Ex-Justice Official Assails Senate’s Hard-Line Crime Bill : Legislation: The department’s former No. 2 man takes aim at many of the get-tough proposals as wasteful, ill-conceived and doomed to failure.

The former No. 2 official at the Justice Department on Tuesday condemned many hard-line provisions of the Senate crime bill as exceedingly wasteful and doomed to failure. “Politics have overwhelmed reason,” Philip B. Heymann, who left office Monday as deputy attorney general, said in remarks unusually abrupt for a recently departed high Administration official.

“Somebody has to be frank about this,” Heymann said. “Somebody has to talk.”

Heymann, whose sharp criticism of the crime bill contrasts with some public statements coming from the White House, announced his resignation last month, citing differences of “chemistry” and “operational and management styles” between him and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno.

“It’s very hard to make truth or common sense or frankness work on this issue ever--let alone now,” said Heymann, who headed a criminal law center at Harvard University and ran the Justice Department’s criminal division during the Jimmy Carter Administration.

Public opinion polls have shown that crime and violence, driven by reports of sensational crimes, have supplanted the economy as the leading concern of Americans today.

Offering a briefcase bulging with studies and data to support his arguments, Heymann took aim at such highly popular provisions of the Senate crime bill as the three-strikes-and-you’re-out provision, which would sentence criminals to life without possibility of parole after their third violent offense, and the construction of regional federal prisons for violent offenders.

He also criticized provisions that would expand the use of mandatory minimum sentences and federalize many state and local crimes.

But in a meeting with reporters, Heymann declined to discuss what happened when he raised such arguments at the Justice Department or the White House before his resignation. In announcing his departure last month, Heymann said there were no “philosophical differences” between him and Reno and “no precipitating episode (or) disagreement on some particular matter.”

Heymann said Tuesday that he had told Reno, Acting Deputy Atty. Gen. Jo Ann Harris and Associate Atty. Gen. Webster Hubbell that he was going discuss his opposition to the crime bill and “none objected in any way.”

The three-strikes proposal, which has been embraced by President Clinton in concept, is so broad that it includes “everything in sight,” Heymann said.

For instance, he said, under the legislation a 25-year-old violator convicted of three armed robberies would have to serve 30 years more than the 25-year sentence he would otherwise likely receive. “Those last 30 years--from age 50 to 80--he would be very unlikely to commit a street robbery,” Heymann said. “We don’t have very many 50-year-old robbers.”

The cost of imprisoning the convict would be $20,000 to $30,000 a year for each of the 30 years, Heymann said, enough to cover the health care costs of 150 families for a single year.

Taking aim at the proposed expansion of mandatory minimum sentences, Heymann cited the findings of a Justice Department study of mandatory sentences given out under existing federal law. The study found that 21% of federal prisoners serving mandatory minimum terms had no prior violations and played no significant role in any drug organization, yet had drawn longer sentences than criminals who committed very violent acts.

“My point is that we are filling federal prisons with people who are not particularly dangerous,” said Heymann, who has noted that release of the study has been held up at the request of presidential counselor David Gergen.

Heymann also criticized provisions of the bill calling for construction of federal regional prisons to house state prisoners who commit violent offenses. Under the bill, taxpayers would pay $2.5 billion to build the 25,000 cells--a cost of $100,000 a cell.

The money would be spent, he said, even though half of the 800,000 to 900,000 prisoners now in state penitentiaries are serving time for nonviolent crimes.

On provisions of the bill that would turn state offenses into federal crimes, Heymann noted that the number of federal agents to investigate crimes is slightly declining--not increasing to handle a broader jurisdiction. “It sounds so terrific,” he said with obvious sarcasm.

Although Heymann refused to discuss how government officials dealt with his criticisms, he did say the Administration’s strategy had been to support the Senate and House leaders on an issue that mushroomed late last year. “What happened was that in many ways the issue overtook us,” he said.

Heymann repeatedly emphasized that he was not making light of the crime problem.

“I don’t think we have a bigger scandal than that. In many places, Americans can’t live without a grave risk of violence,” he said. The U.S. rate of violence is five to six times that of other Western countries, he noted.

As evidence of his own support for tough steps to counter violence, Heymann said he advocated keeping certain violent criminals behind bars until “they’re reasonably safe,” cracking down on guns on the street even if such efforts tread on privacy rights, and forfeiting the cars of young people found to contain guns.

Carl Stern, Reno’s chief spokesman, brushed aside the suggestion that Heymann’s comments revealed an Administration rift over the crime issue.

“There’s a lively discussion inside the (Justice) department, as there has been elsewhere as to the content” of the crime bill, Stern said. “The precise content is still being formulated. . . . We’re certainly discussing the kinds of concerns Phil has raised.”