April 25, 1979
Page 8615
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from Maine.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, this is another example of the fact that the exercise of budgetary restraint does have some measure of pain for those who are interested in particular programs and responsibility for particular programs. I do not quarrel with the concerns of Senator KENNEDY and his associates, but this is a place where we found it necessary to cut. The cut was not that much.
Let me say just these few things that disturbed the members of the Budget Committee as we addressed this particular program.
First of all, it was the general impression that LEAA has earned a reputation as a Federal funding program which has been abused by State and local governments, and subverted for unintended purposes.
It also appears that it has failed to achieve a measurable reduction in crime.
Second, there have been several negative evaluations of LEAA, and none have been primarily positive.
Further, there is no guarantee that the projected authorizing changes will be successful in removing current abuses of the program.
The Budget Committee's recommendation is intended to continue funding for LEAA, but at a reduced level. Although the committee's funding recommendation does not address substantive programmatic tradeoffs, it has recognized that LEAA only provides about 3 percent of State and local criminal justice expenditures. Because Federal grants represent such a small share of total expenditures, the committee's recommended funding reduction could not severely impact present State and local criminal justice operations.
In striving to achieve budget balance by fiscal year 1981, the Budget Committee was faced with the choice of substantially reducing general revenue sharing, or cutting categorical grants. It chose to hold revenue sharing harmless, and to reduce categorical grant programs, such as LEAA.
The Kennedy amendment suggests the Congress can have it both ways. It cannot, if we are to meet the requirements of budgetary restraint and balance in 1981.
If Congress increases categorical grants above the assumptions of the budget resolution, and, after all, if it can be done with respect to one program it can be argued that it ought to be done with others, it should be prepared to cut general revenue sharing.
That may be the desire f some, but at this point the committee finds it necessary to oppose the Kennedy amendment. I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. BELLMON. Mr. President, I join the chairman in opposing the Kennedy amendment. I would like to point out that the recommendation which is before the Senate is a compromise reached by Budget Committee members after careful consideration. There was a considerable amount of sentiment on the committee that given LEAA's track record this program should be subject to a much deeper cut or even termination.
The committee was inclined, as the chairman has said, to preserve general revenue sharing, but the categorical programs, which are generally opposed by the Governors in preference to general revenue sharing, we felt had not proven themselves and, therefore, needed careful evaluation or, in some cases, reductions. This is one of those.
At a time when it is necessary to exercise Federal restraint, a funding reduction for a Federal program which has clearly not met its intended objectives seems to be wholly justified:
The program has not reduced crime.
It has not, so far as we can tell, improved the administration of criminal justice since most authoritative evaluations of LEAA have indicated that State and local projects have neither been highly innovative nor successful in achieving stated objectives.
The LEAA program is not intended to subsidize State and local operations. Most projects have emphasized program application and implementation rather than the testing of new concepts and approaches.
So this is just another way of transferring Federal funds back to the State and local governments.
The advancement of knowledge through research and evaluation has not occurred since studies have found efforts in this area to be of low quality and of very little use.
State and local governments do not appear to be highly dependent on LEAA.
LEAA grants currently comprise less than 3 percent of total State and local government criminal justice expenditures.
This program is up for reauthorization in 1980 and the administration has proposed a restructuring of the agency. At this point we cannot tell what the restructuring will mean, but it is very likely that it could be done at a considerably lower cost than has been used in the past and, therefore, the committee recommends this small reduction. I strongly support the committee and oppose the Kennedy amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 1 minute left.
Mr. KENNEDY. I believe if we had 6 minutes we could wrap this up.
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield 6 minutes.
Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 1 minute to the Senator from Alabama.
Mr. HEFLIN. Mr. President, my observations and experience as a former chief justice of the supreme court of Alabama, may provide me with a different insight as to what the LEAA program has meant to State and local governments since its inception than some Members of this body may possess. When I assumed my duties as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 1971, I surveyed a court system that was essentially unchanged since the turn of the century and which was basically designed for an agrarian economy of the 19th century and which was exceedingly provincial in nature. The corrections program was in disarray and disrepute and for a good reason. The police departments around my home State were struggling hard but were largely under-manned, undertrained, and unprofessional. Juvenile justice programs were practically nonexistent.
