[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 26 (Thursday, February 9, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1545-H1549]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  2010

  It went into the places where maybe they had one officer in the town. 
In the city of Houston, obviously, we are constantly looking to find 
ways to improve the number of police-to-citizen relationship, to 
develop the relationship, but also to provide the protection. We needed 
as much as a smaller city in the State of Texas, or a county, or a 
hamlet, or a town, than may be in your fair State of Massachusetts.
  The issue becomes how do you relate law enforcement to the 21st 
century; how do you prevent gang violence. What you do, as has been 
said by the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Meehan], is you get those 
officers who are in plain clothes, who are in the neighborhoods, who 
are in the schools, to now who the characters are, if you will.
  At the same time, and I appreciate the gentleman's response, having 
served as a police officer for a number of years, you even get those 
local police officers to participate in Boys Club and Girls Club, and 
the Boy Scouts.
  I have an urban Scouting program, for example, in the city of 
Houston. Many police officers are involved in that. There is PAL. When 
you have the officers in the neighborhood, they are able to go into the 
schools and go beyond the call of city, to a certain extent, and even 
begin to look these youngsters in the eye and say, ``That is not the 
gang you want to be in,'' of either gain their confidence and get 
information that truly helped to, if you will, break the crime cycle.
  I think that is very important. This is not an issue that is an issue 
for large cities, large States, it is an issue of crime prevention for 
this particular Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate the gentleman's response about police 
involvement in those kinds of activities.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, it is certainly very helpful, because it 
humanizes police officers. It is not just whether it is a police 
athletic league or teaching about DARE, DARE to keep the kids off 
drugs, a program that was developed in L.A., and it is taught 
nationwide, or whether it is seeing the police officer in the school.
  When you put a human being--and it ges back to the community policing 
concept of building trust, confidence, and respect for law enforcement.
  What are we doing here, as we were talking earlier tonight? In the 
bills that are pending before this floor right now, the Republican 
crime bill of taking back the streets, there is not one program 
earmarked to humanize the police, to even provide us one police. 
instead, they want this massive block grant program.
  What happened when we had it back in 1968? Did they form PAL? Did 
they put police officers in the schools? Here is an example of some of 
the things they did. The local people said, ``We know what is best. Let 
us do it. We can do it better. We know what works in Houston, 
Marquette, Michigan, or Lowell MA.''
  Here is what they did. In 1968 a sheriff in Louisiana purchased a 
tank--a tank to combat crime. In another State, they used $84,000 to 
buy an airplane--an airplane. The only value they got out of the 
airplane, other than to buzz the Governor around the State, was it had 
a very secret mission.
  That airplane came to Washington, DC, picked up some Moon rocks, and 
went back to the State from whence it had come. That was the only law 
enforcement
 function of that airplane you could consider, because that must have 
been top security, picking up some Moon rocks, but $84,000 went there.

  Or how about one of the Southern States, which started a cadet 
program, a law enforcement cadet program to help out young people, as 
the gentlewoman suggests? Do you know what the cadet program was? Some 
$117,000 was spent for that sheriff's family members and friends of his 
to have a job at the expense of taxpayers.
  Or another city, they used $200,000 in LEAA grants to buy property--
to buy property. Another city used money to buy an unmarked car, so the 
mayor could drive around. This is the same type of program that they 
are telling us: ``Take about $10 billion, we will give it to the local 
communities. They know what is best in fighting crime.'' Not one police 
officer.
  Thirty-three percent, we have seen, back from the 1968 and seventies 
program, went to administrative costs, and what for? We did this 
before, for all of us who were here, but it happened before in 1968 and 
what was it used for? Tanks, airplanes, limousines, land. It goes on 
and on and on.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. STUPAK. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MEEHAN. I would like to point out, my colleague, the gentlewoman 
from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee], had talked about gang violence and what 
the difference is when the community police officers get into that 
community and learn that community.
