FULL-YEAR CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2011

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia: Mr. Chairman, the CR's proposal before us proposes to cut $190 million from juvenile justice programs. That cut is shortsighted and misguided. Cutting effective crime prevention programs is penny wise and pound foolish because we have reams of research and demonstration programs to show that evidence-based crime prevention programs save a lot of money in avoided law enforcement, victim, incarceration, and other expenditures and actually save more than the programs cost.

The current Justice Department is making excellent progress in assuring that crime prevention programs and funding are only used for those programs that have proven their effectiveness through vigorous evaluation and study and programs that have shown their effectiveness. I can see that cutting unproven programs as a result of earmarks that haven't gone through that vigorous demonstration would be appropriate, but the programs in the Justice Department should not be cut.

Mr. Chairman, there are a lot of organizations that have written in opposition of the cuts in the juvenile justice programs. They include the National Disability Rights Network, the Campaign for Youth Justice, the Children's Law Center, the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare, The Afterschool Alliance, the Campaign for Fair Sentencing of Youth, and the Coalition for Juvenile Justice.

Mr. Chairman, last month we passed a tax bill that increased the deficit by $400 billion a year for 2 years. Now, we obviously need to cut the budget to pay for those tax cuts, but cutting funding for juvenile justice programs that are proven to save more money than they cost is not the right thing to do. We need to defeat this bill and come back with a bill that fully funds the juvenile justice programs so that we can save money and reduce crime.