[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 121 (Monday, August 22, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                             THE CRIME BILL

  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, I had occasion to preside over the 
Senate for the last 2 hours, and I could not help but be reminded of 
that old expression that those who love the law and those who love 
sausages should not watch either of them being made. I had a chance to 
sit through the rancor and debate around the procedural status of this 
legislation, and to have occasion to think for a moment how we must 
appear to the people of the public, who do not know about the rules and 
about the procedural maneuvers and do not quite understand why it is 
taking such an extraordinary amount of debate and is such a long, 
drawn-out process for us to achieve a crime bill in this session of the 
Congress--a bill, I might add, that the American people want.
  I say, Mr. President, in explanation to those people who are more 
than mystified at this point about what is going on, and the reason 
this bill has taken such a long time to resolve, and the reason behind 
all of the rancor and debate and the controversy that surrounds the 
crime bill, is because it is important--precisely because it is so very 
important to our country--that we have the clash of interests, we have 
the clash of perspectives and the clash of ideas going on here in this, 
the greatest deliberative body in the world. And that is why finalizing 
and enacting into law this crime bill has not been easy for Senator 
Biden, who has certainly worked on it so many years, or for all of the 
other people here in Congress who have been so passionate about giving 
the American people what they want and need.
  But, at the same time, because it is so important, I think it is of 
critical significance that we continue the debate as long as it takes 
to get our job done.
  The Senate first passed the crime bill last November, nearly 8 months 
ago. At that time, everyone in this body hoped the bill would quickly 
become law. Unfortunately for all of us, procedural maneuvering and 
partisan politics has delayed completion of this legislation. But now, 
at long last, the Senate stands poised to vote on a measure that, for 
the first time, will devote substantial resources of the Federal 
Government to the effort to reclaim our streets. As far as I am 
concerned, Mr. President, this vote is coming not a moment too soon.
  By way of background, Mr. President, I come out of a law enforcement 
family. My father was a police officer, as were my brother and my 
uncle. I have grown up discussing issues relating to crime and 
punishment in the criminal justice system in our home all my life. I 
served formerly as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District 
of Illinois. I served as a State legislator, as a local elected 
official, and finally as a U.S. Senator.
  For all of these years, Mr. President, crime has been an issue of 
great public concern. And for all of those years, the level of crime in 
our society has been unacceptably high. But the challenges posed by 
violent crime today are greater now than they have ever been.
  I do not make that statement easily, but we can no longer ignore the 
truth. We live in a country where 7-year-olds are gunned down on their 
way to school, and 9-year-olds bring guns to school for protection. We 
live in a country where violent crime occurs every 22 seconds. That 
includes one murder every 22 minutes, one rape every 5 minutes, and one 
aggravated assault every 28 seconds.
  The public, the people, are frightened. Fifty-nine percent of city 
residents and 57 percent of suburban residents fear becoming a victim 
of crime. Sixty percent of all Americans limit the places they travel 
to out of fear of crime. We are in danger of becoming a society of 
victims.
  I can cite statistics such as these for the rest of this evening, but 
the numbers only serve to illustrate what we already know. I believe 
the Federal Government must act to help take back our streets, to 
ensure that every man, woman, and child in this country feels safe in 
their communities, in their schools and in their homes. That is why it 
is imperative that Congress send this bill to the President as soon as 
we can, today or tomorrow. We cannot afford to wait another day.
  I want to call the Presiding Officer's attention to our Constitution, 
the document that all of us love so much and pledged to be faithful to 
in our work here.
  The preamble of this Constitution says:

       We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more 
     perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic 
     Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the 
     general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to 
     ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this 
     Constitution for the United States of America.

  I read that because I think it is important for us to be reminded, 
Mr. President, that ensuring our domestic tranquillity is part of what 
we were sent here to do. That is our job. It is what we are elected, in 
part, to ensure. And, more importantly, it is what the crime bill gives 
us the opportunity to do.
  I believe that it is important that we remind every Member of this 
Senate that ensuring our domestic tranquillity does not mean that we 
have to ensure a liberal approach to crime or a conservative approach 
to crime. It does not call for us to ensure the building of more 
prisons or ``grabbing them by the throat,'' as one of my colleagues 
likes to say. What this says is that we have an obligation to focus on 
the needs and interests of the honest people of this country, the needs 
and interests of the citizens of this country who want to be able to 
live without the threat of violent crime. I believe this crime bill 
goes a long way in that direction.