  When I was assistant district attorney in Middlesex County I got a 
call one afternoon. It was about 2:15 one afternoon, and the State 
Police informed me that a 15-year-old boy from Lowell, MA, had been 
shot in the head, a culmination of what was gang activity in the city 
of Lowell during that time period.
  We had had an influx of Asian immigrants into the city, many of whom 
had been victims of crime, Asian crime on Asian crime, where the 
people, immigrants from other cultures who came from a culture where 
they did not necessarily trust authority and did not know what the role 
of the police department was, whose side the police department was 
really on.
  It was very difficult for us in the DA's office to get witnesses of 
crime to participate and to tell us what happened in a crime, because 
they did not know whether to trust us or whether to trust the police, 
so they did not trust anyone.
  In this murder of a 15-year-old boy, it was the culmination of months 
of gang activity in the city. People were keeping their sons and 
daughters home from Lowell high school.
  We sent a district attorney up to the scene of that. The DA, Tom 
Reilly, who is a very innovative and hardworking DA, went up to the 
city. We instituted a priority prosecution program there.
  We brought in people from the Asian community to the table of the 
mayor's office; we brought in the probation department that had the 
probation records of all the individuals involved. We brought in the 
school department, which could give us a perspective of who attended 
school, who did not, who the bad actors were, who the people were who 
were trying to get headed in the right direction.
  We brought the police department to the table. We also brought the 
DA's office to the table, and the DA met on this task force every 
single week, every week. We identified over a period of time the 25 
ring leaders of these gangs, the individuals who could not
 be rehabilitated, who had long criminal records, who the school 
department agreed, the probation department 
[[Page H1546]]  agreed, the police department agreed had to go off and 
they had to go to prison for as long as we could get them there.
  We were able to remove those 25 individuals and get them the toughest 
sentences we could. The question is, what do you do with the remaining 
individuals. If you do nothing, in 8 months or 9 months, you have 25 
new individuals again ready to be prosecuted and removed from society.
  However, we went a step further. The DA, Tom Reilly, established a 
community-based prosecution team where the police officers played a 
role in the community, and partnerships were formed in getting the 
police officers to understand the culture of many of the new 
immigrants.
  We started to get cooperation, because they realized they could trust 
the prosecutor's office, they could trust the police department. The 
soccer leagues, the police department, just as the experience in 
Houston, the police department played a role there.
  We had basketball leagues, and they are still going on today. Crime, 
Asian crime, the victims of crime decreased dramatically in that city.
  I know that my colleague, the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. 
Kennelly], is here, the vice chairman of the Democrat Caucus, a member 
of the Crime Task Force, and also a Member who has had, I know from 
conversations in committee work, many of these types of problems where 
you identify a problem, go in and do the cutting edge of what works, so 
I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut, [Barbara Kennelly.]
  Mrs. KENNELLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts 
[Mr. Meehan] and the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Stupak].
  Mr. Speaker, I came down here this evening as I listened to this 
conversation and wanted to join in, and say that so many of us who are 
in public life, or who run for public office, and are in large 
legislative bodies, such as this House, work for long periods of time 
on legislation.
  Sometimes we see the fruition of that legislation and sometimes we do 
not. It does not get out of committee or it comes to the floor and it 
does not go into law.
  This year's crime bill was totally different. In this year's crime 
bill, we really addressed some serious needs in our community. The 
crime bill came forth. We had crime bills in other years, but this was 
a good crime bill. Many of this body get behind that crime bill.
  What happened was that there was a pledge made by the President, the 
Attorney General, and Members of this body to put policemen on the 
streets of our local communities, on our city streets, on our town 
streets, and in our rural areas.
                              {time}  2020

  For me particularly it was an answer to a situation, and the 
gentlewoman from Texas has spoken about it, and the gentleman from 
Massachusetts did. We had a troubled city, and we had the formation of 
a Federal task force, and we all know they can do great good. But we 
all know it takes a long time to get things done. We had an awful time 
with the gang situation in the summer 2 years ago where the State 
police had to come in, and the cost of that was very high to taxpayers, 
and they could only stay so long. But the problems continued.
