[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 194 (Thursday, December 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14210-H14211]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1445
                     IMPRISONMENT IS NOT THE ANSWER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Foley). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Gonzalez] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Speaker, for all of us, this is a holiday season--a 
time for reflection and renewal. This should most of all be a time to 
think about possibilities--the possibilities of doing the best we can.
  The other day I read a truly grim report: More than a million 
Americans are in prison. Last year, the rate of growth in prison 
population was the biggest ever.

[[Page H 14211]]

  Here in the United States, we lock up the biggest percentage of the 
population of any country in the world. The chances of landing in 
prison are 8 to 10 times higher here than in other industrial 
countries. And yet this is a far more dangerous country than most: 
Violent crime is far worse here than in Canada or Britain or France or 
Germany. So, clearly, locking people up hasn't made us safer.
  In Texas, there are 127,000 people in prison. That's nearly equal to 
the prison population of the whole United States less than 20 years 
ago. We also execute more criminals in Texas than in any other State. 
And yet, I don't think anyone would say that we've turned the corner on 
crime.
  These days, people look at prisons as a way of punishment, and the 
harsher the better.
  Ironically, prisons were invented as a more humane way to treat 
criminals. Prisons were supposed to replace brutal punishments that 
left offenders scarred or maimed--punishments that the Constitution 
calls ``cruel and unusual.'' The idea was to create a penitentiary. The 
word ``penitentiary'' was meant to describe a place where the miscreant 
would be isolated so that he could think about his offense and become 
penitent. The offender would spend a great deal of time alone, and be 
trained in a useful occupation. The idea was, in short, not just to 
punish, but to rehabilitate offenders.
  These days, the 19th century idea of penitentiaries is mostly 
forgotten. And yet, the best run Federal prison today--the one that 
costs the least to run, the one where there is the least violence among 
inmates, and the one where the inmates are least likely to become 
repeat offenders--is run exactly along the lines of the 19th century 
idea of prison as a tool of reform and rehabilitation. In other words, 
we actually can compare a humane prison against a brutal one, and we 
can see the results: the humane prison is cheaper to run and gets 
effective results; the brutal prison is more costly and only poisons 
prisoners and communities alike.
  Of course, not everyone can be rehabilitated. But in this season of 
hope and renewal, we ought to think about the growth of prisons, and 
ask ourselves why we are pouring more and more resources into a system 
that clearly does not work.
  There was a time when people were jailed if they failed to pay their 
debts. It was a curious and self-defeating thing: a person obviously 
could not pay a debt while in jail, so debtors' prisons were a burden 
on everybody: the creditor didn't get paid, the prisoner couldn't pay, 
and the local government ended up saddled with jails full of honest 
folks whose only crime was to be in debt.
  This got to be a real problem in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland in 
the year 1742. So the city's government did a wise thing: they 
commissioned an artist to write a musical piece, hoping that the 
resulting concert would raise some money to pay off the debts of some 
of the people who'd been imprisoned for debt.
  The composer who got the job was George F. Handel, and in just 26 
days he produced the gigantic oratorio, ``The Messiah,'' and it was a 
great hit: the city raised a great deal of money, paid off the debts of 
a number of prisoners, and freed them.
  Today, it's hard to imagine a city council smart enough to commission 
a concert to raise money to free prisoners. But we should think about 
the lesson here: surely there is a better thing to do than make a 
failing system even worse.
  After all, you can't quarrel with the results that the city fathers 
of Edinburgh got for their trouble: ``The Messiah'' was an instant 
success, and it freed prisoners and community alike of a terrible 
situation. What's more, ``The Messiah'' is the most performed choral 
work in history.
  If you happen to hear ``The Messiah'' performed this year. remember 
it was written because a local government wanted to make some money and 
free some prisoners.
  Maybe we can think about it, and come up with ways to free ourselves 
of the burden of a prison system which produces far more burdens than 
it does results. The least we can do in this season of hope and renewal 
is to ask ourselves why it makes sense to have more and harsher 
prisons, when the evidence is that prisons that try to rehabilitate 
prisoners, actually do get results, and are safer and cheaper to run.
  Shouldn't we think about the possibilities?

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