  Stories that have been written about this crime bill have tended to 
focus on the critics of the bill, critics who exist on both sides of 
the political spectrum. According to the reports, the ``liberals'' have 
criticized the bill for focusing too much on the ``lock-em-up'' 
approach to solving crime, while the ``conservatives'' contend that the 
bill places too much emphasis on prevention. Some critics have urged a 
vote against the bill because too much money will be spent to build 
prison cells or to fund boot camps. Others urge a vote against the bill 
because too much money will be spent to fund programs designed to steer 
children away from crime and drugs or to provide youth with job 
training and career opportunities.
  Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to address those 
critics--again, on both sides of the political spectrum and, frankly, 
both sides of the aisle. I certainly hope that those of us in this body 
will resist such simplistic analyses. Fighting crime is not an either/
or decision; it is not a liberal or conservative decision; nor is it a 
Republican or Democrat decision--or at least it should not be. And it 
does not just come down to a choice between funding a social program or 
funding a prison cell. The truth of the matter is that there is no 
liberal solution to crime, and there is no conservative solution to 
crime. There is only a cooperative solution.
  We are all in this together, and we should be prepared to take what 
works to fight crime. We should be prepared to take a little bit of 
this approach and that approach, approaches that have been demonstrated 
to be effective, in our effort to fight to secure our domestic 
tranquillity.
  Common sense tells us that we cannot focus solely on alleviating the 
root causes of crime, even though as much as I would like to see that 
happen, because even if it were successful, those measures might not 
show any effects for 10 or 15 years down the road. But neither can we 
simply talk about locking people up and throwing away the key, because 
once you need to lock someone up you have already failed at what should 
be the central task of the criminal justice system, which is preventing 
crime in the first place.
  The crime bill we are considering today recognizes both of the 
realities, that we have to focus on prevention as well as punishment. 
This bill recognizes that we should be prepared to take what really 
works to fight crime. Prevention efforts, in my opinion, are important 
in securing our future and securing our children's future if for no 
other reason than the old adage that says ``a stitch in time saves 
nine.'' It makes sense to stop crime before there are victims, even at 
the same time as we focus in on punishing those who made a victim out 
of all of us. This bill strikes a balance between prevention and 
punishment in a way that makes sense.
  So let us not focus on just the detractors and critics of this bill. 
Let us focus on its supporters. This crime bill has the support of the 
National District Attorneys Association, the National Association of 
Attorneys General, the Fraternal Order of Police, the International 
Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Organization of Black Law 
Enforcement Executives, the National Sheriffs Organization, the 
International Brotherhood of Police Officers, the National Troopers 
Organization, the National League of Cities, the United States 
Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Counties, the 
National Conference of Democratic Mayors, the National Conference of 
Republican Mayors, and Municipal Elected officials, just to name a few.
  Most important, though, let us focus on the supporters who matter the 
most, the honest citizens who resent being made victims of crime; the 
mothers who want to save their boys from gangs; the communities, large 
cities and rural towns, that want to preserve a quality of life; and 
the people who want to reclaim the domestic tranquility that the 
Constitution says is our job to protect.
  Why does this bill have so much support? First and foremost this bill 
will deploy an additional 100,000 police officers on the streets of our 
cities and towns, exactly where they are needed the most. Police 
officers hired under the bill will be trained in community policing, a 
new idea that really is nothing more than the old-fashioned beat cop 
that existed in the days when my uncle first started on the police 
department.
  Having police walking the streets, as members of the communities, 
makes all the sense in the world, and as a member of a law enforcement 
family, I for one am delighted that Congress has recognized the value 
of encouraging police officers to become part of the community, to walk 
the streets of the neighborhoods, and to get to know the residents.
  Again, simple common sense tells us that the cop on the beat in the 
neighborhood decreases the likelihood that a crime will be committed in 
that neighborhood. The addition of 100,000 community police represents 
a real opportunity not just to make more arrests and prosecute more 
offenders. It offers a chance for law enforcement agencies throughout 
the Nation to respond proactively to help deter crime before there is a 
need for arrest or prosecution.
