Sue Myrick: “in my hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, a disturbing number of criminals are set free because of a lack of funding…”

“in my hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, a disturbing number of criminals are set free because of a lack of funding for prosecutors in the court system. It also seems that every day we are reading about another story of some gun-toting criminal committing a violent act against a law-abiding citizen. A recent news item tells the story of a young man in our city who began a life of crime at the age of 8. By the time he was 16, he was carrying a gun. In the 20 months after his 16th birthday, he was arrested seven times, but none of those arrests resulted in jail time. In April of 1997 he was walking free, carrying a gun, when he began to punch a man sitting in his car. As the man drove away trying to escape, the thug fired two shots. The police caught him, but again he was released on bond. Two months later he shot a man in the thigh. Prosecutors dropped the case. Finally, two weeks later, he shot and killed a 38-year-old man after an argument. At long last a guilty plea helped put this lifelong criminal in jail. In a jailhouse interview, the murderer explained how easy it was to avoid serving time. Under Project Exile this gun-carrying criminal would have served hard time much earlier and may have been deterred by the tough mandatory minimum sentences the bill would impose. We must conduct a two-pronged assault on these problems. Project Exile does just that.”