Jack Kingston: “Tomorrow as we begin the very important debate on a very important bill in Congress, there is an amendment that I plan…”

“Tomorrow as we begin the very important debate on a very important bill in Congress, there is an amendment that I plan to support and I urge my colleagues to support, and that is the one offered by the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum]. His amendment actually has different components to it, but I wanted to touch on just a few of them. One of them is that it gives States Federal funds if they adopt truth-in-sentencing laws, and part of the truth-in-sentencing requirement is that violent criminals serve at least 85 percent of their sentence. What truth-in-sentencing laws are all about is they are trying to get to this revolving door problem we are having in prisons right now. Currently the average criminal only serves 37 percent of the time that he or she is sentenced for, and under the McCollum amendment States that adopt truth-in-sentencing laws would have to require that the criminals serve 85 percent of their time.”