[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 126 (Friday, September 13, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S10536]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 CRIME

  Mr. DORGAN. In the next 3 or 4 minutes I will introduce a piece of 
legislation. It is late in the session, but I intend to push on this 
legislation in the next session of Congress, as well. It deals with 
crime.
  One-third of all violent crimes in this country are committed by 
people who are under supervision. Under supervision means people on 
probation, parole, or pretrial release. One-third of all violent crimes 
are committed by people we know because they are already in our system. 
They are in jail and let out. In most cases, they are let out early. It 
does not take Dick Tracy to figure out who will commit the next crime. 
In most cases it is someone who has committed a previous crime.
  Now, in the Federal system, which we control, we allow automatic good 
time for Federal prisoners. It is not supposed to be automatic because 
this Congress passed a piece of legislation, that I authored, that 
revoked automatic good time and said Federal prisoners will get good 
time only if the present system decides to bestow it upon them for 
exemplary behavior. The prison system interprets that differently and 
automatically gives every prisoner automatic good time off for good 
behavior. That is not what the Congress meant.
  Now, I have a different idea. I think in the Federal system and also 
in the State and local system in the criminal justice system, we ought 
to have a system that says to people who commit violent crimes: ``If 
you commit a violent crime you are going to go to prison and you will 
spend your entire term or sentence in jail.'' No good time off for good 
behavior. No rewards for doing well in prison. If you commit a violent 
act you will go to jail and stay in jail until the end of your 
sentence.
  We do not run the State and local criminal justice system, but we do 
run the Federal system. Let me give an example of one Federal prisoner 
named Martin Link. In 1982, Martin Link grabbed a 15-year-old girl in 
an alley in St. Louis, MO, sodomized her and tried to rape her. In 
1983, he forced another young girl into his car, took her to East St. 
Louis and raped her. He was sentenced to 20 years in Federal prison, 
and was released in 6 years because of a combination of good time 
credits and parole. Soon afterward, he got a year's probation for 
soliciting sex from an undercover agent. The next year, in 1990, he 
stole a car, but he was still on the streets in 1991 when he murdered 
an 11-year-old girl named Elissa Self-Braun while she was walking to 
her schoolbus from her home.
  This fellow is awaiting death in the Federal prison system. But he, 
like so many others convicted of violent crimes, was walking our 
streets early because we still have in the Federal system good time off 
for good behavior for those who commit violent crimes--for all Federal 
prisoners. For those who commit violent acts, it seems to me we ought 
to say in this country: ``Understand this, if you are a criminal and 
prepared to commit a violent act, there will be no reward for you once 
you get to prison.'' When you get to prison, whatever the judge says 
your sentence is, your sentence will be--no good time off for good 
behavior for those who commit violent crimes.

  Do you know that there are more than 4,000 people who have been 
murdered in this country--murdered by people who should not have been 
on the streets to murder anybody? They should have been in jail, in 
prison, but they were let out early. Now, the prison system authorities 
say, ``Well, we need incentives to make people behave in prison, and we 
need opportunities to tell people that if you behave behind bars, we 
will give you good time off for good behavior.''
  My interest is in establishing order on American streets. We don't do 
that by letting violent criminals out of prison before the end of their 
sentence. If they have trouble managing violent offenders in prison, 
think of what happens when those violent offenders get back on our 
streets.
  Let me end where I started. One-third of all violent crimes committed 
in this country are committed by people who are on probation, parole, 
or pretrial release. We know who they are, we know what they do, and we 
know what they are going to do. We ought to decide to get smart on 
these issues. In the Federal system we can decide that they will spend 
the entire time in prison, without good time off for good behavior. I 
am introducing my legislation which would do that. I invite my 
colleagues to cosponsor it. Recognizing we won't be able to advance it 
this year, I hope next year we will be able to have a vote on this 
piece of legislation.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

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