[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 127 (Monday, September 16, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10573-S10576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            CRIME IN AMERICA

  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, as most people know now, over the 
weekend, our former Senate majority leader announced in very broad, 
very specific, very forceful terms his plan to come to grips with a 
surging, raging crime wave in the United States.
  All the data that I have seen over the last several years have 
indicated that crime, drugs, and the related two, are at the top or 
near the top over and over of grave concern on the part of American 
citizens. And well they should be,

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because at least the first premise of Government is to protect the 
persons and property and citizens of the United States.

  You cannot separate drugs from crime. Today, of the 80 percent of the 
35,000 prisoners that are incarcerated in my State, they are there in 
prison from drug-related actions. As our attorney general, Attorney 
General Bowers, has said over and over again in Georgia, you can no 
longer separate the two. We are in the midst of a new drug epidemic; 
therefore, we will be in the midst of a surging crime epidemic.
  There is no way to fully document the ill-effect that the drug 
epidemic, drug-related crimes have done to the citizens of our country, 
and in the cost of lives, personal property. It is stunning data any 
time you look at it. It just begs for leadership to come forward.
  Over the weekend, Senator Dole said that if he were elected 
President, he would cut teen drug use in half. What does that mean? 
That means that two million youngsters would not be using drugs, when 
he is successful, that are today. I can not think of a more important 
commitment to make to America than to turn the drug war back on and to 
put the warning out to families and churches and business leadership 
across our country that we would have an administration that is going 
to be highly focused on drug use among teenagers.
  As we all know now, drug use among teenagers has doubled in the last 
36 months. It has gone up 33 percent in the last 12 months alone. And, 
in addition to the broad tragedies that we suffer by those individuals 
who have been ensnared in the drug epidemic, there will be hundreds and 
hundreds of families, in each case, that are caught up by the reaction 
to drug use and the crime that it festers.
  We have the distinguished Senator from Montana who has joined us here 
this afternoon. I know he has had a long interest in the issue of crime 
and its impact on America. I yield up to 7 minutes to the Senator from 
Montana on this subject.
  Mr. BURNS. I cannot have the rest of that?
  Mr. COVERDELL. We will amend that as needed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Frist). The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BURNS. I thank the Chair, and I thank my good friend from 
Georgia.
  We have just got in some interesting figures from Montana. I guess 
that is why some of us are very concerned about this, not only from a 
political standpoint--this is the season, and nobody can lift that out 
of this, out of the element of debate--but if you ask Americans today, 
``Do you feel safer than you did 4 years ago,'' we hear an 
overwhelming, ``No.'' People are feeling threatened more and more in 
society. I think it comes from this old mindset of ``only obey the laws 
you agree with.'' It is a mindset.
  Just in my State of Montana, violent crime has gone up 8 percent last 
year, and overall crime has gone up 16 percent since 1994. That 
concerns me because we are a small State. We are known as a State with 
hardly any crime, but there was a murder every 10 days last year--that 
concerns me--a rape every 38 hours; a robbery every 34.5 hours; 
property crime occurred every 13 minutes; and burglaries happened at a 
rate of 1 every 2 hours. That sort of concerns me a little bit.
  Before I had the opportunity to serve here in the U.S. Senate, I 
served on the board of county commissioners in Yellowstone County. We 
built a new jail facility and went through that process of detention 
centers, and we also received a very nice award for a youth detention 
center. I was convinced, as we went through that process, that 
somewhere in this crime prevention, or how we deal with crime, there 
has to be some common sense injected in here.

  We know that we cannot outbuild the criminal element to just lock up 
everybody. So we have to find ways not only to deter--one of them is 
not getting on television and having a low disregard for the laws of 
the land. You know, as adults, we teach our youth every day, some days 
we even use words. But that concerns me more than anything else because 
I have a young son, I have a daughter who will graduate from medical 
school next year, and they are concerned about crime and crime among 
the young people.
  When we take a look at what we did in Yellowstone County in a youth 
detention center, I think we have to work with States, because the real 
violent offenders in crime, I don't think we can do much but just hold 
down on them and keep them in confinement. I think we should work to 
abolish the very liberal parole rules that some States have. I do not 
think there is anything wrong--and why should it be wrong--to require 
drug testing for those under supervision in the criminal justice 
system.
  I ask the American people why it is wrong to establish a registry for 
the release of violent sex offenders, the Megan's law. I see no reason 
why we should not move forward on that. And child pornography, we have 
to move on that. But juvenile crime worries me more than anything else, 
because I guess I got into politics because of youth. I have sort of a 
soft spot in my heart for them.
  I have worked very much with 4-H groups and FFA groups, and those are 
kinds of groups--can you imagine any other kind of group than the 
Future Farmers of America where you can pour 31,000 of them, with those 
blue jackets, in downtown Kansas City, and you never have to put an 
extra cop on the beat? We need to be promoting those kinds of youth 
groups that espouse their way of thinking and the way they act. I know 
every Senator in this body gets calls from their local FFA chapters 
across this country.
  So we have to do some things that deter crime. We have to promote 
those groups and organizations that do have their values in the right 
place. We have to ask some of the hard questions. But some of them are 
going to have to have common sense, too. The alarming increase of teen 
drug use, marijuana use, between 12- and 17-year-olds has increased 
some 200 percent in the last 2 years--200 percent. Why? We had it going 
down for a while. We had it going down by just one little statement 
from the First Lady in the White House, who said, ``Just say no.'' We 
need to help them say no; and when they say no, stick by them. That is 
what we have to look at. It is concerning to me that we would look at 
it any other way.
  Do we want to prosecute juveniles as adults for adult crime? Maybe 
sometimes. Maybe we should use some common sense there and provide past 
criminal records for juveniles in sentencing. There is nothing wrong 
with that.
  We came a long way in attacking the root cause of crime and drugs in 
the inner city a few short weeks ago when we passed the welfare reform 
bill. It deals with dependency and illegitimacy in ways that have never 
been tried before. It is a big step in the right direction, and yet the 
job is not over.

