[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 48 (Thursday, April 28, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
         VIOLENT CRIME CONTROL AND LAW ENFORCEMENT ACT OF 1994

                               speech of

                                 ______


                         HON. ROBERT K. DORNAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 21, 1994

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 4092) to 
     control and prevent crime.

  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Chairman, the following articles are most 
enlightening on violent crime in America:

                      Crime Solution--Lock 'em Up

                          (By Ben Wattenberg)

       Thanks to angry American voters, the ``crime issue'' is 
     prominent again, as it ought to be. It is our biggest 
     problem. And there is something we can do about it--if the 
     House and Senate can agree on a history LBJ-style crime 
     strategy now being debated on Capitol Hill.
       Putative solutions to the crime problem are rolling forth 
     like a mighty stream. There is gun control. And drug 
     rehabilitation for criminals. And greater use of the death 
     penalty. And habeas corpus reform. And more cops active in 
     ``community policing.'' And ``boot camps.'' The list goes on 
     and on.
       As it happens, I approve of most of the above catalog. I 
     would like to see much of it enacted into law. But there is 
     this sad fact: We don't know that these proposals will 
     seriously cut the current scary rate of violent crime. The 
     existing studies are thin and often contradictory.
       Two things do seem fairly clear. First criminologists and 
     crime policy wonks don't know much about what works. (No 
     surprise.) Second, the thing that almost everyone intuitively 
     knows is so simple that it barely needs repeating, except 
     that it is often purposely ignored, particularly, alas, by 
     the Clinton administration.
       It is this: A Thug in Prison Cannot Shoot Your Sister.


                           putting thugs away

       Of course, this is not a new theory. But it was restated 
     with clarity in 1992 in a short publication titled ``The Case 
     for More Incarceration'' published by the Justice Department. 
     It showed:
       That incarceration is cheaper than letting a criminal out 
     on the streets.
       That although the crime rate is horrifically high, the 
     actual rate of increase of violent crime has been going down 
     since we started putting more people in prison.
       That much violent crime is committed by people who have 
     already been in the criminal justice system (that is, people 
     who have been arrested, convicted, or imprisoned, or who are 
     on probation or parole).
       That prison time served, despite some mandatory minimum 
     sentencing laws, has gotten somewhat shorter.
       That prisons do not create criminals.
       The blacks and whites are treated equally and that the vast 
     majority of law-abiding African-Americans would gain most 
     from more incarceration of criminals because African-
     Americans are more likely to be the victims of violent crime.
       Happily, the concept of getting thugs into prison and 
     keeping them there longer is in the new crime bill that 
     recently passed the Senate--by a vote of 95-4.
       More remarkable is the manner in which the concept is 
     embedded in the Senate bill. Until now the rap on almost all 
     federal crime bills has been: ``The feds can't do much: after 
     all, violent crime is principally a state issue.'' Quite so: 
     97% of violent criminals are in state prisons.
       Moreover, some of what the feds have done to state prisons 
     has been harmful. Federal court rulings have determined that 
     many state prisons are ``overcrowded.'' That has made it 
     difficult for state judges to get criminals behind bars and 
     has boosted the ``revolving door'' justice that encourages 
     parole boards to let criminals out of prison early.
       That is a social tragedy. The typical violent offender in 
     state prison serves only 40% of his sentence. The typical 
     offender out on the street commits 12 serious crimes a year, 
     exclusive of drug crimes, according to a Brookings Institute 
     study, which estimate is lower than much other scholarship on 
     the matter. If a thug with a 10-year sentence serves only 
     four years, he will commit about 70 violent crimes during his 
     unserved time! (Including, in theory, the murder of Michael 
     Jordan's father and of 12-year-old Polly Klaas.)
       The Senate crime bill deals with this state--federal 
     dilemma by going back to the LBJ-style carrot-and-stick 
     approach. Interestingly, it has been pushed most vigorously 
     by conservative Republicans.
       The feds pledge to build a series of ``regional prisons,'' 
     which may be new ones or perhaps remodeled military bases. 
     The bill would provide between 50,000 and 100,000 new prison 
     spaces over five years. The states, in turn, are invited to 
     place their prisoners in these new facilities.
       That's the carrot. The stick is that the Feds won't help 
     unless the states reform their criminal codes in certain 
     critical ways. The most important item is to stipulate that 
     violent criminals serve 85% of their terms.
       Now, a case can be made that the Senate bill is the first 
     step toward ``federalizing'' the state prison system, and 
     that the federal role will expend over time. Carrot & 
     Sticking is what the feds did with certain aspects of the 
     educational system, transportation, the environment and much 
     more--often offering no particular expertise while intruding 
     on state operations that sometimes didn't need help.
       But prisons are different. The federal prison system, and 
     the federal criminal code, are exemplary. The state systems 
     are often derelict. The Senate bill can make the states do 
     what they should be doing anyway, and what the public 
     overwhelmingly favors: imprisoning violent offenders longer 
     to lower the crime rate.
       That's the Senate bill. The House, on the other hand, has 
     passed only small pieces of legislation and may pass more. In 
     theory there should be a conference committee report to 
     reconcile the versions. But Jack Brooks (D., Texas), chairman 
     of the House Judiciary Committee, has indicated that such a 
     conference might be a long way off. Earlier crime bills have 
     been gutted, diluted and turned into mush during conference 
     negotiations.
       The role of the Clinton administration in the prison aspect 
     of this process has been strange. First, there is no Clinton 
     crime bill. There was supposed to be one, with a provision 
     for regional prisons. Then the White House said it was 
     backing both Sen. Joseph Biden's Senate bill and Rep. Brook's 
     House bill; Mr. Biden's had some rather mild provision for 
     regional prisons, Mr. Brook's didn't. Then the word was that 
     the White House was backing Mr. Brooks, because Attorney 
     General Janet Reno labors under the quaint belief that by 
     depopulating our prisons of ``nonviolent offenders'' we can 
     then refill them with truly bad guys. (But 93% of prisoners 
     are either violent or repeat offenders.)
       The fact of the matter is that the president is (admirably) 
     hawking just about every part of the legislation, much of it 
     on the ``prevention'' side. But he remains studiously silent 
     on the most critical aspect of all: incapacitating more 
     criminals longer. What's going on?
       It's said that liberals oppose more money for prisons. Why? 
     Can they still possibly believe that there are no bad boys, 
     only bad societies?


