[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 58 (Wednesday, May 7, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H2338-H2343]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   H.R. 3, THE JUVENILE CRIME CONTROL ACT, AND THE JUVENILE OFFENDER 
                       CONTROL AND PREVENTION ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Stupak] is recognized 
for one-half of the time remaining before midnight as a designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, tonight I am joined by many of my colleagues 
as we want to talk about H.R. 3, the so-called Juvenile Crime Control 
Act, put forth by the majority party.
  Mr. Speaker, as co-chair with the gentlewoman from California, Ms. 
Zoe Lofgren and the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Bobby Scott, for the 
last 3 months we have held hearings, we have held meetings to try to 
fashion a bill that could really treat juveniles with justice, with 
compassion, with punishment, with treatment, with education, and a 
comprehensive plan. We have brought forth such a bill, and it will be 
the substitute tomorrow.
  Mr. Speaker, before we talk about the substitute we are going to 
propose, let me just for a few moments reflect back a little bit on the 
debate we had here tonight. In the past 3 months that the Democratic 
Party has been working on our juvenile justice bill, we learned a 
couple of things.
  We learned, number one, that most juvenile crime, contrary to what we 
heard here tonight, is not murders, it is not rape, it is not robbery. 
The most common crime is what we call MDOP, malicious destruction of 
property. It occurs between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. That is what most of the 
juvenile crime in this country is.
  We learned that in the Federal Government we have control over 197 
juveniles. One hundred ninety-seven juveniles. Of that 197, 120 are 
Native Americans or are on reservations, and we have jurisdiction over 
them. So we are talking about 77 individuals that we as a Federal 
Government have control over.
  The States, on the other hand, they incarcerate or have under their 
control up to 300,000 juveniles per year. What has the majority party 
recommended? That the Federal Government, in its infinite wisdom, 
basically take control of the juvenile justice system for the whole 
country. We base that knowledge upon 197 juveniles that we happen to 
have some control over in this year of 1997.
  We heard so much about Tax Freedom Day a little bit ago, and a 
bloated Federal Government, and all the majority party are these great 
deficit hawks. Yet, they want to spend $1.5 billion over the next 3 
years to incarcerate juveniles, according to Washington standards, 
according to our standards. Whatever we pass in H.R. 3, that will be 
the standard.
  Mr. Speaker, that is no way to deal with juvenile justice, it is no 
way to deal with juveniles in this country. We are here tonight. We 
spent 2 hours on the bill. We will have approximately 2 hours tomorrow; 
4 hours on juvenile justice. We heard what a great problem it is 
throughout this country, and it is. Can the 105th Congress not give us 
more than 4 hours on juvenile justice? We have been working on a HUD 
bill, housing and urban development bill, for over 1 week. Yet, when it 
comes to crime and juveniles, we can only spend 4 hours.
  Mr. Speaker, tomorrow I will be proud to introduce the Stupak-
Stenholm-Lofgren-Scott-Delahunt-Mel Watt substitute. It is going to be 
our Juvenile Offender Control and Prevention act. It is a tough bill. 
It is a smart bill. It is a balanced bill. It is tough in the area of 
providing comprehensive treatment, education, and prevention for 
juvenile delinquency. We give the local communities, not the Federal 
Government but the local communities, the flexibility to decide what

[[Page H2339]]

they need to stop violence in their community. It is the local 
communities that must determine how to stop violence; not the State, 
not the Federal Government, but our local communities.