At about the time I became a judge, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration was beginning to make its presence felt in my State. Just as I began to work for court reform in Alabama, others within corrections, on police forces around my State, and citizens concerned with the rehabilitation of young people in trouble began to mobilize efforts to modernize and improve, or in some instances, create new programs to expand the administration of justice in Alabama. All of these programs were touched by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration and in a large measure they owe their very existence to grants from this program.
Admittedly, in some cases, the money was not wisely spent. Nevertheless, we learned as we went along and before many months passed, the positive effects of this investment began to bear fruit.
Within my State our police departments became professionalized. Our corrections system became professionalized. Juvenile justice programs were established around my State and began to pay dividends.
In the area of primary concern to me at that time, the State court system, great strides were made. We were able to pass a new judicial article to our State constitution which completely revamped our State court system bringing our court system into the 20th century and preparing the way for the courts on into the 21st century. These results could not have been achieved had it not been for the LEAA program.
Mr. President, yesterday the Judiciary Committee reported S. 241, the Justice System Improvement Act. This legislation represents the distillation of a great deal of debate over the nature and scope of the LEAA program over the past decade. The committee recognized that the fundamental responsibility for the control and prevention of crime rests with the State and local governments. But, we, at the Federal level can and should make an important contribution in the area of training and research, in the area of collection and evaluation of crime statistics, and in the area of controlling crime with interstate aspects. For the LEAA to accomplish its mission, however, it must be adequately funded. Mr. President, the administration has proposed an austere budget for the LEAA of only $536 million. This represents a drastic cut in LEAA funding over the current year's funding level and even the administration's figure would spell an end or a reduction to many important programs which State and local governments are in the process of executing right now.
The Judiciary Committee has recommended a budget of $700 million which is slightly larger than the budget authorized for the current year, but which is necessary if the programs to be established by the revised and restructured LEAA program are to be fully effective.
Mr. President, for reasons which are not entirely clear to me, the Budget Committee has inexplicably slashed the LEAA budget to a bare bone $400 million in budget authority and $600 million in outlays. Mr. President, if the Judiciary Committee's recommendation is not accepted or if the alternative recommendations of Senator KENNEDY are not accepted by the Senate, then in my State and probably in the State of every Senator in this room programs that are vital for the welfare and safety of our people will be curtailed or eliminated.
We are talking about programs which have taken young people off the streets and put them into useful and productive careers. We are talking about programs that have improved our police departments and our corrections programs immeasurably. We are talking about programs that have caused our courts to become more streamlined, more modern,and more efficient.
Mr. President, in my judgment, we cannot afford to turn our backs on our State and local governments at this critical juncture. The great strides that have been made in my State and which I know have been made in almost every State in the Union, must be allowed to go forward.
Although I am a strong supporter of any movement toward fiscal responsibility and even though I am the sponsor of an amendment which would require us to balance the Federal budget under a constitutional mandate, I feel that we must be careful with the programs which we decide to cut.
Although many programs probably deserve to be cut down or eliminated in their entirety, certainly the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration is not one of them. I urge myfellow Senators to give their support to the amendments which would restore at least the LEAA budget to a more reasonable level.
The statement which has been made and which appears in the written document which has been passed out to me is the most persuasive argument of the effectiveness of the LEAA program.
That is the statement there has been only 3 percent of total State and local criminal justice expenditures that can be related to LEAA.
I challenge any Member of this body to point out a Federal program where 3 percent has brought the benefits that the LEAA program has brought to the administration of criminal justice in this country.
