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			    GENERAL-RKBA Digest 325
Topics covered in this issue include:
  1) CRIMESTRIKE: Murder Decline Accelerating by NRA Alerts 
  2) FAXALERT: 1998: The Year in Review by NRA Alerts 
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Topic No. 1
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 22:42:28 -0500 (EST)
From: NRA Alerts 
To: general-rkba-real.nra
Subject: CRIMESTRIKE: Murder Decline Accelerating
Message-ID: 
                        NRA CrimeStrike's
                        CrimeWatch Weekly    
 
             Breaking news on critical crime-fighting
                 issues, policies and legislation
Vol. 3, No.  52                              December 30, 1997
                     Now For Some Good News!
                   Murder Decline Accelerating
      As the nation welcomes another New Year, the continuing
decline in murder in many  of the nation's largest cities is
making good news.   New York City is looking at a 23% drop in
killings over last year, down from 983 in 1996 to 756 through
Monday.  That's a 30-year low.
     On the opposite coast, Los Angeles reports homicide down 20%
over 1996.  That's a decline from 707 deaths last year to just
566 through Dec. 14, police there report.  That's a 20-year low,
the Los Angeles Times said.
     While there were exceptions   Seattle was up from 37
homicides in 1996 to 48 this year   Chicago, New Orleans, Dallas,
Houston, Baltimore and San Francisco all were reporting lower
murder tolls this year.
     Some smaller cities were enjoying homicide reductions, as
well.  Newark, New Jersey's largest city, had just 56 murders as
of Monday, down from 94 last year and 104 in 1995.  That's a 30-
year low.
     Nationally, homicide has been in decline since 1993, when
the FBI recorded 9.5 killings per 100,000 U.S. residents. Last
year the rate was down to 7.4, the lowest in decades.  There were
fewer than 20,000 murders for the first time since 1985.  It will
be several months before the FBI reports complete  homicide data
for 1997, however. 
     What's driving the decline?  "It seems that society has
gotten tired of so many murders," Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief
Martin Pomeroy suggested to Associated Press.  "People may be
weary of all the violence."
     "It's true that people have really gotten fed up with
violence, particularly from repeat offenders," said CrimeStrike's
Elizabeth J. Swasey.  "But it's not offenders who get 'weary',
it's voters, and they have been successful in demanding that
legislators enact laws that keep more dangerous criminals in
prison longer.  Those laws are taking the bite out of crime by
incapacitating criminals." 
                Steinberg Gets Unwanted Attention
     Joel Steinberg, the former New York attorney who
inadvertently helped bring domestic violence to national
attention in 1987 after being charged with battering to death
his 6-year-old illegally adopted daughter, is getting a lot of
unwanted attention as he comes up for parole consideration a
second time.
     New York Attorney General Dennis Vacco has opened a computer
Web site to allow citizens to comment on Steinberg's possible
release from prison, where he is serving  a 25-year sentence for
manslaughter. The Web site is logging about 100 messages an hour,
mostly negative, Vacco's office said. 
      The public was galvanized by Steinberg's arrest and trial a
decade ago.  Much of the publicity was about his abuse of his
companion, Hedda Nussbaum, who testified against him under a
grant of immunity during his trial for daughter Lisa's death.
                Bay State Inmates Lose Another One
     A group of Massachusetts prison inmates has been rebuffed in
a new bid to form an inmate political action committee (PAC). 
Acting Gov. Paul Cellucci issued an executive order in August
barring formation of the PAC.  The inmates responded by suing in
Superior Court.
     Last week, Judge John Cratsley denied the inmates' request
for a preliminary injunction, saying he saw little urgency or
likelihood the inmates would prevail in their lawsuit.  The suit
was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of
Massachusetts in behalf of the Massachusetts Prisoners Political
Action Committee.
     Gov. Cellucci has filed a constitutional amendment that, if
passed by the legislature and voters, would ban state prisoners
from voting.  Vermont, Maine and Utah are the only other states
that permit inmates to vote.
                Juvenile Arrests Up 60% In Decade
     Despite a decline of 9% in juvenile violent crime arrests in
the two years 1995 and '96, juvenile arrests were still 60% above
1987 levels, according to a new report by the Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention, "Juvenile Arrests 1996."
     By comparison, adult violent crime arrests were up 24% for
the decade, the report said.
     Calculated from FBI Uniform Crime Report data for 1996, the
report also found juveniles accounted for: 
   
     * 37% of all burglary arrests.
     * 32% of robbery arrests.
     * 24% of weapons arrests.
     * 15% of murder arrests.
     * 15% of aggravated assault arrests.
     Just 465 out of every 100,000 youths between ages 10 and 17
were arrested for violent crimes in 1996.  Or put 
another way, according to the OJJDP, if each juvenile arrested
for a violent crime in 1996 was arrested only once that year,
less than one-half of 1% of all persons ages 10 through 17 were
arrested for a violent crime during that year.
CrimeStrike now has its own online e-mail address.  Contact us at
cstrike@nra.org.
=+=+=+=+
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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