                              {time}  2230

  We in our 3 months of hearings got together with police officers, 
probation officers, judges, teachers, parents, and what is needed to 
fight this problem we have of juvenile delinquency in this country? 
They said, give us the flexibility to address our individual needs.
  I come from northern Michigan. My largest town is maybe 20,000 
people. I have a very large rural, sparsely populated area. Our 
problems are much more different than Boston or south central LA. And 
what have the experts said? We should give the local communities the 
flexibility to do what will work in their community. What will work in 
northern Michigan is greatly different from what is going to work in 
Boston or LA or Alabama.
  Sixty percent of the 1.5 billion we use, the same money that the 
majority party is going to use, we are going to take about 60 percent 
of our money over the next 3 years; and it will be used for prevention, 
early intervention and treatment of juveniles. We are going to do that 
by strengthening the family. We are going to provide for safe havens 
for after school. Why? Because as I said earlier, most crime occurs 
between 3 and 8:00 p.m. and it is vandalism.
  We have drug prevention, drug treatment and drug education. Each 
community must base their initiatives and it should be based upon 
research, proven research, cost-effective efforts, because we want to 
be smart with the taxpayers' money, smart in our approach as we prevent 
serious violent juvenile crime.
  The McCollum bill, the majority bill, gives us zero money for 
prevention, zero money for early intervention, zero money for 
detention, zero money for prevention. Instead the majority bill wants 
to try 15-year-olds as adults and after they convict them, then they 
are going to tell you, you have to lock up that 15-year-old with adult 
prisoners. There is no option and there is also an option. There is 
also an option with the majority bill to even try juveniles as young as 
13 years old, 7th graders and 8th graders as adults. That is their 
bill. Get tough, lock them up, put them away and do not worry about it. 
That is coming from the Federal Government who has no experience in 
this area.
  Instead, the minority party, the Democratic substitute will have a 
smart, tough and balanced bill. We are going to be tough on juveniles 
in that right now underneath the Federal system, juveniles can only 
stay until 21 years old. We are going to extend that time for violent 
juvenile offenders. They are going to be incarcerated through age 26 in 
our bill. We are going to expedite the time that a judge will only have 
90 days, and it will be the judge who will make the decision. He will 
have 90 days to decide whether or not to transfer a juvenile from 
juvenile court to adult court; not the prosecutor, not the popular 
elected thing, because we are going to take politics out of juvenile 
crime.
  We are going to let the judges decide where they are empowered to 
enforce the law, not the political speech. We are going to increase the 
penalty for those juveniles who are using a gun in a crime, something 
that has not been done before. We are going to increase that penalty. 
If they are going to use a gun in a crime, punishment will be swift and 
severe.
  We are going to expand the use of records, juvenile records for law 
enforcement purposes. We will require mandatory restitution in juvenile 
offenses. And once a juvenile is determined delinquent, the court is 
only going to have 20 days to finally impose sanction and penalties and 
not drag it on.
  And all of the States in our bill will benefit, all States including 
the District of Columbia can benefit because the money will go to local 
units of government based on tough, smart research, proven research 
based upon local community initiatives.
  Mr. Speaker, that is not like the majority party. What do they want 
to do? We are going to mandate what we have to do, what States have to 
do, and if they do not do it, they get no money.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. STUPAK. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman has referenced several times 
that, if the States do not comply with the mandates that this bill 
provides, the mandates that many of us disagree with based on very 
sound public policy, because as indicated, we are hurt time and time 
and time again that these initiatives, these mandates simply do not 
work.
  But what happens to that $1.5 billion? For those States that make the 
decision that they want to chart their own course? I would ask the 
gentleman if he knows what happens to that $1.5 billion? Is it then 
spread among the very few States that do comply?
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts 
[Mr. Delahunt] on his inquiry. If we look at the report put forth by 
the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] and the Juvenile Crime 
Control Act of 1997 out of the Committee on the Judiciary, they lay out 
on page 78, despite the fact he claimed he had no knowledge of it 
tonight, but on page 78 it says, we propose this program for several 
reasons.
  First, as written, it appears only 12 States, Colorado, Connecticut, 
Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, Nebraska, New York, 
North Carolina, I know that is under some dispute with the gentleman 
from North Carolina [Mr. Watt], Vermont and Wyoming, would possibly 
qualify for funding. The other 38 States and the District of Columbia 
do not qualify. It is 1.5 billion spread among 11 or 12 States.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I 
was stunned this afternoon to hear the primary sponsor of this bill 
could not even confirm that his own State of Florida could comply with 
the mandates of his proposal which would, coming from Washington, again 
tell the States that do have the experience how to handle violent 
juvenile crime. It just absolutely stunned me to hear that. I respect 
the gentleman. I know that he is a man of deep convictions. But I would 
think that this Congress, this body would not want to vote on such a 
significant piece of legislation until every Member knew exactly 
whether his or her State would be in compliance with the mandates that 
the bill puts forth. And to hear the primary sponsor acknowledge that 
he did not know himself whether the State of Florida would qualify I 
found incomprehensible.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. STUPAK. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, in following up on this point, 
because I think that the Democratic substitute took long months of 
deliberation to confront the issue of being strong both on preventing 
juvenile crime and as well addressing the question of violent juvenile 
crime.
  Texas is considered a State that has addressed the question of 
violent juvenile crime, and it is not a State that is viewed as one 
that takes lightly the seriousness of juvenile crime. In fact, it is a 
State considered tough on crime. Texas, Far West, will not be eligible 
for these funds.
  At the same time, they will tell my good friend from Boston that his 
program is not a valid approach; his prevention program, his method of 
now 2 years without one single homicide is not valid. I would simply 
say to the gentleman from Michigan that I will leave him with this 
question: We need to consider what we would like to happen to our own 
children in this instance. I am sorry that the deliberation and those 
who designed this bill, H.R. 3, did not think of that. For we can see 
in the large gap between locking them up and lack of prevention 
dollars, they did not give the consideration to how they would want 
their children to be thought of and handled.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think that is the 
question we should ask here, it is $1.5 billion, only 12 States at best 
can enjoy that $1.5 billion. We are spending that much money on a few 
juvenile delinquents in a select number of States. And what do we tell 
all of the rest of the children in this country? And we cannot provide 
health insurance. But yet we are going to spend $1.5

