[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 83 (Monday, June 16, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5662-S5664]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        FIGHTING JUVENILE CRIME

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we are facing a crisis in juvenile crime 
in America. At no time in our Nation's history have we experienced such 
severe and pervasive juvenile violence.
  The statistics tell a frightening story. From 1983 to 1992--in just 9 
years--juvenile arrests for violent crimes increased 57 percent. 
Specifically, juvenile arrests for aggravated assaults increased 95 
percent while juvenile arrests for murder rose 128 percent. To put it 
in more concrete terms, over 2 million juveniles are arrested each 
year, many for violent crimes. In 1995 alone, teenagers committed 
almost 4,000 murders. Sadly, the worst is yet to come.
  A huge demographic explosion will occur early next century. By 2006 
the teenage population will top 30 million, the most in 30 years. 
Respected criminologists, such as James Q. Wilson and Marvin Wolfgang, 
agree that this demographic bulge could have a disastrous effect 
because of the large increase in young males in their crime-prone 
years. The number of juveniles will increase 31 percent by the year 
2010. Experts predict this increase, particularly in young males, will 
mean at least 3,000 more murderers, rapists, and muggers on the streets 
than exist today. A U.S. Department of Justice report confirms these 
dire predictions. The Justice report estimates that by the year 2010 
juvenile arrests for violent crime will more than double.
  So today I want to discuss how we can help the States fight juvenile 
crime. As chairman of the Youth Violence Subcommittee of the U.S. 
Senate Judiciary Committee, I am greatly interested in crafting a 
bipartisan juvenile justice bill. But before we begin, let's face the 
facts.
  The Federal Government has only a limited role in fighting juvenile 
crime. Ninety-nine percent of all juvenile

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cases are tried in State courts. I believe that S. 10 is a great bill 
because its primary focus is aimed at helping the States fight juvenile 
crime.
  So today there are three main provisions of S. 10 that I would like 
to talk about and to highlight, and which I think we ought to consider: 
drug testing, the expansion of juvenile detention facilities, and 
recordkeeping.
  S. 10--the Hatch-Sessions bill--deals with these important problems 
in an effective way. First, let's talk about drug testing. S. 10 
provides the States block grants to fight juvenile crime. One of the 
requirements to receive the block grants is that States make reasonable 
efforts to drug test all juveniles arrested for a felony. There is no 
provision in S. 10 more important, in my opinion, than drug testing.
  Drug testing is one of the most important diagnostic and 
rehabilitative tools available in fighting crime. Mr. Eric Holder, 
President Clinton's nominee for Deputy Attorney General, who testified 
just last week before the Judiciary Committee, stated that drug testing 
provided vital information for dealing with juveniles who have been 
arrested, and that when he served as a Federal judge he tested all 
arrestees.
  Drug testing is so important because it allows authorities to 
identify a drug problem before the juvenile becomes hopelessly 
addicted. It tells the parents what may have driven this young person 
to become involved in crime. It helps the judge to craft an appropriate 
sentence and appropriate police conditions. It helps the probation 
officer conduct appropriate supervision of these young offenders. 
However, many have raised a concern about the cost of drug testing 
requirements in S. 10. There is great bipartisan support for drug 
testing. The only question raised is whether or not it is too 
expensive. It is not. For example, a typical price charged by a 
commercial laboratory for a single drug test for cocaine and marijuana 
is $5.75. Moreover, volume purchases of drug testing equipment can 
reduce that price to even less than $5. Both of these figures have been 
verified by official price quotes from commercial laboratories.

