The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will be meeting in Rutland later this month to hear about the city’s problems with drugs and violent crime.
Senator Patrick Leahy will hold the hearing on March 24 along with Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
Leahy is the Democratic chairman of the committee while Specter is the top ranking Republican.
Leahy says there’s a myth that drugs are only big city problems.
Specter says that more police are needed to combat crime. But he says more needs to be done to prevent crime:
(Specter) "I think we find a tremendous amount of crime coming from so called at risk youth, they come from broken families, no father, a working mother, and we’re trying to get federal funding for mentors, to find an adult to come into the life of a young person and to give them a substitute for parental guidance."
(Host) The senators will hear testimony from seven speakers, including Rutland’s mayor and police chief and Vermont’s Public Safety commissioner.