Charles E. Schumer: “I rise in support of the Chapman amendment. I support Mr. Chapman's amendment. It would provide States a potential of…”

“I rise in support of the Chapman amendment. I support Mr. Chapman's amendment. It would provide States a potential of $10.5 billion in prison money over and above $3 billion they'll receive under the prisons title crafted by Mr. Hughes' subcommittee. Seventy-five percent of the funds in the Chapman amendment would be allocated based on States' relative rates of violent crime nationally. Twenty-five percent of the funds would be allocated to a ``Truth-In- Sentencing Incentive Fund.'' For this 25 percent, States would receive funds based on evidence that they have made a good faith effort to adopt truth-in-sentencing laws * * * laws guaranteeing that State prisoners serve 85 percent of their sentence. There is no doubt that States need this money for prisons, because every State in the Union has a dire emergency of prison overcrowding. In my home State of New York, prisons are at 130 percent of capacity. In California, they are at 165 percent of capacity. And in Ohio, which has the worst problem of prison overcrowding, they are at 179 percent of capacity. It's the kind of overcrowding that's forcing States to throw violent criminals back on the streets. According to a recent Bureau of Justice statistics survey of State prisoners who have committed every kind of violent crime, the average sentence is 18 years, but the average time served is only 8 years. This amendment does raise the issue of how different programs should be funded under the crime bill.”