Bill Clinton: “I think we could certainly change it some. Let me say, one of the things, though, that frustrates people when there were…”

“I think we could certainly change it some. Let me say, one of the things, though, that frustrates people when there were no guidelines is that people who were the same were treated wildly differently. That also makes--to go back to the young man's question-- this is the frustrating thing about--should there be sentencing guidelines or should there not be? When people who are different and their circumstances are different are treated the same, we all get mad, right? And we should. But when people who are the same in their offense and their degree of guilt are treated dramatically differently, we all get mad. So there is no perfect solution to this. But I will say again, what are the important things: crime prevention; when people get in trouble, do drug education and treatment, do education; and give people something to say yes to when they get out, because there will never be a fully perfect way of sentencing. Would I have the power to say maybe we ought to take another look at this, with ``three strikes and you're out,'' with my long support for the capital punishment? I think so. But there is no perfect answer to the sentencing problem when you have a crime problem as big as ours is. And the real thing you've got to do is focus on what happens to the people once they're in the prison, once they're in the boot camp. And more importantly, what can you do to keep people out of the system in the first place? What can we do to prevent this? [A participant stated that drug addicts should not be imprisoned and suggested more drug prevention and rehabilitation programs.]”