[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 37 (Wednesday, March 29, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1897-S1899]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DORGAN (for himself, Mr. Craig, and Mr. Robb):
  S. 2318. A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to eliminate 
good time credits for prisoners serving a sentence for a crime of 
violence, and for other purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.


                  100 percent truth-in-sentencing act

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I offer legislation today that I 
introduced previously but on which I was not able to get action during 
a previous Congress, and that is legislation dealing with truth in 
sentencing.
  Let me talk about some folks who have committed violent acts in this 
country. Recently, I read in a local paper here that a man named 
Kenneth Lodowski is walking around this metropolitan area. He was 
sentenced to die in 1984. He murdered two people--one

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an off-duty police officer, and the other a clerk in a convenience 
store. He was sentenced to die in 1984 for two murders. The prosecuting 
attorney called the murders ``as vicious a crime as I have experienced 
in my 24 years as State's attorney.''
  That is the crime.
  After a series of appeals, this man, who was sentenced to death for 
two murders, had the sentence changed to life imprisonment without 
parole, then changed again, then changed again. Finally, the sentence 
was 25 years in prison. After 16 years in prison, this person is 
walking around the streets of this metropolitan area--free.
  Why? Here is the reason. If you commit murder in this country, on 
average, you are going to be sentenced to about 21 years in prison. On 
average, a murderer will be sentenced to about 21 years in prison but 
will serve, on average, only 10 years behind bars.
  Most people will be startled to hear that. But let me say that again. 
The average sentence served by a murderer in this country is about 10 
years. Why? Because people are let out early. Murderers go to prison, 
and they get ``good time,'' time off for good behavior: If you want to 
get out early, just be good in prison, and we will put you back on the 
streets.
  What happens when you are put back on the streets? You read the 
stories. I have spoken a number of times about Bettina Pruckmayr, a 
young woman who moved to town with great expectations, a young lawyer. 
She was abducted in a carjacking, then taken to an ATM machine to 
extract cash, and then stabbed 30 times in a horrible death. This 
young, 26-year-old attorney who was just beginning her career in this 
town, was stabbed 30 times by a man who had previously been convicted 
of rape, armed robbery, and murder. That man was on the streets 
legally, let out by a criminal justice system that does not keep people 
who we know are violent behind bars--let out early.
  Or Jonathan Hall, about whom I have spoken in this Chamber, 13 years 
old, stabbed by a man who moved into his neighborhood, stabbed 60 times 
with a screwdriver, thrown down an embankment into a pond. When they 
found young Jonathan, after being stabbed 60 times, they found dirt and 
grass between his fingers because even though he had been stabbed 60 
times, this 13-year-old boy had tried to crawl out of that pond into 
which this fellow had thrown him. His clenched fists described his will 
to survive. But he did not; he died.
  Jonathan's murderer was a career criminal. He had been convicted 
previously of kidnapping and murder, but let out, and was living in the 
neighborhood and able to murder this 13-year-old boy--paroled just 1 
year before he took Jonathan's life.
  And Julie Schultz from ND, a woman whom I know fairly well, the 
mother of three, who stopped at a highway rest area one day on a 
pleasant, tranquil afternoon in North Dakota. She was attacked by a man 
who tried to rape her, slashed her throat, cutting her vocal cords, and 
left her for dead at a rest area on Highway 2 in northern North Dakota.