  We had, like so many cities have had, a terribly, terribly 
unfortunate situation happen. In fact, the thing that made me know I 
had to do something--I had to get involved and bring some hope--was a 
little girl riding in the back seat of a car on the way to see her 
grandmother, and she was killed, and it was a gang-related shooting, 
she died, and the community was terribly upset. That is only one 
example of what happens when these situations get out of control. And 
in this program, this crime package we had before us it said you could 
apply for additional policemen for your urban area, for your town, for 
your city, and that is exactly what we did; we did apply. I had the 
police chief of Hartford, CT, come down here, I had the mayor of the 
city come down here and meet with Attorney General Reno. She explained 
the program. We looked through the legislation and we realized this was 
tailor made for us. So exactly 5 months from when that crime bill 
passed, we now have grants that have 17,000 policemen across these 
United States, and in my own city there were 13 new additional 
policemen.
  I cannot tell my colleagues the hope that that gave to people, saying 
we understand there is a problem. We know it is going to take time to 
address this situation. We are continuing to do it. We have still a 
Federal task force in there. The whole community has rallied around so 
that the community works with the local police and all sorts of things 
have happened that have been good. But it was that hope and that 
understanding that people care and that you could get additional 
policemen out on the streets.
  Then earlier this week, and I am sure my colleagues all had the same 
situation, in my district six small towns each got one additional 
policeman, and they had applied through this particular piece of 
legislation. They applied and got this individual that will be on the 
streets of these small towns. And yes, the Federal taxpayers pay by 
sending their taxes in for 75 percent of these additional police, and 
the local community pays 25 percent.
  But the application was one page, just one page, and you did not have 
to apply. Obviously six of my towns did apply and they each got one 
policeman.
  Maybe for somebody who comes from New York City that is nothing. For 
somebody in a small town that is a big deal, and as I know the 
gentleman from Michigan understands because he was a policeman and he 
knows the difference that one additional policeman can make in a small 
town.
  Mr. STUPAK. If the gentleman will yield on that point, in the Cops 
Fast Program which was announced yesterday, where you mentioned you had 
six police officers and they said there was no need for extra police in 
this country, the statistics that stuck with us yesterday when we 
reviewed and announced these grants was Cops Fast, which for 
communities under 150,000, they could apply for one or two police 
officers or whatever their needs were on a one-page form, eight 
questions. They filled it out. It had to be in by January 1. They would 
make announcements
 in February. The forms were sent out in November.

  Half, one-half of all cities under 150,000 people in this country 
applied to receive a police officer. One-half of all towns, cities, 
villages, townships under 150,000 applied for these police officers.
  As of yesterday the announcement was made that the President and the 
Attorney General authorize 7,000 more police officers to go and spread 
out across this great Nation to help fight crime.
  In my district, which is a very rural district in northern Michigan, 
and my largest city is 17,000, which I spoke of earlier, Marquette, 
they received a police officer. But in my communities throughout my 
massive district of 23,000 people we had 49 agencies apply and awarded 
police officers. So in the northern Michigan area we have 49 more 
police officers, thanks to this program. And whether it is a big city, 
and Detroit earlier with the Cops More got 96 police officers to do 
community policing.
  So it works and the need is there. Fifty percent of all of the cities 
under 150,000 in this great Nation applied from Alaska, Florida, 
Michigan, Connecticut.
  Mr. MEEHAN. When was the last time the gentleman saw a program where 
you could apply for a grant on one sheet, anyone could fill it out, any 
police department? Not only that, when is the last time the gentleman 
saw a Federal program produce results so quickly?
  Mr. STUPAK. And what do they want to do?
  Mrs. KENNELLY. They want to repeal it.
  Mr. STUPAK. That is right; eight questions, one sheet. You did not 
have to hire a consultant or an expert in grants to write a grant. All 
you had to do was to fill out the form, and they want to repeal it.