  In my State of Illinois, there should be somewhere in the 
neighborhood of 2,000 new police added to the police that are already 
in place. That will be in additional support to the big cities as well 
as the small towns that have seen a rise in violent criminal activity.
  But this bill will not just send out more police officers. It also 
provides the funds necessary to give States and local law enforcement 
agencies the tools to do their jobs. The bill provides funds for the 
Edward Byrne Formula Grant Program to assist State efforts in fighting 
drugs. It provides money for fighting crime and drug trafficking in 
rural areas. It provides money to assist States in administering the 
Brady law, a law that has already proved successful in keeping guns out 
of the hands of those who should not have them. It provides funds for 
States to acquire the DNA labs and or technologies in carrying out the 
fight against crime. And, it provides funds to State courts, 
prosecutors, and public defenders to assist in the administration of 
justice.
  This bill provides for new death penalty offenses, contains a three-
strikes-and-you-are-out provision for repeat violent offenders, 
contains discretionary authority to try juveniles aged 13 and above as 
adults, gives the States $9.9 billion to provide boot camps to house 
hardened criminals.
  This bill is very tough on crime. It is, of course, the very 
provisions I have just cited that made the bill subject to some of the 
criticism. The bill is too tough, some opponents say. It focuses solely 
on locking people up once they have committed a crime, but does little 
to prevent a crime from occurring.
  The fact of the matter is this bill achieves a balance of punishment, 
on the one hand, and prevention, on the other. I for one would never 
support a bill that focused solely on punishment, but that is not the 
bill we are considering. This bill is a recognition of the fact that we 
must do both.
  The funding in the bill, frankly, is slanted heavily in favor of the 
punishment side of the equation. Seventy-seven percent of the money in 
here is for after-the-fact law enforcement, for police, punishment, and 
prisons. But 23 percent of the funding is for prevention, and I believe 
that represents a sea change and step forward in putting together a 
collective, cooperative approach that will begin to tackle violent 
crime and help us to reclaim our communities.
  Mr. President, if we only concentrate on punishing crime we will 
never be able to build enough jails and boot camps and prisons to hold 
all the people that find their way into criminal activity. We already 
in this country have the highest per capita prison population in the 
world, yet that has not made our communities any safer. And there is 
nothing to suggest that the trend is changing.
  I would point out to my colleagues and anyone listening that simply 
locking people up is an awfully expensive way to approach the issue. 
The taxpayers pay on average $25,000 a year for every person that we 
put into a jail cell.
  It seems to me, and it seems I think to the authors of this bill, 
that we can do a little bit better to diminish the pipeline to prisons. 
We can do better to give people an opportunity, an option that will 
steer them away from criminal activity and save us all the tremendous 
cost of victimization that we are currently experiencing.
  We particularly need to give young people a chance, Mr. President. As 
President Clinton has stated so eloquently, if we want people to say no 
to crime, to drugs, and to violence, we must give them something to say 
yes to.
  This crime bill does that, by authorizing money to fund drug 
education, summer recreation programs, and employment initiatives, 
programs that will give young people an opportunity to find good jobs 
and lead productive lives and stay away from the lure of the easy 
dollar and criminal activity.
  This bill will fund programs to allow schools to remain open in the 
afternoons and evenings, so young people will have an alternative to 
hanging out on the street corners. And it will fund local crime 
prevention block grants, which will allow local governments to provide 
numerous crime prevention programs ranging from gang resistance 
education, Boys and Girls Clubs, supervised visitation centers for 
children removed from abusive homes and, yes, even the now-famous 
midnight basketball program. This bill recognizes the value of crime 
prevention.
  Mr. President, I was the original sponsor here in the Senate of the 
Midnight Basketball League Training and Partnership Act of 1993. As one 
who has observed firsthand the benefits that midnight basketball 
leagues have provided not just in my hometown of Chicago, but in 40 
other cities across the Nation, I would like to take a few moments to 
speak about why it is not only appropriate, but also necessary, that 
funds for midnight basketball be included in comprehensive crime 
legislation.
