Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, in closing, this commission will study our criminal justice system to ascertain what we can do to use our resources in a more cost-effective manner to reduce crime. We know that comprehensive approaches to crime work. In Massachusetts, they had a comprehensive approach to juvenile crime where they'd had a dozen or so murders every year. They had a comprehensive approach to the problem. They reduced juvenile murders from 13 a year to zero for 3 consecutive years. In Pennsylvania, they invested in comprehensive programs in a hundred different localities, spent $60 million, and they counted up a few years later and figured that they had saved over $300 million, five times more than they spent, because they were so effective in reducing crime and other social problems. In Virginia, they had an area where they had 19 murders one year. They came in with a comprehensive, evidence-based approach to crime reduction, and within a couple of years, they had two murders. And if you look at that $2\1/2\ million that was invested in that program, there is no doubt that we saved at least that much in reduced medical care at the Medical College of Virginia Trauma Unit. So we know that we can reduce crime and save money. We know that 700,000 prisoners are being released from prison--State, local, and Federal--every year, and we know that two-thirds of them are going right back to prison without intervention. So we need this opportunity for investments.…”