[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16490]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     YOUTH JUSTICE AWARENESS MONTH

  (Mr. CARDENAS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. CARDENAS. Mr. Speaker, did you know that a child in the United 
States can go to jail just for skipping school or running away from an 
abusive home?
  Did you know that the United States is the only country in the world 
that locks up kids for life without the possibility of parole, when 
nearly three in ten of those kids did not actually commit the crime and 
may not have been there at the time that someone was hurt?
  For years we have been funding a juvenile justice system that is 
robbing children of their future and wasting billions of taxpayer 
dollars every year.
  Today experts, academics, police departments, police chiefs, and 
sheriffs agree that we must change that system.
  President Obama designated October as Youth Justice Awareness Month 
because it is time to stop wasting billions of dollars on a system that 
doesn't make our communities safer and is destroying a generation of 
our children.
  This week I introduced two bills to make sure kids don't get put in 
jail for dumb reasons and to fund evidence-based intervention and 
prevention programs.
  We must do better. We must not give up on our children.

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