Sylvester Turner: “I came to Congress after having served in the Texas Senate where last session we passed what I believed to be one of the…”

“I came to Congress after having served in the Texas Senate where last session we passed what I believed to be one of the toughest juvenile justice reforms in the Nation. Now I come to Congress and find that this Congress, in H.R. 3, is going to tell the State of Texas that our tough juvenile justice bill is not good enough, not good enough to qualify for the Federal funds that we want to provide. The legislatures in the 50 States do not need the Congress telling them how to run the juvenile justice system. We have a letter that we received today from the National Conference of State Legislatures opposing the mandates of H.R. 3. In Texas we have gotten tough on crime and we have also recognized that we must invest in prevention of juvenile crime. We must begin the process of investing in early childhood intervention, in supporting our families and our communities, and being sure we attack the root causes of crime, and being sure that our Nation invests in our children. This is the role that the Federal Government can fulfill. We need to keep our kids off of drugs. We need to keep our streets safe. We need to give our children the kind of training that they need in early childhood. This is where $1.5 billion in Federal funds needs to be spent, not on telling our States that they are not tough enough on crime.”