MANY FACTORS LEAD TO REDUCED CRIME RATE

U.S. Attorney Leonardo Rapadas, in the Aug. 7 Pacific Daily News,
essentially claimed that the system of mandatory minimum sentences was the
cause of the reduced crime rate, a questionable claim at best.

As a possible defense of Rapadas' position, one probable cause for the
reduction of crime in the 1990s was the increased number in prison. Long
sentences are a deterrent and keep criminals off the street. Sentencing is
often arbitrary and not proportional to the offense. Mandatory sentencing
moves the discretion from the judge who sentences to the prosecutor who
chooses the charge. The judge's concern may be in line with justice; the
prosecutor's concern will be with getting convictions, not with justice.

There will always be a problem that the most sleazy, those who do not even
have loyalty to their gang, get the lowest sentences by turning state's
evidence.

The reduction of crack-cocaine use certainly played a role in the reduction
in murders and other violent crime during the '90s. The violence reduced,
however, was through reduced rivalry among the different crack
distributors. This suggests a non-law-enforcement means to deal with drug
addiction, such as providing maintenance doses to addicts at cost,
destroying the market for drug pushers.

Increases in the number of police played a role in reducing crime. Although
statistical evidence does not support that the emphasis on police-community
relations reduces crime, surely this does. As evidence, good
police-community relations increase the tips police receive and increases
crime reporting, particularly in poor and minority neighborhoods.

Fewer youth having been brought up or, perhaps more accurately, neglected
as unwanted children due to Roe v. Wade also appears to have played a role
in reducing the crime rate.

For those who wish to pursue this further, a readable article in the Winter
2004 issue of The Journal of Economic Perspectives is a place to begin.

Peter C. Mayer (Taituba), Mangilao