[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 118 (Friday, August 19, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
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]

 
                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                            1994 CRIME BILL

 Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise today to voice my regret 
over last week's setback to the 1994 crime bill and to express my hope 
that our colleagues in the House will hear the cries of the American 
people and revive this critical piece of legislation.
  Mr. President, last Sunday, I visited the residents of Lincoln 
Village Courtyard in Asbury Park, NJ, to find out what matters most to 
those people we are here to represent: Parents who struggle to keep 
their children in school, off drugs, and out of trouble.
  They told me the same thing I have heard all over New Jersey during 
the last several months. They are worried about the safety of their 
families and their neighborhoods.
  They worry about drug dealers each time they send their children to 
buy some milk at the corner market. They worry about sex offenders each 
time their children go next door to play with a new neighbor's dog. 
They worry about gangs each morning when they drop their children off 
at school.
  Mr. President, the American people should not have to live in 
constant fear of drugs, guns, and crime.
  How many more victims must die before we listen to their innocent 
cries? How much longer will the power of the NRA drown out the pleas of 
their mourning parents?
  Mr. President, this crime bill is not about us, here in Congress. 
It's about listening to the American people and giving them what they 
deserve. It's about safer neighborhoods with more cops and fewer guns.
  If we cannot transcend our partisan bickering, the American people 
will be the losers--not us.
  They will lose 100,000 new police officers, men and women who would 
walk the beat making America's neighborhoods safer for children and 
less safe for criminals.
  They will lose the assault weapon ban, which would rid our 
neighborhoods of 19 military-style weapons that belong only on 
battlefields, not on local street corners.
  They will lose tougher sanctions for hardened criminals. That means 
no new penalties for repeat rapists and no mandatory life sentences for 
felons convicted of three serious crimes.
  They will lose $8.8 billion for the construction and operation of 
prisons to keep dangerous criminals behind bars and off our city 
streets.
  They will lose the opportunity to ensure the protection of their 
children when a sexual predator moves in next door. So we will have no 
more cases such as Megan Kanka's.
  They will lose provisions that would take guns away from juveniles 
and domestic abusers--ensuring safer schools and giving families an 
added measure of protection.
  And they will lose the programs that are designed to give youngsters 
a safe alternative to the dangerous lure of crime and drugs.
  The American people need these protections, and our job is to provide 
them.
  Mr. President, over the last few weeks this crime bill has been 
assailed by some who say it contains too much pork. Their favorite 
example is midnight basketball.
  We all agree, Mr. President, that in order to fight crime, we must 
get dangerous criminals off of our streets and behind bars.
  But that cannot be our only strategy. We cannot afford to simply 
fight crime at the back end.
  Midnight basketball is one of many innovative programs that offer 
youngsters in the inner city an alternative to the counterculture of 
drugs and gangs and guns.
  This program was hailed by none other than George Bush as one of the 
Nation's most effective crime fighting programs.
  Mr. President, we need programs such as this so that we give our 
young children in the innercity something to say ``yes'' to.
  Basketball encourages youngsters to work together. It teaches 
cooperation. It fosters discipline. And most important, it keeps 
children and young adults off of dangerous city streets.
  Mr. President, we have gotten side-tracked on the issue of 
basketball. But this crime bill is not about a game of hoops.
  It's about heeding the calls of the American people who have had to 
wait more than 6 years for safer streets and safer schools.
  It's about hearing the cries of the victims like Megan Kanka and 
making sure they did not die in vain.
  And it's about making clear to the American people that we are 
listening to them and not to a powerful lobby that puts its personal 
ideology above the safety of the American public.
  Mr. President, the American people have waited long enough for this 
bill. Too many victims have died while we debated its provisions.
  I urge my colleagues in the House to pass the crime bill as quickly 
as possible, so we can get the cops on the street and the criminals off 
of it.

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