Tim Scott: “Mr. Chairman, we know how to reduce crime. We know what works. We know what does not work. Studies have shown that Head…”

“Mr. Chairman, we know how to reduce crime. We know what works. We know what does not work. Studies have shown that Head Start, Job Corps, drug rehabilitation, truancy prevention, those kinds of programs that give young people constructive things to do with their time and adult interaction, those that increase their education and job opportunities, those are the kinds of things that work. Job Corps, Head Start, and others have been shown to save more money than they cost by reducing crime and reducing future welfare expenses. Mr. Chairman, we know what sounds tough and does not work. We know that the sound bite--if you do the adult crime, you do the adult time-- we know that if you treat more juveniles as adults, all of the studies show that the crime rate, the violent crime rate will go up if we codify that sound bite. We know mandatory minimums have no deterrent effect on juveniles, because they do not make those kinds of calculations. They act impulsively. So we know what works, we know what does not work. We also know that when we say we are not tough, we have to recognize that we are already jailing more people in America than anywhere else on Earth. We have some communities that have more young people locked up in jails than they have in college. We know that more money in prisons cannot possibly have, since we lock so many people up already, cannot possibly have an effect on the crime rate.”