Bart Stupak: “But through all this rhetoric, I think one part that has been lost is that if you take the last decade, take the last 10…”

“But through all this rhetoric, I think one part that has been lost is that if you take the last decade, take the last 10 years, crime has tripled. It has gone up, violent crime, part I crime, has tripled in this country. It has gone up 300 percent. In that same 10-year period, do you realize how many police officers were added to help combat crime, which went up 300 percent in 10 years? A mere 10-percent increase in police officers throughout this country. So the point that you are making about violent crime and how police officers under a community policing program can have impact, our resources are scarce, crime is soaring out of sight. Like I said, it tripled in the last decade. Yet here we have a program that works, that works, as is shown in your area, and I am from northern Michigan, in Marquette, a city in my State of 17,000 people. But yet we put a community police officer in 1990, and in the last 2 years the crime has dropped 23 percent.”