[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 105 (Tuesday, June 20, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3620-S3621]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Early Release

  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, last year, a woman named Carol Denise 
Richardson was released from Federal prison after President Obama 
granted her clemency. She had been serving a life sentence for 
possessing and intending to distribute 50 or more grams of cocaine, on 
top of having an already lengthy criminal record. She had not done 
anything specifically violent, so, theoretically, we should have been 
able to release her early and see good results, at least according to 
the advocates of criminal leniency.
  Unfortunately, nothing good has come from this decision. Now, less 
than a year later, Carol Richardson is going back to prison. As part of 
her release, she was put on a 10-year probation, which meant she had to 
check in regularly with her probation officers, but she did not. She 
did not tell them she had left her job. She did not tell them she had 
moved. She did not even tell them she had been arrested.
  Her latest offense, I should say, falls somewhere short of heinous. 
She was arrested in Pasadena, TX, for stealing $60 worth of laundry 
detergent so she could buy drugs.
  From everything I have read in the news, it seems clear that Carol 
Richardson is not a serious, violent menace to society, but it is also 
clear she was not prepared to reenter society. She still had not kicked 
her drug habit. She still could not keep and hold a steady job. She 
still could not meet the most basic requirements of citizenship and 
basic adulthood.
  But the real question is, Why would she be ready? Why would we expect 
that of her? She never went through the rehab that could have given her 
a second chance at life. Instead we just threw her in the deep end and 
watched her sink. That is why I think this story is worth mentioning, 
because I believe we should give pause to every advocate of criminal 
leniency.
  They like to argue that taking people out of prison both heals 
communities and saves money. But who was better off once Carol 
Richardson was released? Not her community; she committed a crime 
within months. Not the taxpayers; they are still paying for prison 
costs. And here is the thing: Neither was she. She is back in prison 
yet again.
  But, sometimes, the consequences are worse than this sad story. They 
are horrifying. Last year, a man named Wendell Callahan brutally killed 
his ex-girlfriend and her two young daughters. A frantic 911 call from 
the scene said that the two girls' throats had been slit.
  These murders were an atrocity, and they were completely avoidable. 
Wendell Callahan walked out of Federal prison in August of 2014 after 
his sentence had been reduced in accordance with the provisions of 
sentencing guidelines made by the Sentencing Commission. Callahan's 
original sentence should have kept him in jail until 2018. If he had 
been in jail instead of on the streets, a young family would be alive 
today.
  What the Richardson case, on one hand, and the Callahan case, on the 
other hand, show us are two things: First, if we are going to reform 
the criminal justice system, we shouldn't focus on merely reducing 
sentences. That doesn't do all that much to help our society. Instead, 
we should focus on rehabilitating people while they are in prison, 
whatever the length of their sentence. They need serious help if they 
can ever hope to redeem themselves and, once they are out of jail, stay 
out for good. And we should give them that help, not only because it is

[[Page S3621]]

good for them--though it is--but because it is good for us as a 
society. This is why I support real reform that will make our prisons 
safer for inmates and correction officers alike and take real steps to 
help inmates leave their lives of crime behind once and for all.
  The second lesson is this: We need to know far more than we do now 
about how many people we release early from prison go back to a life of 
crime. What types of crimes do they commit? How many murders? How many 
robberies? How many drug arrests? Those numbers can be small or they 
can be large, but we need to know them to understand the full scope of 
our problem. And having that information will help the President decide 
each case as he considers when and how to use his pardon power.
  But, today, the Federal Government doesn't even compile these data.
  That is why I, along with Senators Hatch, Sessions, and Perdue, 
introduced a bill last year to require that the government collect and 
report on these numbers. Unfortunately, the bill did not pass into law. 
So I want to announce today that I intend to reintroduce the bill with 
a renewed sense of urgency. This is just one story, after all. We don't 
know how many people granted clemency are returning to crime. But that 
is all the more reason to start collecting more data. We need to 
thoroughly evaluate cold, hard evidence before we make any sweeping 
changes to our criminal laws.
  Carol Richardson's story should warn us of the perils of letting 
ideology get the better of common sense. We owe it to our neighbors to 
keep their families safe, and we owe it to the Carol Richardsons of the 
world to give them a real and honest chance at life once they complete 
their sentence.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.