  Back in the 1970's with the LEAA Program, 33 cents of every dollar 
went for administrative costs, for the experts and the people to write 
the grants, and we do it on one page, and it is effective and it is 
efficient, it is fast and it does the job. It puts the money 
[[Page H1547]]  in the police officers where they belong. And they want 
to do away with it. Why?
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. The gentleman has a very good point if he will yield 
for just a moment. As I listened to the discussion, and let me applaud 
the gentleman from Massachusetts for his creative leadership as a 
district attorney. I think when we get into this discussion and we move 
away from the bipartisan spirit, which is what I am hearing from the 
gentlewoman from Connecticut, that towns and hamlets, and I imagine you 
could not tell me whether they had a Republican voting population or a 
Democratic voting population, but they were the far gambit of citizens 
across the Nation. I think we are going up the wrong road if we begin 
to separate victims from law enforcement and prevention.
  The gentlewoman's detailing of a tragedy that occurred in her 
community reminded me of a tragedy in mine, as we can all indicate, and 
likewise the gentleman from Masschusetts, where youngsters were having 
a birthday party and enjoying a 13th birthday party, and tragically, in 
a drive-by shooting, gang-related, we lost a teenager. But that parent 
was so grateful for the police they had developed a relationship with, 
the officers that were close to the neighborhood, and close to the 
youngsters, because soon after the culprits, if you will, were 
immediately targeted because of those officers being close.
  It is somewhat similar to the story of the gentleman from 
Massachusetts about people becoming more comfortable with the officers 
that they know and being able to bring them together in order to solve 
crime. And we
 have a very diverse city, Asians, Hispanics, African-Americans, and 
Africans, people from east India, a very diverse community, and we have 
been able to use this program to expand our police department to relate 
to some of the diverse communities and to be as creative as you have 
been in Massachusetts to solve crimes.

  So I think the real question is, Is the proposed bill prepared to 
solve crime or is it something that wants to clearly respond to 
campaign pledges, because if it is on track to solve crimes, and they 
will listen to the real Americans in these hamlets and towns, in the 
large urban areas, former police officers, district attorneys, myself 
having served as a former municipal court judge, to say that it is very 
important that victims are helped. We do not want them to be victims, 
but the one thing we sure want to have happen is that that crime be 
solved, because it is a tragedy. How can you do it without more police 
officers?
  Mr. MEEHAN. The gentlewoman is absolutely right. Someone coming into 
a district attorney's office with a family member who has been 
murdered, you do not ask if they are Democrat, Republican, or 
Independent, and anybody who is for fighting crime, any Governor, 
whether it is Weld of Massachusetts, or a Republican district attorney 
in Suffolk, they support community policing and crime prevention 
because they know what crime is all about.
  This should not be a partisan issue. We had bipartisan support for 
this bill when it passed, bipartisan support, and everyone stood up. I 
remember the debate on the floor of the House when I stood in the well 
and I challenged Members of this Congress who did not vote for this on 
the other side of the aisle that if they were really serious about 
fighting crime they ought to volunteer for 2 weeks in a district 
attorney's office in their districts anywhere in America, because all 
it takes is opening your eyes and going into one of those district 
attorney's offices, or a police department. And if you go in and find 
out what is happening with community policing programs, and what has 
happened in district attorneys' offices anywhere in America, you can 
never come back and vote to dismantle the program.
                              {time}  2030

  Mrs. KENNELLY. The gentlewoman from Texas, a new Member, just been 
here a short time this session, but that was such a thrill to see real 
legislation passed that has real results that people could focus on.
  What happened was we identified a problem, and we found a solution, 
and it was additional policemen in the communities that needed it, and 
that happened. The results were tangible.
