i thank the gentleman for yielding me this time . 
mr. speaker , if you listen to the debate , you might not think it is illegal to use a machete to chop somebody 's hand off or to , last night , gang-rape a handicapped child in the park , murder for hire , cold-blooded murders . 
you might not think those are illegal . 
in most jurisdictions in the country , certainly in the jurisdictions that i represent , it is already illegal to take a machete and chop somebody 's hand off , and i have not heard complaints from the local police that they need a new federal law to help deal with those crimes . 
mr. speaker , this bill was introduced just about 2 months ago , incidentally the same day that a juvenile justice coalition released just another study showing how trying more juveniles as adults will actually increase crime . 
the rule , of course , does not allow us to address that issue , where juveniles , the marginal juveniles , the ones not now tried as adults in state court , would be tried as adults under this legislation . 
i have not seen any study that contradicts them , but all of the studies i have seen show that that will actually increase the crime rate because when they are tried as adults , they are also locked up with adult criminals and come out worse than they went in . 
no amendments in this rule are allowed to address the death penalty , which has been shown to be racially discriminatory , which has been shown to have no effect on crime and shown to be so inappropriate that the supreme court with seven republican appointees sitting on the court ruled that , for juveniles , the death penalty was unconstitutional . 
we have not had an opportunity under the rule to address that , not even the fact that under the bill you can have a capital prosecution for accidents , accidental actions . 
it does not require an intent to kill someone . 
it could have been an accident . 
there was no amendment allowed for that . 
there is no amendment to allow the little money in the bill to go to local law enforcement . 
virtually all of the money goes to federal law enforcement . 
if you are going to have an effect on gangs , the money ought to go to where the gangs are actually fought , on the local . 
mr. speaker , we have not had the amendments to actually address the kinds of problems that are in the bill . 
it came out at the last minute . 
my colleague from virginia has mentioned all the people supporting it . 
i know one letter we received talked about the need for all of the money in the bill going to law enforcement and help get the money for law enforcement in the bill to the localities , and you look in the bill and there is no money . 
it is all for federal law enforcement , federal prosecution . 
virtually nothing for local law enforcement . 
if you look at the title of the bill , you think you are doing something . 
in fact , you are doing nothing . 
mr. speaker , the impact of this bill is going to round up a few low-level people committing little crimes , some even misdemeanors , and they will be getting 5- and 10-year mandatory minimum sentences . 
if we are going to do something about crime , if you ask anybody that knows what they are talking about what to do about juvenile crime , they will tell you prevention and early intervention . 
keep the kids out of trouble and if they get in trouble to begin with , get them right back on track . 
there is no money in here for prevention . 
we have heard a crack about arts and crafts for gang members . 
let me tell you something . 
arts and crafts for gang members will do more to reduce juvenile crime and gang membership than the provisions in this bill , and everybody knows it . 
i have got to admit that the sound bites and slogans are stronger on the other side , but all of the studies show that this bill would do virtually nothing to reduce juvenile crime and is certainly not an effective use of the taxpayers ' money if your goal is to actually reduce crime . 
you need to put the money into prevention and early intervention . 
we lead the world in incarceration already . 
if you are going to get any more crime reduction out of the next dollar we are going to spend , it ought to go into prevention and early intervention to keep the kids out of trouble ; 850 , 000 kids are not going to come out of gangs because we pass this legislation . 
they are in gangs now because they have nothing to do in the afternoon . 
we need to defeat this bill and do something serious about juvenile crime . 
