MANDATORY MINIMUMS DIDN'T CAUSE CRIME DROP

Leonardo Rapadas' Aug. 7 opinion piece, "Mandatory minimum sentences keep
streets safe," has no scientific basis. Richard Rosenfeld, writing in the
Feb. 2004 Scientific American, says that tough sentencing is only one of
many contributing causes, and that mandatory minimum sentences may actually
do more harm than good in the long run because they "deplete the social
capital of those communities hardest hit by both crime and imprisonment."

His article is "The case of the unsolved crime decline." He agrees that
serious violent and property crime rates tumbled by more than 40 percent in
the 1990s, but he does not assign credit to one cause. Serious examination
requires that the data be broken out by city size, year of crime, policing
practices, sentencing policy and race/age/gender of perpetrator and victim,
etc.

Possible explanations for reduced youth crime appears to be the shrinking
demand for crack in the 1990s, as addicts either quit or died and young
users opted for marijuana. The best single explanation for reduced adult
crime appears to be the expansion of domestic violence resources, such hot
lines, shelters and judicial protection orders.

The crime reduction seen as the 1990s unrolled probably had several
overlapping causes, but is unlikely that mandatory sentencing was one of them.

Rosenfeld is professor in and chair of the department of criminology and
criminal justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

John Chase

Palm Harbor, Fla.