[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 13 (Thursday, February 10, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                      THE INNER-CITY CRIME CRISIS

                                 ______


                            HON. JANE HARMAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, February 10, 1994

  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, as the House begins to consider debate on 
major crime legislation, I want to enter into the Record an article 
written by Judge Curtis E. Von Kann entitled ``The Inner-City Crime 
Crisis: Causes and Cures.'' Judge Von Kann serves ably on the DC 
Superior Court and has a very enlightened view of the criminal justice 
system. Though Judge Von Kann and I do not agree on every issue, he 
speaks with clarity and experience.

                   [From Legal Times, Dec. 13, 1993]

             The Inner-City Crime Crisis: Causes and Cures

                        (By Curtis E. Von Kann)

       If the question is, ``What can the criminal justice system 
     do to solve the homicide crisis in this city?'' my personal 
     opinion, after serving 14 months on a Felony I calendar 
     trying murder cases virtually non-stop, is, ``Not much.''
       The criminal-justice system in America has never been 
     viewed by knowledgeable observers as the principal force in 
     reducing crime. That is not its job. Rather, its job is to 
     apprehend and try alleged offenders and, upon conviction, to 
     sentence them.
       While all of that, of course, has been thought to have some 
     impact on reducing crime, sociologists will tell you that, in 
     any society, the far more important factors working to 
     prevent the commission of crimes are societal factors--
     education, widely shared moral and religious codes of 
     conduct, family structure and support, and viable lawful 
     opportunities for employment and upward mobility.
       When these factors are operating effectively to reduce the 
     incidence of crime, the criminal-justice system can have a 
     modest additional impact through offender apprehension, 
     conviction, and sentencing. The four classic objectives in 
     sentencing are retribution (expressing society's condemnation 
     of anti-social conduct), deterrence (discouraging others from 
     offending), incapacitation (incarcerating the offender so 
     that he cannot commit further crimes), and rehabilitation 
     (reforming the offender).
       With respect to deterrence, classical criminology theory 
     says that a person contemplating the commission of a crime 
     will not commit the offense if they believe (whether 
     accurately or not) that an unacceptable punishment will be 
     visited upon them swiftly and certainly. Thus, they will make 
     a rational cost-benefit choice and avoid doing that which 
     carries an unacceptable consequence.
       Today, none of these underpinnings of normal deterrence 
     theory are operative.
       First, punishment now is not swift. Typically, it takes one 
     to two years from arrest to verdict in a ``Murder I'' (first-
     degree murder) case, and appeals may protract the case for 
     two to four years beyond that.
       Second, punishment is not certain. A significant percentage 
     of killers are not convicted, either because they are not 
     arrested or because they ``beat the rap'' and are acquitted--
     often due to witnesses' fears or even murders, and sometimes 
     because of the inability of overworked prosecutors to put on 
     the most effective case.
       Third, and most significant, for the kind of offenders we 
     now typically see on the Felony I calendars, receiving a 
     sentence of 30 years to life is not an unacceptable 
     consequence because human life--theirs or anyone else's--has 
     very little value to them. They really do not care much if 
     they get a long sentence. It is simply one of many bad things 
     that can happen to you, and if it happens, it happens.
       Rehabilitation, given this outlook, is unlikely for most of 
     these offenders.
       Incapacitation of a Murder I offender, until recently, 
     lasted only about 20 years, which meant that an 18 year old 
     killer (of which we have many) was typically paroled at about 
     age 38 with lots of years left to commit more offenses.
       Retribution still has some viability--it gives victims, 
     families, and society some sense of justice when a murderer 
     receives what they sound like a long sentence (although the 
     sentence is often not really as long as it sounds). This 
     sense of satisfaction has very little effect, however, on 
     reducing crime.
       If the criminal-justice system cannot have much impact on 
     reducing crime, what can? The answer to that is easy--change 
     the conditions which produce crime.
       In America, we are now reaping the consequences of decades 
     of neglect that have left large chunks of our inner cities 
     veritable cesspools, characterize by:
       Decaying, dilapidated housing.
       Schools that do not teach.
       A welfare system that encourages indolence and producing 
     babies rather than working.
       Disintegration of the family.
       Incompetent, overloaded social-service bureaucracies that 
     often annoy and infuriate their clients.
       Massive unemployment.
       Decay and abandonment of parks and recreation facilities.
       Pervasive hopelessness, despair, and anger.
       Drugs--especially crack cocaine--that people turn to for 
     self-medication because they can no longer stomach the 
     reality of their lives.
       Drug selling as the only viable means of employment and 
     upward mobility and self-respect for many young men.
       Teen-age pregnancies as the only form of self-fulfillment 
     for many young women.