  S. 10 provides $75 million to the States to implement this drug 
testing provision. If the roughly 900,000 juveniles arrested last year 
for FBI indexed felonies were tested at $6 a test, it would cost 
approximately $5.4 million. It should be noted that most States already 
test arrestees to some extent. Therefore, the cost will be reduced 
significantly.
  Obviously, S. 10 provides more than ample resources, not only for an 
initial test but for supervision followup tests as well. That is 
important. When a young person is released from prison, followup tests 
should be conducted, particularly if he has drug tendencies. A followup 
test can tell whether or not that child is back into an unhealthy 
lifestyle and headed for criminal trouble and additional time.
  Another important matter is juvenile recordkeeping. Juvenile 
recordkeeping in America is a travesty. Most judges--whether in adult 
court or juvenile court--do not have access to a defendant's juvenile 
record because those records are either sealed or are not shared with 
other jurisdictions within the law enforcement community. S. 10 greatly 
improves juvenile recordkeeping without overstepping the Federal 
Government's role in juvenile crime, and without great expense. One of 
the few requirements in this bill is that the States make reasonable 
efforts to record, collect, and disseminate juvenile criminal records 
for the FBI just like they do for all adult cases.
  In order to ease the burden on the States, we provide funds to help 
them upgrade their juvenile justice record system. We have estimates 
from organizations that specialize in recordkeeping that State juvenile 
records can be updated and sent to the FBI for roughly $50 million.
  I believe S. 10 provides the States with more than sufficient 
resources to accomplish this goal. And please note that this bill in no 
way mandates the States to open their cases. Each State will make its 
own decision. It simply says that the law enforcement community, 
through the National Crime Information Center computer system, will 
have arrests and convictions for serious felonies by juveniles. Those 
records are only available for law enforcement and judicial purposes.
  The following is a true story that illustrates the problem we are 
talking about. A 15-year-old was arrested and pled guilty to armed 
robbery. Previously, he had been arrested several times for violent 
crimes in a different State. Unfortunately, the presiding judge did not 
have access to these prior arrest records because they were not part of 
the National Crime Information Center computer system.
  Despite the fact that he had pled guilty to a violent crime, the 
judge decided to release him after being assured that he would be going 
into a residential facility. Soon after that young offender was 
released, he shot and paralyzed a police officer during an attempted 
theft. There is no doubt that the judge would not have released him, 
had he had access to that juvenile's prior record of violent crime. The 
lack of access to juvenile records in this case directly contributed to 
a tragic crime. When a probation officer supervises a young offender, 
he needs to know the young offender's criminal history. It is simply 
illogical that we fail to maintain those records in a readily 
accessible way.
  Reporting juvenile records to a national clearinghouse will provide 
law enforcement officers and judges across this Nation with accurate 
criminal history information. This will serve to protect law 
enforcement personnel when they are dealing with juvenile suspects and 
defendants, as well as provide necessary information to the judiciary.
  One proper role for the Federal Government, in law enforcement, is to 
serve as a national clearinghouse for information. Our proposal 
fulfills such a role and in the process dramatically improves our 
juvenile justice system.
  There is another matter of importance. The Hatch-Sessions bill helps 
States improve their juvenile detention centers. The bill provides 
matching grant money to the States for the construction and renovation 
of juvenile detention facilities. In the last 20 years, juvenile prison 
construction has not kept pace with the tremendous increase in juvenile 
crime. While States and the Federal Government have increased adult 
prison capacity significantly, the construction of juvenile facilities 
has been neglected consistently.
  Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, if crime is to be reduced, we 
must increase juvenile detention and juvenile detention space. I 
mention crime, and not merely juvenile crime, for this reason. The line 
between juvenile crime and adult crime has never been so blurred. An 
ever-increasing amount of serious crime is committed by young 
offenders. By some accounts, juveniles now account for almost 20 
percent of violent crime arrests and over one-third of all property 
crime arrests.
  The following facts illustrate the need for more juvenile detention 
centers. Only 56 out of every 1,000 juveniles arrested are 
incarcerated. I repeat that. Only 56 out of every 1,000 juveniles 
arrested are incarcerated. We are simply not identifying the violent 
criminals and putting them in prison.
  To put it in more concrete terms, consider this. In 1991, over 
123,000 juveniles were arrested for violent crimes, yet there were less 
than 50,000 juvenile beds in the United States available to house them. 
And many repeat, habitual property criminals have to be incarcerated, 
too. I wish that were not so, but that is simply the fact. We have had 
a doubling of violent juvenile crime in less than a decade. We simply 
have to increase our bed space. Again, I wish that were not so.
  A lack of proper juvenile detention centers eliminates the deterrent 
effect of the criminal justice system. When a police officer arrests an 
offender in a stolen car for burglarizing a person's home, and he 
cannot keep him even 1 night in the local jail because it is not an 
approved juvenile facility or because there is no space in the juvenile 
facility--that young offender is released back on the street. This 
undermines respect for the law. Not only does the young offender get 
the wrong impression, but so do his classmates, running-mates, and gang 
members. They see Billy get arrested and expect something to happen. 
When he is released the very same day, they get a message. It is not 
the message we want to convey. We simply have to step up to the plate 
and do more about that.

