Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1169

Floor Speech

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Mr. COTTON. I agree with my colleagues--the bill improves the way we handle juvenile offenders. The bill properly focuses on rehabilitation and services that seek to turn juveniles away from crime and provide help to at-risk youth. I support the vast majority of the bill, and I hope it ultimately passes into law. However, I would like to take more time to discuss one specific provision of the bill relating to juvenile status offenders and secure confinement.

Secure confinement is not and in my opinion should not be the preferred option for instances of alcohol possession, truancy, or other status offenses. In fact, current law bars judges from imposing secure confinement for initial status offenses. But I am concerned that the bill eliminates completely the ability for judges to order secure confinement for a short time in instances where a status offender flagrantly violates the judge's prior order for him to, say, enter into rehabilitation, counseling, or take part in other treatment services. In such narrow circumstances, it may be prudent to allow judges--often in consultation with the parents and attorneys involved--to have secure confinement as a means to enforce their own orders and to ensure that the juvenile receives the help he needs.

Currently, many States are developing an array of options for treating status offenders beyond secure confinement. Yet a majority of States do, in fact, still choose to retain the option for judges to order secure confinement in narrow circumstances.

Just last year, my State of Arkansas passed a new juvenile justice bill that sought to expand rehabilitation services for status offenders so the State could reduce the number who were subject to secure confinement, but in my State legislature's judgment, it chose to retain secure confinement as a last-resort option. I don't believe Congress should second-guess this choice. I have heard from Arkansans on this point, and I have raised it with the bill's sponsors.

A blanket Federal mandate that bans secure confinement in each and every circumstance may not be the best way forward. I submit we should continue to entrust States with the decision to retain it as a last- resort option and to allow judges on a case-by-case basis to use their discretion about the best course to enforce their prior orders. Therefore, with hopes we can resolve the issue promptly and pass this legislation, I regretfully object.

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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I understand the point the Senator from Rhode Island makes. I would say it poses a Hobson's choice for many States.

I would also make note of his earlier comment about a court's inherent authority to enforce its previous order using its inherent power of contempt, which would include the ability to order secure confinement for a short period of time. Perhaps we can work together to include a proviso in the bill that would recognize that inherent authority, and this bill would not remove that inherent authority on the condition of accepting the grant.

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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I share in the mutual admiration for the Senator from Iowa, and I appreciate his work on this and many other pieces of legislation. I commit to work with both him and the Senator from Rhode Island to try to resolve this as promptly as possible so we can move this piece of legislation forward.

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