[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 141 (Friday, October 9, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12158-S12160]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             FAILURE TO ACHIEVE JUVENILE CRIME LEGISLATION

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I would like to briefly discuss an issue of 
great importance to the Senate and the nation--juvenile crime. Over the 
past weeks, we have been working hard to try to reach consensus on 
comprehensive legislation to address juvenile crime in our nation. I am 
disappointed to report to my colleagues that we have fallen short in 
that effort.
  The sad reality is that we can no longer sit silently by as children 
kill children, as teenagers commit truly heinous offenses, as our 
juvenile drug abuse rate continues to climb. In 1996, juveniles 
accounted for nearly one fifth--19 percent--of all criminal arrests in 
the United states. Persons under 18 committed 15 percent of all 
murders, 17 percent of all rapes, and 32.1 percent of all robberies.
  And although there are endless statistics on our growing juvenile 
crime problem, one particularly sobering fact is that, between 1985 and 
1993, the number of murder cases involving 15-year olds increased 207 
percent. We have kids involved in murder before they can even drive.
  In short, our juvenile crime problem has taken a new and sinister 
direction. But cold statistics alone cannot tell the whole story. Crime 
has real effect on the lives of real people. Recently, I read an 
article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch by my good friend, crime 
novelist Patricia Cornwell. It is one of the finest pieces I have read 
on the effects of and solutions to our juvenile crime problem, and I 
ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record following my 
remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, let me share with my colleagues some of 
what Ms. Cornwell, who has spent the better part of her adult life 
studying and observing crime and its effects, has to say. She says 
``when a person is touched by violence, the fabric of civility is 
forever rent, or ripped, or breached * * *.'' This a graphic but 
accurate description. Countless lives can be ruined by a single violent 
crime. There is, of course, the victim, who may be dead, or scarred for 
life. There are the family and friends of the victim, who are 
traumatized as well, and who must live with the loss of a loved one. 
Society itself is harmed, when each of us is a little more frightened 
to walk on our streets at night, to use an ATM, or to jog or bike in 
our parks. And, yes, there is the offender who has chosen to throw his 
or her life away. Particularly when the offender is a juvenile, family, 
friends, and society are made poorer for the waste of potential in 
every human being. One crime, but permanent effects when ``the fabric 
of civility is rent.''
  This is the reality that has driven me to work even up to the closing 
hours of the session to address this issue. For nearly a year, the 
Senate has had before it comprehensive youth violence legislation. S. 
10, the Hatch-Sessions Violent and Repeat Juvenile Offender Act, was 
reported out of the Judiciary

[[Page S12159]]

Committee last year on bipartisan vote, two to one vote. This 
legislation would have fundamentally reformed the role played by the 
federal government in addressing juvenile crime in our Nation. It was 
supported by law enforcement organizations such as the Fraternal Order 
of Police, the National Sheriffs Association, and the National Troopers 
Coalition, as well as the support of juvenile justice practitioners 
such as the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and 
victim's groups including the National Victims Center and the National 
Organization for Victims Assistance.

  S. 10 was reported on a bipartisan, two to one vote. Indeed, among 
members of the Youth Violence Subcommittee, the vote was seven to two 
in favor of the bill. Our reform proposal included the best of what we 
know works. It combined tough measures to protect the public from the 
worst juvenile criminals, smart measures to provide intervention and 
correction at the earliest acts of delinquency, and compassionate 
measures to supplement and enhance extensive existing prevention 
programs to keep juveniles out of the cycle of crime, violence, drugs, 
and gangs.
  All too often, the juvenile justice system ignores the minor crimes 
that lead to the increasingly frequent serious and tragic juvenile 
crimes capturing headlines. Unfortunately, many of these crimes might 
have been prevented had the warning signs of early acts of delinquency 
or antisocial behavior been heeded. A delinquent juvenile's critical 
first brush with the law is a vital aspect of preventing future crimes, 
because it teaches an important lesson--what behavior will be 
tolerated.
  According to a recent Department of Justice study, juveniles 
adjudicated for so-called index crimes--such as murder, rape, robbery, 
assault, burglary, and auto threft--began their criminal careers at an 
early age. The average age for a juvenile committing an index offense 
is 14.5 years, and typically, by age 7, the future criminal is already 
showing minor behavior problems. If we can intervene early enough, 
however, we might avert future tragedies. That is why we seek to reform 
federal policy that has been complicit in the system's failure, and 
provide states with much needed funding for a system of graduated 
sanctions, including community service for minor crimes, electronically 
monitored home detention, boot camps, and traditional detention for 
more serious offenses.
  And let there be no mistake--detention is needed as well. As Ms. 
Cornwell recently wrote, ``our first priority should be to keep our 
communities safe. We must remove violent people from our midst, no 
matter their age. . . . When the trigger is pulled, when the knife is 
plunged, kids aren't kids anymore. We should not shield and give 
excuses and probation to violent juveniles who, odds are, will harm or 
kill again if they are returned to our neighborhoods and schools.'' I 
couldn't have said it any better.