                              crisis point

       For many people in urban America, life has truly become, in 
     the words of Thomas Hobbes, ``poor, nasty, brutish, and 
     short.'' This comes at a time when many others in America are 
     enjoying the highest standard of living in world history. 
     Thus, it should be no surprise to us that these inner-city 
     cesspools belch up all the things which presently clog our 
     courts--pervasive drug use and drug selling, violent crime, 
     record levels of child abuse and neglect--which have totally 
     overwhelmed our social-service resources--absentee fathers 
     who provide no emotional or financial support to the human 
     beings they sire, escalating intra-family violence, gigantic 
     caseloads in landlord-tenant court, and violent, bitter 
     children flooding our juvenile court with ever-younger crops 
     of killers.
       How do we deal with all this? In my view, we are now in the 
     midst of a crisis in our history no less severe than the 
     Great Depression, and what we need is a response no less 
     dramatic, bold, and all-encompassing than the one Franklin 
     Delano Roosevelt crafted to pull us out of that tailspin.
       We need a 1990's New Deal for America's inner cities.
       We need to establish an urban Civilian Conservation Corps 
     to employ the young, idle men and women who are now sitting 
     around using and selling drugs because they have no realistic 
     chance of doing anything more productive.
       We need to bulldoze the awful public housing projects and 
     ancient school buildings.
       We need to build attractive, diverse inner-city villages 
     with housing of various kinds, parks, playgrounds, recreation 
     facilities, and exciting, enticing schools.
       We need to scrap the present welfare system and install one 
     that provides brief assistance for those temporarily unable 
     to work and no assistance for those who can.
       We need to provide tax incentives for employers to come to 
     the inner city and hire its residents.
       We need to reform the health-care system to encourage 
     preventive medicine and better prenatal care.
       We need to increase by 10-, 20-, 100-fold the slots 
     available in drug treatment programs, and also honestly and 
     carefully study different programs to determine which work 
     and which do not.
       We need to establish schools that actually teach and 
     inspire kids, not just babysit them.
       And we need to rebuild family life.