  The midnight sports programs are much more than just fun and games. I 
want to congratulate the media for the articles and the stories on this 
issue that have pointed that fact out. This is not just about 
recreation. This is not about basketball. In fact, if anything, the 
basketball aspect of midnight basketball is probably the least 
important. If anything, basketball becomes the hook by which we attract 
young people and give them an alternative to the streets, an 
alternative to the gangs and a little alternative to destructive 
activities.
  Midnight basketball leagues promote youth development by forming 
private-public partnerships with local companies and with the police. 
In Chicago, private sponsors have not only contributed funds to help 
finance the leagues and the teams, they have also helped midnight 
basketball leagues design educational and job-related workshops which 
league players are required to attend after the games. Consequently, 
these partnerships have provided adolescents with important adult 
mentors and role models and also demonstrated themselves in helping 
prevent crime, by providing adolescents with opportunities to play 
basketball during the hours when most crimes are committed, from 10 
p.m. to 2 a.m in the morning.
  Midnight basketball leagues have also successfully assigned rival 
gang members to the same teams, affecting truces both on and off the 
court. They have been successful everywhere they have been tried. They 
have kept down crime. They have given people something to say yes to. 
They have been an exercise that has more than returned the investment 
that we are called on in this legislation to make.
  And so, the based on the experience in Chicago, I am proud to say 
that many of the midnight basketball league players have recently 
completed their GED requirement--in other words, received their high 
school diploma--and none of them, Mr. President, were in trouble with 
the law during the 3 years that this program was evaluated.
  That, it seems to me, Mr. President, is well worth the effort. It 
goes directly to the point that we do better making investments in 
young people, giving them something to say yes to, providing them 
alternatives to the gangs and to the crimes, than with simply locking 
them up.
  For my colleagues who have complained about the pork-barrel spending 
and the wasted dollars used to fund midnight basketball and other 
prevention initiatives, I would ask them to consider this. In Chicago, 
midnight basketball leagues have been able to serve 80 youngsters a 
year at the cost of about $85,000. On the other hand, it cost 
approximately $20,000 to incarcerate a juvenile for 1 year. And those 
are strictly the incarceration costs, Mr. President. That does not 
include what we spend to hire the police to make the arrests, to 
provide a prosecutor, a court guardian, a judge to hear the case, money 
for restitution for the victims, et cetera, et cetera. So it seems to 
me we have a choice. We can choose to spend that money, that $85,000 on 
80 youngsters and give them something to say yes to, or we can spend 
$85,000 on four youngsters to lock them up and throw away the key.
  For those in this Chamber who do not live in communities where 
midnight basketball programs have been run, it may seem like a small 
thing to do. But I can assure you it makes a huge difference in the 
lives of young people who have little opportunity. It can make a real 
difference to young men and women who have the potential to make 
significant contributions to our society, but ultimately lack the 
opportunity to make those contributions.
  So I ask my colleagues to come and examine these programs. And I 
would be willing to organize a tour, while I have one of my colleagues 
on floor who no doubt is a better basketball player than I am, who just 
indicated he might be interested in doing that. But I would very much 
like to offer to take my colleagues to see my reality, to see what it 
is like in the cities and to talk to these young people, to see how 
desperately they want to avoid the lure of the people of the gangs and 
the lure of the people of the streets and they want to do the right 
thing. They just do not have the opportunity.
  We can provide them with that opportunity, Mr. President, and this 
crime bill is a vehicle in which we can do that. I hope that we will 
not miss this chance to do so.
  This summer I had occasion to visit the Robert Taylor Homes with the 
President of the United States. It was really stunning, because I think 
that many times, as we talk about these issues, there is almost a 
disconnect. Some of my colleagues do not necessarily know what urban 
communities are like, there is a disconnect between the realities they 
see and what actually goes on, particularly in some of the inner city 
communities.
  The Robert Taylor Homes are not far from where I grew up. In fact, I 
had an occasion just yesterday to drop off a friend who lives there and 
who is doing her level best to raise her children and to keep them 
alive in a community in which she has to walk her children to school 
for fear of them being shot. I guess the feeling is that she will take 
the bullet instead of them.
  In the Robert Taylor Homes, there is an 89-percent poverty rate. The 
median family income is $5,400, and unemployment there averages 60 
percent. Only 32 percent of the adults have more than a high school 
education, and 45 percent of the residents are under the age of 14.