  Meaningful reform also requires that juvenile's criminal record ought 
to be accessible to police, courts, and prosecutors, so that we can 
know who is a repeat or serious offender. Right now, these records 
simply are not available in NCIC, the national system that tracks adult 
criminal records. Ms. Cornwell again cogently explains what this means: 
``If a juvenile commits a felony in Virginia, when he turns 18 his 
record is not expunged and will follow him for the rest of his days. 
But were he to commit the same felony in North Carolina, at 16 he'll be 
released from a correctional facility with no record of any crime he 
committed in that state. Let's say he's back on the street and returns 
to Virginia. Now he's a juvenile again, and police, prosecutors, judges 
or juries will never know what he did in North Carolina.
  If he moves to yet another state where the legal age is 21, he can 
commit felonies for three or four more years and have no record of 
them, either. Maybe by then, he's committed fifteen felonies but is 
only credited with the one he committed in Virginia. Maybe when he 
becomes an adult and is violent again, he gets a light sentence or even 
probation, since it appears he's committed only one felony in his life 
instead of fifteen. He'll be back among us soon enough. Maybe his next 
victim will be you.''
  So the reform we sought also provides the first federal incentives 
for the integration of serious juvenile criminal records into the 
national criminal history database, together with federal funding for 
the system.
  Mr. President, I believe that we all agree that it is far better to 
prevent the fabric of civility from being rent than to deal with the 
aftermath of juvenile crime.
  I have been involved in this fight for over three years now. Rarely 
have I found an issue over which interest group opponents were more 
determined to block needed reforms through distortions of the record.
  In no small measure, in my view, this harmful posturing has brought 
us to where we are today--just short of achieving important reform 
legislation. I believe that we must look to the greater good, and 
limit--in the interests of our children and public safety--the 
posturing which too often infects criminal justice issues.
  Let me take just a moment to acknowledge the efforts of members on 
both sides of the aisle who have worked in good faith to try and 
address this issue in a responsible manner. Senator Leahy and Senator 
Biden deserve enormous credit. And I want to particularly thank Senator 
Sessions, the Chairman of our Youth Violence Subcommittee for his many 
months of determined work. We will be back on this issue next Congress. 
It will not go away, any more than the problem will go away until we 
address it. So, I will be urging the Majority Leader, when he sets our 
agenda for next year, to make enacting a responsible juvenile crime 
bill among our top legislative priorities in the 106th Congress. Mr. 
President, I thank my colleagues and yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

                        When the Fabric Is Rent

                         (By Patricia Cornwell)

       There was a saying in the morgue during those long six 
     years I worked there. When a person is touched by violence, 
     the fabric of civility is forever rent, or ripped or 
     breached, whatever word is most graphic to you.
       Our country is the most violent one in the free world, and 
     as far as I'm concerned, we are becoming increasingly 
     incompetent in preventing and prosecuting cruel crimes that 
     we foolishly think happen only to others. There was another 
     saying in the morgue. The one thing every dead person had in 
     common in that place was he never thought he'd end up there. 
     He never imagined his name would be penned in black ink in 
     the big black book that is ominously omnipresent on a counter 
     top in the autopsy suite.
       I have seen hundreds, maybe close to a thousand dead bodies 
     by now, many of them ruined by another person's hands. I 
     return to the morgue at least two or three times a year to 
     painfully remind myself that what I'm writing about is awful 
     and final and real.
       I suffer from nightmares and don't remember the last time I 
     had a pleasant dream. I have very strong emotional responses 
     to crimes that have nothing to do with me, such as Versace's 
     murder, and more recently, the random shooting deaths of 
     Capitol Police Agent John Gibson and Officer Jacob Chestnut. 
     I can't read sad, scary or violent books. I watched only half 
     of Titanic because I cold not bear its sadness. I stormed out 
     of Ann Rice's Interview With A Vampire, so furious my hands 
     were shaking because the movie is such an outrageous 
     trivialization and celebration of sexual violence. For me the 
     suffering, the blood, the deaths are real.
       I'd like to confront Ann Rice with bitemarks and other 
     sadistic wounds that are not special effects. I'd like to 
     sentence Oliver Stone to a month in the morgue, make him sit 
     in the cooler for a while and see what an audience of victims 
     has to say about his films. I'd like O.J. Simpson to have a 
     total recall and suffer, go broke, be ostracized, never 
     allowed on a golf course again. I was in a pub in London when 
     that verdict was read. I'll never forget the amazed faces of 
     a suddenly mute group of beer-drinking Brits, or the shame of 
     my friends and I felt because in America it is absolutely 
     true. Justice is blind.
       Justice has stumbled off the rod of truth and fallen 
     headlong into a thicket of subjective verdicts where evidence 
     doesn't count and plea bargains that are such a bargain they 
     are fire sales. I've begun to fear that the consequences and 
     punishment of violent crime have become some sort of mindless 
     multiple choice, a Let's Make A Deal, a Let's microwave the 
     popcorn and watch Court TV.
       I have been asked to tell you what my fictional character 
     Dr. Scarpetta would do if she were the crime czar or 
     Virginia, of America. Since she and I share the same opinions 
     and views, I am stepping out from behind my curtain of 
     imagined deeds and characters and telling you what I feel and 
     think.
       It startles me to realize that at age 42, I have spent 
     almost half my life studying crime, of living and working in 
     it's pitifully cold, smelly, ugly environment. I am often 
     asked why people cheat, rob, stalk, slander, main and murder. 
     How can anybody enjoy causing another human being or any 
     living

