[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 128 (Tuesday, September 17, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10685-S10686]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DORGAN (for himself and Mr. Robb):
  S. 2082. A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to eliminate 
good-time credits for prisoners serving a sentence for a crime of 
violence, and for other purposes; to the committee on the Judiciary.


                The 100 Percent Truth in Sentencing Act

 Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, last Friday I spoke on the Senate 
floor about legislation that I am proposing to make Americans safer in 
their homes and communities. Today I am formally introducing that 
legislation, and I wanted to take a few moments to describe in further 
detail what my bill would do and why it is needed.
  All of us who are concerned about violent crime in this country know

[[Page S10686]]

that the causes of crime are complex and difficult. I certainly do not 
pretend to have all the answers. But there are some basic, commonsense 
steps we can take to reduce the amount of violent crime in this 
country--the first of which is to keep those people that we know are 
violent criminals off the streets.
  My bill, the 100 Percent Truth in Sentencing Act, will eliminate the 
award of good-time credits for violent offenders in the Federal prisons 
and require violent offenders to serve 100 percent of their sentences. 
This is not a punitive action against criminals; it is a preventive 
action against violent crime.
  Let me tell you why my bill will save lives and prevent violent 
crime. It does not take a genius to know who will commit the next 
crime--likely, it will be someone who already committed a crime. One-
third of all violent crime is committed by someone who is already know 
to the criminal justice system and is ``under supervision''--that is, 
out on the streets because of parole, probation, or pretrial release.
  This frightening statistic is not the result of actions by just a few 
hardened criminals. Rather, the majority of violent offenders will be 
rearrested for another crime within 3 years of their release. Fully 
one-third of all violent criminals released from prison will be 
rearrested for another violent crime within that timeframe.

  These statistics are well known and undisputed, yet more than 90 
percent of violent criminals are released early from prison. Back in 
1984, we acknowledged that early release leads to more violent crime 
and, as a result, we abolished parole in the Federal system. But our 
system continues to award ``good-time'' credits--essentially, time off 
for good behavior--to the most violent felons in the system. The reason 
is that good time credits are awarded automatically to almost every 
inmate. In the Federal prison system, every prisoner--regardless of how 
brutal their crime--receives 54 days of good time per year unless they 
violate significant prison rules.
  I could spend hours telling you about violent offenders who were 
released early from Federal prisons, but let me tell you about just one 
of them. Martin Link has a long history of brutal, violent crime. In 
1982, he grabbed a 15-year-old girl in an alley in south St. Louis, 
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. Although 
he was sentenced to 20 years in Federal prison, he was released in 6 
years because of combined 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 was still on the streets 
in 1991 when he murdered 11-year-old Elissa Self-Braun while she was 
walking home from her schoolbus. The same month that he murdered 
Elissa, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Link robbed, 
sodomized, and tried to rape a woman he grabbed at a self-service 
laundry, snatched another woman's purse, tried to rape another woman at 
knifepoint, almost abducted an 8-year-old girl, and held up an ice 
cream shop. If Link had served his full sentence for an 
earlier abduction and rape, none of these crimes would have been 
committed and Elissa would be alive today.

  Link is now serving a sentence of life in prison without parole. But 
in my view, the death of little Elissa was completely preventable and 
inexcusable. We know that violent criminals often repeat their crimes. 
At a minimum, we must take steps to keep violent offenders behind bars 
for the full terms of their sentences.
  This bill is not my first attempt to end good time for violent 
offenders. In 1994, I offered an amendment to the Violent Crime Control 
and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 designed to eliminate good time for all 
violent offenders unless they exhibited ``exemplary'' behavior while in 
prison. My intent was that only those violent offenders who 
demonstrated that they were rehabilitated would be released from 
Federal prison before the end of their sentences.
  That amendment was accepted and is now law. Unfortunately, the 
Justice Department has interpreted that provision to mean that violent 
offenders will continue to receive automatic good time credits unless 
they break significant prison rules. This was not the intent of my 
amendment in 1994, and the bill I am now offering clarifies my 
position: violent offenders should remain in jail until they have 
completed their court-imposed sentences.
  Prison officials tell me that they rely on good time credits as a 
disciplinary tool. On a recent visit to a Federal prison, officials 
told my staff that Federal inmates are increasingly young, 
undisciplined, violent, and unpredictable. ``Without good time to use 
as an incentive to control inmates,'' one official confided, ``we would 
fear for the lives of our prison guards!''
  I am very sympathetic to the arguments they raise. It is the job of 
prison administrators to control inmate populations and ensure a safe, 
orderly prison atmosphere. I would not take unnecessary risks with that 
important goal. However, it is our job, as United States senators, to 
secure the safety of those who live outside the prison walls--law-
abiding citizens taking an evening stroll, or stopping at the ATM 
machine, or, like Elissa Self-Braun, walking to a school bus from our 
home. To argue that inmates are too dangerous to keep in jail is 
outrageous and unacceptable.

  I am also skeptical that good time is a necessary or effective 
disciplinary tool in most cases. Prison officials have a broad range of 
disciplinary tools at their disposal, including visitation and 
telephone privileges, recreation time, commissary privileges, and work 
opportunities. Most of these incentives provide an immediate reward, 
while the reward of good time credits is not realized for many months, 
and often years, after the desired behavior. I am not a psychologist, 
but it seems to me that young, impetuous criminals are more likely to 
appreciate an immediate, rather than a long delayed, reward.
  In fact, statistics compiled by the Office of Justice Statistics seem 
to support this theory. Over the last few years, the incidence of 
violent misconduct in federal prisons has declined by more than 30 
percent, even though prison officials no longer have parole as an 
incentive and the amount of allowable good time has decreased from as 
much as 120 days per year (prior to 1984) to 54 days.
  The bottom line is this: early release for violent offenders costs 
lives. Today, there are more than 100,000 inmates in nearly 90 federal 
prisons and in contract facilities across the country. About 20,000 of 
these inmates are serving time for a violent offense. If they are 
released early from prison, 7,200 will be re-arrested for a violent 
crime within 3 years of their release.
  My bill, the 100 Percent Truth In Sentencing Act, is the most 
straightforward, common sense approach that I have seen for putting 
violent criminals behind bars and keeping them there. Senator Robb 
already has agreed to join me in co-sponsoring this legislation, and I 
hope all my colleagues will do the same.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill 
be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 2082

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``100 Percent Truth in 
     Sentencing Act''.

     SEC. 2. ELIMINATION OF CREDIT TOWARD SERVICE OF SENTENCE FOR 
                   SATISFACTORY BEHAVIOR.

       Section 3624(b) of title 18, United States Code, is 
     amended--
       (1) by striking ``(1) A prisoner'' and inserting ``(1)(A) 
     Subject to subparagraph (B), a prisoner'';
       (2) by striking the second sentence; and
       (3) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(B) A prisoner who is serving a term of imprisonment of 
     more than 1 year for a crime of violence shall not be 
     eligible for credit toward the service of the prisoner's 
     sentence under subparagraph (A).''.
                                 ______