On the recordMay 29, 2014
Let me say a couple of things. One is I am opposed to this amendment. Now, generally, I am opposed to us building new prisons. I think we would be much better off building new schools. But there are circumstances in which people have to be incarcerated to protect society from them. I want to talk about one young man who lost his life, and I think it is important relative to this amendment. His name was Eric Williams. It was February of 2013. He worked for us. He worked for the Federal Government. He worked in a Federal prison in Pennsylvania, and he lost his life because of the overcrowding there. So one of the things is that, if we are going to imprison more people than any other nation on the face of the Earth, then we have to do it. And we can't do it on the cheap. We have to have facilities that are well staffed so that our guards and the people who work for us are not put in unsafe circumstances. Now, this political nonsense, this is a new theme of some of my colleagues on the other side. We can't pass immigration reform because the President might not do something or might do something. We can't do this prison that we have already invested money in because the President might do something or not do something. So it is kind of like this hyperconcern about what the President may do. We should do our job, and our job is that, if we want to take the prison census from 20,000 to 220,000, then we have to have the facilities.…