As I said, I had the experience of going through a court reform procedure. It could not have been accomplished without LEAA. The police forces of this country, since the passage of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act in 1968, have become greatly professionalized. The correctional systems have been improved. The juvenile justice program has been greatly improved in this Nation. In my judgment, we are making a great mistake by not going back to the present allocation that the present expenditures make. I am willing to support at this time the position of Senator KENNEDY.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Delaware for 2 minutes.
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I want to address the very difficult questions we now confront regarding the proper level of funding for the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration in the first concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 1980.
I appreciate and understand the rationales and motivations behind the range of LEAA budget proposals that my colleagues have suggested and will suggest. I feel, however, that as chairman of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, as a member of the Judiciary and Budget Committees, as one who has held several days of hearings on LEAA and spoken with LEAA officials, and as one who has taken a strong interest in LEAA's development over the past decade, I can help to orient the Senate in our evaluation of the LEAA program.
On the night of the Budget Committee's vote to fund LEAA at $400 million in the next fiscal year, I introduced a motion which would have shrunk the agency even farther. My motion would have provided only $100 million to LEAA for fiscal year 1980. Of course, there are other members of the Budget Committee who would like to eliminate the program altogether.
I would like today, however, to argue for a budget authorization for LEAA the same as that recommended by the President, $546 million.
It was my intention in introducing the Budget Committee motion to authorize LEAA at $100 million to eliminate the agency's block grant activities. Distinct block grant systems for each of planning, general criminal justice, juvenile justice, and correctional functions account for over $400 million in LEAA's fiscal year 1979 budget. The evidence available to me indicated that these parts of the LEAA program, while accounting for billions of dollars of expenditures since LEAA's establishment in 1968, had not been very effective.
It is true that in some jurisdictions, these block grant funds have enabled State and local criminal justice agencies to institute innovative and often successful projects, but by and large, they have not induced criminal justice improvements commensurate with their size. A 1975 survey of 350 State and local officials found that less than 8 percent believed LEAA grants were a great success in combating crime.
LEAA itself did little to track and evaluate the activities funded by this outflow of hundreds of millions of dollars each year. A variety of GAO reports and numerous internal LEAA task forces and work groups argued that LEAA should reform its evaluation practices and put a larger portion of its budget into them. In spite of this, however, a 1976 GAO study found that of the 3,821 LEAA funded projects that it reviewed, only 649 (17 percent) had been evaluated. Of the evaluations that GAO examined, only 16 percent were considered to assess adequately the projects' outcome or progress toward a goal. A further GAO study in 1978 found that evaluation projects generally did not meet needs, were inadequate in number, and of questionable quality.
In short, considerations such as these, 10 years of interest in the program, and 1 year of oversight jurisdiction and hearings in the Criminal Justice Subcommittee convinced me that billions of dollars of LEAA block grants had not made much of a contribution to the state of criminal justice in this country. LEAA's block grant activities had proven themselves diffuse and unstandardized.
Instead of being focused on the most serious, fundamental problems in the police, courts, and corrections systems, they were dispersed over a vast field of dissimilar problems. Some of these problem areas were important. Others were not. In any event, they were problems that the State and local governments should have funded.
In contrast to this, however, LEAA has left a strong imprint in some of the most progressive and positive development in criminal justice. Improved crime analysis and investigative practices, career criminal projects; unified court systems, court administration techniques, and important correctional programs all depend on LEAA for their support and design. They stem, however, from LEAA's discretionary grants and from the agency's national research and statistical activities.
When I argued in the Budget Committee for authorizing only $100 million for LEAA for the next fiscal year, I wanted to keep only this core of essential and successful criminal justice activities — a core consisting in research, statistics, and demonstration projects and which would cost approximately $100 million based on fiscal year 1979 expenditures.
Since the night of the Budget Committee vote, however, the LEAA bill has gone through a variety of changes. Yesterday, the Judiciary Committee voted out the LEAA bill, the Justice System Improvement Act of 1979, and agreed to accept an amendment which I proposed to focus the agency's activities more on the most fundamental problems in America's police, courts, and corrections systems. Because the LEAA bill now includes not only this amendment but amendments offered by my Judiciary colleagues Senators HEFLIN, LAXALT, THURMOND, and MATHIAS, which together provide a clearer focus to the program, I would like to argue that we fund LEAA at $546 million, President Carter's request, for the next fiscal year.
