[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 58 (Wednesday, May 7, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H2313-H2333]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3, JUVENILE CRIME CONTROL ACT OF
1997
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 143 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 143
Resolved, That at any time after the adoption of this
resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 1(b) of rule
XXIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the
Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of
the bill (H.R. 3) to combat violent youth crime and increase
accountability for juvenile criminal offenses. The first
reading of the bill shall be dispensed
[[Page H2314]]
with. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall
not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the
chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on the
Judiciary. After general debate the bill shall be considered
for amendment under the five-minute rule. It shall be in
order to consider as an original bill for the purpose of
amendment under the five-minute rule the amendment in the
nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on the
Judiciary now printed in the bill. The committee amendment in
the nature of a substitute shall be considered as read.
Points of order against the committee amendment in the nature
of a substitute for failure to comply with clause 5(a) of
rule XXI are waived. No amendment to the committee amendment
in the nature of a substitute shall be in order except those
printed in the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying
this resolution. Each amendment may be considered only in the
order printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member
designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall
be debatable for the time specified in the report equally
divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent,
shall not be subject to amendment except as specified in the
report, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of
the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.
The Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may: (1) postpone
until a time during further consideration in the Committee of
the Whole a request for a recorded vote on any amendment; and
(2) reduce to five minutes the minimum time for electronic
voting on any postponed question that follows another
electronic vote without intervening business, provided that
the minimum time for electronic voting on the first in any
series of questions shall be fifteen minutes. At the
conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the
Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with
such amendments as may have been adopted. Any Member may
demand a separate vote in the House on any amendment adopted
in the Committee of the Whole to the bill or to the committee
amendment in the nature of a substitute. The previous
question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and
amendments thereto to final passage without intervening
motion except one motion to recommit with or without
instructions.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bonilla). The gentleman from New York
[Mr. Solomon] is recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield 30
minutes time to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Moakley], pending
which I yield myself such time as I might consume. During consideration
of this resolution, all time yielded is for debate purposes only.
Mr. Speaker, today in this Nation we are faced with a situation where
the State and local juvenile justice systems are failing to hold young
offenders accountable for their criminal activity.
This rule is designed to give the House a fair and efficient
procedure for considering legislation to try to attack the problem of
juvenile crime. This rule does provide 1 hour of general debate on the
Juvenile Crime Control Act.
In order to allow consideration of the amendment of the Committee on
the Judiciary in the nature of a substitute, the rule waives the
prohibition against appropriating on a legislative bill. There is one
minor technical provision which does allow unexpended amounts which are
repaid into a fund to be used for future payments without going through
the appropriation process. This is what requires the waiver.
The rule provides that eight specified amendments may be offered on
the House floor. Of these eight amendments, six are offered by the
Democrats. This procedure is more than fair to the minority. If
Republicans had been treated so well when we were in the minority, we
would have thought we had died and gone to heaven, Mr. Speaker.
{time} 1930
In order to expedite the voting process, the rule provides a vote-
stacking authority to the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole.
Finally, the rule guarantees the minority one last chance to offer
its best alternative and a motion to recommit which may certainly
contain instructions.
Mr. Speaker, we are going to have to get a little more order, because
we are coming to a very important part of the debate on this very
important issue.
Mr. Speaker, juvenile criminals are a threat to the lawmaking,
taxpaying citizens of this Nation to an extent that they have never
been before. In order to demonstrate the extent of the problem we are
dealing with, let me just provide my colleagues with some very
startling facts, and these are really startling.
For example, only 10 percent of violent juvenile offenders, now that
is violent juvenile offenders, those that commit things like murder and
rape and robbery and assault, 10 percent of them receive any sort of
prison confinement.
Let me repeat that one more time. Only 10 percent of violent juvenile
offenders that commit murder and rape and robbery and assault receive
any kind of jail time at all.
Many juveniles receive no punishment at all. Almost 40 percent of
violent juvenile offenders who come into contact with the justice
system have their cases dismissed, 40 percent of them with these very
serious crimes.
In many cases, by the time the courts finally lock up an older
teenager on a violent crime charge, that offender has a long list of
violations with arrests starting way back in the early years. According
to the Justice Department numbers, 43 percent of juveniles in State
institutions had more than 5 prior arrests and 20 percent had been
arrested more than 10 times. Approximately 80 percent of those
offenders had previously been on probation.
When encounters with the juvenile justice system teach juvenile
offenders that they are not accountable for their wrongdoing, I say to
my colleagues, the system has to be broken.
In America today no population poses a greater threat to public
safety than the juvenile criminals who are back out on the street
before they even serve any jail time. Teenagers account for the largest
portion of all violent crime in America. Older teenagers, ages 17 and
19, are the most violent of all age groups. More murder and robbery is
committed by 18-year-old males than any other group, and more than one-
third of all murders are committed by offenders under the age of 21.
The number of juveniles arrested for weapons offenses has more than
doubled in the last 10 years. Between 1965 and 1992 the number of 12-
year-olds arrested for violent crimes rose 211 percent, the number of
13 and 14-year-olds rose 301 percent, and the number of 15-year-olds
rose 297 percent.
I say to my colleagues, something is wrong; this system is broken.
What should give us the greatest concern of all is that this dramatic
increase in youth crime has occurred in the midst of declining youth
population in this country. In other words, while youth population is
declining, juvenile crime is escalating at an alarming rate.
While it is true that the Federal Government does not have
jurisdiction over the great majority of juvenile crime, Federal law
does provide an important model for the States. The Federal Government
also can provide assistance to States and localities in their efforts
to combat juvenile crime.
The legislation made in order by this rule, the Juvenile Crime
Control Act, is designed to provide the necessary leadership and
assistance, and I would ask for a ``yes'' vote on this rule and on the
legislation that it makes in order.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York [Mr.
Solomon], my colleague and my dear friend, for yielding me the
customary half-hour, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to this rule. Juvenile
crime is a very serious issue for which a lot of people have solutions,
and unfortunately this closed rule will allow very few of those good
ideas to come to this floor.
Mr. Speaker, in the last 10 years the juvenile crime rate has
increased 28 percent. Juvenile crime has become a very serious problem,
and we do not have to look far to find it. Within the last year, 7
youngsters have been murdered in a rash of brutal gang violence in the
Benning Road area of Washington, DC. Mr. Speaker, Benning Road is not
Timbuktu; Benning Road is 10 minutes from this very building.
Nationwide it is not much different, either. Everyday 5,711 juveniles
are arrested in the United States. A young man in Los Angeles was
recently arrested for vandalism. He fancied himself as a graffiti
artist and was charged $99,000 in restitution. He said, ``That's what I
like to do, and I'm going to do it no matter what.''
Mr. Speaker, these days more and more people care less and less about
[[Page H2315]]
the consequences of their actions, whether it is gang killings,
robberies, violent crimes, or graffiti, and we need to do something
about it.
Mr. Speaker, we must do everything we possibly can to make sure that
our children do not turn to crime, but I do not believe that this bill
does what it should. I do not believe this bill is anywhere near
perfect, and I do not believe Members who want to change parts of this
bill should be prevented from doing so.
Sixteen germane Democratic amendments were offered and only 5
accepted. The Republican bill we are considering today makes a few good
steps but, Mr. Speaker, it stops at the jailhouse door. This bill locks
kids up and throws away the key. If a child is 13 or older, Mr.
Speaker, if a child is 13 or older, he or she can end up in prison not
with other juveniles but with adults.
Mr. Speaker, this is the most horrible idea that I have heard in a
long while. Young people should be held responsible for their actions,
but we can help them change before it is too late, because for many
juveniles it is really not too late. Ninety-four percent of all
juvenile arrests are for nonviolent offenses. These children can be
changed before they turn to worse offenses.
However, for many of the inmates in the adult jails, the time for
change is long gone. These people in the best cases will teach the
young people new tricks, and in worst cases they will prey upon them,
and in some particularly tragic cases they will kill them.
This is no way to turn a young person's life around. In fact,
statistics show that if we try a juvenile as an adult, the crime rate
will escalate.
Furthermore, this bill also does absolutely nothing to stem the high
number of juvenile crimes and accidents involving handguns. It does not
take the very simple and the very effective step of requiring guns to
have child safety locks so that if a child picks up the parent's gun,
they cannot hurt themselves or anyone else.
We on the Democratic side offered an amendment to require gun
manufacturers to have safety locks. It was defeated on a party line
vote.
Mr. Speaker, I believe we owe our children to steer them in the right
direction before they get in trouble. I do not believe that kids are
born bad. I believe they are made bad by absent parents, by abusive
environments, and by drug pushers. We need to give these kids a chance
to be good. We need to give local police the ability to stop the sale
of illegal guns and drugs to these children. We need to intervene
early, at the first signs of trouble, and we need to support community
initiatives for after-school activities and mentoring programs.
Mr. Speaker, these programs work. They provide positive role models
and the children respond. They provide positive incentives and the
children respond, and they provide a chance, and Mr. Speaker, the
children respond.
I know it may not sound tough; I know it is becoming fashionable to
punish, punish, and punish, but I, for one, would much rather see a
young person playing basketball at midnight than scared for his life in
some dangerous adult prison.
Mr. Speaker, juvenile crime is not hopeless and neither are these
children. In my home city of Boston, we have just seen how successful
prevention efforts can be. Three years ago our juvenile firearm
homicide rate was 16 percent. Last year, the Boston police department
lowered our juvenile firearm homicide rate to zero. That means that not
one young person was killed last year in a city of about 600,000
people. That is progress.
The city of Boston uses strong community policing programs and
programs like Operation Cease Fire, which uses shared intelligence to
suppress violent flare-ups quickly. However, even in Boston we have a
long way to go. Juvenile murders may be down, but juvenile drug use is
up.
We should be giving youngsters something positive to do after school,
and putting child safety locks on guns would go a long way to reducing
violent crimes. Unfortunately, this will not happen under this bill,
but it should. Mr. Speaker, whether it is the housing projects in
Boston, Detroit, Southeast Washington, we owe to our children to help
them back on the right path before they grow up. We need to enforce the
law, intervene when children first start acting up and prevent young
people from turning to crime in the first place.
Juvenile justice should be rehabilitative, not punitive. So I urge my
colleagues to defeat this rule, and if it is not defeated, to join the
International Union of Police Associations and the International
Brotherhood of Police Officers and support the Democratic Juvenile
Control and Prevention Act.
Mr. Speaker, let us not give up on our children before it is too
late.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Sanibel, FL [Mr. Goss].
(Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from New York, the
distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules, [Mr. Solomon] for
this time. I rise today in very strong support of this rule. It will
allow fair consideration of the Juvenile Crime Control Act of 1997.
We have been able to accommodate the minority, allowing votes on five
Democratic amendments, including a full substitute. In addition, of
course, the House will consider one Republican amendment, and of course
the minority has the option to offer a motion to recommit. I have every
confidence that we are going to have a full debate and the minority has
many avenues to speak.
This bill has had extensive review, with forums being held throughout
the country in order to ensure that the measures it takes will
effectively deal with what is one of the most difficult and troubling
aspects in our fight against crime today, and that is the aspect of our
Nation's young people.
I know, talking to colleagues on the floor and in the cloakrooms and
around town, that Members are coming to grips with this issue. I
recently met with the Juvenile Justice Advisory Board in my own
district in southwest Florida to discuss some of the problems we are
having. Florida is a pretty progressive State. We do have the
equivalent of gun lock laws and things like that, good safety issues,
but we still have an awful lot of youth crime.
In an honest discussion with both teens and adults on the Juvenile
Justice Advisory Board, I heard firsthand about a system that is
failing both troubled children and our society at large. Our juvenile
justice system fails to respect teens by ignoring or glossing over
their misdeeds, and this in turn breeds a lack of respect for laws and
civil society among our teens as well.
Respect is still part of our vocabulary in this country. We need to
remember that.
{time} 1915
We need innovative approaches tailored to local needs. I hope this
bill, by setting a strong example, will spur this kind of change.
At the national level, according to the Department of Justice, 17-
and 18-year-olds are the most violent of all age groups. Let me say
that again. The most violent of all age groups are 17-year-olds and 18-
year-olds. Younger criminals are getting increasingly violent.
It is long past due that we make juvenile offenders understand there
are real consequences for criminal behavior. Right now, as Chairman
Solomon has said not once but twice, and I will say again, only 1 in 10
violent juvenile offenders receives any confinement. If Members do not
learn or hear anything else in this debate, remember that statistic.
Our youngest career criminals are getting away with the most heinous
crimes over and over again, and it is not just gang warfare. Wake up.
I am pleased that H.R. 3 will address this by allowing and
encouraging tough penalties, rather than perpetuating the slap-on-the-
wrist approach.
I urge my colleagues to support this rule. It will get the debate
done, and it will get it done fairly. I urge support for this bill. It
will do something America will be proud of and needs desperately.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Oregon [Mr. Blumenauer].
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time
to me.
Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge a no vote on this rule. Every day 1
million children go home in this country to households with loaded
guns. Fifty-five
[[Page H2316]]
percent of the guns in this country are loaded, kept in homes. It
results in the death of approximately 16 children a day, and for every
child who is killed, there are approximately 5 who are seriously
wounded.
If this gun lock proposal would come to the floor, an element that
both sides of the gun control issue agree upon, which 80 percent of the
American public support, if the Committee on Rules in their wisdom
would allow us to bring this before the House, it would overwhelmingly
pass, and next year at this time there would be dozens of children
alive, hundreds who would not be wounded, including the accidental
deaths and use in violent crime.
I strongly urge a no vote on the rule. Send this back, and allow us
to give something that all Americans can agree on.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Middleburg, NY, [Mr. Ben Gilman], one of the most effective Members of
our body and chairman of our Committee on International Relations.
(Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to
me.
I am pleased to rise in strong support of the rule, H.R. 3, the
Juvenile Crime Control Act, legislation which helps address a multitude
of problems facing our Nation's juvenile court system. We have
witnessed a doubling in drug use among teenagers every year since 1993.
At the same time there has been a steady decrease in the numbers of
young people who view the dangers of drug use as any serious,
legitimate problem.
That softening of attitude toward drugs and the increased abuse of
substances are major factors in the subsequent rise in the crime rate
of those under the age of 18. In fact, just last Sunday, on ABC's
``Meet the Press,'' FBI Director Louis Freeh stated that the central
problem that fuels violence, particularly juvenile violence, is drug
use, drug selling, drug dealing, and drug trafficking.
For the past several years law enforcement agencies have attempted to
meet the challenge posed by the rise in juvenile crime, and especially
in violent crime. Regrettably, our police and prosecutors are hampered
by a system which restricts information sharing and discourages serious
punishment. This legislation moves to correct those shortfalls.
There are those who would say this bill focuses too much on
punishment and not enough on prevention. I have long been a believer in
prevention programs as a method for deterring youth crime. However, I
do believe that once an individual has committed a violent felony, it
is often too late for prevention.
Mr. Speaker, prevention has its place. Yet, I submit that it has no
place with those who have decided to forgo alternate routes but instead
focus on a life of violent crime. Those criminals should face
punishment and accountability for their actions, not excuses offered by
their apologists, who are more interested in advancing some social
theory than protecting the law-abiding community.
Accordingly, I ask our colleagues to join in supporting this
legislation which moves to address the growing problem of violent youth
crime.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
California [Ms. Lofgren].
Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule.
