Without objection, Senator Collins. The entire statement will be included.

I'm pleased to convene this hearing before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.

This is not the last of these hearings.

We have been remiss, on Capitol Hill, of not coming together more frequently to ask questions.

I cannot look those parents in the eye right now... and offer every single one of them a spot in a school that I think is a high-performing school.

I want to ask about one of your schools, the Ambassador Baptist Church Christian School.

I'm sorry, you can't take the Federal money and then refuse to give us the information.

I'm not going to send any money to your program unless you can give me the basic information.

I think there has to be accountability here. There is in every other State and city where there's a voucher program.

Thank you, Senator Durbin, for engaging with us on these important matters.

I want to thank Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy for reestablishing this Subcommittee.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals at the Federal level is not known as a liberal court of appeals.

the obvious question is what skills do they have to recognize mental illness and its manifestations in contrast to simple criminal misconduct.

I am going to ask the last question of you.

I think it is cruel and unusual punishment.

Do you feel that our system of justice is really equipped to deal with what we have decided as America will be our future when it comes to mental health?

this really is a human rights issue in our country

I think it is critically important, as Senator Coburn mentioned, that we work together to identify the presence of mental illness in offenders as early as possible in the criminal justice system.

I think it causes deterioration with mentally ill inmates.

Senator Webb's idea of a reform commission, which I have cosponsored, is a step in the right direction.

This hearing of the Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee will come to order.

I think it is a human right to have your health care diagnosed when we are going to incarcerate you.

that situation is the wrong thing for everybody, and, frankly, it is dangerous.

I would just like to say that we really need to focus on alternative to incarceration programs.

In June of 2006, a bipartisan national task force, the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons, released its recommendations after a year-long investigation.