                             Black Victims

       It's said that the Black Caucus is in opposition because it 
     will be blacks who will disproportionately serve the extra 
     time. But who's killing blacks? Jesse Jackson said the other 
     day that ``there is nothing more painful to me * * * than to 
     walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking 
     about robbery--then look around and see somebody white and 
     feel relieved.'' A key White House aide, Gene Sperling, is 
     quoted as saying he'd rather spend money on poor kids than on 
     prisons. But poor kids are getting shot at by people who 
     should be in prison! The parents of those kids can't get jobs 
     in the inner city because businesses flee from crime.
       The idea of regional prisons, linking the states and the 
     feds in a time of domestic crisis, can become law if Mr. 
     Clinton pushes the House Democrats to get with the program. 
     He can claim huge credit if he puts his shoulder to the wheel 
     and it happens. If it fails, the fault will be his.
                                  ____


                          Begging for Tyranny

                          (By Charles Colson)

       A few months ago in this space, I wrote that the rapid 
     secularizing of America would lead inevitably to tyranny. An 
     ominous warning--though I was thinking of a process taking 
     five to ten years. Little did I dream that events would so 
     quickly overtake my prophecy.
       America already had the highest rate of violent crime in 
     the world, rising 560 percent in the past 30 years. But in 
     recent months it has exploded. Every day's headlines report 
     new outbreaks.
       Three Dartmouth, Massachusetts, schoolboys surround a 
     classmate and stab him to death--then laugh and trade high 
     fives.
       An Oakland teenager chases a woman down the street 
     brandishing a knife, while onlookers chant, ``Kill her! Kill 
     her!''
       A Long Island man starts shooting randomly on a commuter 
     train, turning it into a death trap.
       It is not just the extent of crime that terrorizes America 
     but its random, gratuitous nature. In the past, lawbreakers 
     were motivated by some recognizable human emotion: hatred, 
     greed, envy. But today's headlines tell of youngsters who 
     murder without motive, without remorse. What we are 
     witnessing is the most terrifying threat to any society: 
     Crime without conscience.
       Polls show crime soaring to the top of public concern. 
     Pundits are clamoring for action. And politicians are doing 
     what politicians do best: spending more money. At this 
     writing, Congress is wrestling with a bill to finance more 
     cops and more prisons--to the tune of 22 billion dollars.
       Having worked in hundreds of prisons around the world, I am 
     convinced that this crisis will not be resolved by more cops 
     and cells. The only real solution is the cultivation of 
     conscience.
       In The Moral Sense, criminologist James Q. Wilson contends 
     that conscience is innate. This is, of course, what Paul 
     teaches in Romans 2, that all people have a ``law written on 
     their hearts.''
       But conscience must be trained just as children must be 
     trained to speak a language. It begins in the family, where 
     parents teach their children by precept, by example, and by 
     the behavior they require. As Aristotle wrote, ``We become 
     just by the practice of just actions.''
       But with divorce and dual careers, parents spend 40 percent 
     less time with their children than parents did a generation 
     ago. And their job is made harder by a loss of public 
     standards of virtue. Modern thinkers have rejected the very 
     idea of objective morality: Darwin, who reduced morals to an 
     extension of animal instincts; Freud, who regarded repression 
     of impulses as the source of neurosis; Marx, who disdained 
     morality as an expression of self-interest.
       Under this onslaught, commitment to a common morality has 
     crumbled. Public-school teachers are trained to withhold 
     moral judgment in classroom discussions. When children are 
     raised in this climate, their moral sense remains 
     unshaped, untutored. Like feral children who cannot speak, 
     many children today cannot draw moral distinctions.
       This is the hidden root of violent crime in America: Our 
     culture has bred a generation without conscience. And it 
     means that the front line in the war against crime is not in 
     Congress or the courts. It runs through every living room in 
     America, where parents teach their children right from wrong. 
     It runs through every classroom, where teachers pass on a 
     culture's common moral heritage. It runs through every film 
     and movie, where virtue is either mocked or praised.


                          when truth retreats

       Christians are uniquely equipped to bring this message to 
     our secular neighbors. And we had better do so before it is 
     too late. As Francis Schaeffer used to say, when truth 
     retreats, tyranny advances. The loss of moral truth weakens 
     social restraints, unleashing criminal impulses. And as crime 
     soars, so does public fear. In the end, people welcome the 
     strong arm of government to quell the chaos--at any price.
       Shadows of impending tyranny darken the horizon. In Puerto 
     Rico, the National Guard is conducting military-style raids 
     on housing projects. At night, with helicopters whirring and 
     searchlights beaming, camouflaged troops with M-16s are 
     breaking down doors to confiscate arms and narcotics. Most 
     Puerto Ricans support the action.
       Here on the mainland, when D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly 
     asked for the National Guard to patrol the nation's capital, 
     she was applauded. Several cities have imposed curfews for 
     young people--a form of martial law of dubious 
     constitutionality. A Miami Herald poll found 71 percent 
     support for police roadblocks to track down drugs--even 
     though they violate the Fourth Amendment's protection against 
     unreasonable search and seizure. People shell-shocked by 
     incessant crime welcome higher levels of police intrusion.
       Christians must move to the forefront of the debate over 
     crime, which will surely intensify in the coming months. We 
     must expose the illusion that security can be purchased 
     through more police, more prisons, more draconian punishment. 
     While these things play a role in containing crime, they are 
     palliatives. We must aim our attack at the root. We must 
     carry the crime debate onto moral grounds, where our secular 
     culture fears to tread.
       The task is urgent. If we do not learn to cultivate 
     conscience--if truth continues to retreat--then tyranny will 
     surely advance. To end the war of all against all, the state 
     will unsheathe the power of the sword against every citizen.
       And the saddest thing is that it will come as a welcome 
     relief.
                                  ____


                     [From the Wall Street Journal]

                     Crime: The People Want Revenge

                           (By Paul Johnson)

