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The Omnibus Crime Bill: A Simplistic Repsonse to a Complex Problem

The sreets are seething with gun-wielding hoodlums ready to kill over an insult... every night, murder...our society on the brink of a violent demise....the people shake fearfully behind their barricaded doors....children can't go out to play....worst of all, the violence is spreading to formerly pristine suburban America.

We must act and fortunately the solutions are simple.

The crime explosion is the result of a society that no longer teaches the right values and has made it too appealing to be a criminal. We have to get tough on crime, hire more cops, build more prisons, sentence more people to longer prison terms or death. We have to try 13 year-olds in the adult courts and keep three time convicts in prison for life. We shouldn't waste much money on diversion and treatment programs since, as we all know, crime is not a social issue, it is a reflection of personal weakness.

There you have it, the hype -- the hype that has produced some of the most discriminatory, wasteful, and ignorant set of proposals to come out of Congress in a long while. Where the hype began is hard to pinpoint, but it has been perpetuated by the media and most of our political representatives. In the debate on crime, the facts facts have little or no role. The media and politicians play on our most base instincts, selling papers and buying votes. "Real life" cop shows follow the nightly litany of sensationalized crime stories on the local news. Politicians seize the moment, reinforce the false perception of a crisis and then hand the public "solutions" that defy all credible information available on the subject of crime and how to fight it (Atlantic Monthly, July 1994).

The extent of the hype becomes evident when we look at the Government's own numbers. In November 1993 the Justice Department reported overall crime rates as having declined steadily since 1981. Violent crime is down from 1981. The percentage of households victimized by crime was the lowest since 1975. Nonetheless, as the Washington Post has reported, "...a crisis atmosphere is being used to rush through dubious federal remedies [to the crime wave]."

Unfortunately, the crime bills passed by the House and Senate, bills currently being reviewed in a joint conference committee, are worse than of "dubious" value. They have so many egregious flaws that an incredible coalition of experts and activists has formed to fight them. In Portland the coalition includes the Chief of Police, academics, and peace and justice activists.

Some of the facts that critics are pointing to:

1. The Crime Bill Won't Work

The crime bill contains numerous new mandatory minimum sentences, an extension of the death penalty to cover 50 other federal crimes, and a three-strikes provision.

Mandatory minimum sentences were upheld as constitutional by the supreme court, but that does not mean they work. Research has shown that mandatory minimums for drug related offenses have put thousands of non-violent first-time offenders behind bars for five years. They have actually forced the early release of violent offenders not covered by mandatory minimums (in Florida 130,000 inmates, many violent offenders, were released over four years to make space for first time drug-offenders). Judges, defense attorneys, and better than a third of prosecutors think mandatory minimums are a bad idea. Judges can no longer take mitigating circumstances into account when meting out punishment for these crimes. It has also been shown that mandatory minimums disproportionately punish the smaller fish in drug deals, in particular those who don't know enough about the operations to plead to a lesser charge by testifying for the prosecution (Atlantic Monthly, July pg. 106).

Like mandatory minimum sentences, extending the death penalty to 50 new federal crimes will fail in its primary objective, to reduce violent crime. Most people who commit a crime never weigh whether they are likely to get caught. Violent crime rates are no lower in states with the death penalty than those without. Under this crime bill it is also possible to sentence minors as young as 13 to death for certain crimes. For the first time, the death penalty could result from drug trafficking convictions in which the incident did not involve a death. The ACLU believes this is "patently unconstitutional." Like the death penalty itself, we believe it is patently unjust.

"Three strikes you're out" is a catchy phrase, but another bad idea. Again, potential punishment will not deter crime because those who anticipate breaking the law seldom anticipate getting caught. Furthermore, if the 'three strikes' rule is applied too broadly then you get instances like we see in Washington where a man is sentenced to life for an unarmed robbery of a grocery store that netted him less than $50. Defined narrowly enough to rule out such inappropriate punishment, the rule becomes moot given that most every state has stiff sentences for repeat offenders who engage in significant violent crimes. Finally, the 'three strikes you're out' provision promises that before long our society will be supporting tens of thousands of elderly (at that point no longer dangerous) inmates to the tune of over $20,000 a year per person.

Imprisonment, no matter how you slice it, is not an effective solution to crime. The National Council on Crime and Delinquency concluded in a March 1993 report that "the huge and expensive increase in the use of imprisonment over the last decade has not led to a decrease in crime. The evidence that the imprisonment binge has not produced the desired results is absolutely overwhelming."

