[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 118 (Friday, August 19, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1450
 
           PREVENTION IS ESSENTIAL ELEMENT TO THE CRIME BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kopetski). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentlewoman from North Carolina [Mrs. Clayton] is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  (Mrs. CLAYTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, as the conference committee convenes 
tonight to present us with a revised crime bill, I want to speak for 
the inclusion, not the exclusion, of prevention.
  I want to speak for the sufficiency and the essentiality of having 
prevention in a crime bill.
  When we think about fighting crime, we should think about obviously 
enforcement and punishment, but along with enforcement, having strong 
sentencing and a way of punishing our criminals, we also should talk 
about prevention. It includes all three of those provisions, 
enforcement, punishment, but prevention, and I think that is a new 
concept for us to be thinking about fighting crime; we only think of it 
after the fact. After a crime has been committed, we commit great 
resources to crime, but we do not think about those great resources 
before the crime is committed. It is like spending money to put the 
fire out when we could spend the money to keep the house safe from 
fire. It is like spending money for illness that we could prevent. The 
same thing is true here: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of 
cure.
  So I want to suggest to our conferees on both sides of the House that 
actually prevention should be seen as one of the essential ingredients 
for an effective strategy. It is, indeed, the law enforcement 
themselves, their organizations, the police chiefs of small cities, big 
cities, sheriffs, or the various organizations throughout this country; 
they have called on their communities respectively across the country 
for them to get involved with their youth, to help them to curtail our 
youth being involved in crime.
  So we must consider prevention as we consider the crime bill. I would 
argue that really the prevention component should be the crux of our 
consideration, although it is not, and I recognize it is not.
  In the current bill it only represents 30 percent. Now, I understand 
there will be some reduction. My plea is that those reductions be 
across the board and not taken out of the prevention alone. Why do I 
say that? Why do I say that?
  Well, I say, first, why should we spend the majority of our dollars 
on persons who have already committed themselves to a way of crime? We 
spend, at least in my State, $24,000 a year to maintain a criminal. Why 
should we not spend a little less than that and affect the lives of a 
lot of people? Why not use our resources wisely and attack crimes by 
using the weapon of prevention?
  National studies have proven young people are most likely to become 
involved in violent crime between the ages of 15 and 20, again, another 
reason for being involved with young people. It is young people 
themselves who are committing the increased violent crimes, so if you 
know that and you are interested in fighting crime, you apply your 
resources where you would be most effective.
  We, as legislators, need to take the bull by the horn and reach out 
to these young people and give them guidance, discipline, support 
necessary to divert them into a constructive pursuit of life rather 
than to ignore them; to ignore them is at our own peril.
  We can pretend there is no problem. That does not remove the problem. 
We should address that problem.
  Consider these facts: In 1992, 5 million people under the age of 25 
were arrested. Of those, 3.4 million were under 21 years of age, and 1 
million under 18 years of age.
  Is there no problem? Why are we ignoring 5 million young people 
involved in crime? That is 1992. I do not have the figures for 1993, 
because I could not get them from the Justice Department.
  Yet, we pretend there is no problem.
  In 1992, again, 76 percent of the people convicted of murder, of 
murder, were between the ages of 15 and 24. And you say we should not 
invest in our young people? How illogical can we be, legislators?
  Only 30 percent of this package now is devoted to prevention. Now, I 
recognize that we are just understanding the value of prevention, but 
only 30 percent of it. The problem is already there, so we must, 
indeed, find a way to prevent crime.
  I beg the conferees to be rational and to be substantive and to give 
to the American people a crime bill that really fights crime, that 
addresses the issue and the cause, and the cause is to divert young 
people from a life of crime to a life of opportunity.

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