FOR REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS and other responsible lawmakers, the first report of the newly formed bipartisan Council on Crime in America heralds a moment of truth. Will they heed the report’s overwhelming facts and figures that support the average American’s decades-old concern about revolving-door justice, or will they fail to enact — and fund, and implement — policies that keep known and convicted violent criminals, adult and juvenile, from repeatedly preying upon life, liberty, and property?
First, however, full disclosure: I (a Democrat) am a member of the council, which is co-chaired by former federal drug czar William J. Bennett (a Republican) and former U.S. Attorney General Griffin B. Bell (a Democrat).
Our report, released last week, focuses on numbers. First, the hard numbers on how much serious crime is committed by convicted criminals whom the system has released time and again. Second, the tragic numbers on how many people are killed and victimized each year by “supervised” community-based predators. Third, the vast numbers of ordinary Americans of every race, creed, and region who are fed up with government’s failure to honor its end of the social contract. And it explodes dozens of myths about the state of violent crime and punishment. Here is a small but representative sample:
MYTH 1: Violent crime is going down.
FACT: Despite recent dips, violent crime rates remain at historic highs, and demographic trends (more fatherless, Godless, and jobless young males) mean big trouble ahead. There were 43.6 million criminal victimizations in America in 1993, over 10 million of them violent.
MYTH 2: The toll of violent crime is exaggerated.
FACT: You are more than twice as likely to be victimized by violent crime as you are to be injured in a car accident, and about as likely to be murdered as you are to die from AIDS. The violent crimes committed each year cost their victims and society about $ 400 billion.
MYTH 3: Most violent crimes against whites are done by blacks.
FACT: In 1993 only 18 percent of the 8.7 million violent crimes against white s were committed by blacks. About 80 percent of the 1.3 million violent crimes against blacks were done by blacks. Inner-city minority youth suffer disproport ionately; for example, in 1994, all but 5 of Philadelphia’s 89 youth hom icide victims were non-white.
MYTH 4: Revolving-door justice is real but rare.
FACT: The justice system imprisons barely 1 criminal for every 100 violent crimes. About 1 in 3 violent crimes is committed by someone on probation, parole, or pretrial release at the very moment that he murders, rapes, or attacks. On any given day, 7 convicted offenders are on the street for every 3 who are behind bars. During 1994 about 4.2 million cases were handled on probation and 1.1 million on parole. About 1.5 times as many convicted violent offenders arc on probation or parole as in prison.
MYTH 5: Revolving-door justice does not occur nationwide.
FACT: Community-based criminals are a menace in every state. For example, in 1994 only 671 of Dade County, Florida’s 4,615 identified local career criminals (average of 20 prior felony arrests and 6 convictions) were behind bars. In one 58-month period, prisoners released early from Florida prisons were responsible for 25,919 crimes, including 4,654 violent crimes. Among the violent crimes that would have been averted had these offenders remained behind bars were 346 murders. Likewise, in one 3-year period, fully a third of Virginia’s 1,411 convicted murders were “in custody” at the time they killed.
MYTH 6: The system keeps a close watch on gun-toting felons.
FACT: About 42 percent of felony weapons defendants in 1992 were on probation, parole, or pretrial release at the time of their latest offense.
MYTH 7: Prisons are full of mere first-time drug offenders.
FACT: Since 1974 over 90 percent of all state prisoners have been violent offenders or recidivists. Between 1980 and 1993, the number of persons in state prisons for violent crimes grew by 221,000, 1.3 times the growth in imprisoned “drug offenders.” Most drug offenders have long criminal histories. Indeed, in the year prior to incarceration, most prisoners commit at least a dozen serious crimes, excluding all drug crimes.
MYTH 8: Probation and parole violators pose little threat.
FACT: In 1991, 45 percent of state prisoners were persons who, at the very time they committed their latest crimes, were on probation or parole. While free in the community, they did at least 218,000 violent crimes including 13, 200 murders and 11,600 rapes (over half of the rapes against children).
MYTH 9: Because of mandatory sentencing, most prisoners now do long, hard time in overcrowded facilities under warehousing conditions.
FACT: Despite the enactment of mandatory laws, between 1985 and 1992 the average maximum sentence of prisoners declined about 15 percent from 78 months to 67 months. In 1992 the actual time served by violent felons (both jail credits and prison) was 43 months. On average, murderers released from state prisons in 1992 served only 5.9 years. In 1991 over 90 percent of all prisoners were in some type of job training, work, education, drug treatment, or other program. In 1994, the prison systems of 13 states and the District of Columbia had more beds than they had prisoners; most of the other states were only slightly “overcrowded.” None of the major empirical studies of prison crowding finds that it raises levels of inmate violence, illness, or other serious problems.
MYTH 10: More violent juvenile felons are being handled as adults.
FACT: Right — they, too, go through the revolving door. In 1991 about 51, 000 male juveniles were held in public juvenile facilities, a third of them for violent crimes ranging from murder to robbery. But in 1992 alone there were over 110,000 juvenile arrests for violent crimes, and nearly 17 times that number for property and other crimes. The juvenile revolving-door system kills kids coming and going. For example, between 1990 and 1994, 75 percent of Boston’s youth shooting and stabbing fatalities and 95 percent of its young killers had criminal histories.
Given these horrifying data, I must say (and I speak here only for myself, not for the council) that it is most disheartening to learn that Republican governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin has established a commission to study ” alternatives to incarceration” and has declared he will build no more prisons. New Jersey’s Christine Todd Whitman is busy consorting with national anti- incarceration advocacy groups.
Here’s a simple spine-stiffening, mind-concentrating sentencing-policy exercise for responsible state lawmakers: Pursue whatever policies you please; but first pledge to make public accurate and complete statistics on the entire adult and juvenile records of any plea-bargain-gorged criminals released from custody as a result of your decisions.
And here’s one for President Clinton and the Republican Congress: Right now t he states provide, and the federal government publishes, data on how many rapis ts receive what kind of “treatment” behind bars, but not on such things as the age of rape victims and how many convicted murderers are on probation, parole, or pretrial release at the very moment they kill. A s a condition of federal crime aid, mandate that states keep running tabs on the impact of crime on its victims and the overall toll of revolving-door justice.
The more Americans know the truth about violent crime, the less possible it will be for faithless leaders and activist judges to free dangerous criminals who deserve punishment.
