First Step Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. KYL. Mr. President, let me speak a moment about this act. The sponsors, as you have just heard, and supporters like Senator Portman have proceeded with very good intentions. As you just heard, a compelling case for finding ways to help people who have made a mistake or more have an opportunity to turn their life around.

One of the reasons I am concerned about the legislation is, all of the kinds of programs that have been spoken of here to enable people to learn new skills or change their attitudes about life so they will not commit crimes again, we will not have more recidivism--one of the concerns is, there is nothing to prohibit any of these programs from being done today, and they are being done all over the country in State prisons, in Federal prisons, and the like.

The concern I have is, the effort to provide rewards for people to participate in these programs may have more negative than positive effects, and I think the sponsors of the bill need to look at that in order to persuade some of us that these rewards are necessary, in addition to the programs that are already in existence.

The other thing that concerns me is, there is a forgotten person in this whole equation; that is, the victim of the crime. Ever since I came to the Senate, I have worked on legislation to support crime victims. Finally, I think it was my first term in the Senate that Senator Feinstein and I were successful in getting enacted and signed into law the Federal crime victims' rights bill. This act provides a whole series of rights for victims of crime, starting with the right to be notified--the right to be notified of key events during the criminal justice process and, at appropriate times, the right to speak or participate.

As I said, the crime victim seems to be forgotten in this legislation, which has the good intention of preventing recidivism, but one of the incentives for people to participate in programs while they are still in prison is that they can earn, in effect, some credits to enable them to get out earlier or to go into other kinds of programs before they are released by participating in these programs, but the victims don't have to be notified.

With many of the people who are involved here and have been in prison for a long time, there are reasons for the victims to be concerned about their impending release. Not to notify the victims, I think, would be a grave injustice.

One of the amendments Senator Kennedy and Senator Cotton have proposed is to provide notification. Some have said: Well, this is redundant because the Crime Victims' Rights Act already requires notification. Yes, the Crime Victims' Rights Act requires notification of court proceedings but not the kind of proceedings that are embodied in the legislation.

Here, the proceedings are before the prison warden, in effect. He or she is the person who makes the decision, adding these credits up, in effect, to determine whether the prisoner is eligible for some kind of early release program. The Crime Victims' Rights Act--and I will quote it in case folks are interested--provides that the victims have the ``right to be reasonably heard at any public proceeding in the district court involving release, plea, sentencing, or any parole proceeding.''

First of all, it has to be public and, secondly, it has to be in court. That is not the proceeding we are talking about in this legislation. That is why the amendment of Senator Cotton and Senator Kennedy is necessary, to ensure that in this context as well, crime victims are notified of the potential release of the perpetrator of the crime upon them so, if they wish, they can allow their views to be known, presumably in some kind of written correspondence to the warden, which the warden could then take into account or not.

I heard a very odd argument made earlier on the floor in opposition to this amendment. It was, under the Crime Victims Act, about 10 percent of the crime victims don't care to be notified and, in effect, they opt out of the notice procedure. Therefore, because of that, there shouldn't be a notice requirement for this procedure. That is a non sequitur if I have ever heard one.

There are people who undoubtedly choose to ignore the notice they have received. For whatever reason, they don't want to go back into the court or to do anything about the notice they have received. For the other 90 percent, this is a very meaningful proposition. I think it would be a very scary proposition for some people not to be notified that the perpetrator of the crime against them is about to be released, and they don't know about it and will not have any opportunity to say anything about it.

The fact that 10 percent of the people may choose to ignore this notice is no reason not to provide the notice. If you don't want to receive the notice, there is something real easy you can do with it: You put it in the wastebasket or, if you are concerned that maybe you will get notified again and that is a bother to you, you can let the warden know you don't care to receive any more notices.

This is not a very persuasive argument to me; that because 1 in 10 choose not to do anything with the notice, therefore we shouldn't give notice to the other 90 percent for whom it may be extraordinarily meaningful.

To my colleagues, I would say, remember, the only reason people are in prison is because they have committed a crime against someone, and that someone is frequently ignored in the criminal justice process. They shouldn't be ignored anymore.

At least in Federal court, we have provided, by law, a series of requirements for notification and, in some cases, the right to be heard that finally recognizes that the victim should have some right to participate in and, at a minimum, be notified of the proceedings that involve a case that is only there because they have had a crime committed against them.

In many cases, it is very meaningful for them to come to closure and find a sense of justice in our criminal justice system when they are able to participate in that very same system.

In the past, we have seem to have gotten away from this. It is like: Well, it is the prosecutor and it is the defendant and nobody else has any reason to be involved. Yet, of course, the victims have every reason to be involved.

To my colleagues who say: Well, it is redundant--no, it is clearly not redundant. The Federal Crime Victims' Rights Act will not provide a remedy in the case of the bill before us. If you care about crime victims, if you believe they should have a right to be informed and to potentially present their view to the warden if they choose to do so, then I urge you to support the Cotton and Kennedy amendment.

Finally, I heard an argument that--well, there is a victims' rights group--I have forgotten the name of it--that opposes this. I don't know that victims' rights group. I do know this. I have been in touch with a lot of the advocates for crime victims, and they oppose the underlying legislation. One of the reasons is because it doesn't account for the rights of crime victims.

Perhaps the proponents could get a little more support for their legislation if they would pay attention to the people against whom the crime was committed in the first instance and at least notify them that the prisoner is going to be released and give them an opportunity to respond, if they choose to do so.

I urge my colleagues to support the crime victims' rights amendment to the underlying bill.

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