mr. speaker , i want to thank the gentleman from georgia ( mr. gingrey ) xz4001510 , my colleague , for yielding me the customary 30 minutes . 
mr. speaker , let me begin by saying that every single member of this house is concerned about gang violence in our communities and throughout our country , and every single member of this house is dedicated to trying to make our communities and our nation safer . 
however , some of us want to pass not a press release but tough legislation that will indeed make our communities safer . 
so , mr. speaker , i rise today in strong opposition to h.r. 1279 , the so-called gang deterrence and community protection act . 
it is bad policy wrapped in a bad bill that will simply not do the job the sponsors claim it will do . 
do not let the title of the bill fool members . 
it has nothing to do with deterrence or community protection . 
this bill does nothing to address the causes of gang activity . 
instead , its primary purposes include unjustifiable punishment and ineffective enforcement of the law . 
the bill unjustifiably expands death penalty provisions , removes judicial discretion over transferring juveniles to the adult court system , and imposes ineffective mandatory minimum sentencing . 
mr. speaker , time magazine focused on the spike in gang activity in los angeles in the september 3 , 2001 , edition . 
in that story , father greg boyle , a catholic priest who worked in a gang-infested area of east los angeles , said that california 's anti-gang strategy , which has been copied across the country , `` is bankrupt . 
you have the three strikes law and jail and so on , but you ca n't terrify a kid into being hopeful about his future. '' the following quote is even more telling : `` we do n't need new laws . 
we have a penal code a foot thick . 
you ca n't just work gangs with police suppression . 
you need prevention and intervention programs , too. '' mr. speaker , that statement was not made by a social worker or community activist . 
no , mr. speaker , it came from sergeant wes mcbride , founder of the california gang investigators association and a 28-year veteran of anti-gang policing . 
after reading this legislation , it is clear to me that this bill will do nothing to deter gang activity and , instead , will sentence american youth to lives of crime and violence instead of proactively intervening in our communities to prevent our children and our youngsters from joining gangs in the first place . 
this legislation contains several provisions that unjustifiably expand the federal death penalty . 
despite numerous studies that have documented both the exposure of innocent individuals to the death penalty system and its discriminatory nature , the proponents of this bill want to make this already-flawed system worse . 
mr. speaker , let me say this clearly . 
i am opposed to the death penalty . 
i do not believe the death penalty deters future crimes . 
it has been proven that the death penalty unfairly targets minorities . 
it has also been proven that innocent people have been sent to death row and have been put to death . 
inclusion of the death penalty in this bill is wrong and should be stripped out . 
since 1973 , 119 innocent people have been released from death row . 
a study performed by the criminal justice reform education fund reported that over two-thirds of all capital convictions and sentences between 1973 and 1995 were reversed because of serious error during trial or sentencing . 
how can we expand the death penalty system , especially to include juveniles , when it is proven to be faulty , discriminatory , and not an effective deterrent to violent behavior ? 
let me remind my colleagues that president bush signed the justice for all act into law on october 30 , 2004 . 
this law , which was approved overwhelmingly by this body , improved the fallibility of the death penalty system by making dna technology available to our criminal justice system in order to improve its ability to exonerate the innocent , as well as identify and convict the guilty . 
however , the important provisions in the justice for all act that would improve the fallibility of the death penalty system are not even being funded . 
as if that were not bad enough , the bill before us today would actually create new death penalty provisions . 
in effect , mr. speaker , with this bill , we are adding more death penalty cases to an already-broken system that is desperately in need of repair . 
by not funding the protections provided under the justice for all act and by expanding the death penalty to new cases , this bill makes the death penalty system worse , not better . 
another provision that i strongly disagree with is the transferring of juveniles to the adult court system . 
research performed by the department of justice has shown that youths tried as adults are more likely to commit a greater number of crimes upon release and that these crimes will be violent . 
youths sent to prison with adults end up victims of rape , assault and become high repeat offenders . 
when these prisoners are released and attempt to reenter society , what are their options ? 
it is most likely they will pick up where they left off and contribute once again to the cycle of gangs and violence . 
moving a youth into the adult court system and prison system will not reduce the amount of youth crime and gang activity . 
if anything , it will make it worse . 
another flawed aspect of h.r. 1279 is its emphasis on mandatory minimum sentencing . 
mandatory minimum sentencing will not prevent youths from joining gang or reduce violent crime among youths . 
mandatory minimums were originally created to decrease the disparity in sentencing of like offenders . 
