Political Quotes

“While law enforcement resources are being cut off, law enforcement officers are being blocked from doing their jobs, and drug prosecutions are being reduced, the administration and some in Congress want to push and advance a criminal justice ``reform'' bill. But these proposals will have a tendency, I am afraid, to worsen the current problem by allowing for more reductions in sentences than are already occurring and early release of thousands of dangerous drug traffickers, and the weakening of penalties for those prosecuted under our drug trafficking laws, which have already been weakened--sending the wrong message at exactly the wrong time. I am very concerned about this. I love my colleagues, and I know their hearts are in the right place, but I am convinced we should not be heading in this direction at this time. Make no mistake, Federal prisons are not filled with low-level, nonviolent drug possessors. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 99.7 percent of drug offenders in Federal prison at the end of fiscal year 2012 were convicted of drug trafficking offenses, not drug possession. Drug trafficking is inherently violent activity, and it only serves to fund the drug cartels while fueling violence in our cities. According to the FBI, violent crime overall increased across the United States during the first half of 2015, by 6.2 percent for murders and 17 percent in the larger cities for murder--the largest single-year increase since at least 1960.…”