       Britain and the U.S. between them created the modern 
     concept of democracy. But there are times when I wonder 
     whether democracy actually works in either country. My doubts 
     become most pronounced when the topics of crime and its 
     punishment come up, and I compare how they are actually dealt 
     with by the authorities with what the public wants done.
       ``Wants'' is the key word. For the essence of democracy is 
     not one-person-one-vote. Most Africans have got that and what 
     good does it do them? Nor is the essential question whether 
     you have a presidency or a constitutional monarchy, and a 
     congress or a parliament. These are details. What makes 
     democracy real is a working system that translates the 
     reasonable wishes of the mass of the people into the actual 
     performance of government.
       Cynics will say that no such system does or can exist--but 
     that is nonsense. During the 19th century and for most of the 
     20th, the U.S. Congress and the British Parliament were 
     remarkably effective in reforming and improving institutions 
     in accordance with the wishes of the people. That is why both 
     societies proved so stable and virtually impervious to the 
     revolutionary shocks that made the modern history of so many 
     other advanced countries unhappy.


                            life and liberty

       Now doubts have arisen and they are particularly nagging in 
     the area of law and order. Governments have a fundamental 
     obligation to do three things: manage a country's external 
     defenses, uphold internal order and maintain an honest 
     currency. Of course they can do many other things, but these 
     are the three essentials because only government can do them. 
     The more governments attempt to do, the more likely it is 
     that one or another of these basic roles will be badly 
     carried out. Usually it is the third that is forgotten, for 
     activist governments tend to produce inflation, and 
     hyperactive governments, as we see in Latin America, produce 
     hyperinflation.
       However, even in steady democracies like the U.S. and 
     Britain, where inflation has never gotten out of hand and is, 
     in fact, well under control at present, the feeling is 
     growing that government now performs its second function very 
     badly indeed. Throughout this century, governments in both 
     countries have systematically taken on responsibilities for 
     welfare, health, education, housing and even culture that 
     were hitherto discharged by citizens themselves. At the same 
     time, a reverse process has been taking place in the 
     protection of life and property.
       Government has become so ineffectual in this field that 
     individuals have to act on their own behalf. Inner-city 
     apartments have become miniature fortresses. Private security 
     is one of the fastest-growing industries in both countries. 
     In the U.S., the number of women carrying defensive weapons, 
     chiefly handguns, has risen dramatically. A ubiquitous new 
     institution in Britain (already common in the U.S.) is 
     ``neighborhood watch,'' a scheme whereby neighbors band 
     together to protect each other's property. Vigilantism indeed 
     is now making its appearance in Britain for the first time in 
     centuries, to strong public approval, and in the U.S. 
     citizens who gun down habitual criminals are acquitted by 
     juries and become popular heroes.
       Behind this grim reliance on self-protection and 
     contemptuous cynicism for the efforts of government lie two 
     convictions burned into the public consciousness. The first 
     is a universal perception that crime, not least violent 
     crime, has increased to the point where it is effectively out 
     of the control of authority. Academic criminologists, 
     wielding batteries of statistics, sometimes argue that this 
     public perception is false and based on what they sneeringly 
     term ``anecdotal evidence.'' But what other kind of evidence 
