Mr. Speaker, if we are serious about the efficacy of the bill and if we are serious that the goal is to make our streets and our children safer, then we have to be concerned about this, because if locking up more people and mandatory jail sentences led to safer streets, the United States would be the safest country in the world. It has 2.3 million people locked up in prison, and they still have rampant urban strife, violence, and social problems.
We have to question, first, whether stiffer sentences will stop a pedophile who has a psychological disorder and maybe does not use the reason and logic of penalty versus the action he or she is going to take, and second, whether in other situations and other types of crime, locking people up is really going to create safer streets. There is no empirical evidence to have us believe that.
Some states in the United States are going bankrupt because they are locking up so many people, such as Texas, Florida, and California. They are starting to say that their tough on crime agenda is bankrupting their budgets and not making their streets any safer and that all they have is more people locked up.
If we are serious about efficacy and serious about safer streets and safer children, let us make sure we are doing things right.