[[Page H2340]]

billion over the next 3 years for 12 States to lock up some kids 
because the majority party feels they are going to get tough on it.
  What has the National Conference of State Legislatures wrote to us 
today and said, this is ludicrous. Stop this. You are putting on 
unfunded mandates. You, the Federal Government, are telling us what to 
do and giving us very little money. And we all have to comply and you 
have no experience in this field. Washington is telling us how we have 
to do it. They have missed the whole point here. I really hope that our 
Members reject the majority bill tomorrow and accept the Democratic 
substitute.
  Let me finish up with a few more words here before I yield to the 
gentlewoman from California, my good friend. Our bill, the Democratic 
bill that took us 3 months to put together and many hearings, we target 
violent kids. We crack down on juvenile gangs. And if you commit a 
crime with a gun and you are a juvenile, the punishment will be swift 
and severe.
  I was a police officer. The gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] 
said tonight, we are sending a message; we are going to stop crime 
before it gets started because we are going to be tough on everyone. It 
does not work that way. I was on the street for 13 years. It does not 
work that way.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I think it is so important to understand, 
and I have heard the Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime say again and 
again and again that we are sending a message. I think that he fails to 
understand that those violent juveniles that he wishes to take off the 
street, and I agree with him, are not going to be deterred. There is no 
such thing as deterrence when we are talking about that hard core 
juvenile. Incapacitation, yes, but if we are going to lock them up, let 
us not lock them up in an adult prison where they are going to receive 
the very best training in terms of violent crime. They are going to 
receive a Ph.D. in violent crime if we send them to adult institutions. 
I promise you that. That is my experience as a prosecutor in the 
Metropolitan Boston area for over 20 years.
  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. STUPAK. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.
  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I think it is worth pointing out, as a 
member of the Committee on the Judiciary, I was distressed that this 
bill received just 12 hours, really, of discussion. And there were a 
lot of things that are unknown.
  For example, we did know that only arguably 12 States would qualify. 
I must point out, California is not among those 12. But we did not 
specify who gets the excess funds. So it is possible that Florida gets 
California's money or not. This is a real issue because right now the 
money we are talking about, the $1.5 billion, is in the violent crime 
trust fund.
  Those funds are currently flowing to States and localities. Every 
State is getting some of that money and so it will be a real loss to 
cops and prosecutors who are currently getting funding if States do not 
qualify and we know some do not and some will never. So this is 
important.
  I know you have a few closing remarks but this bill is flawed in so 
many ways that I hope to have an opportunity to go through some of 
them, because I think so many of our Members have been busy on budget 
or other, HUD or other items that they have not yet had a chance to 
really go through the bill line by line as we have on the Committee on 
the Judiciary and as the gentleman has as one of the co-chairs of our 
committee. I hope to go through a couple of other points when the 
gentleman finishes his presentation.
  Mr. STUPAK. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Riggs] came down and he said he hoped to put on 
something with a bill later this year with prevention. I think we all 
know, we all have a couple terms here now, that tomorrow never comes in 
Congress. It is what we are doing today.
  This juvenile prevention bill or juvenile control, Juvenile Justice 
Act, whatever they are calling it now, that is where it is today. It 
promises something tomorrow, and it will never come because there will 