     do we have to go for our knowledge of most things? People 
     form conclusions by what happens to them, their families, 
     friends and neighbors; and if all, virtually without 
     exception, are victims of crime, then they understandably 
     conclude that the balance of advantage has decisively shifted 
     to the criminal.
       The statistics, as it happens, bear out this conclusion. 
     Commenting on them, the chief constable of one of Britain's 
     largest police authorities recently stated flatly that crime 
     now pays in Britain. Surely this is one reason why the number 
     of criminals, professional and amateur, is rising. It is 
     probably true to say that, in both Britain and the U.S., 
     crime is an industry growing even faster than private 
     security.
       Recently I have been rereading the remarkable studies that 
     Henry Mayhew carried out in London in the 1840s, and 
     published as ``London Labour and the London Poor'' (1851). 
     His fourth volume deals comprehensively with the criminals of 
     London, then a city of about 3 million people. He was able 
     not only to identify every category and sub-type of criminal 
     activity in the city but in almost every case to pinpoint 
     their geographical location. What he was describing, in fact, 
     was a specific criminal class, distinct from society as a 
     whole and almost by definition firmly under its control. 
     Crime could not finally be ended. But it could be contained, 
     and eroded.
       Today it would be impossible for a modern Mayhew to publish 
     such a survey of New York or London or Los Angeles. It is not 
     just that these cities are bigger (14.6 million, 9.1 million 
     and 10.1 million people, respectively) but that crime is no 
     longer localized: It is everywhere and permeates society, It 
     starts earlier. Last February in Liverpool, two 10-year-olds 
     abducted and cruelly murdered a two-year-old. In Los Angeles, 
     100,000 children under the age of 14 belong to gangs armed 
     with lethal weapons. Crime also now affects the lives of the 
     aged to a degree hitherto unknown. It is not uncommon, in 
     London, for women over 80 to be raped and murdered by young 
     thieves who break into their apartments to steal. Indeed, in 
     cities on both sides of the Atlantic, the aged and 
     defenseless in the inner cities have now lost their freedom 
     of movement, just as young children can no longer be allowed 
     to play in the streets.
       Crime now transcends sex, as more and more women become 
     both victims and perpetrators of it. Thanks principally to 
     drug abuse, it transcends class and occupation and 
     educational barriers. Everyday crime is no longer confined to 
     inner-city ghettos. Figures released last week show that in 
     Britain it is rising fastest in rural areas; old-fashioned, 
     conservative shires like Wiltshire and Hampshire now produce 
     devastating statistics of robbery with violence, rape and 
     malicious wounding. In the U.S., crime has become routine in 
     smaller cities and townships. Everyone, rich and poor, old 
     and young, black and white, educated and illiterate, is now 
     at the receiving end of crime--or perpetrating it.
       Yet at a time when crime is having a more direct impact on 
     the lives of us all than ever before, the treatment of it by 
     authority is becoming less and less democratic. In both 
     Britain and the U.S., opinion polls, conducted over many 
     years, show that public opinion, in its attitude toward 
     crime, is overwhelming repressive. As crime increases, 
     ordinary people not surprisingly become more and more hostile 
     toward criminals. They do not want to ``understand'' 
     criminals; they are not ever much interested in reforming 
     them. They want them punished, as severely and as cheaply as 
     possible. Habitual and violent criminals they want taken out 
     of society altogether, preferably for good. They favor 
     punishment that is deterrent and retributive.


