Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, this afternoon, the House Judiciary Committee will begin to consider their version of a bill I have introduced here in the Senate with the junior Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Whitehouse, called the CORRECTIONS Act. This legislation addresses prison reform--an issue at the forefront of how justice is administered in this country--by focusing on reducing rates of recidivism, or repeat offenders, and ensuring that those reentering society can become productive members of our communities without threatening the crime rate.

Our efforts here are important, as reoffense rates in our country remain at high levels. In other words, our criminal justice system has become a revolving door, with reoffense rates of more than 75 percent for State prisoners and nearly 50 percent for Federal prisoners. So there is a 75-percent chance that somebody who goes to State prison will end up going back and a 50-percent chance that a Federal prisoner will end up going back unless we do something about it.

In law school, students are taught that the bedrock principles of our criminal justice system are deterrence, retribution, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. The reality is that somewhere along the way, we forgot about rehabilitation, and our prisons have literally become a warehouse for people who have been convicted of criminal offenses. That reality is part of the reason that my State of Texas and several other States have led the way not just to be tough on crime but to be smart on crime too.

Texas focused on the important role rehabilitation can play by implementing statewide prison reforms to help offenders learn to overcome the reasons they went to prison in the first place--whether it is a drug or alcohol habit or an addiction, whether it is simply being unprepared to enter the workforce because they dropped out of school or, perhaps, they have some sort of learning disability.

By using recidivism reduction programs like job training or alcohol and drug rehabilitation and letting prisoners go to school while they are in prison to earn a GED or to learn a marketable skill, Texas has reduced its incarceration rate and crime rate by double digits at the same time. Let me say that again. We have reduced our incarceration rate and our crime rate by double digits at the same time.

The end all and be all, in my view, of our criminal justice system must be to reduce the crime rate. In other words, whatever else we do, if the crime rate doesn't go down, we are not getting it right. As a result of the State-based reforms that I am talking about, we have actually been able to reduce incarceration rates and crime rates too.

I must say that when we talk about rehabilitation of prisoners, we are not talking about something we do to them. They have to want it. They have to want to turn their lives around, and they have to take advantage of the opportunities we provide them to do so, because that sort of personal transformation requires extraordinary commitment. Again, it is not something the government can do to somebody. They need to do it for themselves with the help we provide.

By doing so, we found that we can save billions of dollars for taxpayers, and we spared countless victims from further criminal activity. You have to wonder, from the time somebody comes out of prison to the time they reoffend and go back, how many crimes have they committed? How many people's lives have changed forever?

Finally, when they get apprehended for committing a crime, we tend to look at that in isolation, but the truth is, for people who live lives of criminality, this is what they do full time. They commit numerous crimes against property and against people. If we can reduce the crime rate, we can help them get back on their feet and become productive members of society, and we can save money at the same time. It strikes me that this is a pretty good deal.

For years I have tried to bring the successful State-based experiments and models to Washington, DC. That is why I felt it was important to reintroduce the bipartisan CORRECTIONS Act with the junior Senator from Rhode Island. Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island, my cosponsor of this legislation, and I have very different perspectives on the world. He is a Democrat. I am a Republican. I am a conservative, and I would say he is at least a liberal. I don't know if maybe he would call himself a progressive. The fact is that we tried this and it works. Rather than having the Federal Government and the entire country be a laboratory for experimentation when it comes to things like this, isn't it better to let the States do what they always were conceived of being capable of doing, which is to be the laboratories of democracy? See what works and then take those successful experiments and scale them up so the whole Nation can benefit--that is what this legislation does.

This bill requires the Department of Justice to develop assessment tools that will assess the recidivism risk on all eligible offenders. In other words, we are not going to give hardcore multiple offenders-- violent criminals--the benefit of these programs. What we will do is to start with the low-risk and moderate-risk offenders. We have scientific tools, tests, and the like that can help us make better decisions on who ought to be eligible and who should not.

We also shift the Federal Bureau of Prisons resources toward those most likely to commit future crimes. In other words, if we take low- level and mid-level offenders and we give them a way out to turn their lives around and become productive and we reduce the crime rate, that gives us more opportunity to focus on the hardcore violent criminals that are the greatest threat to our communities across the board. Focusing on less restrictive conditions for lower risk inmates and focusing on the hardcore violent criminals gives us a chance to concentrate our efforts on the people most likely to commit future crimes and to reoffend.

Our bill requires the Bureau of Prisons to partner with private organizations, including ones that are not-for-profit or faith-based, to promote recidivism reduction. We have had some very successful programs in Texas where religious organizations will go into the prisons and offer people a chance, not only to learn the skills they need in order to succeed on the outside but to turn their lives around by recognizing a higher power in their life. This is the sort of experience that causes many people' lives to be transformed forever. Again, it is not because of something government does to them but because of what they embraced and have done for themselves.