be some new crisis we will jump to. But we are not going to arrest our 
way out of it.
  The gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs] was correct. He was a 
police officer for 8 years. He said the same thing. He said it is 
absolutely right. You cannot arrest everyone and you cannot lock them 
all up and expect to solve this problem. There has to be a combination 
here of prevention, treatment and early intervention and intense 
supervision and, yes, there are some that we will have to lock up. We 
should be there to assist.
  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, he 
is absolutely right.
  We need to do all of the things. We need to do prevention, 
intervention, we need to incarcerate some kids and in some cases there 
are some very tough kids who need to be tried as adults in my opinion. 
But to say that the $1.5 billion can go to those 12 States for 
incarceration because we are going to have a prevention bill coming, 
that prevention bill has $70 million. So the $70 million for prevention 
versus the $1.5 billion for trying young people as adults, that is not 
a balanced program. That is an extreme program and one of the reasons 
why we should not approve H.R. 3 tomorrow.

                              {time}  2245

  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, one of the real great 
spokespersons, articulate individual in this whole matter, has been the 
gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Watt, who points out to us time and 
time again that North Carolina has more than its share of prosecuting 
young people and has probably the most severe and toughest juvenile 
justice laws on the books, and it has not always worked, and I yield to 
the gentleman for his comments.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I 
want to correct my colleagues on one point. They keep saying there are 
12 States that qualify. I want to assure them that North Carolina was 
included in the list of States that, according to the report, 
qualified, but I have a letter from the State of North Carolina in my 
file----
  Ms. LOFGREN. So we are down to 11, maybe?
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. We are down to definitely a maximum of 
11.
  And understand that there are four criteria that a State has to meet 
to get these funds. What we found out was that North Carolina, as 
aggressive as we are, as much as North Carolina supports the philosophy 
of the bill the gentleman from Florida professes to support, that we do 
not meet three out of the four requirements. We fail on three out of 
the four requirements.
  We do not have open juvenile records; we do not allow the prosecutor, 
by himself, to decide whether to prosecute as an adult, because we 
think it is reasonable for a judge to make that determination; and we 
do not sanction parents who fail to supervise their children. We do not 
punish the parents for that.
  Those are three of the four requirements and we fail on those three, 
so we do not get any of the money, even though we have some of the 
toughest juvenile laws in America.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I think that every Member of Congress, 
before he or she casts a vote, has an obligation to the people that he 
or she represents to check, as the gentleman from North Carolina did, 
with the Attorney General of their respective States, because it is my 
belief that the gentleman is correct. There are probably maybe one or 
two or maybe three States that could even file an application to secure 
funding from that $1.5 billion pot. This just does not make any sense.
  And those mandates, and they are mandates, are an attempt by a 
segment of this House to impose national standards in terms of juvenile 
justice, and they have, as has been stated and restated, no experience.
  I wanted to pose the question to my friend and colleague on the 
Committee on the Judiciary, the former U.S. Attorney in Arkansas, Mr. 
Hutchinson, whether he ever tried a juvenile case as a United States 
attorney. I daresay that his answer would have been no, because there 
is no Federal system.
  They do not know what they are talking about, and yet it is 
fascinating,

