Charles Taylor: “since we have in this Congress passed a crime bill which now is in conference between the House and the Senate, and…”

“since we have in this Congress passed a crime bill which now is in conference between the House and the Senate, and while the House and Senate are thinking of that crime bill and the public is thinking of that crime bill, we ought to review some of the statistics. I am going to go through some that were written in the National Review just this month. Actual punishment for crimes in this country: burglary 6 to 7 days; robbery, 2 months; aggravated assault, 8 to 9 days; car theft, 2 to 3 days; rape, 6 months; murder, 2 years. 62 percent of all criminals sentenced to probation. Most crimes committed by criminals, most criminals will serve no more than 40 percent of their sentences, at most. 90 percent of persons charged with serious crimes are allowed to plead those crimes to lesser charges. The likelihood of a serious crime leading to imprisonment fell by 80 percent from 1962 up through today. Of the 2,500 people on death row, most will die of old age. We have executed for murder only 2 percent of the people in the United States on death row, and that 2 percent is in relationship to 20,000 homicides committed each year. In other words, there is only 32 executions each year for 20,000 homicides committed each year. Per 1,000 serious crimes, there were 90 people in prison in 1960, per 100,000 serious crimes; today there are only 30 in prison for 1,000 serious crimes.”