Byron Dorgan: “Some have said to me, what about rehabilitation? Should not someone be able to be rehabilitated while in prison? I say…”

“Some have said to me, what about rehabilitation? Should not someone be able to be rehabilitated while in prison? I say that is fine. I am for rehabilitation. But I do not want a circumstance to continue to exist where we know that about 6 percent to 8 percent of the criminals in America commit two-thirds of all the violent criminal acts, and they go through that revolving door to commit new crimes. We should rehabilitate them, but we should not be in a circumstance in this country where the amount of time served for murder is 5.9 years. What on Earth are we thinking of? We should decide that those people who are career criminals and who kill the people I have described today will go to prison and spend their time in prison until their sentence is complete. That is what this bill is about. I know people say, ``You are talking tough.'' The fact is, if we do not get tough with that 8 percent of the criminal element who commit most of the violent crimes in this country, the American people are not safe.”