The legislation won't make us safer. That's absolutely clear. What the legislation may do is increase youth crime. In part, we know that we have to incarcerate some youth. What we've learned since 2003 is that we can afford to reduce the number of people we incarcerate and we have no evidence of any increase in youth crime. What research shows is that by putting more youth or in fact adults into prison, especially for the first time, it's going to increase the likelihood that they reoffend. That is absolutely clear.
The question would be, how do we come to the right balance? The Youth Criminal Justice Act has been very effective in coming to that right balance in many ways. In certain ways it hasn't. We've been incarcerating large numbers of kids before they've been found guilty, and that has not decreased under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. In this bill we're creating additional crime.