[[Page H2341]]

because I was reading the Orlando Sentinel of May 9, 1996, just about a 
year ago, and there was a statement there by the Chair of the 
Subcommittee on Crime, the primary sponsor of this bill, and he was 
referring to more than $500 million for law enforcement block grants. 
He stated, and these are his words, ``Local communities can now tailor 
programs to meet their particular needs instead of using Federal crime 
fighting dollars,'' and this is a quote, ``for Washington-knows-best 
prevention initiatives. This recognizes that what works in Spokane may 
not work in Orlando and it encourages local innovation to fight 
crime.''
  So what the gentleman from Florida would suggest is that when it 
comes to prevention, we will not have mandates, I guess, but when it 
comes to intervention and to prosecution and to treatment, we better 
have mandates because we in Washington know best. I daresay that one of 
the few States, it appears, and he does not even know, the State of 
Florida probably complies with these mandates.
  I wonder if we examined the statistics for juvenile violence in 
Florida, where it has been tested, whether it works. I am willing to 
challenge the gentleman from Florida to review the statistics on 
juvenile violence in Florida with the statistics on juvenile violence 
in Massachusetts.
  Under the gentleman's bill, and I know what we have done there, and I 
know it worked and I know we are heading in the right direction, but 
under the McCollum proposal, we do not have access to expand our 
efforts and we will not qualify for that $1.5 billion. That just does 
not make sense.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California.
  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important, because as so many 
of our colleagues, as I said earlier, have not really had a chance to 
take a look at this bill, and the vote will be tomorrow, that we go 
through some of the flawed elements of H.R. 3, and they are serious.
  As others have mentioned, there are currently, I think last year 
there were, I think, 197 juveniles in the Federal system. However, 
under the bill we are mandating, in the case of 14-year-olds, requiring 
prosecution of 14-year-olds as adults without any discretion on the 
part not only of judges but without any discretion on the part of 
prosecutors either. Further, the bill permits prosecution of 13-year-
olds as adults in the Federal system.
  Now, I think most of us know that even very young children can do 
truly awful things and that there are occasions, and opinion is 
divided, but I believe there are even very young children sometimes who 
need to be held to an adult accountability. But to automatically make 
that decision without doing a case-by-case review is not supported by 
the facts and will not make us safer.
  There is another issue in the bill that I think many Members need to 
be aware of, and it is a proposed massive expansion of the Federal role 
in juvenile delinquency and law enforcement.
  Under the bill, and there will be an amendment tomorrow, there is a 
whole series of Federal offenses, including conspiracy to commit 
offenses. Included are virtually all drug crimes and drug trafficking 
crimes. Now, no one likes drug trafficking. No one approves of it. But 
when we include conspiracy to commit a drug trafficking crime, the 
truth is that we are talking about having Federal police having the 
ability to go into towns and cities throughout this country and 
prosecute and arrest 13-year-olds standing on the street corner, part 
of urban street gangs.
  I trust our local police, I think, a whole lot more to do that. I 
think I trust our local DA and our local judges a whole lot more to do 
that local law enforcement job than the creation of a U.S. police 
force. I think that is something that needs attention on the part of 
Members.
  Finally, I think we need to take a look at who, even at this late 
date--and this has been quickly done--who is on which side of these 
issues. We already know that the State legislatures oppose the bill. I 
just got letters in today from the United Methodist Church, the 
Presbyterian Church, the United Church of Christ, the Evangelical 
Lutheran Church, and the Churches of Christ all urging Members of this 
House to oppose H.R. 3. Why? They realize that the scheme outlined in 
the bill not only will not make our country safe, but it is inimical to 
our Christian faith. And I think all of us need to pay close attention 
to the guidance that the clergy is giving to us in this matter.

