[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 29 (Tuesday, February 14, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H1697]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                    CRIME BILL SHOULD PREVENT CRIME

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Flake] is recognized 
during morning business for 3 minutes.
  (Mr. FLAKE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, last year we in this Congress, working with a 
wide array of groups, joined together and drafted a realistic and 
humanitarian approach to the problem of solving crime in America. In 
the past, crime bills have simply increased various ways by which we 
execute people. They have limited the constitutional rights of 
individuals and they have established mandatory minimum sentences which 
allowed us to build more prisons, which merely supports an ever growing 
penal institutional industrial complexion.
  As we move forward in this crime bill, most of us are already aware 
that the bills of the past have not in any way decreased significantly 
enough the results of crime in this Nation. I doubt, moreover, that 
crime can ever be totally eradicated in America as a result of this or 
any other legislation.
  I am, however, resolute in my belief that the radically different 
approaches that are being taken this year in this year's crime bill 
will not in any way solve our crime problem. Furthermore, in some ways 
they abridge the ability to protect the rights of our citizens by 
virtue of our constitutional rights.
  We must do all in our power to protect those constitutional rights 
that are guaranteed automatically to those who are citizens of this 
Nation, and that means all of our citizens. I am not certain, nor do I 
see any way that this bill guards against the continued repeat 
offenders, the recidivists that go back to prison time and time again. 
They do not assure safe neighborhoods. They do not save this generation 
of mostly minorities who drown in oceans of despair, of hopelessness, 
and of pessimism.
  Beyond creating new crimes and harsher crimes, last year's crime bill 
gave us true preventative measures. The $7 billion crime preventative 
package represented a groundbreaking attempt to create new measures by 
which we would create opportunities and alternatives which invested in 
our cities and our youth.
  This money was intended for 15 model programs, for intensive 
community services in high crime areas and grants to local governments 
for speedy access to flexible funds for anticrime activities.
  Money had been allocated for drug courts and drug testing for first-
time offenders. This is important. This package represented an 
important shift in resources and attention to front-end solving of the 
problem, the neglect of our cities and children that produced the 
apparent conditions in which crime and violence is allowed to thrive.
  Yet today, Mr. Speaker, this Congress will begin abandonment of 
preventative measures to prevent crime. Instead of guaranteeing 
preventative measures, we are telling our citizens that we want to 
return to the good old days of wasteful spending by fiscally 
irresponsible governments and politicians who do not have the best 
interests of the people at heart.
  In essence, we are sending them a blank check. We are failing to live 
up to our responsibility, and we are offering no innovative crime 
measures.

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