                       costly, but cost-efficient

       Will all this cost a lot of money? You bet! but in the long 
     run it will cost a lot less than the present course we are 
     on--which will require geometric increases in the number of 
     policemen, prisons, correctional officers, prosecutors, 
     judges, probation officers, social workers, etc. Remember 
     that the costs of just one child in the neglect system for 20 
     years, or one inmate in the prison system for 30 years, are 
     enormous. And the social cost in terms of increased welfare 
     payments, lost productivity, social unrest, citizen fears, 
     etc., are even greater. Money can be found in budgets, when 
     the need is great.
       Congress recently debated, with much fanfare, enactment of 
     a $22 billion crime bill that will have almost no impact in 
     reducing crime. It directs resources to the wrong end of the 
     pipeline--the output end rather than the input end--and it 
     contains a number of provisions that will be 
     counterproductive. For example:
       Fifty new death penalty provisions, when there is 
     absolutely no evidence that death penalties are more 
     effective in deterring crime than life sentences. Instead, 
     death penalties add enormous costs to the judicial system and 
     carry the potential for horrendous mistakes (which occur from 
     time to time).
       Mandatory minimum sentences, principally for drug 
     offenders.
       These provisions will fill up prisons for years with non-
     violent offenders at great cost, although there is no 
     evidence that they are having any appreciable effect on 
     reducing drug selling.
       If Congress were to rebuild inner cities with the $22 
     billion largely wasted in this crime bill, along with money 
     we are shipping overseas to non-needy foreign-aid recipients 
     and squandering on pork-barrel projects and countless other 
     luxuries a society in crisis can ill-afford, we could really 
     start to reduce crime in America, including the District of 
     Columbia.
       Although the primary solution to violent crime lies outside 
     the criminal-justice system, there are some things that could 
     be done to that system to have a modest, positive impact on 
     crime reduction.
       First, the D.C. Council should repeal the Good Time Credits 
     Act. How many people are aware that if I sentence a person 
     convicted of second-degree murder to a term of 15 years to 
     life, he will actually be parole-eligible (and likely 
     paroled) after serving 10 years, not 15? Why?
       Because under the Good Time Credits Act, for every three 
     days a prisoner serves on any sentence over 10 years (other 
     than a mandatory sentence), he gets a one-day reduction on 
     the balance of his sentence, not because he completed a 
     course, or performed some helpful service at the facility, or 
     cooperated with law-enforcement authorities in solving 
     another crime, but simply because he was there and had not, 
     to anyone's knowledge, broken any rules.
       This law effectively reduces by one-third all non-mandatory 
     sentences of more than 10 years. It is a cynical tactic, 
     blatantly designed to reduce prison populations to meet 
     court-ordered limits on how many inmates can be stuffed into 
     existing facilities. It skews sentencing, deceives the 
     public, and serves no useful purpose. It should be repealed.
       Second, the D.C. Council should increase the allowable 
     minimum terms for homicides. Although I do not agree with 
     some critics of the present criminal-justice system who 
     advocate abolition of parole, I do think present minimum 
     terms should be increased as follows:
       For first-degree murder, the maximum should be increased 
     five years, from its present 30 years to life to 35 years to 
     life.
       Second-degree murder sentences now range from 15 years to 
     life. I would increase that to 30 years to life.
       Finally, I would recommend changing the penalty for 
     manslaughter from five to 15 years to 25 to 75 years.
       Often, through jury compromise, plea bargaining, or loss of 
     witnesses, premediated, deliberate homicide produces a 
     conviction for second degree murder or manslaughter. While 
     those offenses should carry a lesser sentence than first-
     degree murder, the present differential is too great. Present 
     statutory sentences should be increased so that a judge can 
     incarcerate an offender for a length of time which greatly 
     reduces the risk that the offender will commit other violent 
     crimes upon release. The prospects for rehabilitating the 
     sort of young killers we see today is slim. And, by their 
     conduct, they have forfeited the right to have society take a 
     big chance on whether they have been rehabilitated.
       Studies show, however, that the single biggest factor in 
     reducing recidivism is aging. The rate of recidivism drops 
     dramatically after an offender reaches about 45 to 50 years 
     of age. And the rate of recidivism among murderers is much 
     lower than among almost any other class of offenders. 
     Assuming repeal of the Good Time Credits Act, the sentencing 
     terms I am proposing would mean that a vicious 18-year-old 
     convicted of first-degree murder could be incarcerated to age 
     53 before becoming eligible for parole, to age 48 if 
     convicted of second-degree murder, and to age 43 if convicted 
     of manslaughter.
       I would not make these sentences mandatory. Judges should 
     have discretion to impose lesser terms in appropriate cases. 
     But the authority to impose that long a time before parole 
     eligibility should be there if it is needed.
       Third, prosecutors and judges should impose sentences of 
     life without parole for the most heinous cases. Such a 
     statute has just been enacted by the D.C. Council.


