Wilson Plans Anti-Crime Summit in L.A. : Legislation: Governor reveals the proposal during a meeting with families who have been torn by street violence.

Flanked by the parents of a Granada Hills High School student killed in 1990, a grim-faced Gov. Pete Wilson on Wednesday pledged to convene a summit of state leaders in January to build bipartisan support for a package of tough anti-crime legislation.

The summit would be used to mobilize broad public support behind a tough crime-fighting agenda that, the governor maintained, has been too often stymied in the Legislature.

Wilson said the summit would be held in Los Angeles.

“We need to forge a bipartisan consensus that will be quick to enact these laws,” Wilson, a Republican, said. “You need to let your legislators know how you feel.” The Legislature is controlled by members of the Democratic Party.

“To return California to where it can legitimately be called a civilized society, I am inviting every law enforcement official in California and everyone interested in public safety to come together in a statewide summit to stop the violence,” he said.

Wilson’s call for the summit, climaxing an emotionally charged meeting with the families of the dead victims of street violence, comes as the governor gears up his reelection campaign.

Throughout his political career, Wilson has frequently, and successfully, positioned himself as a tough crime fighter and a compassionate champion of victims’ rights.

While Democratic officials said they would encourage their party’s legislators to participate in such a summit, they questioned the timing of Wilson’s initiatives.

“Another Wilson photo op--big deal,” said California Democratic Party Chairman Bill Press.

“My question is, where has Wilson been over the past three years? During that time, arrests have gone down 18% statewide, the number of cops on the street is down 1.4% and the violent crime is up 4.6%. No last-minute flurry of news conferences can substitute for three years of failed leadership.”

At Wednesday’s news conference, Wilson also unveiled his proposals to increase the penalties for certain crimes.

The governor proposed that people convicted of murder in a carjacking or drive-by shooting receive the death penalty or life imprisonment without possibility of parole; and he proposed life imprisonment for career criminals caught with deadly weapons, for repeat sex offenders and for arsonists who are repeat offenders, have caused massive property damage or who strike during fire seasons.

During the recent spate of cataclysmic fires in Southern California, Wilson called the arsonists who were blamed for several of the conflagrations “sickos.” “I wish I could get my hands on the bastard,” Wilson said during an Oct. 30 tour of fire-burned portions of Ventura County. “I’d like to strangle him.”

The governor also said he wants to cut the sentence reduction credits that prisoners can earn for good behavior or for working so that the time criminals serve more closely reflects their sentences. “The average rapist serves four years behind bars,” the governor said. “Folding sheets in the prison laundry does not make them any better.”

Earlier this year, Wilson signed legislation to stiffen the penalties for carjackers and drive-by shooters. But Wednesday, the governor said these new laws still didn’t go far enough.

Wilson’s proposals were heartily applauded by about 40 members of Mad About Rising Crime, a nonprofit group founded by Lin and Clark Squires, a Northridge couple whose 15-year-old son Marc was killed in 1990 in a dispute with another teen-ager over an electronic beeper.

While Wilson said he is optimistic that a bipartisan approach can be mapped out to strengthen the state’s anti-crime laws, the governor also made it clear that the obstacle in the past to tougher laws has been the Legislature--and most specifically the state Assembly Public Safety Committee.

That committee has often had enough liberal Democrats on it to stymie the toughest GOP-sponsored bills.

But Wilson steered a milder course Wednesday than he has in the past and did not specifically blame Democrats in the Legislature. “You did not hear me engage in finger-pointing,” he said.

Still, the governor made it clear where he thought the problem was located. Talking to the crime victim families before the news conference, Wilson urged them to help him get anti-crime proposals out of committee and onto the floor of the state Senate and Assembly for an “up or down vote where the legislators can be held accountable.”

Also joining Wilson at the news conference were Charlotte Austin, a South-Central mother whose 13-year-old daughter was killed in a hail of gunfire five years ago when she was mistaken for someone else by drug dealers; the mother of John Michael Holden, a 19-year-old killed during a Porter Ranch pizza store robbery; and the family of Soo Won Chough, 52, of Anaheim, who was killed in Koreatown last month.