Mr. Speaker, last week we had an open rule on patents. That is an
important issue. Today we had an open rule on endangered species and
flooding. My district has flooded three winters in a row. That is an
important issue. But neither one of these issues rises to the
importance of juvenile delinquency and the threat it poses for our
country.
Mr. Speaker, I think that to have 200 minutes to discuss the issues
of juvenile delinquency and what as a country we can do about them is
not appropriate.
The underlying bill before us takes the $1.5 billion currently slated
to flow into our States and communities from the Violent Crime trust
fund and puts it all into a scheme of mandatory trial of teenagers as
adults. The interesting thing is that from our analysis, arguably only
12 States are going to even be allowed to apply for the funding because
the others do not have the scheme required by the act.
Mr. Speaker, I do not think $1.5 billion for 12 States--and not one
cent for prevention--is what this country needs to address juvenile
delinquency. There are certainly young people who need to be tried as
adults. There are young people who have done horrible things. But we
know that doing nothing but punishment will not solve our problem.
My friend Mark Klaas, whose wonderful daughter was murdered, said
something along these lines: ``To say that we are curing crime with
prisons is kind of like saying we are going to cure disease by building
cemeteries.'' It is too late to deal with the problem only after the
fact. We need to lend our efforts to preventing crime as well.
We also need to have all of the energies and all of the thoughts of
every Member of this body, not just one party line vote. We need to
have rigorous debate, not 200 minutes. I would urge a no vote on the
rule.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Rhode Island [Mr. Kennedy].
Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition
to the Republican rule and the McCollum bill. There is no question that
we have to get tough on juvenile crime. Everyone in today's Chamber
agrees on that issue. The debate is, how are we going to do that, and
how serious are we going to be about stopping juvenile crime.
The rule that we have before us prevents the true debate from ever
taking place, the true debate that must take place on how to get
juvenile justice.
With this closed rule, the Republicans prove that they do not want to
hear the truth about this issue. They do not want to hear the facts.
Here are the facts. The facts show that kids sentenced to adult
facilities have higher recidivism rates than kids punished in the
juvenile system. Listen to that. What the Republicans want to do is
seek a solution that worsens the problem and does not improve the
situation.
Fact two: Facts show that kids face shorter, I repeat, shorter and
easier sentences in the adult system than they would under the juvenile
court judges. It makes perfect sense. You have a teenager in front of
you versus a hardened criminal 30 years, 40 years old. If you are the
judge and you have overcrowding, who are you going to sentence?
The fact of the matter is and the statistics, let me repeat, the
statistics prove this, that the kids that are violent criminals get
less time, which I do not think is what the gentleman wants to do, but
which he ends up advocating for in supporting the Republican bill.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I think we need to get beyond the myths of this
and we need to get to the facts. That is what we are not going to get
to under this Republican closed rule because it will not give us the
adequate time to debate this issue.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, let me say how disturbed I am that we are not
even going to include a child lock safety device with the purchase of
firearms. It is, to me, shameful in this country, when we have 16 kids
getting killed every day, that the Republican bill has no provision for
a child safety lock to be sold with guns. That is another reason to
vote against this rule.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I would just say to my good friend, the gentleman from
Rhode Island [Mr. Kennedy] that if he examines the rule, that almost
all of the time is allocated to the Democratic Party. All of the
amendments that were made in order were mostly Democrat. I think there
was one Republican. We cannot be any more fair than that.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman
from Florida [Mr. Bill McCollum], one of the most respected Members of
this body when it comes to these kinds of issues. He is a member of the
Committee on the Judiciary.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I just want to address under this rule for
1 minute what the purpose of this legislation is all about today,
because there are some misperceptions about it.
The reason why this legislation is out here is because the juvenile
justice system of the Nation is broken. This is primarily a State and
local matter in the sense that most juveniles are tried
[[Page H2317]]
in State and local courts. There are only about 300 a year that are
tried in Federal court. Usually those are for peculiar reasons of where
the crimes are committed, Indian reservations, et cetera.
The problem we face is that roughly one-fifth of all violent crime in
this country today is committed by those who are under the age of 18.
That is 1 out of every 5 murders, rapes, armed robberies, assaults, et
cetera.
This is a shocking number in and of itself, but when we consider the
fact that the majority, the highest number or percentage of any group
that commits murder in this country are 18-year-olds, the largest
number of any age group that commits rapes are 17-year-olds, that 64
percent of all violent juvenile crime is committed by those under the
age of 15, and then we see that in the juvenile justice system, of
those who are found and adjudicated of having been guilty of a serious
violent crime, only about 10 percent are ever incarcerated in any kind
of an institution, juvenile detention facility or otherwise. It is
remarkable. The average length of stay for those that are is less than
1 year. I think that is a serious problem.
Even more serious is the fact that when we look at the juvenile
justice system for the early delinquencies, where we really ought to be
addressing this problem for vandalizing a home or a store, running over
a parking meter, doing graffiti on the wall of a warehouse, usually law
officers do not even take these kids before juvenile courts like they
used to. There are no consequences these kids see.
Juvenile judges, when they do get hold of a youngster for one of
these kinds of misdemeanor crimes, usually it is 10 or 12 times before
the juvenile judge on average before there is any kind of a sanction.
That means community service or restitution or doing whatever we might
think of as a relatively mild sanction.
So is it any wonder in a system like this that when somebody gets to
be 16 years old, has a long list of doing these offenses, that when
they get a gun in their hands they do not hesitate to pull the trigger
because they do not think there are going to be any consequences to
doing it?
This bill is about repairing the juvenile justice system and putting
consequences back in there. It does in it in two ways. One, it provides
for a model Federal system for those limited number of juveniles who
come into contact with the Federal system. Two, it provides $1.5
billion over 3 years, $550 million a year in grants, incentive grants
to the States and local communities to spend as they see fit,
generally, on fighting juvenile crime.
It provides just simply four basic qualifiers to get this money,
because we want the States to take action and change the way they are
behaving with respect to juvenile justice.
It requires that they have a sanction of some sort for the very first
delinquent act of a juvenile delinquent, and graduated sanctions for
every delinquent act that is more serious than the first one
thereafter.
It would require that prosecutors at the State level be given the
discretion to prosecute, it does not require they do so, those of 15
years of age or older who commit serious violent crimes, and we are
talking about murder, robbery, rape, that sort of thing.
It would require that for those who have committed at least one
lesser offense, for the second one, and they commit a felony, the
records be kept on them. Third, it requires parents to have some
accountability for not the juvenile acts, but for whatever the juvenile
judge designates them to.
{time} 1930
This bill does not contain prevention provisions in the sense that
traditionally we think of them before we come in contact with the
juvenile justice system, because we have two other bills where we deal
with that. One will be out here in about a month on the Office of
Juvenile Justice Delinquent Prevention from the Committee on Education
and the Workforce. That deals with $150 million in prevention grant
programs. It is a traditional area we need to work on, and we all are
interested in that.
It also is true that we are going to have an effort to reauthorize or
authorize and have appropriated about $500 million again this year for
the general crime prevention block grant program that we instituted
last year to go to the cities and the counties to fight crime as they
see fit which, of course, includes fighting juvenile crime.
So there are going to be a lot of prevention programs funded out here
on other bills before one comes in contact with the juvenile justice
system.
This bill tonight is designed to repair a broken juvenile justice
system. That is the single most important prevention thing right now
that I can think of that we can do, even though there are other matters
that need to be dealt with when it comes to juvenile crime. That is
what this bill is about, not about anything else. It is very narrowly
focused, designed to repair the Nation's broken juvenile justice system
that is not working today, to get more funds, more probation officers,
more judges, more detention facilities, and to get sanctions started
for the early juvenile delinquent acts.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman
from New York [Mrs. McCarthy].
Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the
rule.
The rule to H.R. 3, the Juvenile Crime Control Act of 1997, does not
allow Members to engage in a full and fair debate about reducing
juvenile crime and making our schools safe. The closed rule denies
Congress the opportunity to discuss child safety lock legislation.
Child safety locks can help make our schools and our streets safer for
our children. The loaded and unlocked guns are being taken from our
homes continuously and used to commit juvenile crimes in our schools.
Failure to allow this debate on safety locks is expensive for the
American people. We in the health care system know that it costs us
almost $3.5 billion, but, more than that, we are losing our children.
According to National Safe Kids Campaign Chairman C. Everett Koop,
locks and load indicators could prevent more than 30 percent of
unintentional firearm fatalities.
Child safety locks are not expensive. Child safety locks will reduce
the cost to the American taxpayers associated with juvenile crime.
This is not the same old debate about gun control. This is about
reducing violence and its associated costs.
The amendment we would like to debate would simply require federally
licensed firearms dealers to sell child safety locks with firearms.
Nobody's guns are going to be taken away. There will be no further
Federal requirements for purchase.
It is a simple safety lock. We have bills that make it impossible for
children to get into an aspirin bottle. Do my colleagues not think we
should do the same thing with a gun?
Therefore, I urge my colleagues to oppose this rule. Let us try and
save some kids these days.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New
York [Mr. Schumer], a fighter for gun control.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Speaker, I thank our ranking member of the Committee
on Rules for his generous cession of time.
Whatever we think of the bill that is before us, and there are a lot
of opinions, the rule proves one thing: The Republican leadership is
scared of the NRA. We already know the Republican Party opposes
reasonable measures against gun violence, but now they are saying we
cannot even talk about it.
The Republicans want to make guns a four-letter word on the House
floor, no discussion allowed. Their whole legislative strategy is built
around a single objective of preventing the House from even voting on
gun safety measures. When we are talking about youth violence, Mr.
Speaker, there is nothing more relevant than guns.
The reason juvenile crime is so much more violent today than ever
before is because youth gangs are so well armed. Back in the 1960's,
there was plenty of anxiety and plenty of gangs and plenty of young men
on the streets angry, but all they had was their fists and people did
not come home in coffins and in body bags. Now guns in many of our
cities are everywhere. We are refusing to even debate that issue.
Every amendment we have offered to this bill that would deal with the
underground gun market, a simple trigger lock provision that my
colleague, the
[[Page H2318]]
gentlewoman from New York, talked about. Or stiff mandatory sentences
on kingpin gun traffickers, the NRA has always told us punish the
criminal. These gun traffickers are among our worst criminals, and my
colleagues would not even allow us to debate it in the bill. Every
amendment has been ruled not germane. Mr. Speaker, this is a gag rule
on preventing gun violence. The whole bill has been set up so that gun
amendments can be kept off on technical grounds.
Members know we are right about guns, but we are so afraid of the gun
lobby we will not even put the issue to a vote. That is the true,
behind-the-scenes story of this bill, that the NRA is writing the
script.
The gentleman from Florida, the chairman of the Crime Subcommittee,
has been working for months on this legislation. He has been very open
to input from the minority, and for that I thank him. In fact, the
gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] brought the Committee on Rules a
manager's amendment that would have added to this bill a whole series
of provisions proposed by myself, the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs.
McCarthy] and the administration on guns. But the Republican leadership
is keeping that manager's amendment out of the bill, an amendment by
the majority's own subcommittee chairman.
There is one and only one reason for this, so that the minute anyone
says the word gun violence, gun control, the Republicans can jump up
and say, out of order. That is a shabby way to legislate. I urge
Members to vote against the rule.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
As I look at this legislation, I just wonder, because there have been
mentions of some gun lock safety equipment. This bill does not deal
with gun lock safety. That legislation perhaps could come again at some
future time.
I think what we really do need to do is to talk about the
relationship with the White House. Let us call attention first, I would
like to call attention to the fact that we Republicans have been in
office here for about 2 years and 2 months or so, and I wonder where
all this legislation was prior.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum],
chairman of the subcommittee, to perhaps answer that question of what
happened to the manager's amendment and the relationship with the White
House.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a comment. I think
that there is an explanation in order. I had offered a manager's
amendment yesterday including a number of things before the Committee
on Rules that are in the President's bill that are perfectly acceptable
and I think ultimately should be passed into law, including enhanced
penalties for those who are trafficking in guns with juveniles or
juveniles who commit violent crime with a gun and so on. But the truth
of the matter is that we were in negotiations with the administration,
the leadership, my leadership, all through the day yesterday and even
today attempting to come to some accommodation around the edges with
respect to these matters, and they were apparently unsuccessful.
I was not involved in all of those, but I know that they were going
on at the highest level. I think those negotiations will continue and
that ultimately we will have a lot of these provisions that we can pass
out here on the floor. But they are not part of this bill. I would like
to have been able to put them in there. It would be nice to pass it all
at one time. But we will have other opportunities and other days to do
this. Today is not the only day.
What we are focusing on today and tomorrow is repairing a broken
juvenile justice system. That is the highest priority. We should not
diminish its importance. I think my colleagues on both sides of the
aisle should recognize that fact, argue if they want about what maybe
else we should do in addition to this, understand there is nothing more
important to fighting violent juvenile crime or juvenile crime at all
than repairing the Nation's collapsing juvenile justice system and
putting what is necessary in there to get sanctions back into the
system for those early delinquents acts so that we can get consequences
and that kids understand there will are consequences for their juvenile
acts. I think that is very, very important.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from
New York [Mr. Schumer].
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman from New York, my
colleague, chairman of the Committee on Rules, answer a question?
The gentleman said maybe some other time we can bring the trigger-
lock legislation to the floor. Will the gentleman give us a commitment
that we will bring that legislation to the floor at some point before
this legislative year is out?
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SCHUMER. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is a member of the Committee
on the Judiciary, is he not?
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Speaker, I am.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, that is the committee. I suggest the
gentleman take it up with his committee.
Mr. SCHUMER. So the answer is, the gentleman will not give us a
commitment.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
North Carolina [Mr. Watt].
Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, guess which State in the
Union has the most aggressive juvenile justice laws? The State of North
Carolina. If we measure it based on who tries and convicts more
juveniles as adults, it is North Carolina. One-fifth of the juveniles
tried, convicted, and sentenced as adults are in North Carolina.
The Republicans talk about do the adult crime, serve the adult time.
We do it in North Carolina. But guess what? Under this bill, North
Carolina would not qualify for funds under this bill. They say they
want us to be aggressive, lock them up. But, no, they will not give us
any funds under this bill. In fact, of all the 50 States, 39--at
least--of the States do not qualify for funds under this bill,
including North Carolina, which has the most aggressive laws.
Now, why? Because in North Carolina the judge decides whether
somebody is going to be tried as an adult rather than the prosecutor
deciding, and the Federal Government under this bill would require that
the prosecutor make that decision rather than the judge making that
decision. So we are going to be deprived of funds unless we change our
laws to comply with the Federal law.
Does that make any sense? What we have found out is that one of the
few States under this bill that would qualify is the State of Florida,
which is the State of the sponsor of this bill. In fact, once we keep
investigating, we may find that the only State in the Union that will
qualify for funds under this bill is the State of Florida, the State of
the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum].
What everybody ought to be asking themselves is, does my State get
anything under this bill? The answer is going to be no for at least 39
out of the 50 States. We ought to reject this bill. Reject the rule.