  And now what we are seeing, I guess, is a real push to roll this 
program back, to end this program that has worked, something that you 
can look at, that you can see, and that you can know that your streets 
are going to be safer. And we are going to roll it back and say OK, 
never mind, even though it has worked, never mind, we are going to do 
some block granting and you can do whatever you want with the 
taxpayers' money, and maybe you can help your budget to be a better 
budget, but the point was not that. This was a crime bill last year. We 
found there was a need for additional policemen in communities. That 
was addressed. The policemen are now in the communities.
  The grant system did work. Janet Reno, our Attorney General, put her 
whole self behind this, I tell the gentlewoman from Texas; it has been 
so wonderful to see, not only some bipartisanship, but to see the 
branches of Government working together, the President calling for 
this, the Attorney General putting herself and her staff, long hours, 
to make this work, making the program better as it went along, because 
this has been round upon round.
  I know I see people who want to change it. Of course, this is a 
legislative body. We should have new legislation. We should have new 
ideas. But when you just get a good idea last year, and it is working, 
and everybody is able to say look, this is going to help our 
communities, they say no, never mind.
  So I just wanted to come down tonight and say it is working in my 
community. I really think the people of my district feel that their 
taxpayers' dollars are being well spent so that we can deal with the 
situation in our communities of crime which we wish we did not have but 
we have found a solution.
  So I want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for calling this 
special order, because it was a fine time in this country that we could 
pass legislation and address the needs of the people of this country. I 
am just really kind of surprised that we are now going to change our 
minds and do something different. I just hope we do not.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I am listening to you and listening to the intensity 
of your remarks about how much the communities gravitated to be able to 
have this opportunity and how much they responded to it.
  I had the opportunity to meet with representatives from the 
International Chiefs of Police and, yes, I meet with the people that 
are not inside the city of Houston, which is the largest city in the 
State, but they were from Plano, TX, and Georgetown. They were training 
to go and meet with all the members of the delegation to simply say 
that in their respective communities it was important to get that one 
officer, and they were certainly concerned about this whole issue of 
dollars going without any direction to a large entity and whether or 
not you would ever get to this small community to be able to help them 
out on some of the things they needed, particularly in Houston.
  I just wanted to finish on this point about neighborhood policing and 
the comfort level that communities develop. Minorities, inner-city
 neighborhoods are in extreme need, if you will, for that kind of 
relationship with their law enforcement community, and it has worked, 
and we have done the neighborhood policing or modification thereof or 
had the officers go into the community or have been able to get, as 
what happened in Texas, 349 Texas police departments would be allotted 
some $20 million to fill 366 positions, when we have had those extra 
positions, we could then look to hiring individuals from diverse 
minority groups and backgrounds, women, and all of those helped to make 
a richly diverse and importantly contributing police department.

  Because what it says is those people look like you and me and when 
they go into the neighborhood, it is such a difference, not only 
prevention and law enforcement but also in solving the crime. That is 
what you want to have happen, developing the trust and that is why I am 
flabbergasted as to why we would not continue a program like this.
  Mrs. KENNELLY. Am I correct, the gentlewoman not only was a judge, 
but was also a city councilwoman?
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Yes; I was.
  [[Page H1548]] Mrs. KENNELLY. Well, I think we have a bond here. 
Because where I learned about the success of the community policing, 
the cop on the beat, the neighborhood person being able to relate with 
the policeman who is protecting them, and they are paying their 
salaries, where all of that happened is right in our cities and our 
towns. I was a city councilwoman, and I always felt so good about 
community policing, and I am so delighted it has come into being in 
this crime package with the additional police. We will have to talk 
about our days in city hall.
  But this is a program that city halls all across the United States 
are saying it works.
  Mr. STUPAK. Not just city halls all the way across the United States, 
but the other day at the press conference when we announced the Cops 
Fast Program, you know, we were joined by representatives of the FOP, 
the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Association of Police 
Organizations, there was a member there from the International 
Association of Chiefs of Police, and they said this program works.