  Finally, the gentleman from Florida, as chairman of the committee, 
did mention, and I think we need to review this, that there is some $4 
billion in funding for prevention anyway in the government. The YMCA, 
the Young Men's Christian Association, did an analysis of that 
assertion, and I am going to make it available to Members tomorrow 
morning in the mail, but I think it is worth pointing out that included 
in that $4 billion are things that have nothing to do with prevention. 
And the YMCA concludes that the programs and the funding is not 
correct. It is misleading.
  I know the gentleman did not intend to mislead, but I think it is 
important that the Y's analysis be made available to the public.
  With that, I would simply say that our bill is tough on crime, it 
recognizes that young people do need prosecution, but it also 
understands if we only do that, it is saying we have to have more 
victims before we respond.
  As Mark Klaas said, ``Saying that we are building prisons to solve 
crime is like saying we are building cemeteries to solve the problem of 
the deceased.''
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for all the work she 
has done on this and look forward to the continued fight tomorrow, and 
with that I yield to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott].
  Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan for 
yielding me this time and also for helping with this special order.
  I think it is a very important issue because we fundamentally have a 
choice. We can do what works to reduce crime, or we can do what sounds 
good, makes maybe good politics but does not do anything about the 
crime rate. Unfortunately, we cannot do both.
  We know what works. We have seen studies of Head Start, recreation, 
boys and girls clubs, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, a number of programs 
that work to reduce crime. These have been proven. They are cost 
effective. They keep kids out of trouble. They do not get in trouble in 
the first place, and, of course, that strategy has the added advantage 
that people do not have to be brutalized because there are no victims 
when we have prevented the crimes.
  People have suggested that we are not tough or that we are choosing 
between punishment or prevention. They ignore the fact that in some 
communities we already have more of our young people in jail today than 
in college. Our incarceration rate in America is the largest in any 
country on Earth.
  The average internationally of people being locked up is about 100 
people per 100,000 population. Canada about 117, Mexico 97, Japan less 
than 50 per 100,000, the United States is already above 500, almost 600 
people per 100,000. I have jurisdictions in my Congressional District 
that lock up about 1,500 people per 100,000. Fifty in Japan, 117 in 
Canada, 1,500 city of Richmond. So we cannot suggest that we are not 
cracking down on crime.
  The fact is that the little money in this bill for prisons cannot 
possibly make any difference. This bill has a total national funding of 
$500 million. Virginia's portion of that on a per capita basis will be 
around $10 million.
  Now, we are already in the middle of a prison expansion program where 
we are going to be spending, when it is all phased in, another billion 
dollars a year for new prisons. New prisons. Not all prisons, new 
prisons. With this bill, instead of $1 billion it will be $1.01 
billion. Obviously, that cannot possibly make a difference.
  Or that $10 million can be used in initiatives that will help 
juveniles by increasing the number of juvenile probation officers, with 
better supervision or other initiatives that will actually make a 
significant reduction in recidivism.

