
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 13, 1994                   TAG: 9408150051
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                     LENGTH: Medium

IS CRIME BILL 'PORK' OR 'SMART'?

Opponents say the crime bill sidetracked by the House on Thursday concealed a great deal of old-fashioned, Great Society-style social welfare spending. Supporters say that, in fighting crime, prevention is just as vital as detention.

The argument got down to midnight basketball leagues, intended to keep idle kids out of touble and off the streets.z

``Pork?''

Or ``smart,'' the term President Clinton applies to the bill?

How about money to teach street kids to dance? To do arts and crafts? For ``rape prevention'' education? To encourage police to live in housing projects? For ``safe havens'' where sexually abused kids can be visited by parents without fear?

The bill's supporters said those provisions were as important in the long term as new prisons, more police and more death penalty crimes.

The debate spilled into the Senate on Friday.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said senators and House members shaping the compromise version surreptitiously approved $8 billion in ``pork stuffed in there like so much sausage.''

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., replied that $1.8 billion to prevent violence against women ``is not pork.'' He added: ``It seems to me that a youth league to help kids have something to do at night rather than walk around toting guns is money well spent.''

In the House, even such a solid Democrat as Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana complained about ``extraneous provisions - job training, economic development - that really may or may not have merit but don't belong in this bill.'' He voted no.

``You would think the only thing in this bill is night basketball,'' said Rep. Bill Hefner, D-N.C., who voted yes. Rep. Thomas Foglietta, D-Pa., another supporter, said that when the city of Phoenix spent 60 cents per child on night basketball, the youth crime rate dropped 50 percent.

Few defenders - only one, in fact - stepped forward to justify a $10 million provision to establish a criminal justice research and education center at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas.

Rep. Jack Brooks, D-Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee - and a Lamar graduate - represents Beaumont, the site of federal, state and local prisons, in existence or development, with a population of about 6,000.

``Just because it is in Beaumont,'' Brooks said, ``doesn't mean it's a bad idea.''

Among the measure's other social spending provisions, with the money in most cases to be spread over six years:

$900 million to help schools prepare students for participation in the work force, and for training in entrepreneurship, cultural and health programs, social activities, dance and arts and crafts programs, tutoring and mentoring.

$30 million to establish boys and girls clubs in low-income housing communities.

$40 million for midnight sports leagues to give at-risk youth nighttime alternatives to the streets.

by CNB