  When this mix is aggravated by drugs and guns and overcrowding, it is 
not hard to see why these young people might turn to a life of crime.
  That is not to excuse their conduct. In fact, there is no excuse for 
it. We have to be clear that we insist and demand on individual 
responsibility for what one does.
  But, at the same time, as President Clinton again stated, we have to 
give these young people something to say yes to. We have to provide 
them with some alternatives. And, thanks to midnight basketball, the 
answer to the question, ``What else can I do?'' is no longer 
``Nothing.''
  This is a program that gives them an alternative to the streets, that 
helps them graduate from school and to find a job.
  And in the absence of investment, Mr. President, in other 
alternatives, it seems to me that this is a small contribution for us 
to make.
  I hope that this debate recognizes, as this bill recognizes, that 
prevention and programs like midnight basketball have a positive 
effect, that the Members of this body will see their way clear to 
supporting this conference report.
  Mr. President, this conference report also authorized funds for 
something called the family unity demonstration project. This 
provision, which I was proud to cosponsor, was sponsored by my senior 
Senator from Illinois, Senator Simon, along with Senator Durenberger of 
Minnesota. This provision will establish five demonstration projects--
four at the State level and one at the Federal level--where nonviolent 
female offenders can reside with their young children. In these 
centers, women can not only bond with their young children and keep 
their families together, but they can receive parenting classes, drug 
treatment, job training, and other educational opportunities.

  By allowing nonviolent offenders to live in the community with their 
children, we can help maintain more stability than if the mother and 
the child were separated. This serves two very important purposes. 
First, by allowing the mother to form strong bonds and attachments with 
her child, we can give the mother a strong incentive to go straight, 
and help make it less likely that she will become a repeat offender. 
And second, we can prevent the child from being shuffled endlessly 
through the foster and group home system that we all know creates so 
many problem for young children.
  The majority of women prisoners are nonviolent offenders, jailed for 
property or drug crimes. These women can serve their time in the 
community, alongside their children, without posing any risk to 
society. I do not mean to say that these women should not pay for their 
crimes--of course they should. But I believe this will give us an 
opportunity to provide a win-win situation, where the children are not 
made victims because of the error of their parents.
  And the crime bill also contains what I consider to be one of the 
most important preventative programs ever to be passed by this 
Congress, the landmark Violence Against Women Act. Passage of this bill 
will, for the first time, put the U.S. Congress on record in support of 
the fact that violence against women is just that--violence.
  By now, Mr. President, we have become all too familiar with the 
frightening statistics on crimes against women. The fact that the rape 
rate has risen four times as fast as the total crime rate; that one in 
every three women will be the victim of a rape during her lifetime; or 
that between 3 and 4 million women are abused in the United States each 
year.
  Yet we also know that despite the high rate of crimes against women, 
rape and domestic assaults often go unreported. Women are afraid to 
turn to the justice system for help, fearing that they will be 
assaulted a second time by a system that blames the victim. All too 
often, they are correct. Who would believe, in this day and age, that a 
judge could issue a light sentence to a rapist by asserting that the 
victim, ``ended up enjoying [herself]?'' Who would believe that the 
police could refuse to arrest an abusive husband because his abuse is a 
``family issue?'' But day after day, in courtrooms and police stations 
throughout the country, such callous and insensitive attitudes prevail.
  This legislation gives long-overdue recognition to a disturbing 
reality. And that is, while crime affects all Americans, it affects 
women in more insidious ways.
  Women who are the victims of rape are nearly nine times as likely as 
nonvictims to attempt suicide, and are twice as likely to experience 
serious depression. Rape and sexual assault affect even women who are 
not victims. Just ask the millions of women who have altered their 
patterns of behavior to avoid being alone on the street at night for 
fear of being attacked.
  This bill will help ensure women are once again free to walk the 
streets alone at night if they so choose. It will also help assure 
those women who are assaulted, despite our best efforts to prevent 
that, will feel free to turn to the justice system without the fear of 
being victimized a second time. In short, the Violence Against Women 
Act will help create a more responsive justice system for our mothers, 
our sisters, our daughters, and our friends. I applaud Senator Biden 
for his leadership in introducing the Violence Against Women Act, and 
for including it in this legislation.