What my amendment does is require the Director of the Office of Justice Assistance, Research, and Statistics (the proposed successor to LEAA) to submit a "sunset" report to the Judiciary Committees of the Senate and House, at the end of 4 years. This sunset report would be an analysis of LEAA's contribution toward dealing with 18 measurable problems in the Nation's criminal justice system. The intention has been to select for this report only fundamental, perennial problems in each of the police, courts, and corrections systems.
Included in this list are such things as improving law enforcement agencies as measured by arrest rates or the hourly productivity of police officers, reducing the time between arrest or indictment and disposition of trial, increasing the rate at which prosecutors obtain convictions against career criminals, and reducing the rates of violence among prison inmates.
Under the terms of this sunset report would be used by Congress and the President in determining whether LEAA's grant activities should be continued if there has not been a "substantial contribution" made in a majority of these 18 specific areas.
This amendment would achieve three important objectives. First, it would require LEAA to assemble a comprehensive, intelligible analysis of the state of American criminal justice in 18 central aspects (something we now lack). Second, it would induce the LEAA administration and program participants to apply LEAA resources to essential and not petty uses. Third, it would require vigorous evaluation of LEAA funded programs.
The terms of this amendment would mean that Congress wanted LEAA "to put up or shut up" in these 18 major problem areas. This sunset report amendment provides a specific statement of congressional objectives. It enables us in Congress to point to specific problems and say that LEAA is spending money to solve these. This would be very different from the past when LEAA's stated purpose was the amorphous, useless generality of "improving criminal justice." It enables us to say exactly what we mean by "improving criminal justice."
Mr. President, I recommend to my colleagues that we seriously consider inclusion of goal specifications such as that contained in my LEAA sunset report amendment in all legislation authorizing grant-in-aid programs. This is especially true now when the need for reducing Federal spending is widely and strongly felt. Surely we must cut Federal spending, waste, and interference.
However, we are often confronted with a lack of objective measures by which to evaluate and prioritize these programs. I feel certain that by including specific objectives in authorizing legislation we will produce either of two situations. Either evaluation and statistics will show a program to be ineffective as compared to its objectives, in which case no amount of lobbying and self-interested obfuscation will conceal this fact, or they will show the program to be successful, in which case no amount of indiscriminate rhetoric about cutting back all government will detract from this success.
I hope that by submitting a sunset report in 4 years LEAA will be able to show itself to have been successful in contributing to improvements in 18 of the most serious problems in criminal justice.
Given the pervasive plague of crime and the urgent problems. of the criminal justice system, I feel strongly that a focused program of Federal assistance is worth at least what the President requested. I urge the Members of the Senate to authorize $546 million for LEAA for next year.
Mr. President, as I said, I support the increase notwithstanding the fact that it was I in the Budget Committee who introduced the motion to cut LEAA. The reason I did at that time is because I felt then that the legislation was not meeting its objectives; in a sense, it did not state the objectives of the LEAA. As it was functioning to date, it was not a wise expenditure of the dollars and cents of the American taxpayers and the Federal Government.
As recently as yesterday, a series of amendments, in addition to a fundamental rewriting of LEAA, was passed by the Committee on the Judiciary. At the time that I introduced the motion to reduce LEAA's budget, that had not been done and there was serious question as to whether or not it would be done. All the objections which Senator BELLMON read with regard to the LEAA program were objections that others and I raised and some additional ones.
But we have, I think it is fair to say, in the new legislation, which I anticipate Congress will accept, dealt with almost every single one of those objections, where the program has been tightened significantly. We have dealt specifically with the question of whether or not LEAA has a set of objectives and a specific agenda. Consequently, Mr. President, I think moving back to the President's budget of $500 million is wise and useful, because with the new legislation, with the new constraints which Senator KENNEDY, in rewriting the bill, put upon the LEAA organization, I think we shall have corrected those ills that were cited earlier. Consequently, I should like to suggest to my colleagues that the increase of $100 million back up to the $500 million figure is a reasonable one.
