 
activities, jobs skills programs, educational programs, a pre-release 
prisoner assessment to provide risk reduction management, post-release 
assistance and an assessment of recidivism rates.''
  This means once the Federal Government gives money to a State to 
build that prison or to a locality to build a jail, then the Federal 
Government will determine through approving the comprehensive 
correctional plan the following: These are the new powers, the nine new 
powers of the Federal Government when it comes to these prisons.
  No. 1. The Federal Government will determine, No. 1, how to manage 
and operate a correctional facility.
  No. 2. The Federal Government will determine all the drug programs.
  No. 3. The Federal Government will define and determine and make sure 
they are enacted a ``community corrections program.''
  No. 4. The Federal Government will determine the security systems of 
the State and local secured facilities.
  No. 5. The Federal Government will set forth the requirements and 
oversee and approve the training of officers who work with violent 
offenders.
  No. 6. The Federal Government will determine the prisoner rehab 
programs.
  No. 7. The Federal Government will determine prisoner work 
activities. That is, the daily life of a prisoner.
  No. 8. All job skills programs and educational programs must be 
approved by the Federal Government.
  No. 9. The Federal Government must determine the prisoner pre-release 
programs. That means that the strings that are attached by the Federal 
Government as the price for a State receiving money which already 
belongs to it and as the price that a local government must pay to 
receive money that already belongs to it is that it is turning over the 
local correctional facilities and the State correctional facilities to 
the fiat of the Attorney General and her bureaucrats.
  That is not all of the prisons program. There is something called the 
Task Force on Prison Construction Standardization and Techniques, 
Section 20406 C-1.
  The Federal Government now determines how the State prison is built 
or how the local jail facility is built and dictates the materials. 
This task force is comprised of Federal bureaucrats and engineers, 
architects, construction experts to come up with a performance 
requirement. The task force shall work to ``establish or recommend 
standardized construction plans and techniques for prison and prison 
component construction.''
  That is the money that goes to a local sheriff that wants to expand 
his jail. That is the money that goes to a Governor that wants to 
expand the prison system. The price for it is the federalization of all 
correctional facilities that receive this money. Arguably you do not 
have one comprehensive plan for part of a jail that does not receive 
Federal money and another correctional plan for the other part that 
does receive the Federal money. That means the Federal Government will 
now be in the business of running all State and local prison and jail 
facilities. That has never been brought out in this Congress before. 
The reason is in the reading of the bill where the red tape and the 
strings comes, somebody in Washington has made a determination that the 
Attorney General knows better than all 50 Governors, than all 50 State 
legislatures, than every single sheriff and every single county 
administrator in the United States.

                              {time}  2150

  That is the centralization of power in the Federal Government, and 
that is what is wrong with the two very centerpieces of this Clinton 
crime bill.
  How do we fight crime? We passed today a measure, very quietly passed 
by an overwhelming majority in the grants and the appropriations for 
Commerce, State and Justice. We were contacted several months ago by 
the State Line Area Narcotics Team that operates in the counties, the 
rural areas of Winnebago County and Stevenson County, Boone County and 
up into one county in Wisconsin called Monroe. We were told that this 
group called the State Line Area Narcotics Team, SLANT, that the money 
that they were receiving under the Edward Byrne fund that coordinates 
all of the different agencies to fight narcotics on the local level, 
that this program had been eliminated in the budget plan of President 
Clinton, and it became our passion in my office to work very diligently 
and very hard to restore that, because the Federal Government's role in 
crime is very limited. Think about it: Interdiction of drugs at the 
borders, working with multijurisdictional task forces on following 
those drugs as they come over the borders and go into the hands of the 
individuals. Here was an area where if we could stop the flow of drugs 
into Winnebago and Boone and Stevenson County, if we could do that, 
then Winnebago County, IL, which leads the State in violent crimes, 
Winnebago County, where 65 percent to 75 percent of the violent crimes 
are the result of people involved in drug trafficking, whether they are 
trying to buy the drugs or sell the drugs or being used for their 
ingestion, or being shot as a result of the underworld activity of drug 
traffickers. And we wrote letters and succeeded to get that money put 
back in.
  Today I talked with Cap. Earl Hernandez of Rockford, talked to him on 
the telephone and I said, ``Captain, today the crime bill was passed. 
There was no fanfare. Today this crime bill was passed called, in a not 
very glamorous term, the annual appropriations bill to fund the 
Departments of Commerce, Justice and State.''
  That bill allows the hiring of 400 new FBI agents, the transfer of 
some 600 desk agents to the field. This bill increases funding for the 
Drug Enforcement Agency. The appropriation will allow the DEA to hire 
300 new agents. The increased funding for the FBI and DEA will allow 
them to hire up to their 1992 levels, making them more effective crime 
fighting tools. And the bill increases funding for almost all areas 
within the Justice Department, the Judiciary, from the U.S. Marshal 
Service to the courts of appeals, district courts and other judicial 
services. The report expands the Edward Byrne formula grant program.
  Programs funded by the Byrne program include State and local 
prosecution initiatives, innovative programs that attack drug use and 
violent crimes and multijurisdictional programs, an example being State 
and local police officers working with State troopers.
  As we talked, Captain Hernandez said, ``Congressman, thank you. Thank 
you for voting to give us local law enforcement officers the tool of 
our choice to go after these drug people.''
  Madam Speaker, look at the results of what this organization has done 
in 4 years, in 4 years working in three counties, mostly in rural 
areas. The total number of new drug investigations, 708; total of 
arrests for delivery of cocaine, 253; total arrests for possession of 
cocaine, 135; total of arrests for delivery of cannabis 114; total of 
arrests for possession of cannabis 78. Listen to this: Cocaine seizures 
in grams, 44,260; street value of cocaine seized, $10,622,400. Cannabis 
seized in grams, 542,000; street value of cannabis seized, $4,340,000.