2. The Crime Bill Furthers Discrimination

The crime bills passed in the House and Senate target crimes that occur disproportionately in impoverished communities and a disproportionate number of African Americans and Latinos are among the poor. A proposed minimum sentence of 10 years is assigned to the crime of "recruiting for a gang," while far more destructive crimes more common in white and wealthy communities retain lesser and non-mandatory sentences. Similarly, the penalty for possession of 5 grams of crack (a drug disproportionately used by African Americans) is five years. While one would need to be convicted of possessing 500 grams of powder cocaine (the preferred form in the white middle class) before a 5 year mandatory minimum sentence would kick in (Campaign for a Rational Crime Policy report, Oct. 1993, p. 4).

By extending the death-penalty to 50 additional federal offenses, the crime bill's sponsors -- including President Clinton -- are extending the breadth of well documented racism in judicial and jury decisions about who, among eligible convicts, receives the death penalty. According to the D.C. ACLU, 9 of 10 death penalty prosecutions under the 1987 Anti-Drug Abuse Act have been against African American or Hispanic/Latino defendants. There was a provision in the crime-bill that would have allowed members of minority groups to appeal death sentences based on statistical evidence of discrimination in the sentencing system, but this provision has been removed in committee.

The expansion in the number of federal crimes that are punishable by death also promises to disproportionately affect Native Americans, the vast majority of whom live on Federal Land and are, therefore, automatically prosecuted under federal law.

Finally, research shows that existing mandatory minimums are being applied with racial bias. According to the Campaign for a Rational Crime Policy, the Federal Judicial Center reported in 1992 that "in cases where a mandatory minimum could apply, black offenders were 21% more likely and Hispanic offenders 28% more likely than whites to receive at least the mandatory minimum prison term."

3. It Costs A Lot and Yet it is Not Enough

The price tag of the current crime bill is $22 billion. The first thing that should be noted is that it is a depressing indicator of our society's attitude toward the poor that Congress couldn't muster the political support for a $30 billion stimulus package that would have provided jobs, job training, recreation, and child-care in impoverished communities but they can find popular support for an equally costly package of incarceration and law enforcement measures targeted at those same communities. The public, fuelled by the media and cowardly politicians, is once again showing its unwillingness to take responsibility for the misery that exists in impoverished communities nationwide and to seek long-term solutions to complex problems.

The crime bill will buy new prisons, but only 5% of future operating costs for the facilities. This money will have to come from state budgets -- probably out of social services or education. The bill provides a one-time block of funds for hiring 100,000 new police officers. Over time, localities will have to coverthe costs of these salaries as well.

In the meantime, the costs of a "three-strikes" policy and more mandatory minimums will further inflate a criminal justice industry budget that is already being padded by discretionary funds that would otherwise be available for social programs. According to research cited by the Campaign for Rational Crime Policy, mandatory minimum sentences "...resulted in offenders receiving a total of between 4,400 and 7,000 additional years of prison time during Fiscal Year 1990 at a cost of between $79 million and $125 million."

Under the Clinton-Bush Crime Bill the number of crimes subject to mandatory minimums goes up and there is the addition of the "three strikes" policy. Similar "three-strikes" policies are going into effect at the state level as well. California is already complaining about the budget breaking effects of its "three-strikes" measure. As former Deputy Attorney General Philip B. Heymann said in February this year, "[The Senate bill] is quite simply a proposal that our grandchildren should adopt and care for overage former robbers though the years of their retirement -- at the cost of $600,000 to $700,000 per person. No purpose of public safety is served."

The $22 billion being allocated to this crime bill could do wonders in impoverished communities if it were targeted toward programs that provide education, recreation, and employment. Instead, it creates facilities and jobs aimed at incarcerating as many members of our poor and minority communities as possible. And it is not nearly enough money. Over the coming years, the federal government and state governments will have to cough up more and more dollars to finance the exploding criminal justice system. These dollars will have to come from somewhere and we know where it will be: social services, training programs, education. So whether engaged in criminal activities or not, our poor and minority citizens will no doubt bare a vastly disproportionate amount of the burden from this wasteful, discriminatory bill.

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Crime in the US: 1981 vs. 1991

Graphs showing:

Crime rate
                         1981 5.868%
                         1991 5.898%

Victim rate
                         1981 12.04%   
                         1991 9.23%

Households Touched by Crime
                         1981 30%
                         1991 13.7%

Crime rates reflect the number of crimes known to police. Victim rates and household rates based on the number of people reporting that they have been victims of crimes. Sources: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1993, 1990 & 1987; graphs from Friends Committee on National Legislation newsletter, Feb. 1994.

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Third Quarter, 1994
Also in PPR #3

Portland Copwatch
PO Box 42456
Portland, OR 97242
(503) 236-3065/ Incident Report Line (503) 321-5120
e-mail: copwatch@portlandcopwatch.org

Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.

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