[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5706]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                NATIONAL YOUTH VIOLENCE PREVENTION WEEK

  (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, it is my honor to be a Member of this 
House and to serve the public. This week I announced that it is 
National Youth Violence Prevention Week. Preventing youth violence 
can't happen overnight. It requires change across our society, from our 
courts to our classrooms.
  This week I introduced a package of bills to correct these problems 
that we have imposed upon our children and our communities. I urge my 
colleagues to get serious about these issues. Our children are our 
future. We owe our children every opportunity. We owe our children a 
system that works with them and for them. It is not a system that is 
out to get them.
  We do not owe our children a system that allows them to be in our 
streets and to not be safe. For example, to make sure that our children 
are safe, means that we have safer communities. Right now the United 
States of America has a criminal justice system that spends over $80 
billion a year to incarcerate men, women, and children.
  And who do these adults incarcerated become eventually?
  Well, once they were children.
  We can correct the system. We are the most incarcerated place on the 
planet in every sense of the word. We can change this. We must change 
this for the sake of our communities.

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