Political Quotes

“I am now introducing the Fugitive Information Networked Database Act of 2010. On December 12 of last year, the Philadelphia Inquirer began a series of articles that served as a blistering indictment of the Philadelphia criminal justice system. The Inquirer described it as ``a system that too often fails to punish violent criminals, fails to protect witnesses, fails to catch thousands of fugitives, fails to decide cases on their merits, and fails to provide justice.'' The Inquirer article 3 days later elaborated on the fugitive problem, noting that as of November 2009, there were almost 47,000 long-term fugitives at large. The warrant situation in Philadelphia is complicated by the fact that the Philadelphia Police Department only enters into the national database a few hundred bench warrants deemed by the district attorney's office to concern extraditable offenses. Those who abscond from criminal proceedings in Philadelphia and flee to other States likely will not be captured because the information for their warrants is not automatically entered into the NCIC database. The legislation I am introducing today, along with Senator Durbin, builds on legislation previously entered by then-Senator Biden and Senator Durbin. The proposed legislation will provide substantial Federal funding to assist the States in tracking and returning these fugitives.”