Ted Poe: “The Citizens Right to Know Act simply states that if a State or local jurisdiction is going to use Federal money for a…”

“The Citizens Right to Know Act simply states that if a State or local jurisdiction is going to use Federal money for a pretrial release program, they must report to the Federal Government information on who participates in the program, the criminal records of those individuals, the appearance rate at trial, and the previous failure to appear of those programs. I also want to be clear that any State or local jurisdiction that does not report this information will lose the portion of Federal funds which they use for pretrial release programs only. Other Federal funds will not be affected that go to, for example, Byrne grants. I just want to clear that up because my friend, Ms. Jackson Lee, mentioned that they are going to lose all Federal funds. No. They just lose the funds that apply to Federal pretrial release programs if they don't report those statistics. There is some question about the privacy of individuals. If States have a law to protect the privacy of certain persons on pretrial release, this bill does not change that. This bill says that if the State has those privacy laws for individuals, which some do, that is fine. That will not be affected or overruled by this Federal law. I think that this legislation is necessary to see if these programs are working. If they are working, maybe we ought to expand them. If they are not working, maybe Congress needs to reform the pretrial release program. This legislation enjoys widespread support.…”