COLUMN RIGHT/ BENJAMIN ZYCHER : Flexing Federal Machismo on Crime : The real problem is at the state and local levels; the latest bill is just political posturing.

The U.S. Senate, oops, the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body, passed yet another crime bill recently, demonstrating the toughness of our honored solons. In this age of sequels, this bill ought to be renamed “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly II,” for it promotes noble sentiments even as it will increase deaths not among criminals but among the innocent.

The Good: About the only positive element in the bill is the attempt to relieve the federal courts of endless but spurious habeas corpus appeals by Death Row convicts. If there is a single reform that will strengthen disincentives for crime, it is an increase in the certainty of punishment. The erosion in recent years of the doctrine of res adjudicata-- leaving alone that which has been decided--has not served that end.

The Bad: Apart from some further controls on guns, both silly and unconstitutional, the bill authorizes the death penalty for more than 50 different crimes, thus allowing senators to hold blood-curdling press conferences under the full moon. The crimes that the average criminal now will strive mightily to avoid include genocide, treason and espionage, and murders of the President, Congress, members of the Cabinet, and the Supreme Court, relatives of federal officials, court officers, jurors, witnesses, crime victims, informants, foreign officials, state officials assisting federal officials, and federal inspectors of horses, poultry, eggs, meat and nuclear facilities.

Now, however heinous such crimes, they are not what “the crime problem” is all about. Nor does the bill mention that a federal death penalty for various crimes already exists, and not since 1963 has anyone been executed by the federal government. The basic crime problem is not an absence of laws; it is an unwillingness to apply them. Therefore, it is a safe bet that few if any will be sent to the gallows under the auspices of this bill. Another certainty is that the senators voting for this bill have locked up the horse inspector vote.

The Ugly: If you want to see innocent people murdered, this bill is for you. Why? Because the bill sentences to death those committing arson on federal property in interstate commerce, aircraft hijacking, transportation of explosives with intent to kill, kidnaping, bank robbery, hostage-taking and on and on.

From the viewpoint of the criminal engaged in, say, a bank heist, the deterrent effect of a prospective death sentence for murder disappears when the bank robbery itself is a capital offense. If the criminal is going to the gallows anyway for robbing the bank, why not kill a few bank customers in the process? In effect, this bill makes them freebies. It is not obvious even that the number of bank robberies will go down, because under this bill the extra penalty for getting rid of witnesses is zero. What is clear is that the rate at which robbers kill the unlucky people who happen to be in the wrong banks at the wrong time will go up. The same goes for hijackers, kidnapers and the others. This bill reduces to zero the incentive not to kill. Life is cheap.

All the sound and fury emanating from Congress on crime is a lot of hot air. Except in the District of Columbia itself, the federal government has little to do with street crime as universally perceived; therefore, the only certain effect of federal crime legislation is political posturing. The real crime problem lies at the state and local levels; but state and local politicians prefer to focus on such phony issues as gun control and cuts in federal aid, because a real effort to deal with crime necessarily will expose the emptiness of government spending programs as solutions to the crime problem. Moreover, state and local officials will have to spend more money and political support on construction of prisons, since those already in existence have been filled to the brim with petty drug offenders. The mindless drug crusade continues despite the fact that resources for law enforcement always are limited.

Because congressional Democrats must demonstrate their machismo on crime, particularly after their (correct) opposition to the Persian Gulf adventure, they cannot wean themselves from this posturing; and the Republicans surely will not do so given the political benefits that they have derived from the crime issue for a quarter-century. Many “conservatives” have endorsed the crime bill because it is labeled a “crime” bill, just as most liberals endorse any bill stamped “civil rights” or “environment.”

Real conservatives would resist proposals as silly as this one. Instead, they are all too willing to make matters worse in exchange for an opportunity for cheap hypocrisy. Now, that’s a crime.