                         non-violent offenders

       Fourth, the D.C. Council should eliminate mandatory minimum 
     terms for non-violent offenders. Selling crack cocaine in 
     D.C. now carries mandatory minimums of four to 12 years for 
     first offense, seven to 21 years for the second offense, and 
     10 to 30 years for a third offense, unless the addict 
     exception is met or the defendant pleads to an attempt 
     charge. These long sentences are not effective in stopping 
     drug selling. But they are effective in filling up prisons 
     with non-violent offenders whose crime was that they sold one 
     form of escapism to willing buyers, while the liquor store 
     owner across the street sold another.
       Not all forms of substance abuse are equally bad. In most 
     cases, narcotics are more lethal and devastating than 
     alcohol, so I do not favor legalizing drugs. But current 
     mandatory minimum sentences are disproportionate to the crime 
     and ineffective and wasteful of limited prison resources.
       Fifth, the D.C. Council should enact a Speedy Trial Act for 
     detained defendants. Veteran Superior Court prosecutor J. 
     Ramsey Johnson, who served as acting U.S. attorney until Eric 
     Holder Jr. assumed office, was recently quoted as saying that 
     the District needs a speedy trial act. He is right. The 
     federal courts have one. We do not, except that persons 
     detained under D.C. Code Sec. 23-1322 (for second-degree 
     murder, rape, and some other violent or dangerous offenses) 
     must be tried within 100 days of arrest, or within 120 days, 
     if good cause is shown for the additional 20 days.
       There is no statutory requirement, however, that persons 
     preventively detained for first-degree murder be brought to 
     trial within any specific time limit. (There is, of course, 
     the Constitutional right to a speedy trial, but that has been 
     construed to permit rather long intervals between arrest and 
     trial absent specific prejudice to the defendant's case.) 
     Very few Murder I defendants are tried within one year; many 
     are not tried until 18 to 24 months after arrest.
       Aside from the fact that this is not swift and certain 
     justice, it is also counter-productive because cases 
     generally get worse, not better, for the government after 
     about six months. Witnesses disappear or get killed; others 
     get scared or lose their original ardor to cooperate with the 
     police and prosecutors.
       Moreover, those defendants who are entitled to acquittal 
     should not have to wait two years behind bars for that event 
     to occur. I would propose that those detained under Sec. 1325 
     must be tried within 200 days, with 40 additional days 
     allowed for good cause shown.
       Thus, first-degree murder trials would have to occur six to 
     eight months from the time of arrest. Just as the government 
     and the court manage to meet the deadlines of Sec. 1322, 
     these proposed Sec. 1325 deadlines could also be met--
     provided there was an appropriate redeployment of resources.
       Sixth, the Office of the U.S. Attorney should establish a 
     diversion program for drug buyers and fist-time, unarmed 
     sellers.
       In the Superior Court, we now have nine judges on Felony 1 
     and the Accelerated Felony Trial Calendar trying violent 
     offenders, and another 20 or so judges trying primarily non-
     violent drug defendants, most of whom have been released on 
     personal recognizance. This makes no sense to me in the 
     current environment. A number of those 20 judges should be 
     redeployed to additional Felony I and AFTC Calendars, so that 
     the time for getting the more serious cases to trail could be 
     drastically reduced. This could be accomplished if the 
     government instituted a diversion program for drug buyers, 
     and non-violent, first-time drug sellers. Such a program 
     would also free up many prosecutors and defense lawyers who 
     could turn their attention to the more pressing problem of 
     violent crime.


                       The Future is Our Children

       Finally, all agencies in the system should give maximum 
     attention to effective juvenile intervention. Most of the 
     murderers I see in adult court have had at least one arrest 
     as a juvenile offender, and may have had a number of such 
     arrests. It is obvious that, if the future is our children, 
     our future killers are the children who are now coming into 
     our system as juvenile offenders on arrests for selling 
     drugs, stealing cars, assaulting people, and carrying guns. 
     If we could get to these offenders early in their careers and 
     turn them around, the rate of future homicides would begin to 
     decline.
       I do not have an easy answer for how we can do this, but I 
     am confident that our present system for dealing with 
     juvenile offenders is not very effective. It is grossly 
     understaffed and underfunded, housed in bureaucracies that 
     are not very creative or inspiring and operating on 
     assumptions and models that are now 10 to 20 years out of 
     date. We need to put a maximum effort into redesigning 
     juvenile rehabilitation programs and facilities.
       The kind of juvenile offenders we are now seeing, and the 
     kind of community they come from, are nothing like those 
     addressed by juvenile justice treatises written a decade or 
     two ago. In order to get the maximum benefit for our 
     investment, we need to study programs nationwide to see which 
     work and which do not, and then install the effective ones 
     and get rid of the others.
       Even if we had the best juvenile-rehabilitation program 
     imaginable, it would have a low success rate if its graduates 
     were simply tossed back into the cesspool I described 
     earlier. But if we drain the cesspool and rebuild the inner 
     city, and if we develop effective ways of turning around 
     juvenile offenders at an early age, we stand a good chance of 
     having a rate of homicide and crime 10 years from now that is 
     dramatically less than that which we are now experiencing.