                              {time}  2300

  We should always address our problems and not just come up with 
solutions that have nothing to do with the problem.
  We have heard, for example, earlier today that the highest crime rate 
is for

[[Page H2342]]

those 17 to 19 years of age. One thing that strikes one right off the 
bat is that those 18 to 19 are not covered by the bill, they are 
treated as adults and are not even affected by revision in juvenile 
laws.
  For those 17 years of age that commit serious offenses, they are 
going to be treated as adults. As a matter of fact, we treat so many 
juveniles as adults right now that more than half of those treated as 
adults are treated as adults for nonviolent offenses. We have gone all 
the way down the offenses where most of the children treated as adults 
are for nonviolent offenses. Our problem is that we do not treat enough 
juveniles as adults, we treat too many. The third is that we do nothing 
about those 14 to 16 and disturb their trajectory for those going into 
crime. If we do nothing to change that trajectory, 3 years from now 
when they are 17 to 19, we would have done nothing about the crime 
rate. If we expect the rate to be lower than it is today 3 years from 
now, we have got to focus on the 14- to 16-year-olds and even younger 
and prevention must be the focus in our juvenile crime rate.
  We must also address the facts. The fact is that if we treat more 
juveniles as adults, the violent crime rate will go up. There are no 
exceptions in studies of that premise. That if we increase the number 
of juveniles treated as adults, the violent crime rate amongst 
juveniles will increase.
  The Families First alternative will focus where the money can do some 
good. It will strengthen families and empower children to stay out of 
trouble. As I said, it is not a question of prevention or punishment. 
We are already punishing. There are things in this bill, like we know 
that treating more juveniles as adults will increase violent crime. 
They have things to publicize records of juveniles. If they are treated 
as adults, if it is a serious offense, their trials will be public as 
adults, their records will be public. There is no evidence that that 
public notoriety will do anything to reduce crime. In fact, we have had 
evidence that, in fact, some juveniles will create crimes in order to 
get the notoriety. We want to focus on things that will actually make a 
difference, and that is why I am supporting the Families First 
alternative.
  We already punish children more severely than anywhere else on Earth. 
If we are going to do anything about reducing crime, we have got to 
focus the extra money on prevention and not on counterproductive 
soundbites that do not address the problem.
  The gentlewoman from California [Ms. Lofgren] mentioned the question 
of conspiracies and said if you find people on the street committing 
drug crimes, if all they have on a juvenile is a conspiracy, that means 
they did not find him doing anything, he was sitting up late at night 
where they agreed to commit a crime, when he woke up the next morning, 
he went on to school and did not do anything. But he is part of the 
conspiracy. When the others go commit the crime, he can be found guilty 
of conspiracy, subject to mandatory minimums, and the way this bill is 
crafted, the judge would have no alternative but to sentence him with 
the mandatory minimums without any consideration to his prior record, 
to his role in the crime, to the seriousness of the crime, to his 
amenability to treatment, anything like that. He will be subject to the 
mandatory minimum, disrupt his education, and we know that he will be 
much more likely to commit crimes in the future because he comes out 
without the education. We need to support the Families First 
alternative because it addresses the problem. I am delighted to 
participate with the gentleman from Michigan in this special order to 
promote that alternative.
  Mr. STUPAK. The gentleman makes an interesting point that in his 
prison construction of $1 billion in new prison construction in 
Virginia, even if you receive your $10 million if you ever met the 
Federal standards or the Federal mandates, remember, that is just $10 
million to help you build a prison. That is not what it costs for the 
guards and everything else that goes in. The smallest cost in prison is 
the construction. The most expensive, 80 percent, is for personnel, the 
cost to operate. We are leaving the States with that extra burden of 
now having to operate it. We will pay for the brick and mortar, but now 
you have to operate it.
  Mr. SCOTT. If the gentleman will yield; if we are spending $1 
billion, plus $10 million is $1.01 billion, it will have zero effect on 
the crime rate. We need to put the money where it will actually make a 
difference.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. If the gentleman will yield on that 
point, that gets me to another real concern, because we are building 
all these prisons. I think what ultimately ends up happening is what 
this bill allows to happen, which is, we will end up putting juveniles 
in jail with adults, which has been absolutely contrary to policies 
that we have been supporting.
  In fact, all the evidence confirms that children who are housed with 
adults are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted, twice as 
likely to be beaten by staff, 50 percent more likely to be attacked 
with a weapon. In 1994, 45 children died while they were confined in 
State adult prisons or detention facilities, including 12 murders and 
16 suicides.
  I just do not want to receive any more letters like this one. I am 
not one that usually comes and makes policy by anecdote, but this one I 
could not resist, because it is from a father. He is describing to me 
as his Representative the plight of his son.
  He said, ``My 16-year-old was certified and sentenced to 8 years.'' 
That means he was certified as an adult. Sentenced to 8 years. This was 
his first offense. He was being raped, beaten for money or sex too many 
times. This is in the adult facility. Before this he went to the warden 
asking for protective measures, only to be laughed at. Finally you get 
to the bottom line here. His ultimate decision was suicide.
  So this kid gets convicted, sentenced as an adult, with adults, 
sexually abused, and ends up committing suicide. That is just not 
something that we want to have happen based on our policies.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. If the gentleman will yield, what I find interesting is 
that the gentleman from Florida has this unfounded belief and 
confidence that if the juvenile is incarcerated in the adult system, 
that when he leaves the adult system he will come back into the 
community and be a positive, contributing member of his neighborhood, 
his community, and his State. The reality is that that has simply been 
proven time and time and time again to be false.
  If we are going to have an opportunity to chart and influence a 
different course for the juvenile offender, our only hope is a 
strengthened juvenile justice system. That is what we should be 
about. There are portions of the bill which I think everybody on this 
side could support because it goes to fund programs, and this is my 
reading, within the juvenile justice system that could improve it. But 
why these mandates that would deny States access to the funding?

