We reformed the blissful juvenile justice system. There was nothing complicated about our approach, just good old common sense. If the violent criminals are locked up in prison, they can t come back into our neighborhoods to prey on new victims. And common sense works. One of the chief causes of violent crime is the scourge of illegal drugs.
Drugs destroy young lives, breed crime and tear families apart.
That is the idea behind Project Drug Exile, an aggressive effort I have proposed to get illegal drugs off the street and out of our communities through tougher laws and stronger enforcement. It draws on the best of our Virginia experiences, including Project Exile and Virginia Exile. I understand that Virginia s capable Attorney General, Mark Earley, testified recently before this subcommittee about Project Exile, which has become a national model of how effective law enforcement and prosecutors can be in combating gun crimes when given the mandate and the tools to do so. Likewise, Project Drug Exile would give police officers and prosecutors more firepower in the war on drugs by providing an additional funding to establish federal anti-drug enforcement and prosecution task forces. These funds would be used to hire federal prosecutors and enforcement agents as well as paying for advertising so that the drug pushers and kingpins will have no doubt that if they are caught, they will face mandatory prison time.