CRACKDOWN ON DRUG KINGPINS NOW LAW

JACKSON, Miss. - Gov. Haley Barbour has signed the Al Capone bill,
giving authorities a new tool to nab big-time drug dealers.

Starting July 1, prosecutors can use tax-evasion laws to build cases
against drug kingpins - just as federal prosecutors did decades ago
against gangster Capone.

The bill was sponsored by Rep. Cecil Brown, D-Jackson, a certified
public accountant.

"It took a CPA over here to figure out an angle to fight the top-level
drug dealers," Atty. Gen. Jim Hood said Tuesday.

Hood says he plans to work with the Tax Commission and the Bureau of
Narcotics to go after people believed to be financing the illegal drug
trade in Mississippi.

Republican Barbour and Democrat Hood spoke Tuesday at a crime victims
rally at the Capitol.

Barbour announced that a state crime victims compensation fund is
being moved to the attorney general's office. The fund has been
administered by the state Department of Finance and
Administration.

Hood said he was going to establish a separate victims advocacy group
in his office, but he didn't want to duplicate efforts. Barbour, who
appoints the DFA director, said he was happy to move the victims fund
to the attorney general's office.

Hood presented a survivors advocate award to Carolyn Clayton of
Tupelo, whose daughter was slain in 1986. Clayton founded and for 12
years ran Survivors Inc., a private group that helps relatives of
crime victims as cases work through the court system.

Barbour said he wants to reduce the number of serious crimes over the
next 3 1/2 years.