Send it back and let us do something worthwhile.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
Massachusetts [Mr. Delahunt], a gentleman who has dealt with teenage
juvenile delinquency for some 21 years and has compiled an outstanding
record, and is now serving in Congress with us.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule for very
similar reasons that were just articulated so eloquently by the
gentleman from North Carolina. This rule denies the House the
opportunity to vote on an amendment that I had intended to offer, that
I had tried to offer which would have ensured that every State, every
city, every town, and every county would be eligible to access the $1.5
billion authorized in this bill. It is important to understand that the
bill before us, as others have articulated, imposes conditions on State
and local governments--mandates, if you will--before they even have a
chance to file an application to access that $1.5 billion.
In fact, to qualify just to access the $1.5 billion, approximately 40
States would be forced to legislate massive changes in how they deal
with juvenile offenders.
[[Page H2319]]
{time} 1945
They would be compelled to enact laws that have not been proven to be
effective and, in my opinion, will actually increase crime by sending
kids to graduate schools for crime, and it does not make any sense.
We should know that only 12 States can even file an application under
the terms of this bill, and it is unclear whether even all of them
would qualify. Once again we have Washington telling the States and
local governments what to do. Washington has the answers. Well,
Washington does not have the answers. The State and local governments
do.
As my friend from Massachusetts, Mr. Moakley, stated in his opening
remarks, the city of Boston has not had a single juvenile murder since
July 1995, almost 2 years. They instituted a plan, a local plan, that
combined prevention, intervention, prosecution, and treatment. They
knew what they were doing. They did not need Washington to tell them
what to do. Yet under this bill Boston would not qualify for funding
despite those remarkable results. That does not make sense to me, but
Washington knows best.
If those from California, those from Ohio, and Pennsylvania, Texas,
or Illinois, just to name a few, want to access some of these Federal
dollars to try the Boston approach, they cannot do so because their
laws do not meet the conditions in this bill. But again, Washington
knows best.
The reality is that Washington cannot know best because there is no
Federal experience in this area, no Federal juvenile justice system, no
courts, no judges, no detention centers, no probation departments. In
fact, as the primary sponsor indicated, there are fewer than 200
juveniles currently serving Federal sentences, compared with the
300,000 juvenile offenders locked up in State juvenile facilities.
Given those facts, we have no business imposing national standards on
the States and localities that are working to solve the problem of
juvenile justice. Let us help them, not tell them what to do.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from Bolivar, MO, Mr. Roy Blunt, one of the outstanding new Members in
this body.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BLUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me
for the moment.
I just want to respond to the fact that nobody expects this bill to
be something that every State or maybe any State qualifies for right
now. The whole purpose is for incentive grants.
The idea is to get the juvenile justice system in this country going
again. No State has to do anything under this bill. There is no mandate
in here. But if the States want the money, then they will have to at
least demonstrate that they are punishing, sanctioning with some
sanction, for the very first juvenile delinquent act and every one
thereafter.
Then once they get the money, they can spend it as they want to fight
juvenile crime. But that is the idea.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I rise in support of the
rule, I rise in support of this concept. Normally, I would be on the
side of my friend from Massachusetts on this issue, because I think
these are issues that are generally best left to the States.
But I think, clearly, juvenile crime has exceeded the bounds of the
States. It is clearly an interstate problem. It is clearly a problem
that trafficks easily from one State to another.
I also disagree with the idea that this puts juvenile criminals in a
graduate school for crime. They have already been in a graduate school
for crime. We call that graduate school for crime gangs.
Now, this is not about Dennis the Menace. This is not about somebody
violating a few rules. This is not about Dennis the Menace; it is about
Billy the Kid. And I think we need to stop Billy the Kid. I think we
need to stop that pattern where actually, in gangs, they turn to the
young gang members and tell them to commit the crime because they are
not going to have to face the penalty.
This is something that States will benefit from. States like Missouri
and Massachusetts and North Carolina can meet the requirements of the
bill and can qualify.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BLUNT. I yield to my fellow freshman, the gentleman from
Massachusetts.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I ask my friend from Indiana if he is
ready and prepared to go back and tell his Governor, to tell his State
legislature that we have the answers here in Washington and they cannot
be resolved by the State of Indiana and by the communities in Indiana?
Is that what the gentleman is suggesting to me?
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman that, being from
Missouri, I would be glad to tell the Governor of Indiana that, but I
will also tell the Governor of Missouri that.
I think this is a problem that, as we have seen crime decline all
over the country in total statistics, we have seen juvenile crime rise
rapidly.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
California, Mr. Duke Cunningham, a very respected Member of this body.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman a moment ago spoke on
trigger guards, and I understand she had a personal family loss and I
do not know how I would handle that myself. I would also let the
gentlewoman know I am a member of the NRA, and that I have trigger
guards, or my weapons are all in safes and my daughters and my son have
been taught how to use those in a safe manner.
In fact, the keys are in a different position, in case one of their
friends walks in and finds it, so they will not have an accident.
But I would also advise my friends on the other side to look into
COSCO, who shipped in 2,000 fully automatic AK-47's. The actual gun
runners themselves were in the White House and contributed to the DNC;
Mr. Huang, who contributed and arranged $366,000 for COSCO, a company
owned by the Communist Chinese.
I would ask that they look into the M-2's that were going down to
Mexico to disrupt those elections, so they put leftists in their
legislature. And do my colleagues know where the AK-47's were impacted
and headed for in San Francisco, in my State of California? They were
targeted for the inner city gangs. These are fully automatic weapons,
which we do not sanction.
But I would ask for a little bit of clarity when my colleagues point
fingers. Let us take a look at where the threats are in this country
and let us try to stop them, but we also need to look inwardly.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his courtesy, and
I would make two quick points. On the gentleman's first point, as an
NRA member, the gentleman has safety provisions on his guns. For
automobiles we require, and throughout America, that people wear
seatbelts. There is no difference here. The gentleman is good that he
does it; other people do not. We can save lives by requiring them.
Second, on the gentleman's other point on the importation of assault
weapons, we have tried in this House to get amendments to the floor to
allow that to happen. Repeatedly, we were not allowed.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would ask the
gentleman's help in stopping the Communist Chinese COSCO from taking
over Long Beach Naval Shipyard.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman
from California [Ms. Millender-McDonald].
Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from California [Mr.
Cunningham] that he should really stop his propaganda on COSCO. He is
ill-advised, and therefore he should stop that with reference to COSCO
and Long Beach.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to the rule on H.R. 3,
the Juvenile Crime Act of 1997. This closed rule would severely limit
our ability to offer important amendments to this legislation. I am
particularly concerned that the rule precludes amendments to protect
children from the accidental discharge of firearms.
[[Page H2320]]
As elected Representatives we have an important responsibility to
advocate for our Nation's children by prohibiting the transfer of a
firearm without a child safety lock as an integral component.
Every year hundreds of children between the ages of 1 and 19 are
killed by the unintentional discharge of handguns. Since 1987, more
than 4,000 innocent boys and girls have lost their lives through
unintentional firearm deaths.
The loss of these young children can be prevented, which is why I
have authored the Firearm Child Safety Lock Act of 1997. This
legislation would prohibit any person from transferring or selling a
firearm in the United States unless there is a child safety lock.
Further, this legislation would prohibit the transfer or sale of
firearms by federally licensed dealers and manufacturers unless a child
safety lock is part of its assembly.
However, legislation is not enough. Responsible handgun owners should
child-proof their firearms whether they have children or not. I have
outlined a number of child-proofing options and would like to submit
them for the Record.
The Firearm Child Safety Lock Act of 1997, once enacted, will prevent
the future loss of lives of our innocent children. These are our
children, our sons and our daughters, and the future of this country.
As parents and leaders it is our obligation to protect our children
from senseless deaths caused by the unintentional discharge of
firearms.
This is not gun control, this is a safety measure. If gun owners want
to be nice people, as stated by the NRA's president, Wayne LaPierre,
then they would support this amendment and curb the senseless deaths of
our country's children due to unintentional discharge of firearms. For
this amendment and other amendments I urge my colleagues to oppose this
rule.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee].
(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise
and extend her remarks.)
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if my good
friend from California is still on the floor of the House, but it is
disappointing when my friend from California accuses adults of gun
running but he wants to lock up the children.
I rise to oppose this rule because I thought we could come to the
floor of the House and reasonably look at the statistics on juvenile
crime and juvenile crime prevention and really respond accordingly. I
thought, for example, that we would understand that this bill is
nothing but a punitive bill with no resources to address the questions
of concern in making sure that we prevent juvenile crime.
One, we want to expose the records to the public rather than giving
the records only to school officials and social service agencies. We do
not want to rehabilitate the child; we want to punish the child so that
they never have the opportunity to be rehabilitated. We want to house
children in this bill without looking at the ramifications of housing
children with adults.
We had amendments that I offered that were not accepted by the
Committee on Rules. I am disappointed in that, not because we need to
discuss more air on the floor of the House, but really what we need to
do is put a bill together that we can all support.
Certainly, I think it is very important that even though we all talk
about we believe in the safety of guns, it does not appear to be
reasonable that a simple act of having a trigger lock could not be an
amendment for this particular bill.
I hope this bill goes off the floor of the House, goes back to being
addressed and assessed, and realizes that the best thing to do for all
of us is that helping children should be the key element of juvenile
law coming out of this Congress. We should, in fact, make sure we do
not house children with adults, and we should, in fact, make sure that
we can provide the amount of prevention dollars, and we should protect
children from the unwarranted use of a gun and protect them from the
detrimental act of the reckless use of a gun.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in opposition to the rule on H.R. 3, The
Juvenile Crime Control Act of 1997. As a member of the Judiciary
Committee, I have spent a great deal of time over the last 2 months
analyzing and debating the problem of juvenile crime. I am sure that my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle would agree with that this is a
very complex and controversial issue. It is for these reasons that I am
disturbed that H.R. 3 was not given an open rule.
There are a number of provisions in H.R. 3 that cause me grave
concern. In an attempt to remedy some of the more grievous provisions
in H.R. 3, my colleagues and I offered amendments to the Rules
Committee. Very few of these amendments--amendments that I believe
would have garnered great support, support on both sides of the aisle--
were made in order.
In particular, I am troubled that no amendments were made in order
addressing the controversial issues of housing juveniles in adult
prisons and releasing juvenile records to the public. In partnership
with Mr. Watt, I prepared an amendment addressing the problem of
housing juveniles with adults. Our amendment required that for States
and local governments to be eligible to receive grant funds they must
house juveniles who are tried as adults separately from adult inmates
in facilities so that they have no contact with adult inmates until
they reach 18 years of age.
I also had an amendment which would have ensured that predisposition
juveniles would have no contact with adults in prison. My amendment did
not address the juvenile who has been convicted of a violent crime. In
fact, my amendment attempted to protect those children who have not yet
even been found guilty from the dangers of housing them with adults.
Without this amendment there is a very real possibility that an
innocent child will be mistakenly arrested and suffer in prison in the
company of adults.
On any given day approximately 2,400 children are held as juveniles
in adult jails. Over the course of a year more than 65,000 children are
held in adult jails.
Adult jails, however, are very different from facilities designed for
juveniles. In particular, most adult facilities have inadequate
rehabilitation programs, health or education programs for juvenile
offenders. Most juvenile facilities have a full educational program for
incarcerated youth. Juvenile facilities also have additional programs
such as exercise and recreation. In contrast, too often, children held
in adult jails spend all day sitting in their cells.
Additionally, all available evidence suggests that placing juveniles
in adult jails places them in very real and very serious danger. They
are at serious risk for rape, assault, and even murder. A 1989 study by
Jeffrey Fagan titled ``Youth in Prisons and Training Schools:
Perceptions and Consequences of the Treatment-Custody Dichotomy''
showed that children housed in adult facilities are five times more
likely to be sexually assaulted, twice as likely to be beaten by staff,
and 50 percent more likely to be attacked with a weapon than juveniles
confined in a juvenile facility.
On April 25, 1996, six adult prisoners murdered a 17-year-old boy
while he was incarcerated in the juvenile cellblock of an adult jail in
Ohio.
In Idaho, a 17-year-old boy held in an adult jail for not paying $73
in traffic fines was tortured over a 14 hour period and then finally
murdered by other prisoners in his cell.
In Ohio, a 15-year-old girl who had never been in trouble before ran
away from home for 1 night. Although she voluntarily returned to her
parents, she was put in the county jail by a juvenile court judge ``to
teach her a lesson.'' On the fourth night of her confinement, she was
sexually assaulted by a deputy jailer.
It is already too easy to find examples of children who have been
assaulted or lost their lives needlessly in adult jails. We have a
responsibility to act and stop there from being many more.
A third provision in Mr. McCollum's bill that causes me grave concern
is that which opens juveniles records to the public. The juvenile
justice system was founded on the principle that juvenile offenders are
children and as such should not be held to the same standard of
culpability as adult offenders. The juvenile justice system has been
based on the premise of rehabilitation; to provide the juvenile access
to programs and life skills that he or she has not gained in the
community. When the juvenile reenters the community he or she is to
begin fresh without the public stigma of a criminal record.
H.R. 3, however, requires that in order for States and local
governments to be eligible to receive grant funds they must maintain
records for any adjudication of a juvenile who is adjudicated
delinquent for conduct that if committed by an adult would constitute a
felony in a records system equivalent to that maintained for adults who
commit felonies. My amendment would have deleted this requirement for
both States and local governments and also stated that in the Federal
system juvenile records would not be available to the public as
required by H.R. 3. Instead, the
[[Page H2321]]
amendment required that juvenile records be made available only for
official purposes.
Like my colleagues, I am very concerned about the rising rate of
juvenile crime. I agree that to protect the public from certain of
these juvenile offenders law enforcement officials and certain social
service organizations must have access to juvenile records. I am
convinced, however, that publicly disclosing the court records of
juveniles will permanently stigmatize the child at an early age which
will follow the child into adulthood; thus, inhibiting efforts to
rehabilitate the child as well as the child's future employment and
educational opportunities. It seems to me that to burden an already
fragile child with this additional handicap is extremely unwise for
both that child and for society in general.
I urge my colleagues to vote against this modified close rule and in
so doing open the debate on juvenile justice to address a number of the
most concerning provisions of H.R. 3.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from Florida [Mr. McCollum] the distinguished chairman of the
subcommittee.
{time} 2000
Mr. McCOLLUM. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, I believe tonight as we prepare to vote on this rule, we
need to understand this whole process in concept and in construct.
Back a few years ago, we passed some provisions of law here in the
Federal arena designed to encourage the States to do what we call
truth-in-sentencing. That is, we found that we have people who commit
violent crimes that were going through a revolving door and serving
only about one-third of their sentences. They wound up in that
situation with a status where they hardly were in before they were out
in many cases. They went right back on the streets and were committing
violent crimes. While that was primarily State crimes they were
committing, we thought an incentive grant program was a good idea and
we had a pretty overwhelming majority pass a provision that said that
if States pass laws that will require that repeat violent felons serve
at least 85 percent of their sentences, then they are going to get a
very large sum of money from the Federal Government in the form of a
grant program, to construct more prisons with, to help them in the
process back home that they need these resources for. We did accomplish
that.
