The Federal Role in Dealing with Violent Street Crime: Principles, Questions, and Cautions

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

Volumn 543, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 103-115

  Heymann, Philip B ^a   Moore, Mark H ^b  

^a HARVARD LAW SCHOOL   (United States)

^b HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0030543203     PISSN: 00027162     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0002716296543001010     Document Type: Article

References (10)

1. Kathleen F. Brickey, “The Commerce Clause and Federalized Crime: A Tale of Two Thieves,” this issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science; idem, “Criminal Mischief: The Federalization of American Criminal Law,” Hastings Law Journal, 46(4):1135-1174 (Apr. 1995).
2. Brickey, “Criminal Mischief,” pp. 1138-1139.
3. Mark H. Moore, “Criminogenic Commodities,” in Crime and Public Policy, ed. James Q. Wilson (San Francisco: ICS, 1983), pp. 125-144.
4. Albert J. Reiss, Jr. and Jeffrey A. Roth, eds., Understanding and Preventing Violence (Washington, DC: NAS Press, 1993), pp. 51, 64.
5. For an excellent analysis of LEAA, see Malcolm M. Feely and Austin D. Scott, The Policy Dilemma: Federal Crime Policy and the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, 1968-78 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980).
6. Attorney General's Task Force on Violent Crime: Final Report (Washington, DC: Department of Justice, 1981).
7. Criminal Justice Newsletter, 1 Dec. 1994, pp. 5-6.
8. H.R. 3, 104th Cong., 1st sess. (1995).
9. See generally Kevin R. Reitz, “The Federal Role in Sentencing Law and Policy,” this issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
10. Under the House bill (H.R. 3), State A, which has always imprisoned violent people for just as long as most other states do and which insists on following its own substantial periods of incarceration with a long period during which the individual can be reincarcerated if he does anything further to show that he is a danger (parole or supervised release), will get nothing. State B, which has maintained but not increased a very long determinate sentence law for a number of years, is ineligible for 50 percent of the 10.5 billion made available for prisons. A third state, C, which has increased its sentence for repeated armed robbery from a foolishly short two years to three years but requires the individual to serve 85 percent of the 36 months in prison (a period far shorter than he would be incarcerated in A or B), receives the federal government's blessing and funding. This is simply absurd.