Stopping Crime as a Career

Major Violators program blocks the revolving door

Two elderly black sisters were knitting and singing We Shall Overcome in the kitchen of their small Boston house one hot night last summer when a convicted burglar burst through the back door and demanded money. The intruder, 6 ft. 4 in. and 220 lbs., viciously beat the two women before fleeing. Police captured him a short time later. Thanks to clogged conditions in many urban courts, suspects in felony cases often relax on the street for a year or more and eventually extract a light, plea-bargained sentence from beleaguered prosecutors. But only 61 days after the Boston assault, the intruder had been tried, convicted of five felonies and sent off to the maximum-security prison at Walpole, Mass., for ten to 20 years.

The assailant had qualified, through an elaborate point system, for special treatment under Boston's Major Violators program. It is hardly news in the U.S. that industrious malefactors, variously known as revolving-door or career criminals, commit crime after crime, year after year. About 7% of arrested suspects account for a quarter or more of the nation's crime. The first wholesale attack on the problem began only three years ago, when 24 cities, with federal funds and a good idea, both provided by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, began establishing career-criminal prosecution units. The aim: first identify multiple offenders, then shepherd their cases diligently through the courts until conviction. In 30 months, the nationwide program has put away over 5,000 hard-core criminals for terms averaging more than 14 years each.

Local prosecutors select their career violators using individual systems. Louisville targets suspects with two previous felony convictions or five arrests. Washington concentrates on parolees who are arrested again, for a crime of violence; Detroit zeros in on three-time offenders charged with murder, rape, household burglary and armed robbery. Boston uses a "case evaluation form," based on a ten-point penalty system. Penalty points are given for brutality, use of firearms, parole or bail status at the time of the crime, and even strength of the evidence against the suspect. Any suspect who gets ten points or more gets the Major Violator treatment. "It's almost like being selected for college," a Boston prosecutor notes, "only they're going to jail, not school."

Once identified and apprehended, a career criminal will find his case assigned to a district attorney for start-to-finish prosecution. With a light case load (one-third that of other prosecutors), the D.A. usually seeks high bail, or no bail, to keep the suspect in jail, refuses to plea bargain, and pushes for an early trial.

Reluctant witnesses, who tend to disappear, thus scuttling the prosecution's case, are cajoled into court. Several prosecutors have allowed defense attorneys to look through all police evidence against the suspect in an "open file" policy, to prevent long courtroom delays for "discovery." Says Washington Attorney Charles Work, who started the program in 1975 when he was with LEAA: "These cases get the same attention they'd receive in a small town. It's not a concentration of resources against an individual. It's a simple effort to keep the important cases from falling apart in our swamped, pithole-strewn big-city prosecution system."

Despite discouragement of plea bargaining, conviction rates are startlingly high: 94% nationally, compared with a regular conviction rate of 73%. That rate naturally troubles defense attorneys. Some of them are critical of the program on grounds that it is racist, because a notable percentage of career criminals are black. Others claim that their clients are stigmatized by the career-criminal category, even though the trial jury never learns the defendant has been specially labeled. The career-criminal program has reduced the gap between arrest and trial to about 60 days in some cities, a marked improvement. Remarks Boston Prosecutor Lloyd Macdonald: "Defense attorneys are always trying to stall."

Law-enforcement officials say the program is partially responsible for the slight reduction in big-city crime last year. Detroit reports a decline in major crime for the first six months of 1977: murder down 27%, burglary and armed robbery each down about 25%. New Orleans District Attorney Harry Connick, who started the first LEAA-financed career-criminal program in 1975, cites a Rand Corp. estimate that a career criminal commits 20 offenses a year. If that is true, the 992 career-criminal convictions obtained thus far in New Orleans could prevent about 198,000 crimes over the next ten years.

The program has cost LEAA only $14 million (of $4.8 billion spent by the agency in the years 1972 through 1977). But federal funding for the project is now being phased out. LEAA officials blame budget cutbacks, noting, however, that successful experiments should be taken over by state and local officials. Most communities are struggling to do just that. Washington, D.C., has been running its version of the program, Operation Doorstop, without LEAA funds for 17 months. When Norfolk's LEAA grant runs out in October, prosecutors plan to work overtime to keep the program alive. New York, New Orleans and Boston are seeking state aid to continue. "Anybody who knows anything about crime in this society knows that what criminals fear most is a speedy trial and the certainty of punishment," says retired Massachusetts Jurist Walter H. McLaughlin. "The Major Violators program combines both. It ought to be continued at all costs."

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