I see the Senator from Oregon standing. I sincerely hope he will not do that awful thing of reminding me of what I said last week.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. PACKWOOD. Mr. President, who has time?
Mr. BELLMON. How much time is remaining to the sponsor of the bill?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Ten minutes remain on the amendment.
Mr. BELLMON. I yield time to the Senator.
Mr. PACKWOOD. Mr. President, I can assure the Senator from Delaware that I have forgotten what he said last week. I do not intend to bring it up again.
LEAA is a gigantic, revenue sharing State crime control program. My attorney general in Oregon used to laugh with me when I would go back and see about rewriting the general revenue sharing hopes into LEEA grants. If we want revenue sharing, that is fine. I support it. It is a fine program. But do not disguise it under LEAA.
It is not innovative, it is not imaginative, it has not stopped crime, it has not done anything it was supposed to do when it was founded. It should not be cut back; it ought to be abolished.
It does not meet one criterion of what it was hoped it would do when it was founded. Now we are trying to find new standards to justify a program that should have been abolished years ago. I hope this increase will not be accepted.
Mr. KENNEDY. I yield to the Senator from Maryland.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. How much time does the Senator yield?
Mr. KENNEDY. If I may have the attention from the Senator from Maine, there are just 2 minutes. Will he yield some time?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes, I yield 2 minutes.
Mr. MATHIAS. Mr. President, Thomas Jefferson once observed that "the purse of the people is the real seat of sensibility." As elected officials, the purse strings of the American people are in our hands — and in this inflationary period, that is a weighty responsibility.
Inflation is probably the most talked about topic in America today. But I say to the Senator from Oregon, crime follows closely on its heels. In the interests of curbing inflation, Government spending must be curtailed. At the same time, it is important that we recognize the consequences of limiting government expenditures in certain key areas. Money must be spent prudently with an eye to cost-effectiveness.
Let me cite two impressive examples of cost effective programs funded by theLaw Enforcement Assistance Administration.
I think if the Senator from Oregon is looking for some examples, we could cite a number, but just these occur to mind.
Between 1974 and 1979, $4.7 million was spent on 66 antifencing, or "sting" programs. This $4.7 million outlay resulted in the recovery of over $135.7 million worth of property. Just yesterday the Washington Post and the Washington Star reported the return of Rembrandt's "A Rabbi" to French Ambassador Francois de Laboulaye. This painting was recovered last year in a "sting"-type operation by the FBI, which is the very kind of innovative program which the LEAA has supported and fostered.
Thirty-six federally funded career criminal programs costing a total of $19 million resulted in the identification and prosecution of 8,509 defendants between May 1975 and December 1978; 93.9 percent of these defendants were convicted for 12,881 crimes. Although it is difficult to quantify exactly what this conviction rate means in terms of dollars saved, I think we would all agree that the money spent on such programs has resulted in substantial benefits for the criminal justice system and for the American people.
Commonsense demands that we take a cost effective approach to spending.
It is not good commonsense to strip funding indiscriminately from the only comprehensive program of Federal assistance for criminal justice improvements at the State and local level, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. Nor is it good commonsense to fund critical programs at a level so low as to render them virtually ineffective.
Yet that would be the effect of the recommendation of my colleagues on the Senate Budget Committee.
Without question, the life of LEAA has been a turbulent one. Those who have studied the track record of the agency carefully, however, conclude that the results of LEAA's efforts in recent years have been neither as bad as its opponents charge nor as good as its proponents claim.
Certainly there have been problems. There have also been successes. I believe that we have learned from the past. We can make improvements and I think we will. We must, because a program of Federal assistance for State and local criminal justice improvements is desperately needed. But to be effective, it must be funded adequately.
