Byron Dorgan: “One-third of all violent crimes in this country are committed by people who are under supervision. Under supervision…”

“One-third of all violent crimes in this country are committed by people who are under supervision. Under supervision means people on probation, parole, or pretrial release. One-third of all violent crimes are committed by people we know because they are already in our system. They are in jail and let out. In most cases, they are let out early. It does not take Dick Tracy to figure out who will commit the next crime. In most cases it is someone who has committed a previous crime. Now, in the Federal system, which we control, we allow automatic good time for Federal prisoners. It is not supposed to be automatic because this Congress passed a piece of legislation, that I authored, that revoked automatic good time and said Federal prisoners will get good time only if the present system decides to bestow it upon them for exemplary behavior. The prison system interprets that differently and automatically gives every prisoner automatic good time off for good behavior. That is not what the Congress meant.”