More Good in It Than Bad

If the federal anti-crime bill gets shot down, it would be a shame for everybody, especially Los Angeles.

The mammoth legislation is far from perfect; there is, inevitably, funding for unnecessary commissions and studies. But taken as a whole, it is the closest thing to an urban aid bill around. It promises $30-billion worth of new cops, prisons and prevention programs to fight gangs, treat drug addicts and get poor kids off the streets.

And few are objecting to new federal funds for substantial new prison construction, to help pay for the incarceration of illegal immigrants who have been convicted of felonies or for boot camps for young offenders.

But the House-Senate conference committee needs to work its way past two big problems. Because of the regrettable, unnecessary and pointless expansion of the death penalty to 63 federal offenses, many had wanted to the bill to include the racial justice act, which would allow minorities to make Death Row appeals based on a pattern of discrimination in capital punishment. That’s reasonable, given the documentation of bias in the application of the death penalty; but it’s going nowhere. It now looks as if it will be dropped.

The bill offers 100,000 additional police officers. Although no formula has been devised to determine how many will be assigned where, big cities like Los Angeles can expect a fair share.

The Police Corps will also promote public safety by rewarding bright young Americans who commit to four years of law enforcement in return for scholarships. Modeled after ROTC, this new program also belongs in the final bill.

The bill also has money to benefit after-school programs, midnight basketball leagues and anti-gang efforts like Los Angeles’ valuable new Hope in Youth program. It also helps fund drug courts and treatment for nonviolent offenders, domestic-abuse programs and shelters for battered women. Such elements add balance to a bill otherwise long on punishment.

These and similar programs would probably not otherwise attract sufficient political support in Washington these days were they housed in anything other than an anti-crime bill.