In fact, now the national average, because more than 20 States have
qualified for this money, not many if any qualified at the beginning,
because more than 20 now have gone out and done it, we see that the
national average for time served in this country has gone up from a
third of the sentence to nearly 50 percent of the time in a violent
offense that is served. It is a model for what we are out here trying
to do today. We are trying to create another incentive grant to the
States that says: States, here is money to spend as you want to fight
violent juvenile crime. You can start at the early levels, do what you
want to basically with it, more judges, more probation officers or
whatever, but if you are going to do that, then we expect you to do the
4 things we think are really critical to reviving the juvenile justice
system to put consequences back in it again. Because we are seeing law
enforcement officers not even taking kids before juvenile courts
because they do not expect them to get any kind of punishment. If a kid
vandalizes a store or spray-paints a building, should that youngster
not get some consequences, community service or something for that even
if it is the first offense? The answer is clearly yes. Because they do
not get consequences, then that bad behavior is more likely to
continue. If we do put consequences for those early juvenile delinquent
crimes, then we are less likely to get more violent crimes from these
juveniles later on. It is common sense. It is what all juvenile court
authorities tell us and have told my subcommittee.
So we have put out a little core group of things to qualify to get
the money. Then you can spend it as you want to. We are not telling the
States how to spend the money, but we are telling the States: Here is a
carrot, here is something like we did with the truth-in-sentencing
grants, if you do these things, three or four simple things, the
primary one of which is to start sanctioning the very first delinquent
act and then have graduated sanctions for every delinquent act
thereafter, such as community service and so on, then you can get the
money. And if you have the provision that allows your prosecutor, which
most States do but not all, allows your prosecutor to try as an adult a
15-year-old or older who commits a serious violent felony, that is
important. And, third, we need you to keep records. Records are not
being kept the way they should be. We do not know how these juveniles
are doing. If they have committed a felony, that has to be a felony and
it has to be the second offense. It could have been a misdemeanor
spray-painting the house or whatever the first time. Only then. But
then if they do and they have committed a felony, then you have got to
keep the records and make them available just as you would for adults.
And you have got to let judges, the judges do not have to do this, you
have got to let your judges hold parents accountable, not for the
juvenile delinquent act but when the juvenile delinquent comes before
them, for that parent to be instructed by the court: Here is what we
want you to do to oversee your child. If you do not do it, you might
get a fine or maybe you will do community service. These are the things
that are broken nationwide. It is a national crisis. We really need to
do it.
We are not doing as some on the other side would say, characterizing
this as telling the States what to do. We are trying to create a
national interest in this with a little bit of money knowing the States
have got to come forward with a lot more resources if juvenile judges
in this country are to do the jobs they all want to do and enough
probation officers are hired to do it. That is what this is all about.
There are a lot of other things we have to do. We hope someday that
families are put back together again. We do not want the situations
where we have so many single parents out there and no role models. We
want truancy laws corrected, we want more education for our kids, we
want to get at the gang problems, we want to do a lot of other things
we do not do in this bill. There will be other bills, there are going
to be other bills that address those matters as best we can, though
many of them frankly have to be addressed in the local communities and
money is not the answer to all of them. Volunteer time, organization
and effort is. Yes, there are other things. But tonight the one thing
we are voting on is a rule that would allow a juvenile justice repair
bill to go through to provide incentives to the States.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pascrell].
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bonilla). The gentleman from New Jersey
is recognized for 2\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts
for yielding me time on this disappointing rule, on which I rise in
strong opposition.
Yes, we need to repair our juvenile justice system, but first we need
to get our priorities in order and that is what we should be about. I
speak as a former mayor of a large city and now as a Congressman from
the Eighth District. While I am pleased that this House is going to
take a good look at our juvenile justice system and how we can improve
it, the majority is denying us the opportunity to discuss commonsense
anti-gun violence efforts as part of this legislation.
Our priorities should be about those young people who are in the
galleries listening to us debate this issue, and how we can prevent
violence from occurring in our streets. Every day American youths are
injured and killed by guns. A staggering 1 in every 4 teenage deaths
are gun-related. These numbers do not even take into account the number
of crimes committed by juveniles with guns. Few factors have had as
direct an impact on the increase in violent youth crime over the last
10 years as have guns. Juvenile arrest records for weapons law
violations are up 103 percent since 1985, a rate that is clearly
unacceptable to all of us in this room.
This House is only fooling itself if we believe for a second that we
can effectively address the issue of youth violence without addressing
gun violence. If we are truly serious about making our streets and
neighborhoods safer,
[[Page H2322]]
keeping those young kids safe and alive, we need to get serious and
have gun violence addressed in this juvenile bill.
The Democratic substitute that we originally brought to the Committee
on Rules would have addressed the gun issue. The real losers under this
rule are the millions of Americans who live in fear of violent youth
crime, mixed up with gangs and armed to the teeth. The majority is
keeping us from implementing commonsense rules.
This is for young people. If we truly love them and wish to protect
them, then let us put the amendments before this body.
Announcement By The Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would advise people sitting in the
gallery that they are prohibited from reacting to speeches on the
floor.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New York is recognized
for 2\1/4\ minutes.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of rhetoric here today.
I think the gentlewoman, I believe it was from Texas, made the
statement that she was concerned that this bill before us today was
going to put children in jail. Let me inform the gentlewoman and
anybody else in this Chamber that for the last 40 years we have coddled
criminals in this country, and we have made it very, very difficult for
the people that suffered under those criminals.
What this legislation does is, yes, it does lock up children. Who are
those children that we want to lock up under this bill? They are those
that are old enough to commit murder and rape and brutal assaults
against women and children in this country. They deserve to be in jail.
This bill before us is going to send that kind of a message.
There are a lot of myths about this bill. I will include for the
Record a list of all of those, there are 10 of them, that explain some
of the rhetoric that has taken place in this debate.
In closing, let me just say this. Watch for the vote on final passage
of this bill and Members will see that all of the talk in opposition to
it was a lot of rhetoric, because this bill will pass overwhelmingly,
and will send a message to these young rapists and murderers and brutal
assaulters of women and children in this country: We are not going to
stand for it any longer.
Mr. Speaker, I include the following for the Record:
Top 10 Democrat Myths About H.R. 3 and the Juvenile Justice System
MYTH 1: PROSECUTORS WILL BE FORCED TO TRY JUVENILES AS ADULTS
H.R. 3 mandates that certain juveniles be prosecuted as
adults. Federal prosecutors must choose between prosecuting
these juveniles as adults or not prosecuting at all.
FACT. PROSECUTORS HAVE DISCRETION IN EVERY CASE
H.R. 3 allows prosecutors in every instance to either refer
a juvenile offender to State authorities, prosecute the
offender as a juvenile, or proceed against the offender as an
adult. In the case of murder and other serious violent
felonies, H.R. 3 includes a presumption that juvenile 14 or
older should be charged as an adult, but the prosecutor has
the discretion to charge the offender as a juvenile.
MYTH 2: JUVENILES WILL BE HOUSED WITH ADULTS
H.R. 3 will allow the federal government to incarcerate
juveniles in the same cell with adult criminals. Moreover,
juveniles prosecuted as adults will be housed with adults
after they are convicted.
FACT: JUVENILES WILL NOT BE HOUSED WITH ADULTS
H.R. 3 explicitly prohibits housing juveniles with adults.
There can be absolutely no regular contact between juveniles
and adults criminals during any stage of the justice process.
MYTH 3: ALL PUNISHMENT AND NO PREVENTION
The Republican approach to addressing the juvenile crime
problem is narrow-mined: it focuses solely on punishment and
is silent on prevention.
FACT: PREVENTION PLUS
Accountability is prevention: When youthful offenders face
consequences for their wrongdoing, criminal careers stop
before they start. H.R. 3 encourages states to provide a
sanction for every act of wrongdoing, starting with the first
offense, and increasing in severity with each subsequent
offense, which is the best method for directing youngsters
away from a path of crime while they are still amenable to
such encouragements.
Moreover, this bill is only part of a larger legislative
effort to combat juvenile crime. The prevention funding in
the Administration's juvenile crime bill falls under the
jurisdiction of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.
That committee will be bringing forth a juvenile crime
prevention bill within the next several weeks. In addition,
that bill will be a small but significant part of the more
than $4 billion dollars which will be spent by the federal
government this year on at-risk and delinquent youth.
MYTH 4: H.R. 3 IS BIG GOVERNMENT AT ITS WORST
H.R. 3 takes a one-size-fits-all approach by strictly
limiting how localities can spend their grant funds.
FACT: LOCAL GOVERNMENTS HAVE FLEXIBILITY
Under H.R. 3, States and local governments have extensive
flexibility. H.R. 3 provides funds to States and units of
local government to be used for a wide variety of juvenile
crime-fighting activities ranging from building and expanding
juvenile detention facilities, establishing drug courts and
hiring prosecutors to establishing accountability-based
programs that work with juvenile offenders who are referred
by law enforcement agencies.
MYTH 5: H.R. 3 ATTEMPTS TO MICRO-MANAGE THE STATES
H.R. 3 sends the message that Washington-knows-best: States
must do it the federal government's way or no way. H.R. 3
places so many requirements on States in order to receive
funding that few States will want to qualify.
FACT: LIMITED INCENTIVES TO ACHIEVE BENEFICIAL REFORMS
Creating incentives for the States to reform their juvenile
justice systems is desperately needed. When encounters with
the juvenile justice system teach juvenile offenders that
they are not accountable for their actions, the system is
broken. Never before has there been a greater imperative for
the juvenile justice system to be working than now. Too many
jurisdictions are held captive by bureaucrats that strictly
adhere to the old, discredited juvenile justice philosophy
that young criminals are not responsible for their actions.
Many Republican governors have put forward juvenile justice
reform proposals that have been blocked by liberal
legislators. Like our truth-in-sentencing incentive grant
program, we can help our allies at the State level to
transform America's justice system.
MYTH 6: VERY YOUNG OFFENDERS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM
H.R. 3 is over-reaching in that it unnecessarily expands
the list of serious violent crimes for which 13 year-olds can
be prosecuted. There is no evidence which proves that 12-,
13-, or 14-year-olds are any more dangerous than they were
20 years ago.
Fact: Youthful but Dangerous
Juveniles 15 and younger were responsible for 64 percent of
the violent offenses handled by the juvenile courts in 1994.
Between 1965 and 1992, the number of 12-year-olds arrested
for violent crime rose 211 percent; the number of 13- and 14-
year-olds rose 301 percent; and the number of 15-year-olds
rose 297 percent.
myth 7: the adult court system is more lenient on juveniles
Juveniles tried in adult criminal court are more likely to
have their cases dismissed and serve shorter sentences than
juveniles referred to juvenile court.
fact: most juveniles are held accountable in the adult system
According to GAO, most juveniles prosecuted for serious
offenses in adult criminal court are convicted and
incarcerated. Barely one-third of juveniles prosecuted for
serious offenses in juvenile court are convicted and
confined. Juveniles prosecuted in criminal court are subject
to the same sentencing guidelines as adult defendants in
criminal court. While a few studies show that juvenile
property offenders may not receive longer sentences in adult
court, several studies show that violent juveniles receive
longer sentences in adult criminal court than in juvenile
court.
myth 8: violent juveniles are already effectively treated as adults
Juvenile judges are already waiving large numbers of
serious violent juveniles into the adult system, H.R. 3 would
limit the power of juvenile judges to make these decisions.
fact: leaving it up to juvenile judges is not good enough
In 1994, only 1.4% of all delinquency cases--the same
percentage as in 1985--are transferred to adult court.
Juvenile court judges transfer just under three percent of
violent juvenile offenders to adult criminal court. For
juveniles to be held accountable for their violent acts,
prosecutors must have a say in this process!
myth 9: prevention is research-proven
The Republican approach to fighting juvenile crime ignores
the fact that prevention is cost-effective and research-
proven. After-school programs and drug treatment programs
should be included in H.R. 3 since so little is being done in
those areas.
fact: federally-funded prevention has proven ``ineffective''
According to a comprehensive Justice Department-
commissioned study published last month, ``Recreational,
enrichment, and leisure activities such as after school
programs are unlikely to reduce delinquency'' * * *
``Midnight basketball programs are not likely to reduce
crime.'' Programs like it may
[[Page H2323]]
actually increase the risk of delinquency by combining lower-
risk and high-risk students in the same activity and by
providing space for high-risk youth to interact.
Moreover, according to the General Accounting Office, the
federal government already funds for at-risk and delinquent
youth: 21 gang intervention programs, 35 mentoring programs,
42 job training assistance programs, 47 counseling programs,
44 self-sufficiency programs, and 53 substance abuse
intervention programs.
myth 10: less confinement, not more
We need more prevention and alternatives to incarceration
not more detention cells. Juveniles need to be diverted away
from a life of crime, not thrown in prison in the prime of
youth.
fact: juveniles are not held accountable
Because our juvenile justice system is so woefully
inadequate, juveniles quickly learn, ``I can beat the
system.'' Only 10 percent of violent juvenile offenders--
those who commit murder, rape, robbery or assault--receive
any sort of institutional ``placement out-side the home.''
The small percentage of juveniles who are placed in
confinement for such violent offenses will be back on the
streets in an average of 353 days. Almost half of all
juveniles arrested for violent offenses receive probation,
fine, restitution, or community service.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the
previous question on the resolution.
The previous question was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not
present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 252,
nays 159, not voting 22, as follows:
[Roll No. 109]
YEAS--252
Aderholt
Archer
Armey
Bachus
Baesler
Baker
Ballenger
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Barton
Bass
Bateman
Bereuter
Berry
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bliley
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bono
Boyd
Brady
Bryant
Bunning
Burr
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Campbell
Canady
Cannon
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Chenoweth
Christensen
Coble
Coburn
Collins
Combest
Cook
Cooksey
Cox
Cramer
Crane
Crapo
Cubin
Cunningham
Danner
Davis (FL)
Davis (VA)
Deal
DeLay
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Dingell
Doolittle
Doyle
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Emerson
English
Ensign
Everett
Ewing
Fawell
Foley
Forbes
Fowler
Fox
Franks (NJ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Ganske
Gekas
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Goode
Goodlatte
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Graham
Granger
Green
Gutknecht
Hall (TX)
Hansen
Hastert
Hastings (WA)
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hill
Hilleary
Hobson
Hoekstra
Holden
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hulshof
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Inglis
Istook
Jenkins
John
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, Sam
Jones
Kanjorski
Kasich
Kelly
Kim
King (NY)
Kingston
Klink
Klug
Knollenberg
Kolbe
LaHood
Largent
Latham
LaTourette
Lazio
Leach
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Livingston
LoBiondo
Lucas
Manzullo
Mascara
McCarthy (MO)
McCollum
McCrery
McDade
McHugh
McInnis
McIntosh
McKeon
Metcalf
Mica
Miller (FL)
Molinari
Mollohan
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Morella
Murtha
Myrick
Nethercutt
Neumann
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nussle
Ortiz
Oxley
Packard
Pappas
Parker
Paul
Paxon
Pease
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pickett
Pitts
Porter
Portman
Pryce (OH)
Quinn
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Riggs
Riley
Roemer
Rogan
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Royce
Ryun
Salmon
Sandlin
Sanford
Saxton
Scarborough
Schaefer, Dan
Schaffer, Bob
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Sherman
Shimkus
Shuster
Sisisky
Skeen
Skelton
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (OR)
Smith (TX)
Smith, Adam
Smith, Linda
Snowbarger
Solomon
Souder
Spence
Stearns
Stenholm
Stump
Sununu
Tanner
Taylor (NC)
Thomas
Thornberry
Thune
Tiahrt
Traficant
Turner
Upton
Walsh
Wamp
Watkins
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
White
Whitfield
Wicker
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NAYS--159
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Allen
Baldacci
Barcia
Barrett (WI)
Bentsen
Bishop
Blagojevich
Blumenauer
Bonior
Borski
Boswell
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Capps
Cardin
Carson
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Condit
Conyers
Costello
Coyne
Cummings
Davis (IL)
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dellums
Deutsch
Dixon
Doggett
Edwards
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Fazio
Flake
Foglietta
Ford
Frank (MA)
Frost
Furse
Gejdenson
Gonzalez
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hamilton
Hastings (FL)
Hefner
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hooley
Hoyer
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Johnson (WI)
Johnson, E. B.