  When we take a look at what is ahead of us, we have to start 
appointing judges that interpret the law--do not make the law, 
interpret the law. The elected officials of this country make the laws. 
Judges interpret them. We need to start appointing Federal marshals and 
prosecutors that want to prosecute drug dealers and child pornographers 
rather than making excuses for them that they were just victims of 
society. If there has ever been a cop-out in America, it is some 
psychologist or some person who is saying, ``Well, they're victims of 
society, and leniency should be shown.'' That is a one-way ticket down 
the drain for this country, when we start making excuses for people who 
knowingly break the law.
  Let us take another end of it--victims' rights. I think we ought to 
have an amendment to the Constitution. Victims have to have some 
rights. All the rights are not with the felon. It is time to reform the 
court system, limit appeals, and punish criminals quickly. Keep violent 
criminals behind bars so they cannot commit more crime. It is time to 
stop these election-year games and take a stand for what is right. We 
should just do what is right.

  I was in Illinois on Saturday for my friend Bob Dole. How many 
mothers did I talk to that are concerned--they have teenagers in high 
school in rural areas. Where they have never had problems before, they 
are coming up with these problems and saying there has to be a more 
liberal way of dealing with discipline and all those elements.
  I imagine most of us who serve in this body, when we were in school, 
if you got a licking in school, you got one when you went home. They 
did not ask

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why you got a licking. They did not even ask. My dad did not even ask 
whether I was right or wrong. The fact is you got a licking, and if you 
warranted one there, you warranted one here. There was a time I was a 
victim of society. There was a time when the whole world was against me 
and I was that victim. I do not think it hurt very many of us.
  I want to say one word. Not only can we do something here, but we 
adults, like I said a while ago, we teach every day. Some days we even 
use words. We are going to have to get on the ground with these young 
people and we are going to show them they have support to do the right 
thing, not the wrong thing. It has to be done here. It has to be done 
across our Nation, and, yes, the national leaders have to set the 
example. I am asking America, what kind of example are we setting?
  I yield back my time.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I thank the Senator from Montana. I think he would 
agree with me that this five-point plan where Senator Dole pledges to 
cut teenage drug use in half--by 50 percent--to end revolving door 
justice, to hold violent juveniles accountable for their actions, to 
make prisoners work, and to keep guns out of the hands of criminals is 
exactly the prescription to get at the tone and the issues that the 
Senator from Montana alluded to.
  Mr. President, we have been joined by the senior Senator from 
Mississippi, a long and loyal colleague of our former Senate majority 
leader. I yield up to 10 minutes to the Senator from Mississippi on 
this matter.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from 
Georgia for yielding me this time. I join him in commending the 
distinguished Senator from Montana for his remarks.
  Our former colleague has proposed a very important new plan to deal 
with what has to be the most serious challenge that our governments--
Federal, State, and local--face today, the epidemic of crime and 
violence in our society.
  This plan has meat to it. It has substance to it. It is thoughtful. 
If we will embrace it and join Bob Dole in seeing that it is enacted 
and administered in the way it is proposed, I think we will get 
results. It is time we turned the country around, turned the country 
around from ever-increasing drug abuse and violent crime to an era when 
people assume responsibilities for their own actions and they are held 
accountable for their own actions, whatever their age, and that they 
are treated in a way that deters action in the future that is a menace 
to innocent society members.
  In our society we have a number of efforts that are underway to try 
to deal with the core problems. There is a wonderful program called 
Character Counts. In Ocean Springs, MS, during the week of October 13-
19, the schools will have special programs to observe the importance of 
good character in not only students, but faculty, administration 
officials, and the communities at large across America. We need to 
restore America to the place where we have been looked up to as an 
example for the rest of the world in terms of community spirit, 
recognition of what is right and wrong, a country that stands for 
democracy and principles of freedom that have been an inspiration to 
many countries all over the world.