  The report from Captain Hernandez says none of these cases, 708, 
would have been investigated, none of these people, 580, would have 
been arrested, none of the cocaine, 44,260 grams or cannabis 542,547 
grams, would have been accomplished without this multijurisdictional 
effort that we call SLANT.
  The bill that passed today will not make the headlines, and the 
Captain Hernandezes will not be quoted in newspapers, not really. They 
are the heroes. They are on the front lines. They see exactly what is 
going on.
  You know it is amazing that it is people like this, people like this 
that have the opportunity to know firsthand. These are the ones that 
should be defining exactly what programs that they need.
  If you take the crime bill and break it out in its most simple terms 
and say if we are going to give money to the local and State law 
enforcement authorities, then block grant it out. Let the Earl 
Hernandezes determine how to spend the money. Yes, let Terry Chapman, 
acting police chief of Brookville, FL Police Department which employs 
17 police officers, let him determine how that money is used. And yes, 
let us take a look at Paul Logli. Paul Logli is the State's Attorney, 
Winnebago County at large, the county that leads the State in terms of 
high crime. And Paul Logli says yes, we need cops, we need the system 
fixed. There are plenty of things that we need, but we do not need the 
Federal Government to tell us how to run our law enforcement agencies. 
We do not need the Federal Government determining the hoops through 
which we must jump. We do not need these things. We simply need to have 
the ability to use the money that already belongs to us.
  Madam Speaker, that is really what the crime bill is about. When I 
was in law school, actually undergraduate at the American University 
here in Washington, there was a professor of constitutional law who 
used to ask the same rhetorical question. I think he got it from the 
ancient days in Greece when parading before the courts of justice the 
lawyers would carry these signs. It was actually the Latin courts in 
Rome. Written on these signs would be these words in Latin: Cui he 
produs, in whose interest is this trial being directed.

                              {time}  2200

  And this professor of constitutional law used to ask the same 
rhetorical question: What is the locus of sovereignty? And I sat there 
for months before I came to the realization that here was a man 
earnestly seeking to define the role of the Federal Government in its 
relationship to the States and the localities vis-a-vis the tender 
working relationship of the inner workings as it were of the 9th and 
10th amendments of the U.S. Constitution. And after prodding with that 
question, ``What is the locus of sovereignty,'' I came to the 
conclusion that the locus of sovereignty is not the State Government, 
it is not the local government, it is not the Federal Government. The 
locus of sovereignty is the people. It is the people that elect me to 
represent them, the 600,000 people in the 16th Congressional District 
of Illinois and the 600,000 or so people in the 434 other congressional 
districts. But ultimately it is the people who are sovereign, because 
they determine the governments, and they can bring down a government 
every 2 years through turning over of a majority or all of the Members 
of the House of Representatives.
  That constitutional argument rings true today. What is the locus of 
sovereignty? And the issue is who knows best about how to fight a local 
problem. Does the Attorney General? Certainly not the CIA with the 
horrible Ames scandal, with a Benedict Arnold living in its midst, 
driving a fancy sports car, living in a half-million-dollar home, 
spending money like crazy to pay off credit card bills, in charge of a 
sensitive area of counterintelligence in Europe, nobody checking on 
him, a man personally responsible for the deaths of at least 10 people 
worldwide.

