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			    GENERAL-RKBA Digest 345
Topics covered in this issue include:
  1) CRIMESTRIKE: Domestic Violence Declining by NRA Alerts 
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Topic No. 1
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 21:17:21 -0500 (EST)
From: NRA Alerts 
To: general-rkba-real.nra
Subject: CRIMESTRIKE: Domestic Violence Declining
Message-ID: 
                        NRA CrimeStrike's
                        CrimeWatch Weekly
 
             Breaking news on critical crime-fighting
                 issues, policies and legislation
 
Vol. 4, No. 11                                     March 17, 1997
                   Domestic Violence Declining
     Murder by intimates has declined 36% in the 20 years since
1976, according to a new Bureau of Justice Statistics report that
also found significant declines since 1993 in non-lethal 
victimization of intimates.
     Intimates, for the purpose of the study, are "those with
whom the offender had a relationship as a current or former
spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend," BJS said.
     From nearly 3,000 murders by intimates in 1976, that crime's
toll declined to just 1,800 deaths in 1996, the study found.
Three of every four victims in 1996 were female.
     However, BJS found an encouraging drop  in non-lethal
violence against females.  Such crimes were down more than 30%
from 1993's estimated 1.1 million victimizations to just 840,000
in 1996.  Women ages 16 to 24 experienced the highest per-capita
rates of intimate violence, and about 21% of all violence against
women was caused by intimates.
     Only about half of acts of intimate violence against women
were reported to police, BJS found.  The most common reasons for
failure to report such crimes included a view that they were
personal or private matters,  the victim feared retaliation, or
concern that police would not be able to do anything about the
crime.
     The study also indicates that many of those who abuse
intimates have a predilection for crime.  "Nearly four in 10
offenders sentenced to local jail for intimate violence had a
criminal justice status such as being on probation or under a
restraining order at the time they committed the crime," BJS
reported in "Violence Against Intimates," NCJ-167237.
     "The fact that the study shows that almost half of these
offenders have already been convicted of another crime when they
commit a domestic violence crime is important," says CrimeStrike
Director Elizabeth Swasey.  "It tells us that criminals commit
crimes against an array of victims, including their partners. 
This is more evidence that incarcerating violent offenders is
another way to cut domestic violence."
               Minnesota To Pay For Parolee's Crime
     The Minnesota House has approved a bill to pay nearly
$15,000 to the parents of a young woman kidnaped, raped and
murdered in 1991 by a paroled sex offender released from the
state prison in St. Cloud five days earlier.
     According to press accounts, Scott Stewart was supposed to
report to a halfway house in Minneapolis, but instead attacked
and killed Melissa Johnson of St. Cloud.  Her parents brought a
wrongful death suit, but the state Supreme Court ruled in the
favor of the state.
      The state subsequently changed the law to require escorts
in similar cases.  Stewart is serving a life sentence without
parole. A similar bill to compensate the Johnsons is pending in
the state Senate, Associated Press said.
                   Pataki Would Deny Parole To
                   First-Time Violent Offenders
     Rebuffed by the New York General Assembly last year, Gov.
George E. Pataki has unveiled a new bill to toughen sentencing
and deny parole to first-time violent criminal offenders.  He was
successful in getting legislators to impose Truth In Sentencing
requiring inmates with two or more violent felonies to serve 85%
of their sentences in 1995.
     This time Pataki, who got his legislation through the
Republican-controlled Senate last year, has adopted the slogan
"Jenna's Law" to help boost support for the measure.
     Jenna is 22-year-old Jenna Greishaber, a nursing student
allegedly murdered by a paroled sex offender in a widely
publicized crime in Albany late last year.
                  Plea Bargains, Light Sentences
                   Go Hand In Hand, Says Study
     Plea-bargaining is a major factor in the light sentences
bestowed on a sampling of 173 Milwaukee County criminals confined
to state prisons, says the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute
in a report released Monday.  Those deals reduce maximum
sentences by an average of about 43%, they said.
     About 60% of the 152 felons with non-life sentences received
less than half of the maximum sentences, according to the study
called "The Truth About Sentencing in Wisconsin."
     "This research is not to argue for a tougher or more lenient
system," said a co-author of the report. "It is to argue for a
system where people can find what's going on."
     Chief Judge Patrick Sheedy said the system is overloaded and
needs more courts.  Last year the state approved one additional
judge for the county, though some 55,541 out of 145,797 cases
filed were still pending.
     Wisconsin has been struggling for years to cope with a
prison system that is overcrowded despite its revolving door
policy.  Last week, the state Senate passed a Truth-In-Sentencing
bill, but critics say that measure requiring criminals to serve
75% of their sentences will aggravate the situation by keeping
more inmates in prison longer.  Wisconsin inmates currently
qualify for release after serving just a quarter to two-thirds of
their sentences, according to wire service reports.
                   This Inmate Protests Too Much
     Mississippi Atty. Gen. Mike Moore offers this candidate for
the most outrageous frivolous prison inmate lawsuit.  An inmate
sued the Parole Board for not receiving a scheduled parole
hearing. He had escaped and was uncaught at the time of his
hearing.
=+=+=+=+
This information is provided as a service of the National Rifle
Association Institute for Legislative Action, Fairfax, VA.
This and other information on the Second Amendment and the NRA is
available at: http://WWW.NRA.Org
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End of GENERAL-RKBA Digest 345
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