                           hanging for murder

       The attitude of ordinary people indeed is essentially 
     vindictive: They desire revenge. That is why, for instance, 
     large majorities in both Britain and the U.S. support capital 
     punishment for murder. In Britain, where hanging for murder 
     was abolished in the 1960s, the popular majority for its 
     restoration has never fallen below about 75%.
       But what authority actually does about dealing with crime 
     bears no relation at all to popular wishes. In both 
     countries, the liberals captured power over the 
     administration of crime and punishment in the 1950s and have 
     never relinquished it. On the contrary, their grip has 
     tightened. As crime rises and affects the lives of more and 
     more people, so liberal remedies are applied, with ever-
     increasing obstinacy and at mounting expense. The reasons lie 
     in the nature of modern government, where lobbies, pressure 
     groups and organized minorities exert more influence over 
     specific areas of policy than the mass of the people.
       This principle applies particularly in the field of crime. 
     In both Britain and the U.S. a permanent working alliance 
     exists between, on the one hand, liberals in academia and the 
     media, and, on the other, their counterparts in government 
     and its agencies, in private and trade union lobbies, in the 
     courts and in law firms. In practice, these people draft the 
     legislation that governments then sponsor and Congress and 
     Parliament enact.
       This legislation is overwhelmingly liberal in character and 
     is designed essentially to protect the rights and interests 
     of the wrongdoer rather than those of the victim, who has no 
     lobby. This explains, for instance, why the British 
     Conservative government theoretically committed to a 
     repressive line on crime, has in fact put through such 
     ulitaliberal measures as the Children's Act of 1989 and the 
     Criminal Justice Act of 1991.
       Liberalism as the answer to rising crime has been applied 
     in both the great demoracies now for the best part of half a 
     century. It has been tested to destruction. It has failed 
     everywhere, overwhelmingly and manifestly--except in one 
     region; the minds of its advocates. For them liberalism is a 
     religion, an article of faith, born of conviction and not 
     susceptible to proof or disproof. And as they continue to 
     control, in practice, the way in which society officially 
     responds to crime in both countries, so they nourish the 
     monster strolling in our midst by increasing its liberal 
     diet.
       Ordinary people, in the meantime, perceive that, in this 
     central field, democracy does not work at all. They shrug 
     their shoulders and set about protecting themselves, as their 
     primitive ancestors did before the state had been invented. 
     It is not a healthy state of affairs. In fact the failure of 
     authority to carry out the public's wishes on crime is even 
     more corrosive of society than rising crime itself.
                                  ____


