Melvin Watt: “This simply requires the States to have a process for collecting reliable statistical data regarding the impact of…”

“This simply requires the States to have a process for collecting reliable statistical data regarding the impact of grants that are being made under sections 502 and 503 of this bill on the incidence of violent felonies and reporting that statistical information to the attorney general. Mr. Chairman, on yesterday afternoon, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott] offered an amendment which would have taken a small amount of funds and allowed a process to be put into place at the Federal level to monitor the impact of these programs on crime. I offered and then withdrew a more aggressive amendment than this one which would have denied funds unless there was a showing that the increased sentencing and the truth-in-sentencing legislation was having some impact on crime, and I withdrew that amendment. This simply asks the States to have a process for collecting data on the impact that these moneys are having on the incidence of violent crime. I should point out that on the next bills that are coming, the prevention bills, I intend to offer the same kind of language.”