[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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