Carlos Moorhead: “Mr. Chairman, in the midst of the debate on health care, welfare reform and Americans' concern about the future of our…”

“Mr. Chairman, in the midst of the debate on health care, welfare reform and Americans' concern about the future of our economy and its rapidly changing nature the polls clearly show that the problem of violent crime in our society is the issue most often on the minds of Americans. The real crisis in America is the crisis in our streets--the crisis in public safety and the crisis in our criminal justice system. Statistics show that a violent crime is committed every 22 seconds, one aggravated assault every 28 seconds, one rape every 5 minutes and one murder every 22 minutes. Furthermore, 7 percent of the criminals commit almost 80 percent of the violent crimes in America. On average, these violent criminals serve only 37 percent of their sentences. To deliver a knockout blow to violent crime and stop the revolving door which spins violent criminals out of prison too early so they commit more violent crimes requires setting priorities and passing laws that put punishment and deterrence back in the system. To his credit, our colleague Bill McCollum has developed such a proposal entitled the ``Violent Offender Incarceration Act'' which he will offer as an amendment to H.R. 4092.”