Senate Democrats Target Gangs in Anti-Crime Plan

WASHINGTON —  Following President Clinton’s recent call for legislation to fight youth violence and crime by gangs, Senate Democrats announced a multibillion-dollar program Wednesday that would increase federal penalties for gang activities, lengthen jail sentences for juveniles and toughen the law against witness harassment.

Although Justice Department officials and the senators expressed optimism that Congress would approve the proposal, Republican leaders were noncommittal, saying they are still drafting their own anti-crime proposals and most likely will not unveil them until later this month.

Similar legislation pushed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) died in the final days of the GOP-led Congress last year.

The issue of crime control, normally a common ground of interest for both parties, has become a hot partisan topic because both sides are vying to take credit for the sudden decline in some crime statistics across the country.

From a political vantage point, neither party wants to be seen as any less aggressive than the other in pushing a law-and-order agenda. This appears particularly true now as law enforcement officials prepare to target a sharp increase in the number of juvenile offenders at a time when adult crime rates appear to be going down.

“We Democrats believe that this is essentially our national defense,” said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.). “This is what people care about the most.”

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, greeted the Democratic plan with some words of encouragement. “There appears to be areas for bipartisan cooperation,” he said.

But, he said, “the devil, of course, is usually in the details.” And he contended that the Democrats often “lack” serious resolve to fight crime.

Thus, it remained unclear whether the two parties will coalesce around an anti-crime bill or whether there is to be a return of last year’s infighting over Feinstein’s anti-gang initiative and other anti-crime measures.

Feinstein’s measure did not get as far as a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, even though Hatch became a co-sponsor.

The Democrats’ $13-billion bill announced Wednesday includes several anti-gang measures.

It would crack down on gang paraphernalia by increasing the penalties for crimes in which offenders wear protective body armor or use “laser-sighting” devices.

A new federal statute would be created that targets the spread of interstate “franchises” of local gangs, as has been seen in the movement of some large gangs from Southern California to other parts of the country.

Penalties for harming or threatening to hurt witnesses would be doubled, a key component of the anti-gang effort that Clinton called for in his weekly radio address last Saturday.

There also would be enhanced penalties for gang members who use firearms in violent crimes or drug-trafficking offenses.

And the bill calls for steps to reform the juvenile-justice system, including streamlining the process for prosecuting young offenders as adults. In addition, juveniles could be confined until they are 26, as opposed to the current mandatory release age of 21.

In areas other than juvenile and gang crimes, the Democrats are calling for an extension of the popular COPS program, in which the federal government is sponsoring an effort through the year 2000 to add 100,000 new police officers to the nation’s streets.

That program will reach its halfway point this year. The Democrats would like to extend it another two years and add an additional 25,000 officers.