  Finally, this bill signals our intent to get serious about the gun 
violence that is plaguing our streets. The crime bill contains a 
provision to ban the manufacture and sale of 19 deadly semiautomatic 
assault weapons. I was proud to stand with my colleague from 
California, Senator Feinstein, as a cosponsor of this amendment, for if 
any provision is essential to securing our domestic tranquility, it is 
a ban on assault weapons. I would like to take a moment to discuss what 
this ban on assault weapons does and doesn't do.
  This amendment in no way infringes on the right of legitimate hunters 
and sportsmen. In fact, it specifically exempts, by name, more than 650 
rifles, and it also provides a set of functional characteristics to 
protect their successors.
  What this amendment bans are guns that are designed solely to spray 
large groups of people with gunfire in a short period of time--guns 
that are designed not to fire precisely, but to fire quickly. 
Semiautomatic assault weapons are the weapons of choice for gang 
members, terrorists, assassins, drug kingpins, grievance killers, and 
drive-by shooters. These guns have no other purpose but to kill as many 
human beings as possible as quickly as possible. Hunters have nothing 
to fear from this bill, unless of course they plan to hunt humans.
  The cynical efforts of gun control opponents to derail the crime bill 
because it contains an assault weapons ban must fail for one reason, 
and for one reason only: The American public wants an assault weapons 
ban. The voices of the American public have prevailed over the cries of 
the special interests, and the crime bill is a stronger bill as a 
result.
  Senator Biden spoke earlier about the fact that a great deal of the 
effort being expended to filibuster or derail this legislation by 
procedural maneuvering is a direct result of the assault weapons ban. I 
think that is really unfortunate, Mr. President, because I am one who 
supports the second amendment, who understands and is sensitive to the 
concerns of legitimate hunters and honest people who want to have 
weapons. But certainly no legitimate hunter needs to have an assault 
weapon as part of a private arsenal. And, certainly, as I have stated 
previously, given what we have seen time and time again, that assault 
weapons are the guns of choice for gang members, drug dealers and 
drive-by shooters, for people who just want to kill other people, our 
duty to ensure the domestic tranquility requires we pass an assault 
weapons ban.
  I mentioned earlier my visit to the Robert Taylor Homes with the 
President. We went into a police facility located in the housing 
development, and saw stacks upon stacks upon stacks of assault weapons 
which clearly were not being used for any legitimate purpose. These 
weapons clearly were not being used by anyone who wanted to hunt, and 
certainly were not being used to protect anyone's security in their 
home. They were seized from gangbangers and other young people who were 
on the streets terrorizing the honest citizens who live in the Robert 
Taylor Homes.
  Another critical step in the controlling of gun violence, Mr. 
President, is getting the guns out of the hands of the 17-year-olds, 
the 16-year-olds, and yes, even our 12- and 13-year-olds. The fact of 
the matter is that, today, our Nation's schools are looking less and 
less like halls of learning and more and more like armed camps. We 
cannot expect our children to thrive in those kinds of environments. I 
am proud to have been a cosponsor of the amendment to the crime bill, 
offered by Senator Kohl, to ban the transfer or possession of a handgun 
by a minor.
  It is almost stunning--in fact people are very often surprised when I 
tell them--that it is not currently illegal under Federal law for a 
minor to possess a handgun or for an adult to give a handgun to a 
minor.
  While I do not believe a ban on hand-gun possession by minors will 
solve all the problems associated with juvenile violence, I do believe 
this amendment--along with the provisions already in the crime bill--
can continue to make a difference in combating that problem. I cannot 
imagine--getting back again to the second amendment--I cannot imagine 
that the founders of our great country intended to grant children 
unlimited, unsupervised access to the gun of their choice.
  My praise for this bill does not mean I believe it is a perfect piece 
of legislation. I do not know that there is such a thing as a perfect 
piece of legislation precisely because the process is intended to 
function, is designed to function, as a process of compromise and give-
and-take. We pass the best bills we can, and then we improve them over 
time.