The drastic budget cut reported by the committee may well have grave repercussions for ongoing, successful LEAA-supported programs. It may seriously impede progress in the field of criminal and juvenile justice. Finally, it threatens the goals of S. 241, the Justice System Improvement Act, which reauthorizes and restructures the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration.
I am convinced that S. 241, reported favorably yesterday by the Judiciary Committee, is a good bill. It reduces significantly the red tape which has clogged the channels of communication between the States and LEAA in the past. Local governments will have greater control over the disposition of funds, while large cities and counties will be guaranteed a fixed share of funds. And equally important, programs which have proven to be effective will be given greater emphasis than in the past.
Now, more than ever, State and local criminal justice systems need the support of the Federal Government. As a result of numerous proposals to improve the efficiency of the Federal judicial system, it is likely that in the near future local governments will be expected to assume responsibility for certain matters previously handled at the Federal level. This alone poses an obvious burden for State and local criminal justice systems. To deny them the benefit of adequate Federal aid at this time could well be catastrophic.
The proposed reduction in LEAA funding seems to be premised on the assumption that State and local governments are capable of assuming the burden of a Federal cutback. But the Federal Government does not have a monopoly on budgetary problems. The Judiciary Committee has been told again and again about the financial problems plaguing State and local criminal justice planners. We must not forget this crucial factor. While financial restraint is an admirable goal, it must be sought in a responsible manner. The reduction in LEAA funding approved by the Budget Committee fails this test.
Mr. DANFORTH. Mr. President, could I have 1 minute in opposition to the amendment?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes, I yield the Senator1 minute.
Mr. DANFORTH. Mr. President, it was my misfortune to spend 2 years of my life as chairman of the Missouri law enforcement assistance program. On the basis of that experience, in which I struggled vainly, and spent about half my time trying to bring order out of this chaotic program, I can tell the Senate that I relish the opportunity to vote against this amendment. [Laughter.]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. MATSUNAGA. Will the Senator yield me 2 minutes?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. MATSUNAGA. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the amendment offered by the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee (Mr. KENNEDY) to restore the fiscal year 1980 budget authority for the Law Enforcement Administration to $546 million, the level recommended by the President.
As my colleagues may know, the 96th Congress later this year will consider legislation critical to the future of the Federal role in assisting States and localities in the war on crime in America. S. 241, the proposed Justice System Improvement Act, which I understand will be reported by the Judiciary Committee in the very near future, will reorganize and restructure the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. Under the provisions of S. 241, many of the long standing deficiencies of the overall LEAA program will be corrected, thus making LEAA more efficient and productive in assisting our local governments in crime prevention and criminal justice system improvement programs.
I am optimistic, and I know many of my colleagues will join me in this feeling, that the enactment of the LEAA reorganization bill will be a necessary new beginning for the Federal commitment to assist the Nation in the struggle to combat crime.
However, Mr. President, if we allow the budget for the new LEAA program to be reduced to $446 million for fiscal year 1980, the level which has been recommended by the Budget Committee, we will be seriously damaging the already limited Federal role in local crime prevention. It is clear, I am afraid, that the important and long overdue improvements in the LEAA program which will be made through the enactment of the Justice System Improvement Act, simply will not work if we permit LEAA's budget to be slashed by a whopping $100 million.
As the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts has said, all of the substantive reforms envisaged in the LEAA reorganization bill, which will substantially reduce bureaucratic red tape and provide new formulas and priorities to target LEAA money to local areas of greatest need will be undercut if we do not furnish the agency with the kind of financial support we know it needs to give it a fighting chance to work.
Mr. President, since the creation of LEAA under the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, the agencyhas been severely criticized by the Congress and the American public for not making significant progress in reducing crime and delinquency in this country. Critics of LEAA have charged that the agency has, in its 10-year existence, only subsidized the ineffectual criminal justice system it was created originally to reform. This persistent and wholly warranted criticism of LEAA has led members of the administration and some of our colleagues to call for drastically reduced funding of LEAA. In essence, I believe they are calling for the phasing out of the Federal role in crime control and criminal justice improvements.
I, too, Mr. President, have been critical of the overall effectiveness of LEAA over the years.
Indeed, it is my view that the agency has failed to provide the national leadership that is needed in order to foster significant improvements in our criminal justice system. However, I strongly believe that giving up on the LEAA program of assistance to State and local governments — and that is what we will do if we allow this reduced budget authorization to carry — is certainly not the answer to the crime problem in this Nation, which, as we all know, continues to worsen.
Mr. President, I need not recite the results of national opinion polls which clearly indicate that crime across the Nation is one of the greatest concerns of a majority of Americans. I am sure that Senators are fully aware of public opinion on crime nationally and within their individual States.
But I will say this : The people of Hawaii have indicated to me through post cards, letters and opinion polls that crime to them is of grave concern, a domestic concern even equal to that of inflation. I might emphasize that we in Hawaii have never had a crime problem similar to comparable areas on the mainland. Nevertheless, we have been experiencing steady increases in crime over the last several years. From 1975 to 1978, robberies were up in Hawaii by 40 percent; aggravated assaults were up by 13.5 percent; burglaries were up by 10 percent; larceny was up by 30.6 percent; motor vehicle thefts were up by 13 percent; and forcible rapes were up by 7.9 percent. Our State, which in terms of economy is dependent to a great degree on a healthy tourism industry, cannot afford to lose control of crime.
Like other States, Hawaii has responded to these increases in crime by developing successful new programs with LEAA grant assistance, such as career criminal and victims/witness assistance programs, and innovative "sting" operations, among others.
However, Mr. President, many of these State and local criminal justice programs are seriously threatened by budget cuts at LEAA. There is no doubt in my mind that a majority of Hawaii's LEAA supported programs will be scaled down or will die under the budget for LEAA recommended by the Budget Committee. The lightly populated outer island counties of Hawaii will be particularly affected by this action, because these rural jurisdictions do not have the money to fund criminal justice programs on their own.
I have in my hand, Mr. President, a telegram which I just received from Mr. Boyd Mossman, president of the Hawaii Prosecuting Attorney's Association, eloquently expressing the deep concern of my State's prosecutors. over the reduced budget authority recommended for LEAA by the Budget Committee. As a former Prosecuting Attorney for the city and county of Honolulu, I know that these local officials are at the front lines of our criminal justice system, and I certainly respect their opinions. Reading from this telegram, Mr. Mossman says:
Just as inflation is running rampant, so is crime, and it has been doing so for some time. Without adequate Federal assistance, State and local efforts to combat crime will naturally be hampered. We recognize the myriad of other Federal programs requiring funding, but hope that efforts against crime in America will be given the priority needed for the safety and security of each individual of our counties, States, and Nation.
Mr. President, I find it unconscionable for the administration and the Congress to budget cut at the expense of the only major Federal program providing needed financial and technical assistance to States and localities for law enforcement and criminal justice initiatives. Certainly, if the people of my State could speak here today, they would support the Congress' efforts to balance the Federal budget and hold the line on Government spending. But I am also certain that my constituents would strongly oppose the curtailment of the Federal role in the war on crime, which is reflected in the Budget Committee's recommendation for LEAA.
With the enactment more than 10 years ago of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, the Federal Government made a firm commitment to State and local governments to strengthen and improve law enforcement and criminal justice at every level. A commitment was also made to the American people that through the cooperation of Federal, State, and local governments, our streets and neighborhoods would again be made safe. We must not abandon these commitments at a time when we are about to correct the deficiencies of LEAA, and set the agency on a new course which will finallyallow it to make a more meaningful contribution to the war on crime.
Mr. President, for these reasons, I strongly urge my colleagues to support the amendment offered by the Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. PACKWOOD. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has been yielded back. The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts. The yeas and nays have been ordered and the clerk will call the roll.