Kaptur
Kennedy (MA)
Kennedy (RI)
Kennelly
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind (WI)
Kleczka
Kucinich
LaFalce
Lampson
Lantos
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Lofgren
Lowey
Luther
Maloney (CT)
Maloney (NY)
Manton
Markey
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McDermott
McGovern
McHale
McIntyre
McNulty
Meehan
Meek
Menendez
Millender-McDonald
Miller (CA)
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Nadler
Neal
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pomeroy
Poshard
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Reyes
Rivers
Rodriguez
Rothman
Roukema
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Sabo
Sanchez
Sanders
Sawyer
Schumer
Scott
Serrano
Skaggs
Slaughter
Snyder
Spratt
Stabenow
Stokes
Strickland
Stupak
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Thompson
Thurman
Tierney
Torres
Towns
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Waters
Watt (NC)
Waxman
Wexler
Weygand
Wise
Woolsey
Wynn
NOT VOTING--22
Andrews
Becerra
Berman
Boucher
Clay
Dicks
Dooley
Ehrlich
Filner
Gephardt
Greenwood
Harman
Linder
Martinez
McKinney
Pelosi
Pombo
Schiff
Stark
Talent
Tauzin
Yates
{time} 2028
Ms. DeGETTE and Messrs. FARR of California, OWENS, OBERSTAR, and
BARCIA changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Mrs. MORELLA and Mr. MASCARA changed their vote from ``nay'' to
``yea.''
So the resolution was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bonilla). Pursuant to House Resolution
143 and rule XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of
the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the
bill, H.R. 3.
{time} 2030
In the Committee of the Whole
Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the
Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill
(H.R. 3) to combat violent youth crime and increase accountability for
juvenile criminal offenses, with Mr. Kingston in the chair.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having
been read the first time.
Under the rule, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] and the
gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee] will each control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum].
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Chairman, let me begin by expressing my appreciation to the
chairman of the full Committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from
Illinois [Mr. Hyde], my good friend, for his leadership and to the
gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers], the ranking member of the full
committee, and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer], the ranking
member of the Crime Subcommittee, and their staffs for their
cooperation in the development of this product that we have out here
tonight, H.R. 3. The gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer] in
particular has worked very cooperatively on this bill. We disagree on
some issues, but we
[[Page H2324]]
have worked in good faith and have reached as much consensus as
possible.
Mr. Chairman, today we begin consideration of one of the most
important issues we will tackle in this Congress: The issue of juvenile
crime. Every effort we undertake as lawmakers to improve the lives of
our fellow citizens, whether it is about education, health care,
housing, or flood control, the success of every effort depends upon the
existence of an ordered society. If Americans are afraid to walk to the
corner grocery store, or must worry about the safety of their children
at school, economic growth, or improved education does little good.
The clear truth is, Mr. Chairman, our constituents should be worried.
America's juvenile justice system is broken. Violent juvenile crime is
a national epidemic, and unless something is done quickly, it will soon
get considerably worse.
Listen to these statistics: Offenders under the age of 18 commit more
than one out of every five violent crimes in America; that is one-fifth
of all murders, rapes, robberies, and assaults. In 1995, they committed
nearly 2 million crimes; 18-year-olds committed more murders than any
other age group and 17-year-olds, more rapes. Juveniles 15 and younger
were responsible for 64 percent of the violent offenses handled by the
juvenile courts in 1994.
Here is the really bad news: If these trends continue, juvenile
arrests for violent crimes will more than double by the year 2010. The
FBI predicts juveniles arrested for murder will increase 145 percent,
forcible rape arrests will increase 66 percent, and aggravated assault
arrests by 129 percent.
Why? In the remaining years of this decade and throughout the next,
America will experience a 31-percent increase in teenagers as the
children of baby boomers come of age. In other words, we are going to
have a surge in the population group that poses the biggest threat to
public safety.
Mr. Chairman, many academics and some in law enforcement fail to
recognize the magnitude of this looming crisis. They cite the decline
of the rate of violent crime in each of the last 4 years as proof that
the fear of crime that permeates society is unfounded.
Yes; the rate of violent crime per capita has gone down, but it is
four times higher than it was in 1960. In that year, this country
experienced 160 violent crimes per 100,000 people. In 1995, there were
685 violent crimes for every 100,000 people. Last year's 10 percent
decline hardly put a nick in this. There is a real danger of immediate
and sharp reversal with the teen population boom ready to spring on us
in the coming decade.
We are here tonight because the juvenile justice system is unprepared
for this coming storm. It is broken, and its failures have contributed
to the magnitude of the present problem.
Statistics paint a picture of a juvenile justice system in collapse.
The percentage of violent juvenile offenders who are sentenced to
confinement has actually decreased in the last 4 years. Only 10 percent
of violent juvenile offenders receive any sort of institutional
confinement, and that small percentage is back on the street in an
average of 353 days. In other words, a juvenile who commits a cold-
blooded murder can be walking our neighborhood in less than a year.
Of course, most juveniles receive no punishment at all. Nearly 40
percent of violent juvenile offenders who come into contact with the
juvenile justice system have their cases dismissed. It is not unusual
for a youngster to come before a juvenile judge 10 or 12 times before
any punishment is imposed. By the time the courts finally lock up an
older teen for a violent crime, the offender has a long rap sheet
starting in the early teens, or maybe younger. According to the Justice
Department, 43 percent of juveniles in State institutions had more than
5 prior arrests, and 20 percent had been arrested more than 10 times.
Perhaps even worse, juveniles who vandalize stores or homes or write
graffiti on buildings rarely come before a juvenile court. Police
officers seldom see these kids and seldom refer them into custody,
knowing there is little chance that they will receive punishment. Kids
do not fear the consequences of their actions because they are rarely
held accountable, and that is where the rub really lies in this whole
situation.
We are looking at a case, for example, of Daniel Doe in Ohio. What is
wrong with the juvenile justice system?
At age 12, Danny was arrested for vandalizing a neighbor's house. He
had spray painted the walls, wrecked the furniture, and even went so
far as to drown the pet bird in the bathtub. At 14 his criminal
behavior had escalated to burglarizing an apartment. In the process he
beat an elderly resident who died several days later from
complications. For this crime he was convicted of involuntary
manslaughter.
Danny then entered the adult criminal justice system at the age of 19
when he brutally beat a middle-aged woman in the act of burglarizing
her home. He was sentenced for his crime, but by that time his juvenile
arrest record had been erased. For the second time in the eyes of the
law, Danny was treated as a first-time offender. The judge, ignorant of
his violent past, gave him probation. Danny then went on to beat an
elderly man to death in yet another burglary 2 months later.
Who knows how many earlier minor crimes were not referred by police
or adjudicated without punishment? Could Danny's life of violent crime
have been prevented by an effective juvenile justice system? I would
submit that perhaps it could have been.
Crimes committed by juveniles are primarily handled by the States,
but the collapse of the system has created a national crisis. Congress
needs to provide incentives to the States to stimulate a core of
critically and urgently needed repairs of the juvenile justice system,
just as it did 2 years ago when faced with violent adult criminals who
were serving about a third of their sentences. Congress then enacted a
truth-in-sentencing grant program offering money for prison
construction to States which change their laws to require violent
offenders to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. More than 20
States have now done so, and the average time served nationally is
approaching 50 percent.
A similar grant program is at the heart of H.R. 3, the Juvenile Crime
Control Act of 1997, before us tonight. It is $1.5 billion over 3 years
that would be provided in this bill to States and local communities to
hire more juvenile judges, probation officers or prosecutors, construct
juvenile detention facilities or whatever they decide they need to
improve their juvenile justice system. To qualify for a grant, a State
would have to assure the Justice Department that it has accomplished
four core reforms.
First, there must be a sanction such as community service for the
very first act of juvenile delinquency and graduated sections for each
delinquent act thereafter. Police and prosecutors must take young
vandals before juvenile courts, and judges must impose punishment. If
kids see the consequences to their early delinquent acts, far fewer
will evolve into violent criminals.
Next, the State must ensure that prosecutors have the discretion to
prosecute as adults juveniles 15 and older who commit serious violent
crimes. Such teenagers need to be locked up for a long time, the same
as violent criminals 18 and older.
Third, States must establish a recordkeeping system for juveniles
adjudicated delinquents. This system would ensure that the records of
any young offender adjudicated a delinquent two or more times are
treated for the purposes of maintenance and availability the same as
adult criminal records if the second offense or a later one is a
felony. Today's common practice of keeping juvenile records sealed and
erasing them when a juvenile reaches 18 must be stopped for those who
are repeat violent offenders.
Last, State law must not prevent a judge from holding parents
accountable, not for the delinquent act of the child, but for
fulfilling a responsibility directed by the court at the time a
sanction is imposed on a juvenile for a delinquent act. Juvenile judges
must be given the authority to fine or otherwise sanction parents for
not following court orders designed to force a parent to act
responsibly in overseeing a child's behavior.
Without these core reforms and without an infusion of dramatically
greater resources by the States to match the Federal funds, juvenile
justice systems
[[Page H2325]]
of our Nation cannot be revived. There are many things that need to be
done to fight juvenile crime, but none are more critical than repairing
our juvenile justice system.
The second thing this bill does is to establish a model Federal
system for holding juveniles accountable for their crimes. These model
procedures are designed to give prosecutors the control they need to
protect the public, to give judges the authority they need to impose
meaningful sanctions against all juvenile offenders, and to hold
parents of juveniles responsible for supervising their children and to
give law enforcement officials the records they need to know the
criminal history of young criminals much like we are asking the States
to do if they qualify to receive the block grant money under this
proposal.
Under these procedures, no juveniles will be in prison with adults.
Under current law, which is unchanged by this bill, all juvenile
prisoners must be separated from adults. To those who say otherwise, I
say read the bill. The committee rejected two provisions from the
President's bill which would have loosened this standard.
Third, H.R. 3 enhances the Federal Government's tools for targeting,
in limited situations, the most dangerous juvenile criminals. This bill
is not a takeover of juvenile justice. It does not expand Federal
authority. But when Federal enforcement is needed such as when State
and local law enforcement officials are overwhelmed by violent street
gangs, this bill will make Federal law enforcement more effective in
protecting the public.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me briefly touch on the issue of
prevention. We will hear a lot from the other side about prevention and
the perceived inadequacies of this bill in the area of preventing
crime. Well, I have three brief responses to this concern.
First, when there are real consequences for juvenile crimes, and when
there are these real consequences, particularly crimes committed by
younger offenders, we can stop criminal careers before they have a
chance to get started. In other words, holding juveniles accountable is
prevention.
Second, we must all remember that this bill is only a part of a
larger legislative effort to deal with juvenile crime. The prevention
funding in the administration's juvenile crime bill is in the
jurisdiction of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. That
committee will be bringing forth a juvenile crime prevention bill
within the next several weeks. That bill will be a small but
significant part of the billions of dollars that will be spent by the
Federal Government this year to prevent crime.
Third, I still support the funding for block grants passed in the
Contract With America that are now being used by local governments for
crime prevention and supportive law enforcement. I will be working with
appropriators to find the funds necessary to support both the juvenile
justice grants in this bill and the more general purpose public safety
block grants that were passed in the last Congress as a part of the
appropriations process.
So Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the debate on this bill. I urge my
colleagues to support H.R. 3 and begin the process of repairing
America's collapsed juvenile justice system.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, when we started this process, I recognize that the
gentleman from Florida sought out a great deal of data. As I have
indicated earlier in my discussions on the floor regarding juvenile
crime, it would really be nice if this was a bipartisan effort. But
obviously, H.R. 3 is not a bill that addresses the question of juvenile
crime prevention and real solutions.
Today, in a hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, we heard
from the Concerned Alliance of Men. It so happens that they say they
cure crime, violent crime among youngsters, with a hug. Many of us
would look at this in a very skeptical manner, but if my colleagues
heard those gentlemen today, they would realize that we can prevent
juvenile crime. We can prevent it with targeted efforts toward
recognizing that prevention is important.
I asked the chairman why prevention and prevention efforts cannot be
in this juvenile crime bill proposed by the Committee on the Judiciary.
We have done it before. We did it in the 1994 crime bill. It worked.
This legislation will not make us safer but only divert attention
from real and more difficult solutions. We need a balanced approach
that encompasses both punishment and prevention. The juvenile justice
systems were first established in the United States at the turn of the
century, to emphasize rehabilitation for youthful offenders.
Today's youth may or may not be more troubled than in the past, but a
system that treats juveniles differently than adults seeking through a
combination of measured punishment treatment and counseling, to divert
them from destructive paths and keep them within the fold of
responsible law-abiding citizens still is an important and real
approach in which we should go.
{time} 2030
To be sure, violent and dangerous youth must be prevented from
inflicting additional suffering. But the chairman recognizes that as
the Judiciary Committee traveled across the country, it is well known
that the bulk of juvenile crime falls within a small number of States.
We have good kids in America. Those that need help need it by way of
counseling, prevention, and other means other than locking up juveniles
with adults. We do not need to hear about six adult prisoners who
murdered a 17-year-old boy while he was incarcerated in a juvenile cell
block in an adult jail in Ohio. Do we need to hear about, in Idaho, a
17-year-old boy held in an adult jail who was tortured and then
murdered by other prisoners; or in Ohio, a 15-year-old who was raped
while she was incarcerated? Why do we not have an amendment that
separates adults from juveniles?
Recognizing that the Rand Corp. is not the most liberal think tank in
this country, it has recently issued a report demonstrating that crime
prevention efforts aimed at disadvantaged kids are more effective than
tough prison terms in keeping our citizenry safe.
Then, what about the trigger lock? What an interesting approach H.R.
3 takes by refusing to stand up to the National Rifle Association, when
80 percent of Americans say a trigger lock is a valid approach to
preventing juvenile crime. It does not seem to make sense. It does not
seem that we are on a balanced approach.
The 1994 crime bill authorized funding for numerous juvenile
prevention programs, as I said earlier. Since Republicans gained the
majority, we have spent not a single cent for prevention. It seems we
have missed the boat. We have missed the trigger. We have missed our
direction. We are misguided. Rather than with a hug, recognizing that
we can save more children with prevention, we now have on the floor of
the House H.R. 3, in total disregard of all of the current knowledge
that we have, and the body of law and the body of knowledge that says
we can save our children with a better approach, more prevention.
Mr. Chairman, I rise to voice my concerns regarding H.R. 3, the
Juvenile Crime Control Act of 1997. As a member of both the Judiciary
Committee and the Democratic Caucus's Juvenile Justice Task Force, I
have spent a great deal of time over the last months analyzing,
discussing and debating this bill and I find the bill very troubling.