  She survived the attack. In fact, I saw Julie just 2 weeks ago at the 
Minneapolis Airport. She survived the attack but has lasting scars and 
difficulties as a result of that attack.
  Who attacked Julie? The same kind of person who attacked others 
around this country--people who we knew were violent, were put behind 
bars, and let out early because the criminal justice system says: You 
only have to spend 10 years, on average, in jail if you commit a murder 
in this country. We will sentence you to 21 years, but you only have to 
spend 10 years behind bars because we will let you out early if you are 
good.
  The fellow who slashed the throat of Julie Schultz served 7 years of 
a life sentence in the State of Washington before being released, 
before being on Highway 2, on an afternoon in North Dakota, able to do 
what he did to Julie Schultz.
  Sara Paulson, 8 years old, went out for a bike ride one day and never 
came back. Her body was found under a pine tree less than 200 yards 
from her home. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. 
Her murderer had been previously sentenced to prison for rape but was 
paroled after serving less than half of his sentence.
  I am introducing legislation today, cosponsored by Senator Craig of 
Idaho, and another piece of legislation cosponsored by Senator Craig of 
Idaho and Senator Robb of Virginia. The point of it is very simple. I 
believe in the criminal justice system we ought to have different 
standards for those who commit acts of violence. Everyone in this 
country who commits acts of violence ought to understand: You go to 
prison, and your address is going to be your jail cell until the end of 
your sentence.
  Do you know what the prison folks say to us? We need mechanisms by 
which we can persuade inmates to behave in prison. The mechanism is to 
dangle before them an early-out, time off for good behavior. So if we 
are able to reward them for behaving in prison, we are able to manage 
them.
  I say to them, what about managing them on the streets?
  As I stated, there is a fellow who is walking the streets in this 
metropolitan area now, after 16 years, who killed a policeman and 
killed a clerk in a store, because he was released early.
  What about the people on the streets who are going to meet that 
fellow? What about their safety? Who is managing that violent offender 
now? Who managed the violent offender who viciously attacked Julie 
Schultz? Who managed the behavior of the man who violently attacked 
Jonathan Hall? Who was watching the fellow who violently attacked 
Bettina Pruckmayr?
  The answer is, nobody.
  Let us segregate and separate those who commit violent acts in this 
country from those who are nonviolent offenders. Let's incarcerate them 
all. I do not mind early release for nonviolent offenders. But for 
violent offenders, we ought to have a society in which everyone 
understands: If you commit an act of violence, the prison cell is your 
address to the end of your sentence. No good time off for good 
behavior, no getting back to the streets early. You are going to be in 
prison to serve your term.
  It is the only way, it seems to me, to protect innocent folks, such 
as Bettina Pruckmayr and Jonathan Hall and Julie Schultz, and so many 
others who have been victimized by people we know were violent and 
should have been in a prison cell but, instead, were on the streets 
early because prison authorities let them out early with ``good time'' 
credits and ``good time'' releases.
  Let's stop it. My legislation will do that. It says to the States: 
You must do it. If you do not, you are going to lose certain grants 
under the Criminal Justice Act. Is that tough? Yes. But we must, it 
seems to me, take these steps to change this.
  Again, let me conclude. My colleague from Illinois, I know, wants the 
floor. But early releases--these are State prisons, incidentally--
sexual assault: Sentenced for 10 years, on average, and you are out in 
5; robbery: Sentenced for 8 years, on average, and you are out in 4; 
murder: Sentenced for 21 years, on average, and you are out in 10.
  Everyone in this Chamber knows the horrors of crime, if not 
personally with them and their family, then a neighbor, a friend, a 
relative.

  We know the current system isn't working. Too many violent offenders 
are sent back to America's streets. There is a way to stop that. Yes, I 
know we have too many people in prison; But the way to be smart about 
it is to segregate those who are violent offenders from those who are 
nonviolent. This piece of legislation would start us doing that.
  If any of us, God forbid, would lose a loved one or relative because 
of a vicious crime committed by someone who should have been in prison 
but was let out early, we would spend the rest of our days trying to 
pass legislation like this. We ought to do it.
  Let me again say, the piece of legislation I began to talk about 
today, because of the escape in Chula Vista, CA, has resulted in a 
convicted murderer walking around on the loose, a man named Prestridge. 
A violent murderer supposed to be spending the rest of his life behind 
bars is now loose because he was being transported by a private company 
and incompetence allowed these violent offenders, two of them, to 
escape--if we pass Jeanna's bill, named after the young 11-year-old who 
was violently murdered by Kyle Bell, if we pass that piece of 
legislation, I won't

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be here speaking about those circumstances again because they won't 
happen again. I hope we will be able to address both of those pieces of 
legislation in the remaining months of this Congress.
  I thank my colleague from Illinois. I wanted to introduce this 
legislation and talk about it at some length today. I know he is here 
to talk as well. I yield the floor.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise to comment on the remarks made by 
my friend and colleague from North Dakota, Senator Dorgan. I know his 
feelings are heartfelt about this issue. I know he speaks from the 
heart when he tells us about these terrible tragedies to which many 
families in America have been subjected. I hope he feels, as I do, that 
when it comes to violent crime, crimes involving guns and weapons, 
sexual assault, and the like, we should have no tolerance for that 
conduct. And when it comes to sentencing those responsible for the 
crimes, we should do it in a manner to protect American citizens and 
families across the board. I agree with him on that score. I think if 
we are ever going to stop the plague of violent crime in this country, 
we have to deal with enforcement of the law in a realistic way to 
protect families.
  Two weeks ago, I was stuck in an airport in our State capital, my 
hometown of Springfield, which tends to be part of the job description 
of being a Senator. The director of the Department of Corrections, Don 
Snyder, came up and said hello, and we had a chance to chat about 
incarceration in my home State of Illinois.
  There are currently, if I remember the figures off the top of my 
head, about 45,000 people incarcerated in the State prison system in 
Illinois. He told me a couple of things that were interesting. Each 
year, we release from the Illinois prison system over 20,000 inmates. 
We have this false notion that once a person is incarcerated, they are 
there forever.
  As the Senator from North Dakota has indicated, even for the most 
violent criminals, that is not the case. About half of them come out 
each year. When you consider all the crimes for which people are 
incarcerated, they are back on the street. The question we obviously 
have to ask is whether they will commit another crime. Unfortunately, 
about half of them do. Those crimes, when repeated, test our resolve to 
not only have a system that involves punishment but, where appropriate, 
rehabilitation.