             [From the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 31, 1993]

                       How Our Towns Fight Crime

                          (By Amitai Etzioni)

       While Washington sweats out the crime bill, communities 
     from coast to coast are experimenting successfully with 
     various antiviolence measures. Unfortunately, the American 
     Civil Liberties Union is successfully slowing them down.
       Examples of effective grass-roots efforts to combat crime 
     abound. In New Jersey, the cities of Newark and Orange have 
     introduced curfews prohibiting minors from being on the 
     streets between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Exceptions are made for 
     those passing through town, or on the way to or from a 
     political or religious event. The law fosters parental 
     responsibility by fining parents rather than arresting the 
     children found roaming the streets after hours. Curfews keep 
     minors out of harm's way and deprive drug dealers of their 
     runners and lookouts during peak ``business'' hours.
       Many neighborhoods have recently erected a variety of 
     roadblocks. Oakland, Calif., set up 17 on roads leading to 
     nearby Lake Merritt when residents complained of incessant 
     cruising, public drunkenness and rude behavior. In a public 
     housing project in Chicago, drive-by shootings and about half 
     of the drug traffic were stopped when a fence was erected 
     around the project. In Inkster, Mich., an open-air drug 
     market was closed overnight when a local sheriff set up a 
     roadblock and demanded to see a driver's license and proof of 
     car ownership (documents drivers are required to carry by 
     law).
       Mere shaming also works. A neighborhood in Long Island was 
     flooded with cruising men, who--looking for prostitutes--
     solicited passersby, even women working in their gardens. A 
     community association wrote down their license plate numbers 
     and sent letters to their homes. It proved a surprisingly 
     effective deterrent.