  As a long time opponent of the death penalty I, frankly, do not 
support the expansion of the death penalty to over 60 crimes in this 
bill. And, given the overwhelming evidence--and I have spoken to this 
on this floor more times than I like to think about--but given the 
overwhelming evidence of discrimination in the application of the death 
penalty--particularly in the Federal criminal justice system--I regret 
that the Racial Justice Act was not included in this crime bill. We 
know that, under the Federal death penalty adopted in 1988 for drug 
kingpins, a sentence of death has been sought against 36 defendants. 
Four of those defendants have been white, 4 have been Hispanic, and 
28--77 percent--have been black. This despite the fact that 75 percent 
of defendants charged under that same law have been white.
  We also know, because the General Accounting Office has told us based 
on their evaluation of 28 studies on the effect of race in capital 
sentencing, that there exists, and I quote, ``a pattern of evidence 
indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and 
imposition of the death penalty.'' So I deeply regret that my 
colleagues in this body did not see the need to accord to those charged 
with death the same rights as those denied an apartment or fired from a 
job--the right to use statistics to prove their discrimination claim.
  The fact the Racial Justice Act did not receive the support of this 
body is, in my opinion, regrettable. But President Clinton has pledged 
that he, along with Attorney General Reno and other supporters of the 
Racial Justice Act, will work together to see to that the death penalty 
under the Federal justice system will be administered in a non-
discriminatory, fair, manner. That was the only point that the Racial 
Justice Act intended to address--that there be some fairness in the 
application of the law, and that the death penalty be applied based on 
what a person has done, not who that person is.
  I am also disappointed the conference committee chose not to adopt an 
amendment that I had offered to the crime bill--that passed the Senate 
with an overwhelming 64 votes--mandating that juveniles who commit 
serious violent crimes with a firearm be prosecuted as adults. Instead, 
the conference committee chose to make such prosecutions discretionary.
  I am certainly pleased that the conference committee recognized that 
we can no longer afford to indulge the fiction that young teenagers are 
incapable of appreciating the seriousness of their actions when they 
kill or rob or maim someone with a gun. However, I believe the 
discretionary nature of this provision will function much the way 
similar provisions in State courts have, with minority youth being 
disproportionately more likely to be tried as adults than nonminority 
juvenile offenders. Eliminating the discretion would have eliminated 
the potential for discrimination in the treatment of juvenile 
offenders.
  But I do not expect to agree with each and every provision in a bill 
as large and as comprehensive as this one. For me, the decision whether 
or not to support this bill was not predicated on any one particular 
provision. Instead, the question was whether or not the bill as a whole 
was a good one, one that will make Americans feel safer on our streets, 
in our schools, and in our homes.
  In closing, I want to commend Senator Biden for all the work he has 
put into this bill and, frankly, for his patience in guiding it not 
only through this body, but through the conference committee and 
through the House of Representatives as well. If anything, the fact 
that we have a crime bill at all is due in large part to the work of 
the Senator from Delaware, and I commend him on his tenacity. The fact 
that it has taken 6 years is probably to be expected, given the kind of 
emotion that attaches to these issues.
  I think the most important thing we have done here is to begin to 
take positive steps to fulfill our constitutional obligation to ensure 
domestic tranquility--to begin to give the people out there some hope 
that the Congress and the Senate and the House are not unmindful of 
what is going on out in the real world, of what is going on in the 
streets; that we really are committed to providing honest citizens with 
the security to which they are entitled. No community of people should 
be victimized or should have to lose their quality of life because of 
the activities of a few violent criminals.
  This crime bill goes a long way, I believe, in helping us to address 
this issue. It will not be a panacea. It will not solve crime. You will 
not see crime go away the day after this bill is signed into law.
  But it certainly will give us the tools with which to begin to 
address an issue that has just gotten worse and worse over time. We 
will have some tools with which to begin to reclaim our streets. We 
will have some tools with which to begin to give people the notion that 
we in Congress are serious about our responsibilities and we are going 
to try to help them get back the communities in which they live. We are 
going to begin to try to make the United States a safe place in which 
to live again.
  Again, I encourage my colleagues to pass this legislation, not to 
allow it to continue to be wrapped up in partisan politics. This is not 
a victory for President Clinton or victory for the House or victory for 
the Senate. Instead, it will be a victory for the American people when 
the crime bill is signed into law.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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