  And do we really want the local police chiefs and the sheriffs, do we 
really want them to concede the authority that they have, to cede the 
authority that has been given to them by the people to the Attorney 
General and to the bureaucrats that operate under her? Do we really 
want a Government, a U.S. Government, that determines the manner of 
operation of local jails? Do we really want a U.S. Government, as 
determined by the Attorney General, that tells local police chiefs the 
manner in which they must train and recruit and equip the officers that 
work for them?
  That is what is wrong with this crime bill. It is fatally flawed 
because of the philosophy behind it, and the philosophy behind it says 
Washington knows much better than Rockford, IL, and Washington knows 
much better than this little town in Florida, the little town of 
Brooksville, FL, on how to run the system of government.
  The locus of sovereignty is with the people, and that is where the 
decisions must be made in the effective war against crime.
  Mr. BECERRA. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MANZULLO. I yield to the gentleman from California. I thank the 
gentleman for his patience. You have been sticking around here all 
night, have you not?
  Mr. BECERRA. Madam Speaker, I have been here listening intently to 
much of what has gone on today, and I listened intently to what the 
gentleman had to say. I wonder if the gentleman would allow me to ask 
him a couple of questions, because he went into great detail about the 
crime bill. I think that is good, because the American public often 
wants to know the guts of what we are talking about in the different 
bills, whether it is health care or crime.
  Is the gentleman suggesting that he is opposed to the idea of putting 
cops on the street as the President has proposed or providing 
additional funds for incarceration or building prisons as the President 
proposed, or is it more the details of the crime bill with which he 
objects?
  Mr. MANZULLO. The devil is always in the details. The issue here is 
this, if we are saying let us put cops on the beat, give a community 
grant and say, ``If you need detectives, hire detectives.''
  Let me read a quote here. This was also from a group in Florida, the 
Hillsboro sheriff, Cal Henderson, a Democrat, he likes what is in the 
bill, but he does not agree, he likes some of what is in the bill, but 
he does not agree with the centerpiece, 100,000 officers. He says, ``At 
this point, the most important thing is the prison beds and juvenile 
detention facilities.'' His deputies are arresting the same offenders 
over and over. He said more deputies made more arrests, but no real 
change, no real impact. ``Give me a break,'' says Manatee Sheriff 
Charlie Wells, a Republican, ``100,000 police to arrest people to put 
them where?'' Put them where? I mean, Washington cannot determine the 
needs of a local police force. That is the whole point.
  Mr. BECERRA. To my question, it is not the gentleman objects to the 
idea that the President has of putting more cops on the beat or 
providing more funds for prison construction, it is the details and the 
way the conditions, perhaps, arose that are imposed in the bill in 
trying to implement those particular programs, in that sense?
  Mr. MANZULLO. What I am opposed to is the presumption of the U.S. 
Congress that it knows the needs of a local police department in trying 
to combat crime. That is the primary opposition.
  Let me follow that through with an answer, because as you see by all 
the comments from these, the different principles involved, they may 
not need police. They may not need prisons. They may need other backup 
personnel. But we are determining the needs of the local communities, 
and that is what is wrong about it.
  Mr. BECERRA. But in terms of the programs themselves, community 
policing, helping provide more community police.
  Mr. MANZULLO. Can you define community police? It is not defined in 
the bill.
  Mr. BECERRA. That is because the local government, the police 
department, is allowed to define what a local community police officer 
will be which goes to your point about trying to provide local control.
  Mr. MANZULLO. We are out of time.
  Let me thank the gentleman, thank him very much, and I would state in 
conclusion that the community policing definition is not included in 
the bill.
  Mr. BECERRA. I hope the gentleman does support the concept of 
community police and more money for prison construction.
  Mr. MANZULLO. We can go on and on. I support the concept of lettering 
the local police departments determine what their needs are and letting 
the U.S. Congress give them the money to spend the way they determine 
it.

                          ____________________