Working Toward a Better FBI in the 1990s : More bureau resources to be targeted at domestic crime?

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, reviewing its options in the wake of the wind-down of the Cold War, the dismantling of the Soviet KGB and the reduced need for American counterintelligence, is setting its sights on domestic crime. Given the intensity of gang violence, drug trafficking and many other forms of vile criminal activity, such a redeployment of federal manpower and resources is welcome. It is to be particularly cheered when the focus comes from the “new” FBI--the law enforcement agency of William Steele Sessions, continuing in the reformist tradition of his predecessor, Judge William H. Webster.

Under the direction of these two law enforcement leaders, the FBI has worked hard to regain public confidence and root out internal bureau problems, especially racism in hiring and promotion. They have also worked hard to battle the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover, which in the eyes of many hangs over all that the bureau does.

No doubt the Sessions/Webster reform program is far from complete and much hard work remains to be done. No doubt some agents still retain bad habits and act as if history never got beyond, oh, the McCarthy era. But it is also true that many new, younger agents--including minority members and women--have been attracted to the bureau and are deeply committed to professional police work. These are the agents whom top bureau management must guide up through the ranks and into eventual control of that bureaucracy.

The redeployment of forces into domestic crime provides a historic opportunity for the bureau to make its mark on the times. The American public is deeply concerned about crime, which plagues our rural areas and suburbs as well as inner cities. Because of the structure of American law, however, the role of federal police in local crime has not been large. And yet certain kinds of crime problems can be dealt with at the federal level.

In an interview with Times Washington bureau correspondent Ronald J. Ostrow, new Atty. Gen. William P. Barr outlined the ways in which the bureau might reorder its resources. Barr pointed to the possibility of a more substantial attack on gangs (a category in which the rise in violence has been most ominous), on career criminals (who account for a disproportionate percentage of crimes) and on the drug trade.

Notably absent in Barr’s portrait of new ways for the bureau to become involved was any suggestion of renewed or augmented domestic political surveillance. That omission will strike FBI critics as a happy one indeed. The bureau has done much for American policing. Its academy at Quantico, Va., has not only trained FBI agents but has helped elevate the standards of American policing in general. Its famous forensic laboratory has helped crack many a case--most recently the tangled Pan Am 103 bombing mystery.

But whatever good the bureau did, it operated under the ominous cloud of Hoover’s legacy. That’s what Webster and Sessions have worked to erase. Now Atty. Gen. Barr appears to share their vision. That is good for America.