[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 47 (Tuesday, April 3, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H1354-H1355]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       CONGRESS NEEDS TO FUND PROGRAMS TO HELP AT-RISK JUVENILES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I have a long list here, and I am not going 
to read all of it, but we could start in 1994, Union, Kentucky.
  1995, Redlands, California; Richmond, Virginia.
  1997, Bethel, Alaska; Pearl, Mississippi.
  1998, Jonesboro, Arkansas; Edinboro, Pennsylvania; Fayetteville, 
Tennessee; and Springfield, Oregon, my hometown.
  1999, Deming, New Mexico.
  2001, Santee, California; Williamsport, Pennsylvania; and El Cajon, 
California, all in 1 month.
  This is, unfortunately, only a partial list of school shootings in 
the United States over the last decade.
  Mr. Speaker, we have got to ask what has been the coordinated and 
thoughtful response of our policymakers here in Washington, D.C., and I 
think we would find it lacking. Now, there is certainly no easy answer. 
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to these problems. But, Mr. 
Speaker, there are proven programs that are underfunded that could be 
better funded that might help prevent future tragedies, that might get 
to one disturbed youth, one at-risk family, that might bring forward 
some other students before the fact, and we should be doing all we can 
to encourage and fund those programs.
  Mr. Speaker, we often expect that somebody somewhere is going to take 
care of the violence, is going to make things better, but really who is 
the somebody here? We all have to take some responsibility, every one 
of us. In my own hometown of Springfield, there was an incredible 
community response and a response from other communities, and 
statewide, and people from other States who came to help us, and even 
some help from the Federal Government in working through the immediate 
aftermath. But I fear some some of that urgency is gone now, as the 
violence has gone elsewhere, and now those communities are in a crisis.
  Mr. Speaker, we need a more coordinated approach. I am reintroducing 
legislation today that has a number of parts. It is not comprehensive, 
but it is a good start at helping to address these problems.
  First and foremost, increased funding for Head Start and other early 
intervention prevention programs, a program for Federal funding for 
community programs, like the Birth to 3 in my State that intervenes 
with young, at-risk women and helps them before they become a problem 
or get into a situation that is a problem with their children. More 
money for child abuse programs that focus on community-based family 
preservation and crisis intervention, a funding increase for the 
Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention programs, including court 
schools.
  I visited court schools. It is a tremendous program. We take a kid 
today who threatens violence or has been expelled from school, and what 
do we do? There they are, they are out on the street for the most part. 
Those kids need a more structured environment. For many of them, it 
does not even seem like punishment to be thrown out of school. They 
should be removed and placed in a court school, which is a more rigid 
environment, which brings

[[Page H1355]]

in community resources and counseling resources to help them deal with 
their problems in the hope that we can get them back into the public 
school environment, and that they can become productive citizens. Do 
not just send them down to the mall or out in the streets with an 
expulsion order. Court schools work, and we need some more Federal 
assistance for those programs.
  The National Guard has a very, very successful program, the Youth 
Challenge Program. It is underfunded. There is a long waiting list of 
States that want to have programs. We have one in Oregon that has been 
inadequately funded. The rate of recidivism of the kids that get in 
that program is minuscule. It works. It is not for every kid. That is 
not the solution for every kid, but it is a part of the puzzle, and it 
works, and why not put more money there. We can afford that. If we can 
afford to give tax breaks to billionaires, we can afford a few more 
dollars for the National Guard Youth Challenge program, assistance to 
schools and local police departments to combat juvenile crime, 
including funds for placing police officers in schools.
  Mr. Speaker, let us help the communities who want to engage in 
prevention and intervention. We can institute a 72-hour hold, a mandate 
for a 72-hour hold for juveniles caught with a firearm on school 
grounds. The list goes on and on. These are simple things. They are 
things we could be doing, I say to my colleagues.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support my wide-reaching package 
as a beginning of an indication that the Federal Government cares and 
will work in partnership with communities and concerned citizens and 
parents and kids to resolve this problem.

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