Politics/Making Crime Pay
Norquist, Grover G.
F or half a century, the views of candidates on Soviet Communism were paramount. Cuban-Americans would not even listen to a candidate's position on health care if they thought he viewed Castro as a...
...If, the Republicans decide to be as serious, determined, and unapologetic about locking up criminals as they were about destroying the evil empire, the streets of America can be liberated and those who have built and defended the present unacceptable and dysfunctional judicial system at the state and federal level can be swept into the dustbin of history...
...And just as abortion, special privileges for homosexuals, and prayer in school allow Republican candidates to reach deep into the New Deal coalition, crime speaks to many traditional Democrats who find no modern Democratic leaders willing to take criminals off the streets...
...CrimeStrike, affiliated with the National Rifle Association, is working with hundreds of state and local groups to enact victims' rights constitutional amendments and tougher sentencing laws...
...Thirty percent of all murders, 25 percent of all rapes and 40 percent of all robberies are committed by persons on bail, probation, or parole...
...It has already had great success in enacting legislation and in using the press to highlight efforts to release career criminals prematurely...
...If you are unlucky enough to be one of the 7 percent arrested, relax...
...Mike Dukakis's letting murderers sentenced to life in prison out for weekend furloughs was a very real, fair, and telling issue...
...Just as the hard left hobbled efforts within the Democratic Party to take a sensible view of the Soviet threat, so does the criminal rights lobby make it impossible for the national Democratic Party to take a sensible stand on stiff sentencing and more prisons...
...The left could not appeal to refugees from Communism's advance in Asia, Latin America, and Europe because the American liberal's faith in the good intentions of socialism and antipathy to American strength horrified voters...
...With the implosion of the Soviet empire, the greatest threat to American life is the American criminal...
...A Rand Corporation study of 2,190 professional criminals found that the average career criminal commits 187-287 crimes a year...
...Crime is also an issue that concerns women sufficiently to make them the fastest-growing market for new gun sales...
...It is indicative that Janet Reno, Clinton's new attorney general, has been more articulate in defining the rights of criminals than in defending the legitimate rights of crime victims and the community at large...
...Then only 25 percent of those convicted actually go to prison...
...For every crime, the expected punishment has declined over the decades and continued to decline between 1988 and 1990...
...George Bush's loss in 1992 was thus due to more than his betrayal of taxpayers with the 1990 tax increases and the regulatory explosion born of the Clean Air Act revisions and the Americans with Disabilities Act...
...The financial reports from the Clinton campaign contain pages of contributions from defense lawyers and trial lawyers...
...Second, conservatives must call the bluff of the left, which tries to avoid discussing the victims of crime by labeling all focus on crime "racist...
...She seemed to have it backwards in her confirmation hearings when she testified that she wants to make sure "that all America understands that victims have rights, too...
...A National Institute of Justice study found that 56 percent of criminals would not attack someone they thought was armed...
...Cities that have publicly trained and armed women have seen rapes decrease...
...in Colorado, 82 percent...
...The left was unwilling to recognize evil where it reared its head, and could not even ape Republicans when they simply voiced the legitimate fears and enunciated the resolve of ordinary Americans...
...The widespread ownership of guns is not only not a problem but in fact a large part of the solution to crime...
...Former Attorney General William Barr points out that more than 6,500 murders are committed each year by criminals on bail, probation, or parole...
...The left wishes to discuss guns because they do not wish to discuss crime...
...Thus society is $405,000 better off for every career criminal kept behind bars an additional year...
...First, crime is a real issue, not a symbolic one...
...Sadly, every state has several William Horton stories of those released too soon who kill and rape again...
...Second, it is an issue on which the Democratic Party is institutionally incapable of following—or even mimicking—the opinions of the American public...
...Conservatives must avoid suggesting that gun control might be even one percent of any anti-crime initiatives, for the left will then insist on gun control first...
...Last November 3, five states passed constitutional amendments that empower victims of crimes to be heard at various stages in criminal justice proceedings...
...Just as Polish-Americans and Cuban-Americans had first-hand knowledge of Soviet imperialism that made liberal platitudes about negotiations and peace talks ring hollow, so too have millions of Americans come to know that our present judicial system serves lawyers, bureaucrats, and criminals rather than the victims and their families...
...Clinton's corporate statism might cost the U.S...
...early release...
...Fifth, the conservative solution to crime—putting violent offenders in prison for longer periods of time—works, is cost effective, and is easily understood by anyone who hasn't graduated from Yale Law School...
...Crime allows Republicans to speak directly to the real experiences and needs of black Americans in cities where Democrats refuse to protect their lives and property...
...Today, for a burglary, for example, the chance of arrest is 7 percent...
...Just as liberals sought to focus not on Russian Communism but on negotiations over the number of missiles we had, today they argue that the problem in America is not criminals but guns...
