NONFICTION - May 21, 1995

CRIME AND THE POLITICS OF HYSTERIA: How the Willie Horton Story Changed American Justice by David C. Anderson (Times Books: $25; 288 pp.). In 1991, when a communications professor asked a group of Louisiana voters about the 1988 presidential campaign, participants remembered that Michael Dukakis’ loss had something to do with his being soft on crime. One voter came up with the expected name, Willie Horton--adding that the Massachusetts governor had “pardoned that guy that went out and killed someone.” In retrospect, at least, that summary is predictable, for in the Television Age it’s no surprise that the Republican campaign’s image of William Horton--the convicted first-degree killer on the streets due to a weekend-furlough escape, not pardon, and who went on to rob and rape, not kill--should have a much longer life than the truth.

Given the title, you might think “Crime and the Politics of Hysteria” is a negative analysis of the Bush campaign, but in fact it’s a balanced book, focusing much more on crime than politics. David C. Anderson, formerly an editor of criminal justice publications and editorial writer for the New York Times, does criticize the Horton advertisements, and does defend furlough programs (by “easing culture shock,” he says, the ordinary furlough program “surely prevents hundreds more crimes than those committed by furlough escapees”), yet he also gives the victim’s side its due. Horton was in theory serving a life-without-parole term for a fatal 1974 stabbing--commentators usually presumed that Horton, rather than his two accomplishes, did the killing, but that was never established in court--when he committed the furlough rape in 1987, and you can imagine the various victims’ reaction when they learned from Massachusetts officials that most lifers leave prison after 17 years or so. They were furious at Dukakis--as were millions of others, even though statistics confirm furlough programs do indeed reduce crime, even though the Massachusetts system was not particularly liberal.

Anderson doesn’t stress the point, but much of the real anger over the Horton case, and Dukakis’ belated contrition about it, seems to derive from apparent government duplicity--that officials knew, and kept from the public, that “life without parole” in reality meant something quite different. Readers who believe that the Horton case was cynically used for political ends won’t have their minds changed by this book, but they may learn why emotions can trump facts.