Tony Thurmond: “I am very pleased that tonight the Senate is considering S. 2516, the Fugitive Apprehension Act. Senator Biden and I…”

“I am very pleased that tonight the Senate is considering S. 2516, the Fugitive Apprehension Act. Senator Biden and I introduced this important legislation to help address the serious threat of federal and state fugitives. The need for it was clearly demonstrated in a hearing I held on this matter last month in my subcommittee. The number of wanted persons is truly alarming. There are over 38,000 felony warrants outstanding in federal cases. There are over one-half million felony or other serious fugitives listed in the National Crime Information Center database. Yet, this is far less than the actual number of dangerous fugitives roaming the streets because many states do not put all dangerous wanted persons into the database. As recently reported in the Washington Post, California has 2.5 million unserved felony and misdemeanor warrants, and Baltimore has 61,000. While violent crime in the United States has been decreasing in recent years, the number of serious fugitives has been climbing. The number of N.C.I.C. fugitives has doubled since 1987, and continues to rise steadily each year. Fugitives represent not only an outrage to the rule of law, they are also a serious threat to public safety. Many of them continue to commit additional crimes while they roam undetected. The bill would provide $40 million dollars over three years for the Marshals Service to form fugitive task forces with state and local authorities.”