  Do not go back to what we did in 1968 and the early 1970's with the 
law enforcement assistance agency, or administration. Let us not go 
back. Let us not go back. As Chief Vibrette said the other day when she 
was making an announcement, she said for too long from Washington, the 
Federal Government, in helping us fight crime was always one way, here 
is the way you do it, here is the way you do it, here is the way we do 
it; we always were told, we were always lectured, always preached.
  Underneath the crime bill that currently exists, it is a two-way 
street. It is a partnership. You are giving us what we need, police 
officers to help fight crimes in our community. We have formed 
partnership for once, just like community policing is a partnership 
with the community in which it serves, and let us not go back to those 
days. You have provided us with the financial incentive on a one-page 
form. You do not even have to put down the criteria of your community 
policing, but just have a police officer there.
  The purest form of prevention of crime is a police officer open and 
visible in that community.
  Mr. MEEHAN. And when I hear the rhetoric back and forth and all of 
these theories that seem to come out of political polls, focus groups, 
here is the evidence that matters: This is community policing in one 
particular community that shows a dramatic decrease in crime. It 
happens to be one community, Lowell,
 MA, police officers in the communities cutting crime.

  My colleague, the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee], mentioned 
her own city of Houston and the various groups of minorities. Lowell, 
MA, was a melting pot. I mentioned the Asian community in Lowell who 
are the most recent immigrants to this city and how difficult it was 
for them as victims of crime and how important our program was of 
community policing and priority prosecution, but the Irish settled in 
Lowell when we had a high French population in Lowell that settled 
there, Hispanics settled there. It has been a melting pot over a period 
of time. It is where the industrial revolution was born in this 
country, and it is always very, very important and critical that when a 
new group comes into the United States that they all have the 
communities, they have gone to form the partnership with law 
enforcement, with the schools, with the probation department. That is 
the only way that you can cut crime in an area, to form partnerships, 
to hear the rhetoric relative to the programs with boys' clubs and 
girls' clubs.
  You know, in Phoenix when basketball courts and other recreational 
facilities were kept open late, juvenile crime dropped 55 percent. It 
works.
  We have 13 new schools in Lowell, MA. Those schools are closed when 
school is over, beautiful new facilities, gymnasiums. And what do their 
kids have to do? They are on the streets. OK, that is how crime 
happens, kids hanging around the street.
  We have all of these new schools, and we have an opportunity to put 
together programs. We have a police department that is willing to 
volunteer. We need to open these structures up. We need to have the 
type of programs that involve tough prosecution.
  I mentioned the priority prosecution program. I am talking about 
identifying in this community 20 to 25 of the worst offenders and 
locking them up for as long as we could get them off the street, remove 
them.
  With the challenge of real law enforcement and really fighting crime 
is what you do with everyone that is left. That is what it is all 
about. And anyone who has ever fought crime knows that, and I cannot 
believe that our friends on the other side of the aisle do not know it 
as well, and maybe they are hoping that this will die in the other body 
or the President will veto it and they will not have to mention it, or 
they can make adjustments and call it their crime bill.
  It does not matter to me whether we call it a Democratic crime bill, 
a Republican crime bill, Clinton's crime bill, Janet Reno's crime bill. 
It is America's crime bill, and it works, and we should not be getting 
into partisan politics determining authorship or trying to tinker with 
the bill so that somebody else can take credit or there is an election 
coming down the road, and we have got to figure out how many seats for 
the Democrats and Republicans. All of that is nonsense. When we opened 
up, I made the point, and it is a very, very important point, fighting 
crime is serious business. It is really serious business. It is not 
partisan. It requires professionalism. It requires community 
involvement. This works.
  The last think we need to do is kill the program. Community policing, 
prevention programs for boys' clubs and girls' clubs and opening of 
facilities; the worst think we could do is kill this program because of 
sheer partisan politics.
  It is not in the interest of the country. I believe that any law 
enforcement official, anywhere these programs are working, would tell 
you the same thing. I mentioned Republicans, prominent Republicans, who 
are in law enforcement who support this program. Anyone who knows 
anything about these programs who have been involved, it does not 
matter whether independents or Republicans, they support these 
programs.
