Crime Panel Warns of Over-Legislating

A task force chaired by former Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III says Congress is sometimes pushed to pass “misguided, unnecessary and harmful” anti-crime laws out of fear of being considered soft on crime if it fails to act. The panel calls on Congress to resist its political impulse, noting that more than 40% of all federal criminal laws enacted since the Civil War were passed since 1970. Sponsored by the American Bar Assn., the results of the panel’s two-year study--”The Federalization of Criminal Law”--will be made public today. “There is understandable pressure on Congress not to vote against crime legislation even if it is misguided, unnecessary and harmful,” the report’s executive summary states, adding, “Increased federalization is rarely, if ever, likely to have any appreciable effect on the categories of violent crime that most concern Americans.”