American Notes Crime Fighting

After three weeks of public posturing and back-room bargaining, the Senate last week approved a sprawling $3.3 billion anticrime bill, 71 to 26. The bill includes enough compromises to allow both sides to claim victory and store up ammunition for next year's inevitable election battle over which party is toughest on crime. By piling on amendments, Senators managed to touch most political bases: they stiffened penalties for crimes against the elderly, outlawed marijuana-seed advertising and allocated $2 million a year for a study of racism in the criminal-justice system.

At the heart of the bill is a trade-off between advocates of stricter gun control and proponents of broader use of capital punishment. The bill requires a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases, establishes annual allocations of $100 million for a computerized background check and bans nine kinds of semiautomatic weapons. But it also extends the federal death penalty to 51 crimes, including drive-by shootings, torture, hostage taking and racketeering.

The measure would require drug testing for federal prisoners eligible for parole and severely curtail the ability of state prisoners, including death- row inmates, to challenge their conviction in federal habeas corpus proceedings. While a similar anticrime package died in House-Senate negotiations last year, Delaware Democrat Joseph Biden, the measure's chief sponsor, predicted that this bill would prove more palatable.