however , the judicial conference of the united states and the u.s. sentencing commission has found mandatory minimums `` require sentencing courts to impose the same sentence on offenders when sound policy and common sense call for reasonable differences in punishment. '' in other words , judges are prevented from assessing what type of punishment fits the crime . 
removing sentencing power from judges and shifting discretion to prosecutors will not prevent any youth from joining a gang , committing his first crime or becoming a repeat offender . 
in fact , this is exactly what the u.s. supreme court concluded in january when it ruled to allow federal judges to deviate from sentencing guidelines . 
i submit , mr. speaker , that this bill 's host of harsh mandatory sentences is directly in defiance of the supreme court ruling . 
mr. speaker , we know that intervention programs work in the majority of cases . 
for the most violent and dangerous individuals , we already have laws on the books that address these actions . 
but we have a real chance through prevention and intervention programs to make a difference in the lives of these young people . 
instead of expanding death penalty provisions and trying juveniles as adults , we need to address the problem of youth crime and violence through early intervention and treatment methods . 
programs like head start and the job corps have proven to be an effective means of deterring crime . 
studies of head start demonstrate that $ 3 is saved for every $ 1 spent on the program by reducing the future cost of crime , remedial education and welfare . 
this is clearly more cost effective than spending $ 9 billion over the next 10 years for prison bed construction and inmate upkeep , which happens to be the cost impact of h.r. 1279 estimated by the sentencing commission . 
job corps programs deter crime by guiding at-risk youths and adults to getting a job or full-time study . 
about 75 percent of job corps participants move on to a full-time job or study and are one-third less likely to be arrested than nonparticipants . 
this approach makes sense as a crime deterrent , and it is also economically beneficial . 
youth crime and gangs are an issue in many cities around the country . 
in my home city of worcester , massachusetts , i helped coordinate a community-wide forum this past fall to address the issue of gang violence . 
local police , city government officials , the district attorney , the sheriff 's office , and hundreds of individuals were among the attendees . 
also participating in this event was the boston ten point coalition , a nationally recognized leadership foundation whose mission is to reach out to at-risk youth and gang members in hopes of reducing violence in the community . 
one particular item the coalition discussed was the adopt-a-gang program , in which city churches keep their doors open and serve as a support center for troubled youth . 
the churches work with local law enforcement to communicate messages of nonviolence and zero tolerance for crime to these youths . 
and i am happy to say that the churches of the city of worcester , along with the city government , the police department and local businesses are currently working with the coalition to implement this program . 
hands-on , coordinated efforts like the adopt-a-gang program are how youth crime can be deterred , not through codification of a so-called gang-buster bill like h.r. 1279 . 
early prevention programs like head start reduce crime ; expansion of death penalty provisions will not . 
recruitment efforts by job corps deter gangs ; prosecuting young people as adults will not . 
collaborative interventions like adopt-a-gang program protect our community ; mandatory minimum sentencing will not . 
mr. speaker , none of the provisions in this bill have proven to be effective ways of dealing with gangs and violent youth behavior . 
instead of taking a comprehensive approach to the problem , h.r. 1279 's `` punishment first , prevention last '' methodology does not dedicate any efforts toward early intervention , education or rehabilitation . 
ask any cop . 
aggressive policing alone will never break the cycle of gang violence . 
however , one of the things this bill also does not address is the shortage of police officers across the country . 
the federal government is cutting the cops program . 
local communities all across this country are laying off police officers at a time when we should be increasing the number of police who are on our streets . 
intervention and preventive programs like head start , job corps and the ten point coalition are crucial to any hopes of deterring gangs . 
mr. speaker , for the past decade , this house has worked in a bipartisan manner to effectively draft and pass comprehensive juvenile justice legislation . 
this bill is a sharp break with that tradition . 
getting tough should mean passing legislation that works , not just passing legislation that sounds tough . 
mr. speaker , finally , let me just say that 16 democratic amendments were not made in order by the committee on rules last night . 
why ? 
i have no idea . 
according to our schedule , we are going to be done today by around 4 p.m . 
surely it is not because we do not have the time to be able to debate some of these important amendments . 
this is the kind of legislation where people from different communities , from urban areas and from rural areas who are dealing with this issue of gang violence have important ideas . 
they brought them forward in the committee on rules last night . 
yet , last night , the committee on rules said to 16 democrats that you will be shut out of this debate . 
i do not think that is the way we should be discussing a bill like this . 
so , mr. speaker , i would ask my colleagues to oppose h.r. 1279 and oppose the rule . 
mr. speaker , i reserve the balance of my time . 
