Pending Crime Bill

Your otherwise outstanding editorial, “One Vote the State Desperately Needs” (Aug. 9), outlining the benefits in the pending anti-crime bill, unfortunately failed to report on one of the provisions that will be of the greatest advantage to California--$1.8 billion to reimburse states for the cost of imprisoning criminal illegal aliens. This provision, based on an amendment I offered to the crime bill with Reps. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City) and Gary Condit (D-Ceres), assures that at least $1.8 billion over the next six years from the Crime Control Trust Fund will be provided to states and local governments to help with the cost of imprisoning criminal illegals. It will save California taxpayers close to three-quarters of a billion dollars over the next six years.

This important crime bill, in addition to the strong punishment and prevention provisions to combat crime, represents a major step forward in the fight against illegal immigration. Along with the federal payment to states for imprisoning undocumented criminal aliens, the bill provides $1 billion for the Border Patrol to hire 1,000 new officers and improve its equipment, increases penalties for abuse of the asylum laws, and expands criminal alien detention centers.

REP. ANTHONY C. BEILENSON

D-Woodland Hills

Lost amid all the rhetoric and hand-wringing over the Clinton Administration’s so-called crime bill is that it will undo a key provision of the Reagan Administration’s efforts in the quest to reduce drug abuse.

As it is currently written, this bill would allow for the immediate release of thousands of convicted drug dealers by repealing existing minimum mandatory sentence provisions. Those provisions serve as a powerful incentive against drug dealing, as well as a tool for prosecutors to gain convictions against the drug lords who have wreaked havoc in many of our neighborhoods. The legislation is a result of intense lobbying by criminal defense attorneys and soft-on-crime critics of mandatory sentencing.

MICHAEL D. ANTONOVICH

Supervisor, Los Angeles County

On Aug. 11, I voted against a rule to allow consideration of the pending crime bill. Although there were provisions in the bill which I strongly supported--monies for community policing and prevention programs, an assault weapons ban and drug treatment--there were other parts of the bill I found objectionable. Most objectionable to me was the expansion of the death penalty to cover 60 new federal crimes.

I am opposed to the death penalty on moral grounds. There are, however, plenty of reasons to reject capital punishment as public policy. The death penalty is disproportionately imposed on the basis of race. Forty percent of prisoners on death rows across the U.S. are black. Eighty-four percent of the prisoners executed since 1977 were convicted of murdering white victims, despite the fact that blacks and whites are homicide victims in roughly equal numbers. Discretion by prosecutors in deciding when to seek the death penalty can mean unequal outcomes for the same crime in jurisdictions with longstanding histories of racial discrimination. Under the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, aimed at drug kingpins, 75% of those convicted have been white but 78% of death penalty prosecutions under the act have involved blacks.

The death penalty is justifiable neither on moral grounds nor on grounds of efficacy in the fight against crime. It is, however, a convenient tool for some to pretend they are doing something about crime in the streets without really doing much at all. I look forward to voting “aye” on a bill that attacks the root causes of crime and assures us of safe streets without expanding the opportunity of the state to put more people to death.

REP. MAXINE WATERS

D-Los Angeles