Melvin Watt: “This amendment gives that responsibility to the States or the localities which are applying for funds under this bill.…”

“This amendment gives that responsibility to the States or the localities which are applying for funds under this bill. Basically what it says is if you have an 85-percent service requirement, your prisoners have to serve 85 percent of their time, give us what indication you have that that has had some impact on the incidence of violent crime in your State; do not ask us to just throw money out there after this problem. If the purpose of your building new prisons or increasing sentencing or providing for longer sentencing is in fact to reduce crime, tell us that that is what has happened in your State, taking into account the increase in population. The second part of the bill requires that the States track the incidence of violent crime and keep statistical information so that that information can be available to the residents of that State and to the American people, that we are not wasting $10 billion, $12 billion, $15 billion of their money on something that is really not having any impact on violent crime.”