[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 163 (Thursday, November 29, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12133-S12134]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               GINA'S LAW

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have today written a letter to the 
Attorney General and to the head of the Office of Management and Budget 
expressing my great concern over regulations that should now have been 
in place as a result of a law that was signed by the President last 
December. That law would have required regulations to be published by 
the Justice Department in July. No such regulations have been 
published.
  Here is the background of this issue. I, along with my colleague, 
then-Senator John Ashcroft, authored legislation that became law, when 
signed by the President, dealing with the transportation of violent 
criminals around this country. Private companies have been contracted 
by State and local governments to transport prisoners around America 
from one prison and one location to another.
  These private companies were transporting violent criminals, and all 
too often those criminals were walking away. We decided the companies 
that were hauling violent offenders were not adhering to standards or 
regulations and there should be some regulations. The President signed 
a bill, authored by myself and then-Senator Ashcroft,

[[Page S12134]]

establishing regulations with respect to private companies that are 
transporting violent prisoners.
  The law is called Gina's bill. It is named for an 11-year-old girl in 
Fargo, ND, who was murdered brutally by a man named Kyle Bell. Kyle 
Bell was being sent to a prison in Oregon after being convicted of 
first-degree murder, being transported by a private company in a bus. 
They stopped for gas. One guard was asleep; the other apparently went 
in to get a cheeseburger. The other guard was filling the bus with 
gasoline. Kyle Bell slipped out the top vent of the bus, walked in 
street clothes into a parking lot of a shopping center and was gone for 
3 months. They found him. He is now in prison.

  This has happened all too often: Violent offenders, including 
convicted murders, walking away from private companies that are 
transporting them. There should have been regulations in place in July 
of this year that establish how these private companies are 
transporting violent criminals. As for me, I don't believe any State or 
local government should ever contract with a private company to turn 
over a murderer to be transported somewhere. Law enforcement officials 
ought to transport convicted murderers.
  As long as some State and local governments are using private 
companies for that transport, those private companies ought to be 
subject to regulation as is required by the law signed by the President 
in December, regulations such as what kind of restraints are used, what 
color clothing is required to be worn by the violent offender being 
transported, the training of the guards, and so forth.
  Since July, when the regulation should have been in effect, in 
Wisconsin a private company was hauling a violent criminal and that 
violent criminal escaped and stabbed a law enforcement officer in the 
neck. Down South, a private company was transporting a violent 
offender. The violent offender escaped and went on a bank robbing 
spree.
  When we passed the law, I told the story of a retired sheriff and his 
wife showing up at a prison to pick up five convicted murderers with a 
minivan. The warden said: You have to be kidding; you and your wife are 
here to pick up five convicted murderers to transport them?
  He was not kidding. They put them in the minivan. Those five 
convicted murderers escaped, of course. That is why we wrote the law 
and why the President signed it. That is why in July the Justice 
Department had a responsibility to put the regulations in place. To 
date, nearly 5 months later, those regulations do not exist.
  I have written to the Attorney General and the Office of Management 
and Budget to say lives are at stake. The public safety is at stake. 
Get this done and get it done now.
  This law, called Gina's bill, named after this wonderful 11-year-old 
girl who was brutally murdered by Kyle Bell, is a law designed to keep 
violent offenders behind bars, keep them in the arms of law enforcement 
officials, and make certain if they are transported by those other than 
law enforcement officials, they are transported safely.
  I don't want any American family to drive to a gas pump somewhere and 
have a minivan drive up next to them with a retired law enforcement 
officer and his brother-in-law calling themselves a transport company 
hauling three murderers in the back seat and not having the basic 
safety standards in place to make sure that transportation is safe. I 
don't want any family to come up to a gas station and have that 
situation next to them and put them at risk. That is why we wrote this 
bill. That is why the President signed it into law.
  I hope my letter to the Attorney General and the Office of Management 
and Budget will stimulate them to do what they should have done in the 
month of July. I know there are reasons that bureaucracies act in a 
slow way and drag their feet from time to time. There is no good reason 
for this to have happened. I ask the Attorney General for his 
cooperation. I ask the head of the Office of Management and Budget to 
cooperate. Get this done. The Congress required you to do it after 180 
days. That was July. This is December. It should have been done 5 
months ago.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the recess 
be postponed for 10 minutes, and that the Senate stand in recess 
following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.

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