FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT PICKS UP THE PACE

Increases Cited In Number Of Arrests And Convictions

The first comprehensive gathering of federal arrest figures portrays a
growing federal law-enforcement presence in the United States, with
increases in the numbers of federal agents, prosecutions and convictions.

Fueled by an expanding war on drugs and greater efforts to curtail illegal
immigration, the number of federal criminal court cases rose nearly 13
percent between 1997 and 1998, part of an expansion of federal police power
that concerns critics.

Federal agents arrested 106,139 people in 1998, according to Justice
Department statistics.

Almost half of those apprehensions were for drug law or immigration
violations. More than 43,000 people were sent to federal prisons that year,
for an average sentence of almost five years.

The figures were released yesterday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics as
part of the first comprehensive compilation of federal arrest information,
according to Bureau director Jan Chaiken.

There were 83,000 federal law-enforcement officers in 1998, including
33,000 in four Justice Department agencies that conduct nearly three out of
four federal criminal investigations: the FBI, the Drug Enforcement
Administration, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S.
Marshals Service.

That number has risen steadily since 1993, when there were 69,000 federal
agents, with about 24,000 of them in the DEA, FBI and immigration and
marshals services.

In one year, from 1997 to 1998, the number of people brought to trial in
federal court rose from 69,351 to 78,172, a 12.7 percent increase.

Of those, 87 percent were convicted, usually as a result of a guilty plea.

The past decade has seen a steady rise in the percentage of those convicted
in federal court who go to prison. In 1998, 71 percent of those found
guilty were incarcerated, compared to just 60 percent in 1990.

The average sentence for the 43,041 convicted in federal court was four
years, eleven months.

Some analysts and legal experts see in the statistics a confirmation of the
"federalization" of law enforcement in America.

"Under our constitutional system, the federal government is supposed to
have a very limited crime-fighting role," said Tim Lynch, an analyst with
the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington. "But for the
past 20 years, it seems every session of Congress has escalated the drug
war, and that has led to an increase in federal agents, and federal prisons
and the federal court system."

Edward Mallett, a Houston lawyer and the incoming president of the National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said, "What is being reported here
is pretty much what one would expect. . . . The federalization of some
formerly state offenses accounts for some of this."

Mallett said that in Texas, as the number of federal law-enforcement agents
involved in anti-drug and anti-immigration activities has grown, the
threshold for triggering a federal crime has fallen.

"Cases federal prosecutors would have declined a year ago they are
prosecuting now," he said. "They used to turn down drug prosecutions under
five kilos; now they'll prosecute for an ounce and a half. They're looking
for work."

Since 1990, the number of people being held in federal jails awaiting trial
or deportation has grown rapidly from just more than 140,000 to more than
200,000. The number of inmates in federal prison is up more than 90 percent
for the same period, from 57,000 to 109,000.

One striking figure in the report, according to legal experts, is the high
number of guilty pleas -- more than eight out of 10 -- among people
prosecuted by federal attorneys.

Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney in Washington, said mandatory
minimum prison sentences passed by Congress several years ago have changed
the dynamic of federal prosecutions.

Most defendants in a federal prosecution try to aggressively challenge an
indictment, but once charged they immediately plea-bargain rather than risk
stiff sentences, diGenova said.

Lynch, the Cato Institute analyst, said the growing number of federal
prosecutions in America, "represents a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is the
success of a bureaucracy. As you federalize more crimes and expand federal
law, you increase the number of arrests and convictions."