Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: “In this country today, obviously, we have a problem with juvenile crime. It seems to me that we must decide what to do…”

“In this country today, obviously, we have a problem with juvenile crime. It seems to me that we must decide what to do about that problem and who should do it. The Democratic alternative addresses those issues. As a former judge, I have heard thousands of juvenile cases. Many times we must deal seriously with juveniles. Some must be incarcerated. However, as the father of four children, as a former youth baseball, basketball, and softball coach, as someone active in the Boy Scouts of America, I can tell my colleagues that the children of America are worth saving. Just like they must be responsible for their acts, we must be responsible, the U.S. Congress, for providing opportunities for children to stay out of the system. We know what does not work. We know that. We know that spending more and more tax dollars to build more and more facilities to lock up more and more children without hope is not the answer, but we have to provide alternatives. We need to incarcerate some juveniles, but we need to provide for education. We need to provide for intervention. We need to provide for community support, and the Democratic alternative does that. Who knows best how to handle these problems? Who knows best how to handle things in Texas, in New York, in California, in Mississippi, in Iowa, in Illinois, in Massachusetts? People in those communities do, that is who does, not Washington.”