I want to say first that I agree that the enormous rise in the rate
of juvenile crime is a serious problem that we, in this Congress, must
address. I recognize that those persons who commit the most heinous
crimes, be they juveniles or adults, must be punished. I am concerned,
however, to see this bill focus on harsher penalties for juvenile
offenders rather than addressing the reasons that so many children turn
to crime in the first place. It seems to me that the failure to address
these underlying reasons is terribly short-sighted. If we really hope
to solve this problem and to reduce violence, we must address both
parts of the equation--prevention and punishment.
Most public policy analysts confirm that early prevention programs
offer the best hope to stem juvenile crime. They emphasize the
importance of better schools and more job training, recreation and
mentoring programs. Such initiatives provide children with positive
role models and increase economic opportunities.
[[Page H2326]]
H.R. 3 allows children as young as 13 years old to be tried in adult
court. Evidence, however, suggests that children tried as adults have a
higher recidivism rate than comparable children tried as juveniles.
Children tried as adults reoffend sooner, commit more serious offenses,
and reoffend more often. For example, in Florida which pioneered
mandatory waiver of juveniles into adult courts in the early 1980's, a
recent study compared the recidivism rate of juveniles transferred to
the adult criminal courts with those kept in the juvenile system. The
study concluded that youths tried as adults commit even more crimes
after release than do those allowed to remain in the juvenile system.
Another study, comparing New York and New Jersey juvenile offenders,
shows that the rearrest rate for children sentenced in juvenile court
was 29 percent lower than the rearrest rate for juveniles sentenced in
the adult court system.
There are a number of other provisions in H.R. 3 that I find
disturbing such as that allowing juveniles to be housed predisposition
in prison with adults and that making juvenile records available to
the public.
Housing of juveniles in adult prisons places them in very real and
very serious danger. A 1989 study by Jeffrey Fagan titled ``Youth in
Prisons and Training Schools: Perceptions and Consequences of the
Treatment-Custody Dichotomy'' shows that children in adult institutions
are five times more likely to be attacked with a weapon than juveniles
confined in a juvenile facility. This fact is evidenced by a number of
cases. On April 25, 1996, six adult prisoners murdered a 17-year-old
boy while he was incarcerated in the juvenile cellblock of an adult
jail in Ohio. In Idaho, a 17-year-old boy held in an adult jail was
tortured and finally murdered by other prisoners in the cell. In Ohio,
a juvenile court judge put a 15-year-old girl in adult county jail to
teach her a lesson. On the fourth night of her confinement, she was
sexually assaulted by a deputy jailer.
There are already enough tragic stories to document the ill-advised
policy of housing juveniles with adults and in adult prisons. Do we
really want to place more children in such a position of danger?
With respect to the release of juvenile records to the public, I am
again troubled. The juvenile justice system was founded on the
principle that juvenile offenders are children and as such should not
be held to the same standard of culpability as adult offenders. The
juvenile justice system has been based on the premise of
rehabilitation; to provide the juvenile access to programs and life
skills that he or she has not gained in the community. When the
juvenile reenters the community he or she is to begin fresh without the
public stigma of a criminal record.
I agree that to protect the public from certain of these juvenile
offenders law enforcement officials and some social service
organizations must have access to juvenile records. I am convinced,
however, that publicly disclosing the court records of a juvenile will
permanently stigmatize the child at an early age which will follow the
child into adulthood; thus, inhibiting efforts to rehabilitate the
child as well as the child's future employment and educational
opportunities.
H.R. 3 is a flawed, one-sided piece of legislation. It focuses our
energy and attention exclusively on only one-part of what is a complex
problem. We must pursue a more balanced approach. If we are truly
serious about stemming the tide of juvenile crime--and I do not doubt
the sincerity of everyone in this body on that question--we must
provide both punishment and prevention. The answer to the juvenile
crime problem will not be found in the building of more prisons or the
imposition of harsher sentences. We will only be successful in our
battle against this crisis when we stop the creation of these young
criminals.
Mr. Chairman, I share the concern about the problem of juvenile crime
that led to H.R. 3. I do not, however, share H.R. 3's vision of a
solution to this problem and I urge my colleagues to vote against H.R.
3.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina
[Mr. Watt], a very active and strong proponent of the issues we are
discussing in this bill.
Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, for the first time in this
House I am going to speak from the Republican side, because I want to
remind my Republican friends of a few things.
Mr. Chairman, let me put this bill in historical perspective. Go back
through the whole history of America. At the Federal level, we have
never, ever had a Federal juvenile judge. Never have we had a Federal
juvenile probation officer. Never have we had a Federal juvenile
facility.
The reason for that is that all throughout our history, juvenile
justice has been a matter of State and local law. Yet, my conservative
Republican colleagues all of a sudden have decided that we are going to
federalize juvenile justice in this country. We do not even do a good
job of criminal justice for adults, yet we are going to federalize and
tell the States what they are going to do in the arena of juvenile
justice.
Mr. Chairman, something is wrong with that. Something is also wrong
with the fact that only 11 States, at most, will be eligible for any
kind of grant under this bill. My State, where one-fifth of the
juveniles have been tried and convicted and incarcerated as adults, in
the whole United States the State of North Carolina still will not be
eligible for funds under this bill. Why? Because we do not have open
juvenile records; because our judges decide who gets prosecuted as an
adult if they are a juvenile, not our prosecutors deciding it. We do
not have a law that holds parents, sanctions parents if they do not
closely supervise their children.
Three out of the four requirements to get funds under this bill we do
not meet in North Carolina. We have the most aggressive juvenile
justice system in America in North Carolina. Guess what States qualify
for funds under the bill? The principal sponsor, his State qualifies. I
would encourage all of us to look at what States qualify and defeat
this bill.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to acknowledge there are provisions that
require a State to qualify. I would doubt very many States technically
qualify right now, because the purpose of the grant program the
gentleman from North Carolina is talking about, the heart of this bill,
is an incentive grant program to get the States to repair their broken
criminal justice system.
The idea here is that we are attempting to get the States to move in
the direction of doing things that are not very hard for them to do. I
think 25 States, and I do not know that my State of Florida qualifies,
the gentleman says the Justice Department says so, but I do not see
that they do, because I do not see the courts sanctioning those early
juvenile delinquent acts. I do not see them taking the first juvenile
delinquent act in every case and giving some sort of punishment to it.
I do not see the police referring the cases there. I do not think that
happens in any State. But it is not hard to get there. The laws do not
have to be changed, the States just have to start doing it.
In the case of the prosecutions with regard to adult offenses, very
easy; all they have to do is give the flexibility to the prosecutors.
They do not have to prosecute 15-year-olds and older that commit
violent felonies as adults.
The recordkeeping requirements are easy to enact, and the question of
allowing judges, I think most States probably do, but maybe a few do
not, juvenile judges to hold parents accountable for things the judge
charges them to do, very easy to qualify. But technically I suspect
every State is not qualifying right now, but they are given a year to
do that. That is the reason, the raison d'etre, for the existence of
this bill; to repair, to encourage the States with a carrot, not a
stick, to repair the broken juvenile justice system of this Nation.
I will yield to anybody saying that this is a primarily State
function, not a Federal function, but we have a national crisis, and we
need to do that.
Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. McCOLLUM. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.
Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I thank the gentleman for yielding, Mr.
Chairman.
Is it not ironic that the gentleman's State qualifies, and no other
State in America qualifies?
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, if I can reclaim my time, the gentleman
said it did. I do not know that any qualify. I do not believe Florida
qualifies.
Mr. WATT of North Carolina. What good is the bill if no one
qualifies?
Mr. McCOLLUM. Florida does not qualify, in my opinion.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. McCOLLUM. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma for the purposes
of a colloquy.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
[[Page H2327]]
The purpose of this colloquy is to discuss the grant program under
the provisions of H.R. 3, and to ask the chairman as to his
consideration for the youth challenge programs as presently run by the
National Guard. There are 15 of them, and they have done a wonderful
job in terms of improving the opportunities for young people.
There have been now over 30,000 young people go through that program.
There is only one now incarcerated in the entire United States that has
worked through that program. It is one of the Government programs that
is effective, that works, that restores self-respect, restores dignity,
and restores responsibility in young people that are at risk.
My question, Mr. Chairman, is will these youth challenge programs in
the State of Oklahoma and other States qualify under this bill for the
grant, the block grant moneys?
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I would say to the gentleman, yes, they
would qualify. The local communities make that decision.
On page 24 of the bill, item number 11, it says one of those things
for which they would qualify is programs establishing and maintaining
accountability that work with juvenile offenders who are referred by
law enforcement agencies or which are designed in cooperation with law
enforcement officials to protect students and school personnel from
drug, gang, and youth violence. So it would qualify under these
provisions, in answer to the gentleman's questions.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.
Mr. WATT of North Carolina. If the gentleman will yield further, Mr.
Chairman, the gentleman's State is going to have to do all these crazy
mandatory things before this challenge thing is going to give him a
dime worth of money.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, there are no crazy
mandatory things in this bill. There are four core things that I have
reiterated several times over tonight that the State must do to qualify
for an incentive grant. We have lots of Federal grant programs out here
in many areas on the books today which have far more restrictive
elements in it than this does.
Democrats, on their side of the aisle, for years they have had all
kinds of restrictions on how to spend money, how they spend money on
various programs when they get it. We do not restrict that to any
degree here. What we restrict is the qualifiers that have always been
imposed in enormous numbers by the other side of the aisle.
Now tonight they are out here complaining about the three or four
little things we want to have done to repair the juvenile justice
system to qualify for Federal grant programs to repair that system.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the
gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott], a former member of the
Subcommittee on Crime, and a strong and knowledgable person on these
very vital issues.
Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from Texas for
yielding time to me.
Mr. Chairman, we know how to reduce crime. We know what works. We
know what does not work. Studies have shown that Head Start, Job Corps,
drug rehabilitation, truancy prevention, those kinds of programs that
give young people constructive things to do with their time and adult
interaction, those that increase their education and job opportunities,
those are the kinds of things that work. Job Corps, Head Start, and
others have been shown to save more money than they cost by reducing
crime and reducing future welfare expenses.
Mr. Chairman, we know what sounds tough and does not work. We know
that the sound bite--if you do the adult crime, you do the adult time--
we know that if you treat more juveniles as adults, all of the studies
show that the crime rate, the violent crime rate will go up if we
codify that sound bite.
We know mandatory minimums have no deterrent effect on juveniles,
because they do not make those kinds of calculations. They act
impulsively. So we know what works, we know what does not work. We also
know that when we say we are not tough, we have to recognize that we
are already jailing more people in America than anywhere else on Earth.
We have some communities that have more young people locked up in jails
than they have in college.
We know that more money in prisons cannot possibly have, since we
lock so many people up already, cannot possibly have an effect on the
crime rate. So it makes no sense, waiting for the children to mess up
and then lock them up, when it is cheaper to invest in crime prevention
programs and prevent them from getting in trouble in the first place.
For example, the Rand study shows that parental training, the money
put into that program, is three times more cost effective than the
three-strikes-and-you-are-out, good, tough-sounding sound bite.
So we have today's bill, with the major provisions--treat more 13-
year-olds as adults, and more young people treated as adults--proven to
increase violence; more exposure to mandatory minimums constantly, with
no effect or deterrence; more money for prisons that cannot possibly do
any good, since most States are already spending more in prisons than
they are in higher education. Those are the kinds of things that do not
make any difference at all.
So we have a choice. We can pass this good-sounding but ineffective
bill, or we can defeat the bill and focus our attention on proven,
cost-effective initiatives which will actually reduce the crime rate
and make our streets safer.
I would hope we would defeat the bill, Mr. Chairman, and focus our
attention where it can do some good.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 20 seconds.
Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott] has just made a
valid point. Let me simply share for the Record, the average cost of
incarcerating a juvenile for 1 year is between $35,000 and $64,000 a
year. In contrast, Head Start costs $4,300 per child.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California
[Ms. Lofgren], who has been an active participant on this and the
Juvenile Task Force.
Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, we think about juvenile delinquency, and
we know it is a serious problem in our country. I think it is very easy
for us to lose our way, however, because we do not, as a country, often
make the distinction between what we need to do for justice compared to
what we need to do for public safety. The two are not always the same.
For those who have been victimized by crime, there is never a fair
answer. But we do know that victims of crime seek justice. They seek to
be made whole. They seek punishment for those who did harm to them or
to a loved one.
{time} 2100
That is a human emotion that we all feel and share, and our hearts go
out to victims of crime. However, punishment does not always mean that
we will have a system that keeps us safe. Our job as legislators is to
acknowledge and to provide for victim's need to have justice in the
system, but in a more generic way to take thoughtful, accountable,
cost-effective steps to prevent more victims from being created, and to
make sure that we have a safe society.
The problem with H.R. 3 is that it takes $1.5 billion and puts it
into systems that have not worked instead of putting it into systems
that will keep us safer. We know when we look at the Federal aspects of
the bill that it is very extreme. Automatic trial of 14-year-olds
without judicial review who are alleged to have committed certain
offenses will not make us safer.
When we look at the system put in place for the States, we have
already heard the comments that most States will not be eligible for
funds. We also have received a communication today from the National
Conference of State Legislatures pleading with us to oppose the
mandates that are embodied in H.R. 3.
We know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We
should listen to the Nation's police chiefs. Nine out of ten of the
police chiefs of America, in a recent survey, say that America could
sharply reduce crime if government invested in some early prevention
programs. Police chiefs picked investments in kids by a 3 to 1 margin
over other alternatives, including treating and trying juveniles as
adults.
[[Page H2328]]
So, yes, let us hold young kids accountable when they need to be.
There are some teenagers who need to be tried as adults, who need to be
held to adult standards. Our system provides for that, and it should.
But if we do only that, if we neglect the thousands and millions of
young people who are starting to go off track right now, we will never
get ahead of this problem and we will do a disservice to public safety.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the
gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Stupak], an ex-police officer who knows
about prevention.
Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Chairman, we have a substitute that will be offered
tomorrow which is a tough bill, it is smart and it is balanced.
The bill put forth by the majority party tonight is not smart and it
is not balanced and its toughness only comes from trying to lock up
young people. We have a carrot, says the majority. That carrot is based
upon 197 juveniles that we have in the Federal system. Of those 197,
120 are Native Americans.
So we have 77 juveniles and we are using these 77 juveniles to be the
carrot for the 300,000 juveniles that are around the States. So we tell
them we have these certain incentives, these certain carrots, and
therefore if they do what we tell them to do, we will make available
$1.5 billion to punish young people.
The National Conference of State Legislatures wrote to all of us
today and said the bill is an unfunded mandate. The Federal Government
is now going to apply, and I will quote, ``new rules nationwide
regarding juvenile records, judicial discretion, parental and juvenile
responsibilities; these present new obstacles for the States that need
Federal funds.'' And, therefore, they oppose the bill. The State
legislatures, the council oppose the bill.
What have you done? You give zero money for early intervention, zero
money for detention, zero money for prevention, and instead you want to
try 15-year-old kids as adults with the option of trying 13-year-old
kids as adults and you say that they got to do what Congress says; if
not, they get no money. Only 12 States will get money; well, maybe 11.
My State of Michigan will receive no money.
You say you do not know what is in there. Your own report from the
conference, your own report from your committee, the majority and
minority report lists the 12 States. Thirty-eight States plus the
District of Columbia cannot partake in this bill. And this is a
balanced approach to law enforcement?