[[Page S12160]]

     creature destruction and pain? I will tell you in three 
     words: Abuse of power. Everything in life is about the power 
     we appropriate for good or destruction, and the ultimate 
     overpowering of a life is to make it suffer and end.
       This includes children who put on camouflage and get into 
     the family guns. We don't want to believe that 12, 13, 16 
     year old youths are unredeemable. Most of them aren't. But 
     it's time we face that some of them have transgressed beyond 
     forgiveness, certainly beyond trust. Not all victims I have 
     seen pass through the morgue were savaged by adults. The 
     creative cruelty of some young killers is the worst of the 
     worst, images of what they did to their victims ones I wish I 
     could delete.
       About a year ago, I began researching juvenile crime for 
     the follow-up of Hornet's Nest (Southern Cross, January, '99) 
     and my tenth Scarpetta book (unfinished and untitled yet). 
     This was a territory I had yet to explore. I was inspired by 
     the depressing fact that in the last ten years, shootings, 
     hold-ups at ATM's, and premeditated murders committed by 
     juveniles have risen 160 percent. As I ventured into my 
     eleventh and twelfth novels, I wondered what my crusading 
     characters would do with violent children.
       So I spent months in Raleigh watching members of the 
     Governor's Commission on Juvenile Crime and Justice debate 
     and rewrite their juvenile crime laws, as Virginia did in 
     1995 under the leadership of Jim Gilmore. I quizzed Senator 
     Orrin Hatch about his youth violence bill, S. 10, a federal 
     approach to reforming a juvenile justice system that is 
     failing our society. I toured detention homes in Richmond and 
     elsewhere. I sat in on juvenile court cases and talked to 
     inmates who were juveniles when they began their lives of 
     crime.
       While it is true that many violent juveniles have abuse, 
     neglect, and the absence of values in their homes, I maintain 
     my belief that all people should be held accountable for 
     their actions. Our first priority should be to keep our 
     communities safe. We must remove violent people from our 
     midst, no matter their age. As Marcia Morey, executive 
     director of North Carolina's juvenile crime commission, 
     constantly preaches, ``We must stop the hemorrhage first.''
       When the trigger is pulled, when the knife is plunged, kids 
     aren't kids anymore. We should not shield and give excuses 
     and probation to violent juveniles who, odds are, will harm 
     or kill again if they are returned to our neighborhoods and 
     schools. We should not treat young violent offenders with 
     sealed lips and exclusive proceedings.
       ``The secrecy and confidentiality of our system have hurt 
     us,'' says Richmond Juvenile and Domestic Relations District 
     Court Judge Kimberly O'Donnell. ``What people can't see and 
     hear is often difficult for them to understand.''
       Virginia has opened its courtrooms to the public, and Judge 
     O'Donnell encourages people to sit in hers and see for 
     themselves those juveniles who are remorseless and those who 
     can be saved. Most juveniles who end up in court are not 
     repeat offenders. But for that small number who threaten us 
     most, I advocate hard, non-negotiable judgement. Most of what 
     I would like to see is already being done in Virginia. But we 
     need juvenile justice reform nationally, a system that is 
     sensible and consistent from state to state.
       As it is now, if a juvenile commits a felony in Virginia, 
     when he turns 18 his record is not expunged and will follow 
     him for the rest of his days. But were he to commit the same 
     felony in North Carolina, at 16 he'll be released from a 
     correctional facility with no record of any crime he 
     committed in that state. Let's say he's back on the street 
     and returns to Virginia. Now he's a juvenile again, and 
     police, prosecutors, judges or juries will never know what he 
     did in North Carolina.
       If he moves to yet another state where the legal age is 21, 
     he can commit felonies for three or four more years and have 
     no record of them, either. Maybe by then he's committed 
     fifteen felonies but is only credited with the one he 
     committed in Virginia. Maybe when he becomes an adult and 
     is violent again, he gets a light sentence or even 