                              {time}  2040

  The last thing we need with America, frankly, looking at both 
political parties and saying, Please just give me programs that work, I 
don't want to hear that they are Democrat or Republican, I don't care 
if Clinton or Reno or somebody else did it. Let's get the job done and 
make or neighborhoods safe so we can improve our standards of living.
  That is what this is all about.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.
  Ms, JACKSON-LEE. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, clearly none of us is standing here this evening sharing 
our thoughts because it has happened in Massachusetts or it is 
happening in Michigan or in Texas. But it is something that is close to 
our hearts and our homes. Certainly, coming from Houston, a city that 
has already been postured, if you will, to receive some $9 million on 
the Cops Ahead Program, to get 123 new officers. But what that 
translates to, as the gentleman has evidenced, is dealing with 
youngsters, where you can stop the tide of crime. We have done some of 
the things the gentleman has mentioned, we have kept city parks open 
late at night, we have had the good fortune to have police officers 
volunteer to do that. That has impacted those youngsters by keeping 
them off the streets. Now, maybe we are spending too much time looking 
at late-night comedy shows because there was a lot of humor around the 
program at midnight basketball. I am going to look the American people 
in the eye and I hope those who look at this politically will really 
tell the truth. I am not suggesting that all will adhere to the program 
midnight basketball, but do the know that the program had police 
officers' involvement, do they know that the individuals participating 
would have GED degrees or would get the GED's or would get parenting 
skills?
  As the gentleman from Massachusetts said, do they know this is a 
business and it would be handled that way because of some of the 
guidelines that this particular program would put in place?
  [[Page H1549]] This bill was serious about crime prevention and 
putting police officers on the streets, the 1994 bill.
  It was more serious than in H.R. 728, because what it did was it 
prepared smaller cities and towns and counties for keeping the police 
officers.
  Mr. Speaker, I served on the National League of Cities board. We had 
all kinds of cities, 17,000 of them. The issue is, once we get them, 
how do you prepare so that we can continue to pay their salaries and 
pension? The bill that they have now our colleagues are supporting on 
the other side drops the money down and gives no preparation to these 
cities and towns on how to maintain these officers.
  At least, under the program in 1994 you could hire the officers, 
there were creative ways, a basis upon which those jurisdictions would 
know how to keep them, even some creativity in using it in overtime.
  So I am disappointed that we are not staying on the right path, if 
you will, that would take all these variables into consideration. I 
join you in pride of getting away from what party it is or whose 
President.
  I am glad our President was at the forefront of this.
  But to see what works for Houston, and I imagine across the country, 
in this direction it has worked and is working.
  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this 1-hour special order 
with my colleague from Massachusetts, and I commend him for bringing us 
together to speak on this important issue.
  The COPS program as authorized in the Violent Crime Control Act of 
1994, attempts to place 100,000 more cops on the street by the year 
2000. The COPS program is broken down into three grant programs: Cops 
Fast, Cops Ahead, and Cops More. The crime bill's community policing 
hiring program provides $8.8 billion in competitive grants for State 
and local law enforcement agencies to hire community policing officers 
and to implement community policing. Community policing is designed to 
complement traditional policing by forging effective, innovative crime 
prevention partnerships between law enforcement and the community.
  These programs are already moving to make their marks on our 
communities. Just yesterday, President Clinton and Attorney General 
Reno announced $434 million to help 6,600 law enforcement agencies hire 
7,110 community police officers under the Cops Fast police hiring 
program. Of this, 349 Texas police departments will be allotted 
$20,909,886 to fill 366 officer positions. Eighty police departments in 
the southern district of Texas will be allotted $5,151,452 to fill 85 
officer positions. Coupled with previous hiring grants, full awards 
under Cops Fast would bring the total number of new officers funded 
under President Clinton to 16, 674 in communities across America. And 
under the Cops Ahead Program, Houston has been awarded $9 million to 
fund positions for 123 new police officers. This amount will increase 
when applications for the Cops More Program receive consideration after 
the March deadline.