...The Rand study calculated the total costs to society at $430,000 a year for every career criminal left on the street...
...T here remain two opportunities to fail...
...The power of the crime issue was demonstrated by the overwhelming popular support for ratification: in Kansas, the amendment won 84 percent...
...in Illinois, 77 percent...
...Meanwhile, 530,000 were on parole and 2.7 million on probation-3.2 million criminals walking the streets...
...State legislators can be targeted for support or defeat based on pre-incarceration laws...
...The Safe Streets Alliance, meanwhile, was founded by Jim Wooten to enact truth-in-sentencing laws...
...But as the worldwide struggle against Soviet imperialism faded, another issue began to emerge that might well replace it in the conservative arsenal: crime...
...In December 1991, there were 823,414 convicts in state and federal prisons, and another 422,000 in local jails...
...Of those, only 79 percent are convicted...
...Every year nearly 5 million people are victims of violent crime: murder, rape, robbery, or assault...
...Third, the crime issue gives the Republican Party a tremendous opportunity to reach out to minority communities that have traditionally voted Democratic...
...It was also due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, which made a vote for Bill Clinton less dangerous...
...Since World War II, more people have died at the hands of criminals who should havealready been in jail than died in Vietnam and Korea...
...in New Mexico, 68 percent...
...Multiplying out all these probabilities gives your would-be burglar a 1.2 percent chance of going to jail...
...Similar calculations yield an expected punishment in 1990 of 1.8 years for murder, 60.5 days for rape, and 6.7 days for arson...
...It affects millions of Americans...
...Cuban-Americans would not even listen to a candidate's position on health care if they thought he viewed Castro as a misunderstood progressive...
...a few points in economic growth, but he couldn't lose Europe or Latin America the way Carter, Mondale, or Dukakis might have...
...The Safe Streets Alliance model sentencing act reads: "Notwithstanding any other provision in state law a convicted felon shall serve at least 85 percent of the sentence imposed by the judge or jury, which shall hear from the defendant's victim(s) on the issue of sentencing before being eligible for...
...and in Missouri, 85 percent...
...Republicans can take advantage of national organizations that already exist...
...California increased its prison population 314 percent between 1980 and 1991, and the crime rate fell by 13 percent...
...39 percent of the felons had actually decided not to commit a crime because they thought the victim might be armed...
...The Bush campaign fatally hurt itself in 1992 by not responding quickly to charges arising from the William Horton ads in 1988...
...Fourth, the crime issue will increase in importance for Republicans in the next four years because it will be fought out largely in the states, where Clinton has no veto...
...Today, criminals serve an average of 27 percent of the sentences imposed on them...
...Victories can be won through the initiative process in the twenty-three states with initiative and referendum laws...
...Reynoldspoints out that "once in prison, a burglar will stay there for about 13 months, but since more than 98 percent of burglaries never result in a prison sentence, the average sentence for each act of burglary is only 4.8 days...
...First, Republicans cannot afford to follow the illusory path of gun control...
...Several studies have confirmed that more than 600,000 Americans each year deter a criminal by brandishing or using a firearm...
...Polish-Americans would write off candidates who did not consider Soviet occupation of their ancestral lands an American concern...
...When punishments rise, crime falls...
...Black Americans are disproportionately victims of violent and property crimes, and they cannot look to Democrats or the traditional black leadership for a serious attack on crime and criminals...
...A part from confounding liberals who hope conservatives have lost their anti-Communist trump card, the crime issue offers five important opportunities to the conservative movement and to a Republican Party smart enough to act quickly...
...Arresting, convicting, and incarcerating criminals is a real women's issue...
...Gun-control-too means gun-control-only...
...In a report released by the National Center for Policy Analysis, Texas A&M economist Morgan Reynolds points out that crime has increased as the expected costs of committing crimes has fallen...
...His "loathing" of the American military, his demonstrating against America's defense of South Vietnam (but not the aggression of the Communists), his dissembling to avoid the draft, and his lack of gravitas in world affairs would have made Mike Dukakis astride his tank look like General Patton...
...only 87 percent of arrestees are prosecuted...
...A National Institute for Justice study found that putting a criminal in prison for one year costs roughly $25,000...
...In 1990, Oregon passed, with 74 percent support, an anti-crime initiative led by former Congressman Denny Smith that would require a criminal convicted of a second violent offense to serve the entire sentence—no parole, no probation...
...Richard Darman said "some" taxes might be acceptable and ended up with a package that contained many tax hikes and increased spending and deficits...
...It is difficult to imagine a Bill Clinton winning the presidency in any year before 1992...
...Another 19 million are victims of property crimes: arson, burglary, or theft...
Vol. 26 • May 1993 • No. 5
