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Ashcroft stresses enforcement of gun laws
By DAVID GOLDSTEIN and SCOTT CANON - The Kansas City Star
Date: 02/06/01 22:15
John Ashcroft
WASHINGTON -- In one of his first initiatives as attorney general, John Ashcroft plans to intensify the enforcement of federal gun laws as a way to reduce crime and get guns off the streets.
Ashcroft, who has long opposed attempts to legislate gun control, hopes to pattern his new effort after a widely praised program in Richmond, Va., that has been credited with reducing that city's violence and proliferation of illegal guns.
Known as "Project Exile," the program requires the local U.S. attorney's office to prosecute all gun violations that meet the minimum level needed for federal involvement.
"That is an idea that we are aggressively going to push," said David Israelite, Ashcroft's deputy chief of staff. "It is a national program of providing the resources and guidance necessary to really crack down on gun crimes. I think it will be one of the top priorities of his administration."
Ashcroft is expected to announce the broad outlines of the plan in an interview tonight with Larry King.
"The details will come later," Israelite said.
Ashcroft, a staunch conservative, became attorney general last Thursday after a bruising confirmation fight. In selecting guns as one of his first public-policy actions, he has chosen an issue that bitterly divides Congress and the country.
But he may have found a middle ground by taking as his model Project Exile, which has gotten support from both the National Rifle Association, which opposes gun restrictions, and Handgun Control, which favors more gun legislation.
Project Exile began in 1997 after Richmond, a city of more than 200,000, posted a record 160 homicides in 1994, the highest per capita murder rate in the country at the time. In 1998, one year into the program, homicides had fallen to 94, violent crimes had also dropped and more than 500 guns had been taken off the streets.
"I think (Project Exile) kind of drove guns away from people," Bill Dunham, resident agent at the Richmond field office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, told Law Enforcement News in 1999. "Maybe they didn't get rid of them completely, but they're not carrying them as often."
The success spawned variations of Project Exile throughout the country, including in the Kansas City area, which in 1999 saw the creation of Project Felon. It is a cooperative program between local police departments, the ATF and the U.S. attorney's office to prosecute people convicted felons who have been found in possession of firearms.
In Jackson County, for instance, a previously convicted felon caught by local police with a concealed weapon can face a federal charge that carries a minimum sentence of five years.
Stephen L. Hill Jr., U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, said the program has produced more than 150 indictments. The cases also represent at least one-quarter of the criminal docket in federal court.
Hill is a Democrat appointed by former President Bill Clinton. He is leaving his post this week to enter private law practice. In general, he said that Ashcroft's plan is a good idea, but he needed more details.
But if it is driven by Washington, he said, "it won't work. There has to be a commitment like there has been in Kansas City by every man and woman in the Kansas City Police Department. If the people out in the street don't buy it, the program is nothing more than a slogan."
The approach draws criticism because it is so often enforced in urban areas populated by African-Americans. And critics say those black defendants tend to be judged by predominantly white juries drawn from sprawling federal districts. In state courts, in contrast, the same defendants would see more African-American juries made up of residents coming from their same urban area.
Project Exile has also been criticized as an expensive grab by the federal government of criminal justice away from the states.
"Not only does this do violence to the concepts of federalism, the cost to national taxpayers is at least three times more" than to prosecute suspects normally, U.S. District Judge Richard Williams wrote to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
While Handgun Control supports Project Exile, the group does not see it as a cure to the spread of illegal guns.
"Punishment after the fact doesn't prevent gun violence," said Luis Tolly, western regional director for Handgun Control in Los Angeles. "While we support it, we would hope the attorney general will put equal focus on preventing criminals from getting guns in the first place."
National Rifle Association spokesman Bill Powers said any expansion of Project Exile would be "good news for gun owners and non-gun owners alike."
The group has long championed the technique over efforts to restrict the manufacture or sale of more weapons, saying enough gun laws are already on the books.
"We've been spending the last couple years trying to convince (former attorney general) Janet Reno and Bill Clinton to do this," Powers said. "In our view, the most common-sense thing we can do is prosecute felons with guns, gangs with guns and drug dealers with guns to the full extent the law."
Israelite said, "This is an idea that if you strictly enforce violations of gun laws, you reduce crime."
