[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 119 (Saturday, August 20, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 20, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               PRISON FUNDING THAT IS NOT PRISON FUNDING

  (Mr. SCHIFF asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, the American people may well be wondering 
what it is that Members of Congress are arguing about in terms of a 
proposed crime bill, since all Americans want a good strong crime bill. 
Let me give my colleagues just one example of a provision which, I 
believe, needs to be changed in the deliberations that are going on.
  There is a title in the bill that is labeled ``Proposed Funding for 
Prisons,'' and, indeed, in each and every newspaper across the country, 
including my own community in New Mexico, the amount that has been 
appropriated for prisons is always stated. The trouble is the actual 
language of the bill does not say that the money has to be used for 
prisons. It says that a section of the money can be used for prisons or 
other programs, programs being nonincar- ceration.
  Now there is certainly an argument for sentencing options which are 
not prison. I am a former career prosecutor, and I do not believe that 
every convicted criminal has to go to prison for every possible 
offense. But the point is that, if the alternative programs are going 
to be funded, they should be listed as alternative programs to prison 
and not concealed in what the American people are being told is prison 
funding.

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