Crime Bill Signing Rally
June 7, 1995
It's a great thrill for me to be here today to sign one of the most dramatic and sweeping pieces of reform legislation this state has ever seen...the South Carolina Crime Bill of 1995.
Today we're chalking up a big win in the battle of the People versus the career criminal.
With us today are the law enforcement leaders who wage this war every day, from our sheriffs to SLED to our prison's correctional officers. These are the brave men and women fighting on the front lines.
Nothing could ever repay them for all the sacrifices they make for our safety on a daily basis. But this legislation will give them extra ammunition in their efforts to make our neighborhoods safer.
The people of this state have made it abundantly clear that they are sick and tired of living in fear, of being prisoners in their own homes while the real prisoners go free.
Today we're slamming the revolving door of our prisons.
This signing marks the beginning of a fresh start in our state's criminal justice system. We're slamming the door on the core group of offenders who repeatedly terrorize, rape, kill and cost our society millions in dollars and broken lives.
Starting in January, murderers, rapists and kidnappers will spend the rest of their lives in prison on a second conviction.
And this law puts teeth in the sentences handed down by the courts. Criminals won't be up for parole after a couple of months of good behavior. Bad behavior is how you land in prison in the first place, and they're going to be punished for it.
This isn't just a get-tough, throw away the key, quick fix. It's common sense governing.
Over the years, we've lost perspective on who the real victims are and what's acceptable in a free society. Criminals are out of control.
We're hardly shocked or outraged anymore, even when we hear about a woman being victimized and left for dead by a paroled rapist or a child abuser who kills a baby and walks free.
But we ought to be shocked by the overwhelming number of truly dangerous criminals that slip through the system and back into society every day.
The U-S Justice Department followed the path of more than 100-thousand inmates released back in 1983, many of them murderers, rapists and kidnappers.
Within three years, more than 60 percent of them had been arrested again. Between them, they'd committed more than 300-thousand crimes...50-thousand of them violent, all in just three years' time.
Another national study found that when the average inmate gets back on the streets, he'll commit between two and three hundred crimes each year.
In other words, if criminals served full sentences, nearly half of all repeat offenses wouldn't occur. The criminal would've still been in jail.
If we can keep the repeat offenders behind bars, lives will be saved and streets will be safer. It's simple mathematics.
Of course, there's a cost to keeping people locked up. It takes about 18-thousand dollars to keep a criminal in one of our high security prisons for a year.
That's a small price to pay when you consider that the crimes of one average released inmate cost society nearly half a million dollars a year. That comes to a savings of more than 400-thousand dollars per inmate per year. And there's no way to put a dollar value on human suffering.
Violent crime is an issue that goes beyond political parties or personal agendas. We're talking about brutal criminals who put all of us at risk.
The House and Senate leadership has done a tremendous job in passing one of the toughest crime bills we've ever had in this state. I can't say enough about the cooperation and teamwork that made truth-in-sentencing and two-strikes/three strikes a reality.
It was something all of us cared passionately about. When we talk about making the system work again, we're talking about keeping criminals from hurting our children and our families.
Violent crime will no longer be tolerated in South Carolina and criminals will no longer be coddled.
This crime bill restores sanity to the system and sees to it that no crime committed in South Carolina will go unpunished.
On behalf of the citizens of this great state, it is a great honor to sign into law the 1995 South Carolina Crime Bill.