Political Quotes

“I rise to object to the amendment, not because of the purpose thereof, but because of the offset. The Byrne-JAG Grant Program has enjoyed a great deal of support in the chairman's mark, and obviously we need to do more, if we could. But the gentleman seeks to take money away from the research efforts at DOJ, and I want to make a point about this. The notion that we should continue to do what we have been doing as a country flies in the face of all the facts. We imprison more people than any other country on the face of the Earth on a per capita basis. We have created a circumstance in which we have violent crimes at levels that are not seen in any other developed country on Earth. We need to be thinking anew about this. That is what the Criminal Justice Task Force that the chairman and I have worked on has been created to do. That is why we moved to evidence-based justice investment activities, so that we can measure safety of communities based on what is being done. The idea that being tough on crime is going to make our families safer hasn't worked out all that well. What we need to do is to be smart on crime. So the idea that we want to take money away from researching and understanding what works and what doesn't work works against-- normally--the position of the other team. The other team usually is here on the floor saying that we should fund those things that work and not fund those things that don't work.…”