Bad Neighborhood
How Cops Would Clean Up Congress's Back Rooms

By Michael Grunwald
Sunday, February 12, 2006

It was not so long ago that crime was routinely described as "out of control," that crime-ridden neighborhoods were widely considered unsalvageable, that crime-fighting strategies for cities were compared to deck-chair-shuffling strategies for the Titanic. By the early 1990s, when Homer visited New York City on "The Simpsons," the electronic marquee above Times Square flashed: "Crime up 8,000,000 percent." Urban America had gone to hell, and it felt like there was no way out.

Now we know there was. Crime rates have plummeted, and cities have rebounded. In New York, homicides have dropped 75 percent since then, and onetime war zones now feature Starbucks and luxury condos. Experts still argue about the causes of the renaissance, pointing to community policing, community involvement, "broken windows" policies, truth-in-sentencing, economic growth and even innovative urban design. But nobody argues anymore that bad neighborhoods are doomed.

Except for one bad neighborhood here in Washington. It is enduring a crime wave unparalleled in recent memory, and even though its leaders are making noises about cleaning it up, many experts remain skeptical that its culture of recidivism can be reformed. Then again, the neighborhood in question, the U.S. Congress, has always inspired skepticism.

The scandals swirling around Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff -- as well as the plea bargain by California GOP Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham on bribery charges -- have bolstered Mark Twain's hypothesis that America has no native criminal class except Congress. As new pay-for-policy allegations emerge about representatives with made-for-cartoon names like Doolittle, DeLay and Ney, conventional wisdom is congealing around the notion that Congress is what it is, and can't be changed.

But that was once conventional wisdom about New York, too. "The most important thing we've learned since the mid-'90s is that there's plenty we can do to clean up bad neighborhoods," said Northeastern University criminologist Jack Levin. It turns out that aggressive policing really can defeat an anything-goes mentality, that entrenched criminal cultures really can be reformed, that potential offenders tend not to offend when they believe their crimes will be witnessed, reported and punished. "At some point, people have to say: Enough is enough," said Carnegie Mellon University criminologist Alfred Blumstein, author of "The Crime Drop in America."

In Congress, unlike cities, reducing crime is less of an end in itself than a means to the end of better government; members of Congress, their aides and the lobbyists who schmooze them can victimize taxpayers without breaking any laws. Still, in this moment of runaway cynicism, it's worth asking whether the strategies that cleaned up the mean streets can clean up K Street.

"Sure, why not?" Levin said. "You'll have to change the culture. But we've learned a lot about how to do that."

Congress is in the legislation business, so it's no surprise that most of the "lobbying reform" proposals floating around the Hill involve legislation -- to prohibit privately funded junkets, bar members-turned-lobbyists from the House floor and congressional gym, ban lobbying by congressional spouses and so on. But legislation didn't revive urban America. Some criminologists believe President Clinton's 1994 crime bill -- which in theory funded 100,000 new cops and new prevention programs -- helped provide communities with needed resources. But there's no evidence that its legal changes -- federalizing a variety of crimes, banning assault weapons, removing obstacles to death sentences -- made much difference on the ground.

What did make a difference was enforcing existing laws and making it clear the era of anarchy was over. The most famous example was the resurrection of New York, where Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Commissioner William Bratton cracked down on graffiti artists, turnstile jumpers and other perpetrators of minor crimes. This "broken windows" approach was designed to restore a sense of order; just as unfixed windows fuel perceptions of buildings abandoned to squatters, unaddressed crimes fuel perceptions of streets abandoned to criminals. "If you deal with the graffiti and the other little offenses," said Rutgers University criminologist George Kelling, who devised the broken windows theory along with political scientist James Q. Wilson, "you send a strong message that you're not going to tolerate the big offenses."

Today, members of Congress know that if they're caught failing to report a gift, junket or campaign donation, they'll just file an amended report. