John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, my concern here--and we just received this amendment-- is that we are not getting into the very sensitive area of products being produced by inmates. There is a whole area that is very sensitive in this regard, and I am very concerned that that is not happening anywhere throughout this provision.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I am not in opposition to the amendment, but I would like to use the time allotted.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer a motion to recommit.

Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, why do we assume the State courts cannot figure out that they need more jails to house people?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, the Treasury Department's gang resistance education amendment is a worthy program, and I think the amount is small enough so that, if it is deleted from prison construction legislation, there will be no great harm done. It is not like we have a whole string of these. This is the only one of this kind that I know that has occurred, and I met several times with the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Ron Noble, who is fully committed to eliminating the influence of gangs through demonstration projects. Now we all complain about the increase of gang participation. Here is something that we can do about it, and so I do not want to jeopardize this provision, and I support very enthusiastically the amendment.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. It would allow boot camps, not prevention programs but at least boot camps for helping relieve those who would be coming in as nonviolent offenders and youthful people.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, first of all, we have a measure here before us that gives money for things other than building prisons. I agreed to it. I asked that we include crime prevention programs. I am told that that is not germane. I asked for adding the National Institutes of Justice for law enforcement technology, which the members of our committee are very familiar with. Now I am told that ``We are sorry, that will not work.'' I think I get the idea, Mr. Chairman. This amendment is very unacceptable to me for the reason that I cannot get one small program into it, so it is clear what I will be urging Members on my side to do.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Rogers].

Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, to my friend, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, I would like to point out that we would be willing to agree with this reluctantly if we would add, instead of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Justice for law enforcement technology programs.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Further reserving the right to object, is the gentleman talking about Friday?

Mr. CONYERS. Is the gentleman seeking permission for the committees to sit while we are in session on the floor?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, does the gentleman have a copy of the document?

Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. CONYERS. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, could we get a recapitulation of that? I am sorry to say that we were in a discussion over here, and I did not hear the thrust of the gentleman's request.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. I commend the gentleman from Virginia for his amendment and support it with strong support.

Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Mr. Chairman, I want the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Zimmer] to know that under the constraints of time, we accept his amendment on this side, and I would yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. CONYERS. I do, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CONYERS. We will do this.

Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time, and I compliment the gentleman for his amendment because it has led to the possible resolution of the objective sought by the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt] and the gentleman from California. If we do have an agreement on a subsequent amendment known as the Zimmer-Scott amendment, I would implore my colleague from North Carolina [Mr. Watt] to withdraw this amendment and we would move forward.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, if we are not willing to spend one-tenth of 1 percent to find out where $10 billion is going in terms of programs, construction, and effectiveness, I do not know how anybody could support this program without having this one safety corrective. We just passed slightly earlier an amendment that would allow for evaluating and mandating the efficiency of the construction of prisons, and prison construction. Now we are saying to look at the efficacy of this entire program, the construction and the prisons and the programs contained within this bill is unnecessary because we already know, it is the height of arrogance on our part. If we already knew this we would have built prisons a long time ago. As a matter of fact, the debate is very much in doubt as to how much effectiveness building prisons really is. So I urge the support of the Scott amendment as being very vital to this bill.