  We cannot roll back these promises with the changes that are proposed 
in H.R. 728, the Law Enforcement Block Grant Act.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, President Bush certainly was a supporter of 
midnight basketball; so during that period of time it was not so much 
of a partisan issue.
  I think if more people had the experience, those who served had the 
experience of watching a community, as I did, with 10, 12, 15 home 
invasions, rapes, robberies, home invasions over a very brief period of 
time, and watched the devastation that occasioned, and then watch a 
community-based prosecution program by the district attorney, Tom 
Riley, an effective district attorney, implemented in a community, and 
you watch home invasions dramatically decline, there is nothing more 
rewarding to a prosecutor, to a police officer, than to watch those 
home invasions develop the strategy that works and see them stop. There 
is nothing that could be more rewarding to any law enforcement 
professional but to see the results of professional law enforcement.
  I cannot help but believe if more Members in this body, whether they 
be Democrat or Republican, had that experience and saw the devastation 
that crime causes firsthand when you are called to a home to see that 
devastation and to see the difference when you
 implement a community policing program that works, we would not be 
having this discussion here tonight.

  I think we would all be better off, the country would be better off.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. STUPAK. The reason why we are here tonight is because probably on 
Monday we will have a very critical vote, and it is a vote not just 
which side is going to win or prevail but whether America wins in 
keeping police officers on the street, where we need them, to keep 
community policing viable and working throughout this great Nation.
  It is not who wins the most votes at the end of that vote on Monday, 
whether Democrats carry the day or Republicans carry the day; we want 
this country to carry the day by being safe in our homes, having more 
police officers available to them, and a crime bill that the taxpayers, 
really, are paying for, and then not going back to what happened in 
1968. The whole issue here and the reason why we have been here 
throughout this week is not to allow the current crime bill that is 
proceeding on this floor, to be debated again tomorrow and again on 
Monday, to take the money we have available for community policing with 
17,000 police officers authorized and we have 83,000 more, and we found 
a way to pay for it by cutting Federal employees.
  So it is paid for in the crime trust fund, not to devastate that 
program, not to replace it with a program that has block grant after 
block grant with no guidelines and all the waste we saw in 1968 and in 
the 1970's. Let us keep the program alive. We need the American people 
to help us get the message to their Representatives, whoever he or she 
may be, whether Democrat or Republican. I hope they call them tonight, 
tomorrow, and over the weekend and tell them to keep the cops program 
where it does the most good, on the streets, in our communities, 
whether you are a town of 17,000 or you are the size of Detroit or 
Houston or Lowell, whatever it is, that you have police officers.
  We have responded, the need is there. As the cops fast program 
proceeded, half of the towns in this great Nation under 150,000 applied 
for police officers and were helped out.
  Mr. Speaker, in summary, we are here because we need the help of the 
American people to keep cops on the street and not allow it to be 
devastated by the proposal that our friends on the other side of the 
aisle will bring to this body either tomorrow or Monday morning--Monday 
is when I believe the vote will take place. I believe the vote will 
take place on Monday.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, I echo my colleague's remarks because this 
is important. As a freshman Member, having arrived here 2 years ago, 
oftentimes i voted away from my party leadership. In looking at the 
vote tallies since we have been here, I see more party discipline than 
I do looking at issues. I hope Members on the other side of the aisle 
will vote the issue and not party leadership because that is the only 
way we are going to save this bill.
  I want to thank my colleague from Texas, Ms. Jackson-Lee, for her 
eloquent and competent work in the Committee on the Judiciary on this 
bill and also her input tonight and throughout the session. As I said 
earlier, she is clearly one of the shining stars of this new Congress, 
and I appreciate her involvement as well as that of my colleague from 
Michigan, Mr. Stupak.


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