I am more encouraged than ever that we will see some positive momentum on prison reform as the President and some of his closest advisers see prison reform as a top priority. Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law, had a piece today--I believe it was in the Wall Street Journal--talking about this initiative. He has been a great partner, working with House colleagues and Senate colleagues to try to make this a priority, as well as urging the President and the Attorney General to do so as well.

Earlier this year, the President held an important meeting on this subject after 6 months of exploring the issue with his team. Attorney General Sessions attended, as did my friend and fellow Texan Brooke Rollins, the head of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, whose Right on Crime Program has been on the leading edge of those prison reforms in Texas and, then, taking that message nationwide. That meeting with the President was very productive.

In my discussions with colleagues and at the White House since that time, what we have repeatedly come back to is the idea of taking those success stories at the State level and scaling them up into a Federal reform package.

Our State began this effort back in 2007. A number of States have done the same thing. Over the last decade, we closed or consolidated multiple prisons, saving significant taxpayer dollars. The crime rate has fallen Statewide, even while our State's population has exploded during that same period of time. Something is clearly working back home in the Lone Star State. It has worked in places like North Carolina, where the Presiding Officer played an important role in the reforms in his State, as speaker of the house. It has worked in places like Rhode Island and Georgia, just to name a few.

That is part of the reason why prison reform has enjoyed such broad bipartisan support. It is an issue that unites liberals and conservatives around shared principles of saving money, reducing crime, and successfully reintegrating our citizens into society upon release.

I believe in the essential dignity of every human life. If there is a human life we can help salvage by giving people access to some of these programs and by changing the way we look at incarceration as--not just a warehouse where we put people, but also by providing people who are willing to take advantage of these programs the opportunity to turn their life around--it strikes me that we are giving people a second chance. It seems to me like the right and just thing to do.

Are we going to be able to save everybody? I am not naive enough to think that we are going to be able to save everybody. Some people are simply going to have to be incarcerated and kept off the streets so our communities can be safe, but that is not true for everybody. Looking at low-level and mid-level offenders, doing the sort of risk assessments I am talking about, giving them access to these programs where they themselves can turn their lives around while making our communities safe, and giving them an opportunity for a second chance and to save money--that strikes me as something we need to do.

Every day we fail to act on this issue we allow our prisons in the United States to become more bloated, more inefficient, and more wasteful. State and local governments spend more than $200 billion a year on criminal justice, and a large fraction of that is spent on locking people up. I know there are some people who think we ought to lock them up and throw away the key, but that doesn't happen. People get out after a few years. The question is, Are they going to be prepared to reenter lawful society or will they simply go back to the same old lifestyle, reoffend, and end up back in prison?

There are even more consequential and less tangible costs on our communities when people continue to reoffend, because they don't find a way out of their life of crime. There is the cost on strained and broken families, on lost incomes and savings, on children who have to grow up without one or both parents. Those are some of the collateral damages of our criminal justice system when we don't take advantage of commonsense, proven reforms like I am talking about.

When people go to jail, the ripple impact affects all of us. It affects all of our families, all of our friends, and all of our neighborhoods. Some people need to go to jail. They need to stay there to pay for their crime and to be separated or segregated from law- abiding society to keep our communities safe.

Again, if we can help address the problems by expanding programming like substance abuse treatment and vocational training, which have been proven to reduce recidivism, these programs can help break the vicious cycle of imprisonment. For people who want a better life but simply have not found a way out of it, by investing in programs that focus on job training, education, drug rehabilitation, and mental health treatment, we can save taxpayer dollars and lower crime and incarceration rates and decrease recidivism.

More importantly, in the end, I think we can help people to change their lives for the better. We can give them hope and give them some opportunity and let them accept the power of transforming their lives and the promise that provides to them and to all of us.

I applaud the administration and the Attorney General's efforts to refocus our criminal justice reforms on the prison reform issue and for their work so far. I am encouraged by Speaker Ryan's meeting with members of the President's staff last week and by the House Judiciary's action starting today. I know it will not end today, but they are taking up a version that closely mirrors the CORRECTIONS Act, which I have addressed in these remarks.

I also greatly appreciate the leadership of my cosponsor, Senator Whitehouse. I know that other people have other ideas--perhaps about sentencing reform and the like--but in this political environment, I am for doing what we can do rather than spinning our wheels being frustrated about things we can't do because there is simply not the political support in the House, the Senate, and at the White House to get it done.

The prison reform bill, I believe--the CORRECTIONS Act--is the way to go. I am looking forward to working with all of my colleagues in the House and the Senate, as well as the President, to get this done.

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