  What the gentleman is trying to do in this particular area is to 
nationalize what has historically been reserved to the States, and that 
is the juvenile justice system. What I find interesting is that there 
are some areas that he appears to understand that the States can do 
some positive initiatives and that can genuinely be a laboratory, if 
you will, for experiments that may or may not work. But he has not 
provided any evidence whatsoever other than just simply standing up and 
saying, ``We're going to send a message.''
  These young men, they are not going to read the Congressional Record 
tomorrow. They are not going to examine the statute. They are not going 
to be deterred. They think and act and respond differently. They are 
not going to be deterred.
  Mr. STUPAK. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.
  Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I think this special order points out how we 
are not focused on the problem. We need to focus on the problem of 
juvenile crime. The bill that we considered earlier today and will be 
considering again tomorrow misses the point. It spends all of its money 
after the fact dealing with juveniles, treating more juveniles as 
adults when we know that that does not work. We know that drug 
rehabilitation programs cost about 5 percent of sending somebody to 
jail, reduces recidivism 80 percent, so it is cheaper and more 
effective. Those are the kinds of effective programs that we should be

[[Page H2343]]

focused on. I am delighted to participate with the gentleman from 
Michigan, the gentleman from Massachusetts and the others that were 
here so we can show that some of us are actually trying to reduce 
crime. Although it may not be as politically popular, we are focused on 
the issue. I am delighted to work with the gentleman on this. We need 
to get away from the soundbites and back on the point. The Families 
First agenda does that.
  Mr. STUPAK. I thank the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott] for all 
of his work and being the cochair of the Democratic Task Force on 
Crime, I will continue to work throughout the rest of the 105th 
Congress with the gentleman and with the gentleman from Massachusetts 
[Mr. Delahunt], a new Member from Boston who has been of great help to 
us.
  In summation, the Families First juvenile justice bill that we will 
be presenting tomorrow morning at approximately 10:30 as a substitute 
to the McCollum bill, really it indicates that we need a balanced 
approach to the problem of juvenile crime, an approach that would 
include enforcement, intervention, prevention, and, of course, 
detention for those violent individuals who have to be detained. It 
would be based upon smart, cost-effective, community-based initiatives, 
proven initiatives through research as we have seen in Boston, in 
Minnesota, and other places around this Nation when we have let local 
communities determine what is best for them in their communities to 
deal with their problem of juvenile crime.

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