Pubdate: Thu, 01 Jun 2000
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2000 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  PO Box 120191, San Diego, CA, 92112-0191
Fax: (619) 293-1440
Website: http://www.uniontrib.com/
Forum: http://www.uniontrib.com/cgi-bin/WebX
Author: Michael Hedges, Scripps Howard News Service

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."
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