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  Another matter. Many of my colleagues have indicated that our bill 
fails to provide sufficient prevention money. I would like to point out 
that according to the General Accounting Office, the Federal Government 
currently has 131 programs administered by 16 different departments and 
agencies that may be used to benefit at-risk and delinquent youth. In 
1995, the total cost of these programs exceeded $4 billion. We are 
already spending tremendous sums of Federal taxpayer money on 
prevention programs. I hope they work. Some of them do and some of them 
do not. We need to do a better job of oversight. And the States also 
are spending tremendous sums of money for prevention purposes. We have 
a juvenile justice system that is broken, and we need to fix it.
  Here is a chart which shows the huge number of programs and the total 
dollars--$4 billion--being spent right now with Government appropriated 
funds for at-risk and delinquent youth. This bill has prevention 
matters in it, but it is also focused primarily on changing our 
juvenile justice system from a state of collapse into an effective 
system that will actually work to deter crime.
  There are 21 gang intervention programs, 35 mentoring programs, 42 
job training assistance programs, 47 counseling programs, 44 self-
sufficiency programs, 53 substance abuse intervention programs. Each of 
these programs is already being funded in an effort to help at-risk 
young people not get caught up in a life of crime. The penalty imposed 
for every act of wrongdoing, starting from that first offense, is in 
itself prevention.
  Mr. President, 61 percent of the juveniles brought into the juvenile 
court system are 15 years of age or younger. These juveniles may still 
be amenable to discipline. However, there is currently little respect 
for our State juvenile system because the juvenile judges have little 
resources and almost no bed space to carry out the sanctions they would 
like to impose. S. 10 will assist the States in rectifying this deficit 
in resources.
  So, Mr. President, I have mentioned only three provisions of the bill 
today but there are many more. There is a tough antigang provision that 
has great potential to crack down on gangs; historic reforms of Federal 
procedures to make cases more easily prosecutable in Federal court; 
elimination of unwise Federal mandates; requirements for local juvenile 
crime, advisory committee groups, and I just noticed the Senator from 
Delaware has arrived. This provision is modeled after a provision he 
put in the law a number of years ago to require the local court system 
to get together to discuss civil case processing.
  We believe, and I think Senator Biden agrees, that if we are going to 
give money to a local juvenile court system, we ought to at least ask 
that the judge, the prosecutor, the sheriff, and the police chief get 
together and discuss just how well their system is working and what 
they can do to make that system work better.
  I appreciate the consistent leadership over the years that Senator 
Biden has provided. He is the ranking member of the Juvenile Justice 
Subcommittee, and his contributions were very valuable in putting 
together a bill that I believe eventually will be a historic step 
forward in juvenile justice. I believe that this is the most 
significant juvenile crime bill in over 20 years. Our juvenile justice 
system is broken. These are sound, thoughtful, practical and effective 
provisions that will help fix a broken system.

  Mr. President, I urge my colleagues as time goes by to give the 
highest consideration to this legislation and urge their support of its 
passage.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to 
proceed for 20 minutes as if in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I will say at the outset I will cease if 
anyone comes to the floor. I am acting in a bit of a dual capacity 
here. I am comanaging the bill that is before us. We are waiting for 
some of our colleagues to come over with amendments. But in the 
meantime let me before the Senator from Alabama leaves the floor 
acknowledge and thank him for his acknowledgement of my efforts in this 
area and thank him for the knowledge he has brought to this body as a 
former prosecutor, an attorney general in his State, and as a former 
U.S. attorney running a Federal operation in his State as well, and for 
the vigor with which he has attacked the obvious problem. It is only of 
late that most people are acknowledging we should be focusing on 
juvenile crime. He in his capacity within his State both as a Federal 
official and a State official has been focused on it for some time. He 
and I have some outstanding disagreement on how to approach this, but 
we are substantially in agreement.

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