                            antidrug patrols

       Numerous communities across the country have formed crime 
     watches--groups of citizens who agree to guard one another's 
     property. When residents see suspicious movements in a 
     neighbor's yard, they notify the authorities. A large number 
     of neighborhoods have set up antidrug patrols. In Washington, 
     D.C., multiracial Orange Hat patrols chase drug dealers out 
     of their communities, by noting their license plate numbers 
     and filming them with hand-held video recorders. In 
     Washington's North Michigan Park, such a patrol helped snare 
     corrupt cops who were protecting drug dealers. Another group 
     in Washington recaptured the Meridian Hill Park from drug 
     traffickers.
       While these efforts basically reflect the work of 
     volunteers or the initiative of local sheriffs, states also 
     have been taking new steps. For instance, Washington state 
     has passed a law requiring the continued detention of sex 
     offenders, until medical authorities rule that they are 
     ``safe to be at large.'' And from New York City to Los 
     Angeles, Community Policing programs are getting cops out of 
     their cars, to walk the beats, to know closely the areas they 
     are patrolling, and to develop closer relations with the 
     locals.
       None of these measures eliminates violent crime. There is 
     no single measure or even group of measures that can ensure 
     public safety 100%. But these measures do save lives, and if 
     used more widely they could reduce both violence and the 
     sense of being constantly menaced. Restoring basic civility, 
     more and more social scientists agree, requires a return to 
     basics: a reconstruction of the family; values education in 
     schools; stronger neighborhood bonds; and possibly some kind 
     of spiritual or religious revival.
       Enter the civil libertarians.
       A major reason anticrime measures such as these are not 
     applied in more communities is that the ACLU and its army of 
     lawyers hobbles them in courts and sours the public's 
     reception to them. To prevail in the courts of law and of 
     public opinion, one must understand the arguments the ACLU 
     advances.
       Typicially, the ACLU's opening volley is that the suggested 
     anticrime steps are not cost-effective. Building jails is too 
     expensive; drug rehabilitation is said to be cheaper. Keeping 
     sex offenders in jail until they are safe to be released is a 
     ``waste of money.'' The ACLU does not buttress its points 
     with specific statistics based on valid samples, data 
     comparing a program to a control group, or other such social 
     science evidence. It relies on anecdotes, newspaper clippings 
     and select quotations from favored experts. Indeed, the fact 
     that this line of argument is merely a smoke screen becomes 
     evident once one presents data that the grass-roots anticrime 
     approaches at issue are effective. The ACLU then immediately 
     retreats to its main line of attack: It does not matter if 
     the suggested measures are efficient--they are 
     unconstitutional.
       A common claim is that these new anticrime techniques are 
     racist. When the police set up roadblocks in the Lake Meritt 
     area, the San Francisco chapter of the ACLU argued that 
     roadblocks are discriminatory, because more young people are 
     stopped than old ones and more blacks than whites. The police 
     countered that officers asked for IDs from everyone, and only 
     barred nonresidents. The police did ``admit'' that once they 
     became acquainted with some of the residents, officers simply 
     waved them through.
       The same argument is raised against crime databanks, which 
     police across the country are finding a rich resource. The 
     Colorado ACLU attacked Denver's police roster of gang members 
     because more than half of those listed are black, while 
     blacks constituted only 5% of the population, and Hispanics 
     constituted about a third of the list, while they are only 
     12% of the city's population. The fact that most gang members 
     in Denver are not white did not impress the ACLU, nor did the 
     fact that a person who has no ``contact'' with the police is 
     dropped from the roster after a specified period.
       The ACLU views all roadblocks, screening gates (which are 
     familiar to airline passengers but also increasingly serve 
     schools, courthouses and legislatures), drug testing, 
     examination of lockers in public schools, sobriety 
     checkpoints and the like as violations of the Fourth 
     Amendment's search and seizure protection. What the ACLU 
     specifically objects to in all these situations is that 
     people are being ``searched'' without there being a specific 
     suspicion that they committed a crime; these are said to 
     constitute searches of the innocent.
       Note that the ACLU misstates the Fourth Amendment. It 
     reads, ``the right of the people to be secure in their 
     persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable 
     searches and seizures, shall not be violated, ``What is 
     reasonable is open to debate, but the courts have ruled again 
     and again that at issue is a balance between individual 
     rights to privacy and the public's interest in elementary 
     safety.
       Surely, no one wishes to intrude wantonly on people's 
     privacy. But when plans full of Americans were being hijacked 
     in the 1970s, the nation embraced screening gates and stopped 
     the terrorists cold. The ACLU's warning that these gates 
     would ``condition Americans to a police state'' has not 
     proved any more true than its many other predictions about 
     the dire results of improvements in public safety.


                     subjecting liberties to order

       The ACLU's gravest mistake is its assumption that the best 
     way to protect liberties is by blocking moves that seek to 
     enhance the role of public authorities. But the greatest 
     threat to a free society is that if liberties cannot be 
     subject to some order, there will be none. When people's most 
     elementary needs--for protection of their lives and those of 
     their loved ones--are not met, they are susceptible to 
     appeals by demagogues. In desperation, they listen to 
     suggestions, such as those of Chicago's former police 
     superintendent Leroy Martin, to shoot drug dealers on sight 
     without trial, and those of fellow citizens who wrote in 
     desperation seeking ``to suspend the Constitution until the 
     war against drugs is won.''
       There is a faint hope that people will come to understand 
     protecting public order is not antithetical to civil 
     liberties but, on the contrary, a major precondition of a 
     free society. People must learn to oppose the rigid and 
     narrow interpretation of the Constitution advanced by the 
     ACLU. Communities should be about to advance anticrime 
     measures without the incessant threat of lawsuits.