     probation, since it appears he's committed only one felony 
     in his life instead of fifteen. He'll be back among us 
     soon enough. Maybe his next victim will be you.
       If national juvenile justice reform were up to me, I'd be 
     strict. I would not be popular with extreme child advocates. 
     If I had my way, it would be routine that when any juvenile 
     commits a violent crime, his name and personal life are 
     publicized. Records of juveniles who commit felonies should 
     not be expunged when the individual becomes an adult. Mug 
     shots, fingerprints and the DNA of violent juveniles should, 
     at the very least, be available to police, prosecutors, and 
     schools, and if the young violent offender has an extensive 
     record and commits another crime, plea bargaining should be 
     limited or at least informed.
       Juveniles who rape, murder or commit other heinous acts 
     should be tried as adults, but judges should have the 
     discretionary power to decide when this is merited. I want to 
     see more court-ordered restitution and mediation. Let's turn 
     off the TV's in correctional centers and force assailants, 
     robbers, thieves to work to pay back what they've destroyed 
     and taken, as much as that is possible. Confront them with 
     their victims, face to face. Perhaps a juvenile might realize 
     the awful deed he's done if his victim is suddenly a person 
     with feelings, loved ones, scars, a name.
       Prevention is a more popular word than punishment. But the 
     solution to what's happening in our society, particularly to 
     our youths, is simpler and infinitely harder than any 
     federally or private funded program. All of us live in 
     neighborhoods. Unless you are in solitary confinement or a 
     coma, you are aware of others around you. Quite likely you 
     are exposed to children who are sad, lost, ignored, neglected 
     or abused. Try to help. Do it in person.
       I remember my first few years in Richmond when I was living 
     at Union Theological Seminary, where my former husband was a 
     student and I was a struggling, somewhat failed writer. 
     Charlie and I spent five years in a seminary apartment 
     complex where there was a little boy who enjoyed throwing a 
     tennis ball against the building in a staccato that was 
     torture to me.
       I was working on novels nobody wanted and every time that 
     ball thunked against brick, I lost my train of thought. I'd 
     popped out of my chair and fly outside to order the kid to 
     stop, but somehow he was always gone without a trace, silence 
     restored for an hour or two. One day I caught him. I was 
     about to reprimand him when I saw the fear and loneliness in 
     his eyes.
       ``What's your name?'' I asked.
       ``Eddie,'' he said.
       ``How old are you?''
       ``Ten.''
       ``It's not a good idea to throw a ball against the 
     building. It makes it hard for some of us to work.''
       ``I know.'' He shrugged.
       ``If you know, then why do you do it?''
       ``Because I have no one to play catch with me,'' he 
     replied.
       My memory lit up with acts of kindness when I was a lonely 
     child living in the small town of Montreat, North Carolina. 
     Adult neighbors had taken time to play tennis with me. They 
     had invited me, the only girl in town, to play baseball or 
     touch football with the boys.
       Billy Graham's wife, Ruth, used to stop her car to see how 
     I was or if I needed a ride somewhere. Years later, she 
     befriended me when I was a very confused teenager who felt 
     rather worthless. Were it not for her kindness and 
     encouragement, I doubt I would be writing this editorial. 
     Maybe I wouldn't have amounted to much. Maybe I would have 
     gotten into serious trouble. Maybe I'd be dead.
       Eddie and I started playing catch. I gave him tennis 
     lessons and probably ruined his backhand for life. He told me 
     all about himself and amused me with his stories. We became 
     pals. He never threw a tennis ball against the building 
     again.
       We must protect ourselves from all people who have proven 
     to be dangerous. But we should never abandon those who can be 
     helped or are at least are worthy of the effort. If you save 
     or change one life, you have added something priceless to 
     this world. You have left it better than you found it.

                          ____________________