[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H1295]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    COMPENSATION FOR VICTIMS OF CRIME SHOULD BE A BIPARTISAN CONCERN

  (Mr. LaTOURETTE asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, today this House will begin debate on 
the Victim's Restitution Act of 1995.
  While there may be honest points of disagreement in subsequent 
consideration of habeas corpus reform, restrictions on the exclusionary 
rule and the death penalty, there should be no difficulty in 
recognizing the absolute need within our justice system to compensate 
victims of crime for the horrors visited upon them by those who cannot 
abide by society's rules.
  In my tenure as a county prosecutor, the most commonly heard 
complaint by victims of crime was that their voices and their rights 
were the only absent parties from the criminal justice equation.
  The people are represented by the D.A.; the defendant had his high-
priced or taxpayer-supported mouthpiece--but the victim, like the 
cheese in the children's rhyme ``The Farmer in the Dell''--stands 
alone.
  And although financial recompense cannot replace the loss of personal 
security one suffers at the hands of the criminal, it is wholly 
appropriate that the wrongdoers pay in many ways for their inability to 
conform their behavior to socially acceptable standards.
  It has become commonplace for the pendulum to swing back and forth 
between protection of society and protection of defendants' due process 
guarantees. Today it is time it swings toward victim's rights--and 
after today, the victims of crime will no longer stand alone.


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