  What this program suggests is there are six essential elements or 
core pillars to good character: trustworthiness, respect, 
responsibility, caring, citizenship, and fairness. These are important 
and indispensable individual traits if we are to have a successful, 
free society. It is on that basis and on that premise that I think Bob 
Dole establishes this five-point plan of action. An essential part of 
this is holding juveniles accountable for drug abuse, for criminal 
acts, and for other violations that put the safety and security of 
others in jeopardy.
  Something has to be done about it. Something is being done about it, 
but not enough. We need to do better. We need stronger leadership, a 
better example of leadership at the top. That is a part of this, too. 
An example is that we have seen the abuse of drugs go up by 105 percent 
for teenagers between the ages of 12-17 from 1992 to 1995. Before that 
time, drug use was going in the other direction. It was going down. Now 
it has turned and is going up again. We have to ask why.
  What does this lead to? A third of all juvenile criminals are under 
the influence of drugs at the time of their criminal offense. That is 
what happens. There are consequences for everybody for the failure to 
exert good, commonsense, strong, committed leadership in this area.
  I traveled one day with the sheriff of Hinds County, MS. He told me, 
as we looked firsthand at some of the problems in the largest populated 
county in my State, he said public enemy No. 1 in the State of 
Mississippi is crack cocaine. I am sure that is the case in many, many, 
other towns and communities and cities throughout this country. What do 
we do? We have a White House that cut the programs to deal with this. 
They cut the Office of Drug Control Policy by 83 percent. They cut the 
number of drug agents. The U.S. attorneys used to be challenged by the 
President and the Attorney General to do something about those who are 
committing offenses with guns. There was an Operation Triggerlock, you 
remember, an effort to go out on the streets and get those who are 
using guns to commit violent acts and crimes and lock them up, put an 
end to it. Take the guns away from them.
  What is being done now? The arrests for that kind of behavior are 
down considerably in this administration. I think we need to turn it 
around. I think the five-point program Bob Dole has recommended is just 
what we need. We need to make the fight against drugs a top national 
priority again. We need to support his effort to create 1,000 new 
community-based antidrug coalitions.
  There is another part of this plan that strikes me as being very 
important. We need to have the Federal Government assisting, 
supporting, helping States and local communities deal with this 
problem, not imposing arbitrary new, hard-to-follow regulations that 
are expensive, that make it more difficult to operate prisons, that do 
a variety of things that really undercut the efforts being made by law 
enforcement at the State and local level.
  He suggests that we assist the States in keeping violent criminals 
behind bars completing their sentences.
  There is another part--holding juveniles accountable for their 
actions. The distinguished Senator from Georgia mentioned that. Youth 
violence is on the rise. Mr. President, 35 percent of all violent 
crimes are committed by those who are younger than 20 years of age. 
What Bob Dole is recommending and what we are suggesting is a good idea 
is to revise the Federal juvenile justice system to hold juveniles 
accountable.
  The Senator from Tennessee, Fred Thompson, is chairman of the 
Juvenile Justice Subcommittee here in the Senate. He recommended a new 
approach to try to find out what programs at the local level are 
working, support them with Federal assistance and initiatives that 
reward those for following these paths and these new procedures, and to 
do something about those who commit crimes as juveniles; consider 
treating them as adults in certain circumstances. No longer coddle the 
juvenile just because he is younger, because some are more dangerous 
than adults. That is what has been overlooked.
  This administration has done absolutely nothing about that, 
absolutely nothing. The program that he is suggesting will authorize 
new funds to assist in the investigation and apprehension of juvenile 
offenders, collect and distribute juvenile records to help better deal 
with this problem, and authorize new funds to be spent on prevention 
programs that involve parents and community based groups.
  That example I cited a while ago, the Character Counts Program, is a 
good example of something that could be done on the prevention side. We 
are not talking about punishing everybody in an arbitrary or cruel way. 
We are talking about a balanced approach to doing something more likely 
to be successful in this area. One thing that I am convinced Bob Dole 
will do, in accordance with the plan that he proposed, is that he will 
end the interference by Federal judges and Federal agencies into the 
proper administration of State prisons. It is about time.
  There is also a part of the program that deals with keeping guns out 
of the hands of criminals. We have heard about the National Instant 
Check Program. We had that as part of the crime

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bill. He wants to make it a top priority in order to prevent criminals 
from purchasing any type of gun. There is a procedure for it. He will, 
as President, instruct the Attorney General to target violent crime by 
making maximum use of Federal law to get dangerous gun using criminals 
off the streets and into prison. That is reminiscent of Operation 
Triggerlock--I assume that is exactly what we will have reinstituted 
again--which has been abandoned and turned down and discontinued by 
this President. There was an emphasis on the U.S. attorneys going after 
those who commit crimes using guns. There has been a noticeable dropoff 
in prosecutions for those crimes by this administration.
  In conclusion, what does this action plan do? It provides a sound, 
sensible, thoughtful blueprint for coordinated Federal and State 
efforts to combat violent crime and reverse the current trends in the 
use of drugs that have led to so much violence in our society.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I thank the senior Senator from 
Mississippi very much for coming forward and speaking to this critical 
issue of crime and the tragedy it is causing across our country, and 
for highlighting these very targeted suggestions that we now have from 
Senator Dole to get at this core problem. I appreciate very much the 
Senator's remarks here this afternoon.
  Senator Johnston from Louisiana has just come on the floor. He has a 
very distinguished guest.
  I yield 2 minutes to Senator Johnston for the purpose of this 
introduction.

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