  This director of our Department of Corrections gave me an 
illustration. He said, if you consider a crime involving drugs to be 
the possession of a thimbleful of cocaine, in 1987, the Illinois prison 
system had 400 people incarcerated for the possession of a thimbleful 
of cocaine. In the year 2000, we have 9,100 inmates incarcerated for 
the possession of a thimbleful of cocaine. He said: Conceding the fact 
that we want to end the drug scourge in our country and we want to be 
effective in doing it, the average drug criminal in Illinois is 
incarcerated for 7\1/2\ months. It is hard to believe that we are going 
to teach many lessons in 7\1/2\ months, but that is the average.
  Here is the thing that is troubling. During the period of that 
incarceration in prison for the commission of the drug crime, there is 
virtually nothing done to deal with the underlying addiction of the 
inmate. So when they are released in 7\1/2\ months or a little longer, 
they are back on the streets, still addicted, likely to run back into 
the same drug culture and be exposed to the same forces that put them 
in prison in the first place.
  He asked me a valid question: Why aren't we doing something, while we 
have these people who have been convicted and incarcerated, to try to 
get them off drugs?
  I think that is a reasonable suggestion. I am not for letting violent 
criminals out early, but for those who are in for drug crimes, we ought 
to have a policy nationwide that deals with some effort to stop their 
addiction, to end their addiction, to try, when they are released, to 
give them a chance to lead a normal life that doesn't include another 
victim at some later point. I hope we address that.
  He also indicated to me that over 80 percent of the women in the 
Illinois prison system have children. And while they are in prison 
separated from those children, oftentimes those children are in 
terrible circumstances. We saw in the State of Michigan a few weeks ago 
when a 6-year-old boy took a gun to school and killed a little 
classmate. Then we find his father was in prison. His mother is 
addicted. He was stuck in a home where he slept on a couch. No one paid 
attention to him. Frankly, a gun was left on a table where he could get 
his hands on it and take it to school.
  That kind of neglect occurs too often in America. It is invited in a 
situation where mothers are incarcerated and no one is there to care 
for their kids.
  This Director of Corrections said: Can we keep the link between the 
mother and child alive? We find that the women who are inmates really 
want to turn their lives around when they think their family can stay 
together and has a future. We know that the kids would like to keep a 
relationship with the mother who may turn her life around.
  These are troubling questions. In a nation where we incarcerate more 
per capita than any other country in the world, we have to face these 
realities. People are coming out of prison. When they come out, we have 
to wonder whether there has been a part of their experience in prison 
that will lead to a better life for them and a safer America and less 
recidivism.

  Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DURBIN. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. DORGAN. I agree with what the Senator has said. Nearly half of 
the people incarcerated in this country are violent offenders, half are 
not. It seems to me we ought to be smarter in the way we incarcerate 
them, those half whom we know are violent. For those we know are 
violent, we should not be incentivizing them to move to the streets 
earlier. We ought to try to find ways to keep them in prison to the end 
of their term. Those who are nonviolent they have to be punished, serve 
their time. But they are not violent and are not a threat to people.
  Senator John Glenn used to talk about this in the Senate. He used to 
bring with him a model of a Quonset hut, apparently made in Ohio. He 
said: This is the kind of place I lived in during the Korean war. My 
wife and I lived in one of these huts various places around the world. 
It was Marine housing, among other things. He said, for nonviolent 
offenders, we could put up some barbed wire and build Quonset huts. It 
doesn't take a fortune to create incarceration compounds for nonviolent 
offenders. We don't have to put them in lockups that are massively 
secure, lockups that cost a fortune. Use those lockups for violent 
offenders; then give yourself enough space to keep violent offenders 
behind bars to the end of their term.
  That is the point I was making. I don't disagree with anything the 
Senator from Illinois said about the crime factor inside the prisons 
and about the circumstances these days of mandatory sentencing and 
crimes that have been nonviolent that have crowded the prison system. I 
thank the Senator for his comments.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from North Dakota. I appreciate the 
importance of the issue of incarceration and corrections.
                                 ______