Everyone Is Tough on Crime--But Avoids the Real Issues

The fact that crime is the No. 1 issue in American politics virtually guarantees nothing significant will be done to make the streets safer. The people are afraid of the criminals, and the politicians are afraid of the people. So the politicians will vie to talk toughest, good slogans will take the place of good policy and bad ideas will be enacted into law. The politics of crime leaves no room for a real discussion of policy, particularly when so few leaders have the guts to be honest about crime.

Fear of crime is real and growing. It is fueled not only by local TV stations in search of ratings, and local politicians in search of reelection, but also by the realities of daily life. While it is true, as criminologists point out, that the overall crime rate decreased last year, the level of violence is increasing. A decade ago, burglars who broke into your home just wanted your silver and TV; today, they’re armed, and don’t give a damn about killing you. The fear of crime is with us wherever we go.

It is also true that the system is failing in fundamental respects. In California, killers, on average, serve fewer than eight years in prison--higher than in many states. But the criminal-justice system is a revolving door--with too few criminals caught in the first instance, too few of them prosecuted and convicted, and too few sentenced to real punishment.

But “three strikes and you’re out”--this year’s answer to the crime problem--won’t solve this. Neither will the death penalty, or boot camps for first offenders, or massive prison construction--other answers being offered by politicians.

The political debate on crime is not about cutting crime: It’s about politics. And most politicians are convinced the public isn’t capable of understanding that slogans aren’t solutions, let alone that prevention is ultimately more important than punishment. So politicians give us what they think we want--tough talk--leaving no room for discussions about policy that we so desperately need.

The popularity of the “three strikes” idea tells as much about what’s wrong with the political system as it does about the failings of the criminal-justice system. Violent criminals should do hard time--and we shouldn’t have to wait until their third conviction for real punishment. Locking up 20-year-old robbers makes sense; but keeping them there when they’re 50, and their criminal careers long over, won’t make streets safer. Besides, some “three strikes” proposals are so badly drafted that you could be sentenced to life for bouncing checks.

People can be excused for their embrace of “three strikes and you’re out”: It’s a bad idea whose time has come, the outgrowth of legitimate frustration about a system that doesn’t work and a society that is increasingly violent. The politicians, who know better and bear some of the responsibility, should be ashamed of themselves. But they’re not.

Last week, with great fanfare, Vice President Al Gore introduced the Administration’s version of “three strikes,” saying that it would make a “huge dent” in crime. A “huge dent?” The Administration’s figures suggest the proposal would apply to, at most, 200 to 300 offenders--hardly a “huge dent” in the crime rate of any large city, let alone the country.

Meanwhile, in Sacramento, politicians from both sides of the aisle are trampling each other in their rush to support any number of versions of a state “three strikes” measure--notwithstanding a Department of Corrections report forecasting costs of $21 billion in prison construction and $5.7 billion annually to run the new prisons.

But “three strikes” isn’t really about controlling crime, at least in the political context. It’s about values and toughness--and getting elected. The President’s pollster admitted as much last month, describing it as a question of values. Like the death penalty and Willie Horton, “three strikes” is a measure of how tough you are. And no Democrat running for any major office, or trying to hold onto one, wants to fail the toughness test.

But when do we get to talk about controlling crime? The best reason to be for the death penalty is because some people deserve it--not because it will stop random murders. The Willie Hortons of the world shouldn’t be furloughed, but that won’t cut crime significantly, either. When do we get to move beyond good politics, to even talking about what might be good policy?

The day after he announced his resignation as deputy attorney general, Philip B. Heymann, a distinguished criminal-law professor and former head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said many of the toughest provisions of the crime bill making its way through Congress are wasteful and doomed to failure. “Politics,” he said, “have overwhelmed reason.”

Heymann pointed out that few 50-year-olds commit street robberies, that federal prisons are filled with people who are not dangerous and that half the prisoners now overcrowding state penitentiaries are serving time for nonviolent crimes. All true--but what’s most significant is that it was only as the former deputy attorney general that Heymann felt free to say this. Meanwhile, the tough-on-crime bill will surely be passed with the Administration’s support.

It’s easy to stand up and say you’re for tougher sentences. Just watch the politicians in Sacramento and Washington. It takes guts to admit that if we’re going to increase sentences for violent offenders--as we should--without closing down the schools to support the prisons, then we need to reduce the sentences for some nonviolent offenders, even re-examine how we deal with some drug offenses.

When M. Joycelyn Elders, the surgeon general, said we should study the potential impact of decriminalizing some drug offenses, the Administration nixed the idea: It was inconsistent with its “tough” anti-crime position. It was bad politics. But it might be good policy. In this climate, we’ll never know.

In the mid-1980s, California prisons were so overcrowded that the prospect of court-ordered releases was a real one. It might have been an opportunity for the Legislature--and the people of this state--to engage in a debate about priorities: about who should be locked up longer, and who let out sooner. But that would be politically dangerous.

Instead, the Legislature took the easy tack. They increased the potential “good time” credit a prisoner could earn from one-third to one-half of his sentence. In effect, they offered every prisoner--regardless of the crime committed--the opportunity to cut his sentence in half. One who took advantage of this was Richard Allen Harris, who’d been sentenced to 16 years for kidnaping and robbery. He served eight. He was released in June, 1993. Four months later, he allegedly kidnaped and killed Polly Klaas. Today, he is the poster boy for the “three strikes” initiative.

It takes even more guts to admit that all the prisons in the world won’t solve the crime problem. In the last two decades, California increased its prison population by 100,000--but no one feels safer. Boot camps don’t turn offenders into honest citizens. Simply adding more police doesn’t work, either. The criminal-justice system, operating efficiently, couldn’t begin to address the enormity of the problem. It’s not fashionable these days to talk about the roots of crime--about drugs and poverty and unemployment, about children having children and fathers not taking responsibility.

It sounds soft when everyone in politics is so desperate to sound tough. But if “three strikes” and the death penalty and more prisons are our only answers--as they are in this election year--then for every violent 17-year-old we lock up, there’ll be another ready to take his place. It is a sad commentary on our politics, on the timidity of our leaders and their lack of faith in the public that we might do better in dealing with the crime problem if people didn’t care so much about it.