Political Quotes

“Mr. President, as the Senate-House conference committee works on a final crime bill, I would like to address two of the major reasons our Nation is facing a crime epidemic and propose what the Federal Government can do to stop it. As we heard on this floor last November when the Senate debated our crime bill, America's violent crime rate has risen to unprecedented levels. In 1992, the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] reported that 23,760 murders occurred in the United States. That's 10 times the homicide rate of Japan or France, 13 times the homicide rate of England, and 5 times the rate of our neighbors to the north, Canada. And this picture is not limited to homicides. The FBI also reported that 109,062 forcible rapes, 676,478 robberies, and 1,126,974 aggravated assaults occurred in the United States in 1992. These numbers translate into a 19-percent increase in violent crime since 1988. Even more troubling, roughly half of the violent crimes in this country are not reported to law enforcement and therefore are excluded from these FBI statistics. These shocking statistics are no surprise to most Americans. Almost all of us have been affected by violent crime. It's no wonder that controlling violent crime has become the most important issue for our constituents.”