Ashcroft stresses enforcement of gun laws
By DAVID GOLDSTEIN and SCOTT CANON - The Kansas City Star
Date: 02/06/01 22:15
John Ashcroft
WASHINGTON -- In one of his first initiatives as attorney general, John Ashcroft plans to intensify the enforcement of federal gun laws as a way to reduce crime and get guns off the streets.
Ashcroft, who has long opposed attempts to legislate gun control, hopes to pattern his new effort after a widely praised program in Richmond, Va., that has been credited with reducing that city's violence and proliferation of illegal guns.
Known as "Project Exile," the program requires the local U.S. attorney's office to prosecute all gun violations that meet the minimum level needed for federal involvement.
"That is an idea that we are aggressively going to push," said David Israelite, Ashcroft's deputy chief of staff. "It is a national program of providing the resources and guidance necessary to really crack down on gun crimes. I think it will be one of the top priorities of his administration."
Ashcroft is expected to announce the broad outlines of the plan in an interview tonight with Larry King.
"The details will come later," Israelite said.
Ashcroft, a staunch conservative, became attorney general last Thursday after a bruising confirmation fight. In selecting guns as one of his first public-policy actions, he has chosen an issue that bitterly divides Congress and the country.
But he may have found a middle ground by taking as his model Project Exile, which has gotten support from both the National Rifle Association, which opposes gun restrictions, and Handgun Control, which favors more gun legislation.
Project Exile began in 1997 after Richmond, a city of more than 200,000, posted a record 160 homicides in 1994, the highest per capita murder rate in the country at the time. In 1998, one year into the program, homicides had fallen to 94, violent crimes had also dropped and more than 500 guns had been taken off the streets.
"I think (Project Exile) kind of drove guns away from people," Bill Dunham, resident agent at the Richmond field office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, told Law Enforcement News in 1999. "Maybe they didn't get rid of them completely, but they're not carrying them as often."
The success spawned variations of Project Exile throughout the country, including in the Kansas City area, which in 1999 saw the creation of Project Felon. It is a cooperative program between local police departments, the ATF and the U.S. attorney's office to prosecute people convicted felons who have been found in possession of firearms.
In Jackson County, for instance, a previously convicted felon caught by local police with a concealed weapon can face a federal charge that carries a minimum sentence of five years.
Stephen L. Hill Jr., U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, said the program has produced more than 150 indictments. The cases also represent at least one-quarter of the criminal docket in federal court.
Hill is a Democrat appointed by former President Bill Clinton. He is leaving his post this week to enter private law practice. In general, he said that Ashcroft's plan is a good idea, but he needed more details.
But if it is driven by Washington, he said, "it won't work. There has to be a commitment like there has been in Kansas City by every man and woman in the Kansas City Police Department. If the people out in the street don't buy it, the program is nothing more than a slogan."
The approach draws criticism because it is so often enforced in urban areas populated by African-Americans. And critics say those black defendants tend to be judged by predominantly white juries drawn from sprawling federal districts. In state courts, in contrast, the same defendants would see more African-American juries made up of residents coming from their same urban area.
Project Exile has also been criticized as an expensive grab by the federal government of criminal justice away from the states.
"Not only does this do violence to the concepts of federalism, the cost to national taxpayers is at least three times more" than to prosecute suspects normally, U.S. District Judge Richard Williams wrote to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
While Handgun Control supports Project Exile, the group does not see it as a cure to the spread of illegal guns.
"Punishment after the fact doesn't prevent gun violence," said Luis Tolly, western regional director for Handgun Control in Los Angeles. "While we support it, we would hope the attorney general will put equal focus on preventing criminals from getting guns in the first place."
National Rifle Association spokesman Bill Powers said any expansion of Project Exile would be "good news for gun owners and non-gun owners alike."
The group has long championed the technique over efforts to restrict the manufacture or sale of more weapons, saying enough gun laws are already on the books.
"We've been spending the last couple years trying to convince (former attorney general) Janet Reno and Bill Clinton to do this," Powers said. "In our view, the most common-sense thing we can do is prosecute felons with guns, gangs with guns and drug dealers with guns to the full extent the law."
Israelite said, "This is an idea that if you strictly enforce violations of gun laws, you reduce crime."