Date: 1997-04-23
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Mr. Speaker. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I wanted to talk about a couple things that I think raise this issue and tell us why it is important this week and why we ought to focus on juvenile crime and the importance of this topic. There was a subcommittee hearing that just took place this last week. and some of the stories that that subcommittee had heard are some sobering facts. I want to go through a couple of those. There were a number of personal stories. just tragic. similar to the one that you mentioned just a few moments ago. but also just some numbers that I think really put this into perspective. First of all. when you realize that with the experts are telling us right now about the effect of what they call the echo boomers. the children of baby boomers that will be leaving their diapers behind and becoming.. teenagers very shortly. the experts tell us that nationwide we are likely to experience a 31 percent increase in juvenile crime by the year 2010. In that climate. the FBI predicts and has told us that juvenile arrests for murder will increase 145 percent over the 1992 level. juvenile arrests for forcible rape by 66 percent. and juvenile arrests for aggravated assaulted by 129 percent. Those are estimates based on todays trends. but I know like you and the rest of the Members of this freshman class who are dedicated to changing those numbers and using the power of these podiums and our offices to try to give a new direction to these numbers and offer a brighter picture. Let me tell you about some of the problems that we face in America right now. why juvenile crime is something that is on increase. I would submit that it has an awful lot to do with the callous disregard for the issue that we see people in government and people in this Congress. I hate to admit. take toward juvenile crime and hopefully we can change that. The question is. what happens to juveniles once they are caught? What does the Government do at the State and local and Federal level as well to remedy the situation? Juvenile courts have seen their case load of violent juvenile offenders increase 98 percent between 1985 and 1994. The number of juvenile murders has actually tripled during that same time period. Juveniles 15 years and younger were responsible for 64 percent of the violent offenses handled by juvenile courts in 1994. Almost half of all juveniles arrested for violent offenses received either probation or fine. restitution or community service. And nearly 40 percent of those offenders who come in contact with the court system have their cases dismissed. These young children are not stupid. They may be foolish with respect to the crimes that they commit. I do not want to deny that. But when it comes to the odds of getting caught and getting prosecuted and strenuously so In this court system. these young children have figured out that the odds are in fact on their side and that we as Americans have tolerated far too much in the way of unruly behavior and discipline problems throughout the country and so on. Let me tell you a couple more disturbing statistics. The average length of institutionalization for a juvenile who has committed a violent crime is only 353 days. In other words. a juvenile who commits coldblooded murder can be back on the streets in less than 1 year in many cases. According to the Justice Department. of those juveniles who actually make it to a State institution. 43 percent have had more than 5 prior arrests and 20 percent have been arrested more than 10 times. Approximately fourfifths of those offenders have previously been on probation and threefifths have been committed to a correctional facility at least once in the past. The next question obviously is. what can we do? What can we do to turn these terrifying numbers around? That is the job that is in front of us. That is something that I believe if we have the tenacity that brought us all here to Washington we can turn those numbers around. I would suggest that in many respects what we ought to do is not look to more and more government programs as the answer to preventing juvenile crime. Sometimes that is effective. But as the research begins to pile up and mount. it confronts us with the undeniable truth that spending millions and millions more of Federal and State and local funds on various youth related programs has not managed to turn these statistics around. not at all. I would suggest that just as the previous gentleman had mentioned that in some ways we need to look back to the future. programs that have worked well. It was Alexis de Tocqueville. the great observer of American democracy back in the earliest days. who observed that in America it was the private associations. the private institutions. the private charities and religious organizations that in fact had more to do with Americas greatness than anything that the government was able to put together. Just a few examples. and I want to finish with Just a brief comment about what is happening here in the District of Columbia. Look at these examples and I think it is our challenge -to try to see what has worked and try to duplicate these examples. The Young Mens Christian Association. the YMCA. was established to combat urban crime. Seeing its mission as molding the moral character of the young. the YMCA successfully undertook a struggle to win the hearts and minds of inner city youth. leading to a major drop in juvenile crime. In founding Georgetown University in 1792. Bishop John Carroll argued for the necessity of. "a pious and Catholic education for the young." Carroll hoped that Georgetowns graduates would supply a pool of teachers for the Catholic schools of local parishes. Today those schools provide superior education. not only to the children of Catholic faith but to all faiths. and it has had just a tremendously important role to play in poor inner city parents seeking an alternative to public education. The Young Womens Christian Association gave a chaperoned place to live to young women migrating .to the cities from rural areas. That stability immediately became available to those young women. permitting them to gradually find the community life in which they felt comfortable and safe fellowship after leaving their families and original communities. The Red Cross is another good example. a massive private sector organization which runs the worlds largest blood collection and distribution systems as just one of its projects. The temperance movement in the mid1800s. a response to the growing alcohol addiction of the time. resulted in massive reductions in alcohol consumption and a change of attitudes about alcohol abuse. I mention some of those examples because these were not inspired by government. They were inspired by private citizens. private associations who realize that the answer to crime and to just sad economic conditions for many millions of our youth at that point in time was not found in the halls of government but it was found in the halls of churches and schools and charitable organizations. I want to finish with one more sad story unfortunately. It is an event that took place right here in Washington. DC last week. and I mention this today because it does relate to this issue of juvenile crime and it is a topic that I hope to speak to in more detail next week. That is an event that took place a little over a week ago here in the District schools. In a fourth grade classroom here in Washington. an elementary school. nine fourth graders were allowed to be unobserved or unattended by their teacher in a holding room off to the side of the school room. These children engaged in some kind of sex game known -as freaky Friday. as the Washington Post described the event. eventually were disrobed and engaged in sexual activity in a school building. a classroom in the District of Columbia. This is an important item to note for us here because the Constitution puts this Congress in charge of the District of Columbia. But at a time when we are wondering and in disbelief in many cases as to how young children in America can behave in many cases the way they do. we need to look no further than the examples that occur right here in Washington. DC. a good place to start. I would suggest. and as I mentioned. I hope to have a chance to discuss this a little more next week because we certainly have to focus on improving the quality of our public education system if we ever hope to get at a point where we really are challenging these young children. giving them real hope and opportunity. Let me finish just by saying this. By far the greater example is found within the many children and young people we have seen throughout the country who are achieving noble things. who are working hard. earning good grades. finding ways to be young entrepreneurs and being successful in their home towns. We see these examples all the time. They really do need to be celebrated. They need to be a component part to any solution that we try to craft here in Washington or policy direction that we pursue. and it is really those young children. who are on their ways to becoming worthwhile productive leaders and citizens in our country. that we need to embrace and that we need to celebrate and really look to them. I think they really are going to be the answer to the solutions that we are hunting for in reducing juvenile violence.