Pat Shea also doesn't like Sen. Orrin Hatch's stand on the compromise crime bill. While Hatch was a major supporter of the Senate version of the bill, he now says he may vote against the compromise the House and Senate came up with because, among other things, the compromise doesn't put as much money into "hard" crime fighting measures, such as prisons, as the Senate version.
Shea says he strongly supports the Local Partnership Act, part of the overall bill. Salt Lake City and West Valley City would each get $579,494 under LPA; Ogden would get $660,447. The monies would be used for metal detectors in schools, gang-prevention task forces and the DARE program, Shea says. He says Hatch voted against LPA. "Orrin Hatch wanted to earmark that money (the LPA funds) for more state prisons," says Shea. "Hatch is blind to the innovative approaches to juvenile confinement that have been effective in Utah on a small scale."By charging that the crime bill is overloaded with social programs and labeling as boondoggles such creative approaches as drug courts, Orrin Hatch is failing to address Utah's very real juvenile crime crisis," says Shea.