You say you are going to get tough because if you get tough, you will
stop crime before it starts. Well, I was a cop. I was there. The old
ways do not work. If we continue down your way of locking up every kid
who steps out of line, we cannot arrest our way out of this problem. We
are going to lose a whole other generation of young people. We will
lose a whole other generation of young people as we are trying to be
tough, and we have this carrot based on 197 juveniles who are in the
Federal system, 197 juveniles.
If we take a look at the bill, your bill does not address what the
communities need. Communities have come to us and said, give us
flexibility. Let us work with our own communities. The problems in
northern Michigan are much different than the problems in Florida or
L.A. or Boston. They need flexibility. They do not need more Federal
mandates.
Mr. Chairman, I will submit the letter the National Conference of
State Legislatures addressed to Members of Congress in opposition to
H.R. 3.
Mr. Chairman, I include for the Record the letter from which I
quoted:
National Conference of
State Legislatures,
Washington, DC, May 7, 1997.
Dear Member of Congress: We are writing to express our
opposition to mandates in H.R. 3, the Juvenile Crime Control
Act of 1997. Mandates in existing law require that states
deinstitutionalize status offenders, remove juveniles from
jails and lock-ups, and separate juvenile delinquents from
adult offenders. Under H.R. 3, the federal government would
apply new rules nationwide relating to juvenile records,
judicial discretion and parental and juvenile responsibility.
These present new obstacles for states that need federal
funds.
States are enacting many laws that attack the problem of
violent juvenile crime comprehensively. Many have lowered the
age at which juveniles may be charged as adults for violent
crimes; others have considered expanding prosecutors'
discretion. Without clear proof that one choice is more
effective than the other, Congress would deny funding for
juvenile justice to states where just one element in the
state's comprehensive approach to juvenile justice differs
from the federal mandate.
The change of directions ought to make Congress wary of
inflexible mandates. For example, until federal law was
changed in 1994 states were forbidden to detain juveniles for
possession of a gun--because possession was a ``status''
offense. The federal response was not merely to allow states
to detain children for possession, but to create a new
federal offense of juvenile possession of a handgun. (Pub. L.
103-322, Sec. 11201). The advantage of states as laboratories
is that their choices put the nation less at risk. This bill
would make the nation the laboratory.
NCSL submits that the proposed mandates, however well-
intentioned, are short-sighted and counter-productive. We
urge you to strike the mandates from H.R. 3.
Sincerely,
William T. Pound,
Executive Director.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.
Mr. Chairman, in response to what the gentleman has just said, I am
sure there are some legislatures and maybe the whole council, as he has
said, who do not want to see this passed because they do not like
anything that we put out there in the way of a carrot, if you will, or
an incentive in a grant program. They did not even like the prison
grant program we put out a couple years ago. I do not know if there are
many Federal programs that go out there without anything attached to
them saying they have to do something to qualify to get the money.
The truth of the matter is, we held 6 regional crime forums in the
last two years, the Subcommittee on Crime, around the country where we
invited every State's attorney general to help us get together juvenile
judges and probation officers and people who worked in the juvenile
justice system to hear what the problems were, to understand what was
really wrong out there. And they all said to us, there is a crisis,
there is a problem. It is beyond the scope of what we can do here at
home. We are not getting the legislatures of the States to respond to
us. We do not have anybody lobbying for us. Please help us.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes and 15 seconds to the gentleman from
Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson], a member of the subcommittee.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3, the
Juvenile Crime Control Act of 1997. As a former Federal prosecutor and,
more importantly, as a parent of a teenager, I want to express my
thanks to the gentleman from Florida, the chairman of the Subcommittee
on Crime, for his important work on this issue.
I have to be honest, Mr. Chairman, that I had some reservations about
this bill in the beginning, but I read the bill, I studied the bill.
And after hearing the testimony in committee and the concerns of law
enforcement and the statements of professionals who deal with the
juvenile issues, I am convinced that this bill will improve, first of
all, our Federal system of handling juveniles and, secondly, it will
encourage the States to enforce accountability in their dealings with
juvenile crimes.
Before I get into the substance of the bill I want to take a moment
and congratulate our States and localities and our cities on the work
that they are doing on this important issue. A number of State
legislatures have recognized a growing threat of juvenile crime and
have taken swift action to crack down on the serious offenders.
However, there is still work to do and there are many jurisdictions
that have not taken that action. This bill sets out a model program for
States to follow, and this is important, if they so choose. Contrary to
what some reports have indicated and what some have said, nothing in
this bill imposes mandates on the States. Participation in the block
grant program is entirely voluntary and changes in the law only apply
to the Federal courts. It is not an unfunded mandate by any means.
The bill itself provides a great deal of flexibility to the States as
they set about to reform juvenile crime procedures. The block grant
provisions provide significant resources to the States and localities
to fight juvenile crime.
[[Page H2329]]
Just this day I received a request from the prosecuting attorney of
Washington County, Fayetteville, AR who is a Democrat-elected
prosecuting attorney. He says that juvenile crimes are on the upswing
in this country and funds are badly need to assist our juvenile deputy
prosecutors and to fund programs that attempt to stop juvenile crime
before it occurs, and he asks support for this bill.
So it is important for the States that they have this flexibility,
that they have the opportunity for these funds.
The block grant is to be used for a wide variety of purposes, leaving
discretion at the local level who are on the front lines. What works in
New York City may not work in northwest Arkansas. Law enforcement
officials in each locality must have the discretion and the latitude to
design their own crime-fighting plan, and this bill allows that
flexibility to exist.
I did have a couple of concerns on the bill that were addressed very
clearly in the committee, and the chairman was very cooperative in
addressing my concerns. One was on the issue of juvenile records. Under
the original bill, juveniles who were adjudicated as delinquents would
have their records made public in the same manner as adults. This was
amended during the committee process, very importantly, so that now a
first-time offender, a one-time offender will maintain those records as
confidential as a juvenile delinquent.
But repeat offenders are a different story. The second time around as
a juvenile delinquent, their records will become available for public
scrutiny, and I do believe this is an important change. In Arkansas we
will have to change the law to a certain extent, but I believe it is a
positive change.
The second concern centered on the criteria the States must meet for
the block grant programs. One of the benchmarks of the block grants
would be that the States would have to assure that juveniles age 15 and
older are treated as adults if they commit, not any crime, but a
serious violent crime, and also that the prosecutor has the authority
to determine whether or not to prosecute such juveniles as adults.
Again, my reading of the bill, and I have talked to the chairman of
the Subcommittee on Crime about this, is that in Arkansas there would
be no need for change in legislation because the prosecutor has the
discretion whether to file charges as an adult or as a juvenile. The
court does have an opportunity to review that decision if a proper
motion is made, but the prosecutor has the initial discretion whether
or not to file charges in a serious violent crime case.
So I think those changes made the bill better. I think it is a very
good bill. It gives flexibility to the States and it allows the States
to adopt programs with funds available for them that will really meet
the needs of juvenile crime, as was indicated by the Democrat
prosecutor from Washington County who asked me to support this today.
Mr. Chairman, I believe that this is a good bill. In closing, let me
emphasize that the prosecution of juveniles as adults under this bill
is reserved for only the most heinous offenders, commission of serious
violent crimes and serious drug offenses. They must carry appropriate
punishment. This legislation goes a long way toward fixing a system
that fails to hold juveniles accountable for their actions. I am very
pleased to support it.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds to
say that it is clear 38 States will not be able to participate under
this legislation. Thirty-eight States with millions of children will be
deprived of having the opportunity to prevent juvenile crime and
rehabilitate our children.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island
[Mr. Kennedy], who has had a constant interest in the area of juvenile
law and juvenile crime.
Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman
from Texas for yielding me the time. I would like to also add from the
outset that my State is among those 38 States that cannot even begin to
access any of the funds under this bill. I might add it just shows how
this bill is not a serious bill, because if it was serious in trying to
change the effect of juvenile crime, it would certainly address the
fact that it ignores 38 States of these United States from having
access to the funds in this bill to do the kinds of things that our
States feel make a difference in reducing crime.
{time} 2115
I just want to make one statement, a simple statement about this
bill, and that is it does nothing, nothing to solve the problems that
we are facing in juvenile crime and, in fact, it makes the problems
worse.
The facts show that we have a problem here. The facts show that kids
sentenced to adult facilities have a higher recidivism rate than those
sentenced to juvenile detention centers. Guess what this bill wants to
do? It wants to send more of them to adult facilities. In essence, this
bill is ignoring the facts.
Second, the facts are that these kids will face shorter sentences.
Because as I said earlier, judges, when faced with a teenager versus a
hardened criminal, guess what the judge is going to do? They will not
give them nearly the sentence they would otherwise get in the juvenile
court. Guess what this bill does? Ignores the facts and sends the kids
to adult jails where they will not be given the harsh sentences where
those kids might need it.
Third fact. These kids, if they are sent to the adult facilities, and
as I said the sentences are shorter, they will come out meaner than we
ever could have imagined them ever ending up if we had sent them to a
juvenile center. And anybody listening to this program tonight on C-
SPAN will understand me when I tell them that sending teenagers to
adult correctional systems as the means to reduce recidivism, when we
know the recidivism rates are higher amongst kids that go to the adult
correction systems, give me a break.
I want to add one more thing. It is scandalous. I say it is
scandalous that we have minorities, African-Americans, that constitute
15 percent of our population, and guess what? They constitute 72
percent, I say to the gentleman from Florida, 72 percent in our
juvenile system. What does the gentleman's bill do about that?
We passed a law in this Congress in the early seventies that dealt
with it. It was called the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention. And one of the mandates of that legislation was to say this
country ought to address the problem that 15 percent of our population
is being incarcerated at the rate of 72 percent. It is scandalous. It
is scandalous. And the gentleman's bill does nothing, I repeat,
nothing, but exacerbate that problem.
This Congress, with statistics like that, should turn the other way
and think again before we adopt a bill that, as I said, ignores these
fundamental facts.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. McCARTHY], who has firsthand knowledge
on some of these very vital issues.
Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R.
3. This juvenile justice debate is personal and emotional to me because
it is a debate about saving lives.
As I visit schools in my district in New York and talk to the kids in
grade school, middle school and high school, I hear firsthand that they
are sick of living in fear of violence.
In order to reduce violence and save lives we have to effectively
attack juvenile criminals. H.R. 3 does not effectively address basic
juvenile crime issues. Rather, the bill before us tonight is a
collection of overly prescriptive, top-down, Washington-knows-best
mandates.
Furthermore, the legislation completely fails to address the gun
issues, and we cannot seriously discuss juvenile crime without the gun
epidemic facing this country.
In order to save lives we have to allow our States and local
governments to utilize programs that they know work best. This bill
will not even let New York take advantage of the money that we need.
This legislation ties the hands of local judges and prosecutors. If our
State and local governments want to access badly needed Federal funds,
they must submit to certain requirements in this bill.
Unfortunately, statistics show that the prescriptions that we are
forcing down our local governments' throats may not be the best option
for local
[[Page H2330]]
crime problems. In fact, recent success in local communities such as
Boston may not even qualify for Federal funding under this bill.
Under this bill, Congress is saying, We will take your tax dollars
but you cannot take them back. It does not matter if you have already
committed to saving kids' lives by getting tough on juvenile crime, you
have to do what we say or else you will not get your hard-earned tax
money back. That is wrong.
There is another important personal issue for me that has been
completely left out of this bill. We have taken a pass on the high
priority issue of reducing gun violence. The sponsor of this bill
states that we can wait for a while and deal with this issue later. I
rise to say that we cannot wait. Juvenile justice is about saving
lives, and I support certainly not this bill.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I will inquire again on the
time, please.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee] has 9\1/4\
minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCOLLUM] has
7\3/4\ minutes remaining.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Turner].
Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman, I came to Congress after having served in
the Texas Senate where last session we passed what I believed to be one
of the toughest juvenile justice reforms in the Nation. Now I come to
Congress and find that this Congress, in H.R. 3, is going to tell the
State of Texas that our tough juvenile justice bill is not good enough,
not good enough to qualify for the Federal funds that we want to
provide.
The legislatures in the 50 States do not need the Congress telling
them how to run the juvenile justice system. We have a letter that we
received today from the National Conference of State Legislatures
opposing the mandates of H.R. 3.
In Texas we have gotten tough on crime and we have also recognized
that we must invest in prevention of juvenile crime. We must begin the
process of investing in early childhood intervention, in supporting our
families and our communities, and being sure we attack the root causes
of crime, and being sure that our Nation invests in our children.
This is the role that the Federal Government can fulfill. We need to
keep our kids off of drugs. We need to keep our streets safe. We need
to give our children the kind of training that they need in early
childhood. This is where $1.5 billion in Federal funds needs to be
spent, not on telling our States that they are not tough enough on
crime.
In Texas our Republican governor and our Democratic legislature
passed tough juvenile justice laws. We do not need the Congress to tell
them it was not good enough.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox].
Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman
from Florida for his leadership on this bill and to make some points
that I think are relevant as to why it should be supported.
First, under H.R. 3, prosecutors will have discretion in every case.
It allows prosecutors in every instance, Mr. Chairman, to either refer
juvenile offenders to State authorities, prosecute the offender as a
juvenile, or proceed against the offender as an adult only in the case
of murder and other serious violent felonies.
It also should be pointed out that H.R. 3 finds that we will make
sure that juveniles will not be housed with adults. H.R. 3 expressly
prohibits housing juveniles with adults.
Furthermore, under H.R. 3 we have prevention plus. Look at it this
way, Mr. Chairman, accountability is prevention. As a former assistant
DA from Pennsylvania, I can tell my colleagues that when youthful
offenders come to our courts and face consequences for their
wrongdoing, criminal careers stop before they start. H.R. 3 encourages
States to provide a sanction for every act of wrongdoing, starting with
the first offense and increasing in severity with each subsequent
offense, which is the best method, I submit, for directing youngsters
away from a path of crime while they still are amenable to such
encouragements.
Moreover, this bill is only part of a larger effort to combat
juvenile crime. The prevention funding in the administration's juvenile
crime bill falls under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Education
and the Workforce. That committee will be bringing forth a juvenile
crime prevention bill in the next several weeks. In addition, that will
be a significant part of more than $4 billion which will be spent by
the Federal Government this year on at-risk and delinquent youths.
The programs we are talking about include 21 gang intervention
programs, 35 community policing and crime prevention mentoring
programs, 42 job training assistance programs, 47 counseling programs,
44 self-sufficiency programs, and 53 substance abuse intervention
programs.
Under H.R. 3, local governments will have flexibility. State and
local governments will be able to have funds to be used for a wide
variety of juvenile crime fighting activities, ranging from building
and expanding juvenile detention facilities, and establishing drug
courts and hiring prosecutors to establish accountability-based
programs that work with juvenile offenders who are referred by law
enforcement agencies.
Mr. Chairman, I ask my colleagues to support H.R. 3.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Sandlin], a former trial judge in the great
State of Texas that had juvenile law jurisdiction.
Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Chairman, today in this greatest of all countries we
obviously face a problem, a problem of juvenile crime.
I rise as the father of four children, a youth baseball, basketball,
softball coach, a former judge, a former chairman of a juvenile
committee in Texas. Based upon that experience, I am convinced of one
thing. Our focus in this Congress and in this country should be on one
thing. We have kids with problems. We do not have problem kids.
If we send our children to school hungry, needing medical care, with
no hope for a quality education, they will not succeed. We cannot
expect them to succeed, and neither would we succeed under those same
circumstances.
As a former judge, I have heard thousands of juvenile cases.
Thousands. I agree that we need to teach children and juveniles to be
responsible. Some children absolutely must be incarcerated. But if we
think that by merely incarcerating children that we are going to solve
these problems, we are wrong. If we think it will serve as a deterrent,
we are fooling ourselves.
I will tell my colleagues one thing I learned as a judge. Children
are fearless. They are fearless. They make no connection like adults do
between the commission and what happens.
I have heard a lot of talk tonight about there is nothing that
happens on the first offense or second offense. I do not know about
anywhere else, but in Texas that is not so. That is absolutely not so.
Treating children as adults and spending more and more and more tax
dollars to prosecute children and locking them up without addressing
the problems that are underlying those juvenile problems is just false
investment and it simply will not work. If we are committed to solving
the juvenile problem in this country, we need to sponsor legislation
that creates jobs, that puts families first, that sponsors education,
that supports intervention.
Do we need to be tough on crime? We sure do. I have compared H.R. 3
and the Democratic substitute. I have noticed the Democratic
substitute, the Juvenile Offender Control and Prevention Act, extends
the age at which juveniles may be incarcerated, expands the use of
Federal juvenile records and funds police officers, but it is balanced
in a way that H.R. 3 is not.
These are local problems, these are local programs funded by local
families. We do not need a Washington mandate to tell Texans what to do
about Texas problems. It will not work.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pascrell], a very strong advocate of
this issue and a member of the task force.
Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me
this time. I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 3 and in support of the
Democratic substitute.
[[Page H2331]]
We in Government have no higher responsibility to those we serve than
to provide for the protection and to do all within our power to make
our streets and neighborhoods safe.
{time} 2130
We owe it to our constituents to confront the issues of crime head-
on, not just chest pounding and tough talk. That is why I rise today in
support of the Democratic substitute to the juvenile justice bill. Our
substitute represents the only real balanced approach to solving the
problem of youth violence. In contrast to our balanced approach, the
bill of the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] takes the most
extreme approach to juvenile justice reform and is filled with tough-
sounding provisions which have never been proven to reduce violent
crime.
The bill of the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] provides
absolutely no funding for initiatives that focus on preventing crimes
before they occur because 98 percent of young people in this country do
the right thing. Those are the kids we should be supporting and worried
about. I have had to deal with youth violence on a day-to-day basis. I
understand the fight that we are facing. In Paterson, NJ, we were able
to reduce crime 36 percent in 6 years. We did not achieve this
reduction by tough talk and posturing. We had the folks on the streets
to work with the folks that walk the streets, the brothers and sisters
in blue. We achieved it by taking real steps, implementing real
prevention and community policing initiatives.
After I was elected, I formed a public safety advisory committee
composed of police officers, prosecutors, judicial officials and others
who have had great success in crime fighting, Mr. Chairman. I charged
them with the task of reviewing our current juvenile justice system. An
interesting thing happened last week. When I asked the committee to
reconvene and share their opinions, to a person, every one of them
acknowledged that there is a real need to be tough on these juveniles
committing violent crimes. We should concentrate on how we prevent kids
from ever becoming involved in crime in the first place.
They expressed the belief that we must concentrate on keeping young
children from ever getting into crime. That is just what the Democratic
substitute does. Our legislation cracks down on gangs and juvenile drug
dealers and prescribes harsh graduated penalties for those convicted of
crimes. We must recognize that only a very small handful of youths are
convicted of crimes. In here, in a very specific article in Jersey,
ordered to reduce the juvenile jail crowding in our State.
This is not how you fight crime. It is how you pound your chest and
get people to think that you are doing something about it and you are
not.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the
gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt].
Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to clarify
something that the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum], the chairman
of the Subcommittee on Crime, said. He said he had these conferences,
hearings all around the country. I think he said he had six of them. I
was at one of those hearings myself. The information I recall hearing
was almost identical to what the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Sandlin],
the juvenile judge, who just ceased being a juvenile judge, said at
that hearing.
I wanted to yield to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott]. He
attended almost all of these hearings. My recollection is just
different from our chairman's about what people were saying at these
hearings. I wondered if the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott] might
tell us what his recollection of those hearings was.
Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I would say
that at some of those hearings, we found the need to try some juveniles
as adults, but the fact is that without any change in the law, most
juveniles tried as adults today are tried as adults for nonviolent
offenses. That is, we have gone all the way down the list of offenses,
and they are already being tried as adults and they will not be
affected by this legislation.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Riggs], the distinguished chairman of the key
subcommittee of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to join the debate. All I have
to tell my colleagues is that this debate feels a little bit like deja
vu all over again, to quote Yogi Berra. Unfortunately when we debate
crime-related issues in the House, we seem to get into the yin and yang
of Republican politics and we seem to promote this notion that
punishment and prevention are mutually exclusive.
I actually despair listening to the debate that sometimes I think
there are those Republicans, my Republican colleagues, who would be
inclined obviously to vote for a punishment bill but against a
prevention bill, and perhaps it is the other way around on this side of
the aisle with some of our Democratic colleagues who might be more
inclined to vote for a prevention bill but have real reservations, some
of which we have heard tonight and for very legitimate reasons, about a
punishment bill.
Be that as it may, I am very pleased to tell my colleagues that I am
happy to be teaming up with the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum],
the chairman. We want an approach that is tough on punishment but smart
on prevention.
A few weeks ago we were out in southern California, we heard from the
police chief there in Westminster and Orange County, CA, Jim Cook, who
is running a model program that is targeted on gang suppression. He
told us: Look, before you can even talk about prevention, you have got
to get the worst of the worst, the bad actors, if you will, off the
streets.
Another person used this analogy of a running bathtub, that you could
pull the plug but of course the bathtub would not drain unless you
turned off the faucet. That is of course where prevention comes into
play. It is just really critically important.
So while I support the notion of graduated sanctions, realize that by
conditioning Federal grant funding to the States on graduated
sanctions, that creates an even greater strain on the juvenile justice
system infrastructure and, hopefully, obviously we can be part of the
solution there in providing more funding for juvenile justice housing
and then for the whole, all of the services in the juvenile justice
system from police, to probation, to the courts, more prosecutors and
defenders.
While we want to do all of that, we again have to take a prevention
approach. I agree with my colleague on a bipartisan basis, speaking as
another former street cop who worked the streets for 8 years that we
are not going to arrest our way out of this problem. Therefore, we are
hard at work in our Subcommittee on Children, Youth and Families on a
juvenile justice and delinquency prevention bill. We hope that we can
bring it to the floor actually about the same time as we bring the
vocational education bill which will also be targeted at young people
who are at risk of dropping out or at risk of coming into contact with
the juvenile justice system, the great majority of our young people, by
the way, who are not college bound or who, if they go to college, will
not complete college.
I really do believe we can bring a good bill out here on prevention
that will take an interagency and multidisciplinary approach that will
require the schools, the police, the prosecutors, probation and
community-based organizations to work together to design the right
crime-fighting and delinquency prevention strategies for their
communities that we can hopefully drive the resources locally to
encourage flexibility and innovation.
Again I ask Members to be aware as we conclude general debate tonight
and approach debate on amendments and obviously votes leading up to
final passage tomorrow that the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum],
the chairman, again and I are very, very committed to taking a
cooperative approach. I personally want to make it a bipartisan one, as
I think the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott] would attest, since we
have been in discussions over a period now of several weeks and hope
ultimately that through our combined efforts we can show our
constituents, and show the
[[Page H2332]]
country that we are serious about cracking down on juvenile crime but
we recognize ultimately prevention is the answer.
We have got to focus more time, more resources on those young people
who are at risk of coming into contact with the juvenile justice system
or who, if they are in the juvenile justice system, can through
intensive services hopefully be diverted out of the juvenile justice
system before they graduate to adult crimes and adult prisons.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of
my time.
Mr. Chairman, I wish I could come to this well and simply say that we
had reached an accommodation. I think what we have really reached is
that this bill should be pulled and we should join the gentleman from
California [Mr. Riggs] with the prevention bill that he is now
proposing, simply because that is the emphasis that we should have.
Statistics already show in the State of the gentleman from Florida
[Mr. McCollum] that those juveniles housed in those adult facilities,
the recidivism rate is higher than any other group of juveniles. In
this bill we have no protection for juveniles who might be raped. We
have no language that protects juveniles from the abuse that occurs
when housing them with adults. In this bill only 12 States might
qualify.
In this bill, if 23 other States increase their penalties, they still
would not qualify. In this bill, the block grant moneys can be used for
prison construction but they cannot be used for money for prevention.
This bill is not supported by the administration. This bill does not
allow for judicial review, some sensitivity and discretion to decide
whether juveniles should be transferred to the adult court. We, too,
want to be not soft on crime, we want to prevent crime, but we realize
with juveniles there is value, as the Concerned Alliance of Men said,
to giving them a hug.
I think this bill is misdirected, wrongheaded, going in the wrong
direction. When we ask the question simply, what would I want to happen
to my own child, when we ask that question, then we have the answer.
This not H.R. 3.
What we are doing to the children of America is not rehabilitating
them. What we are doing to the American people is simply saying that
Washington knows best. When we do the right thing, unless it is as
hard, harsh and detrimental as we want in Washington, we will not do it
and allow them to have the discretion to do the right thing in their
States. This bill does not respond to the needs of Americans and
certainly it says take the $64,000 and lock them up rather than the
$4,000 to prevent crime and give them an early head start.
Mr. Chairman, I would ask that we support the Democratic substitute
and that we do the right thing on behalf of our juveniles in this
country and embrace them and save them and prevent crime.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Florida is recognized for 1\3/4\
minutes.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I would like my colleagues to understand
what I do, I think, about all of this debate tonight and, that is, that
most kids are good kids, and nobody is going to dispute that. Most
Americans do not commit crimes. In fact, as the gentleman from
California [Mr. Riggs] said earlier, we want to get at those and
prevent crimes as much as possible. There is a bill coming out that
will work on that from his committee very shortly.
We also have a lot of other programs as we mentioned by the gentleman
from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox] directed at prevention. This does not mean,
though, that we should not have an improvement in the juvenile justice
system of this Nation that is broken and is not working for those who
do commit crimes, and if they are the most heinous of crimes, the
murderers, the rapes, the robberies that unfortunately some who are
slightly under 18 do commit, and the most egregious of all crimes some
of these kids who are frankly quite a bit older in this regard than
they act in some of the movies, I think those kids ought to be taken up
and locked up and treated as adults. Yes, there is a high recidivism
rate among those kids who commit these kind of crime. It is going to be
because they are the worst of the worst and they are going to be
hardest to rehabilitate. They are the ones we are probably not going to
rehabilitate. But the truth is we need to correct the juvenile justice
system not so much for those kids, though we need to lock those up or
encourage the States to do that. We need to get at the kids in the
juvenile justice system just like the prevention programs the gentleman
from California [Mr. Riggs] is going to bring out who have not yet
quite gotten there, who have committed the less serious offenses, the
vandalization of homes, the spray painting of buildings, and so forth,
and have sanctions imposed on those kids so they will understand there
are consequences to their misbehavior. I am convinced from listening to
experts all over this country that kids who understand there are
consequences when they really are in the system do not commit a lot of
other acts they otherwise would. We will have far fewer juvenile
criminals in the system if we put consequences of sanctions on minor
offenses back into the system again. That is what this bill does. It
repairs the juvenile justice system with an incentive grant program.
We need to pass H.R. 3 tomorrow. I encourage my colleagues to do it
for that reason.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, given the growing concern of American
citizens over the juvenile crime problem, we need to carefully examine
this issue and its root causes and look for ways not just to punish
juvenile offenders, but for ways in which we can prevent children from
becoming criminals in the first place.
Some of my colleagues believe that the very least we must do to
address our juvenile crime problem is to lock up violent juveniles. I
have no argument with incarcerating violent offenders, but to my mind,
the very least we must do is to attempt to stop these kids before they
become violent offenders. Locking up more and more kids is not the
answer. We cannot afford it and eventually these kids will get out.
And what will happen when they do get out? We will have a group of
young adults who have spent many of their formative years in jail. What
can we logically expect them to have learned there except for how to be
better and more dangerous criminals?
Yet now, in the current political climate where no penalty is ever
considered too severe, many of my colleagues want to treat kids as
adults and lock them up for longer and longer periods--even though
study after study has shown that this approach is totally ineffective.
Traditionally, juvenile court judges have given juveniles longer
sentences than the judges in adult courts. The worst offenders at the
juvenile level may often appear quite tame compared to what the
criminal courts see every day.
Anyway, all of the talk about treating younger and younger offenders
as adults misses the point. It is too little too late.
We need to deal with kids before they become violent offenders, not
after. The Rand Corporation--hardly a bastion of liberalism--has
recently issued a report demonstrating that crime prevention efforts
aimed at disadvantaged kids are more effective than tough prison terms
in keeping our citizenry safe. Since this study doesn't play that well
politically, I guess we are just going to ignore it.
As adults, we need to take more responsibility for our country's
juvenile crime problem. Children are not born criminals, we make them
into criminals either through our neglect or our mistreatment or a lack
of economic opportunities.
We are treating juveniles more harshly at the same time as we are
spending less on their education, less on after-school and development
programs, and less on child protective services.
We are also allowing our children to be exposed to more and more
violence, not only on television, at the movies and in popular music,
but in the streets, at school, and even in their own homes. A
significant majority also refuses to stand up to the National Rifle
Association and acknowledge the danger guns pose to our youth, despite
the large number of teenagers (not to mention adults) killed by gun
violence every year.
In fact, at the juvenile crime meetings Chairman McCollum convened
around the country last Congress, without fail at every one of those
meetings--in Philadelphia, in Atlanta, in Boston, in Chicago, in
Dallas, and in San Francisco--local officials have noted the problem of
juveniles and guns and urged Federal action on this front. Yet Mr.
McCollum's bill does absolutely nothing to limit juvenile access to
handguns. I guess the Republicans are only interested in addressing
juvenile crime in ways that pass NRA scrutiny.
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Although the 1994 crime bill authorized funding for numerous
prevention programs, since the Republicans gained the majority, none of
that money has been appropriated. Therefore, it cannot be argued that
prevention has failed. We haven't even begun to try prevention
programs. Before we lose an entire generation to the criminal justice
system, we have an obligation to make every effort to assist children
in making the right choices and to offer them meaningful alternatives
to crime.
As with guns, at Chairman McCollum's juvenile crime meetings around
the country, local officials stressed the importance of prevention
programs and Mr. McCollum professed to agree that prevention programs
are a necessary part of the effort to stem crime. Yet the bill we
consider here today offers little in the way of prevention.
The lock 'em up approach taken by H.R. 3 will do little if anything
to stem the rising tide of juvenile crime with which the majority
professes to be so concerned. Once again, we are trying to fool the
American public into thinking we are doing something about crime when
we are actually only politicizing crime. If this bill becomes law and
the juvenile crime rate fails to decrease, we will have only ourselves
to blame for the further public disillusionment and cynicism about
politics as well as for the escalating juvenile crime problem.
The CHAIRMAN. All time for general debate has expired.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.
The motion was agreed to.
Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore [Mr.
Gilchrest] having assumed the chair, Mr. Kingston, Chairman of the
Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, reported that
that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 3) to
combat violent youth crime and increase accountability for juvenile
criminal offenses, had come to no resolution thereon.
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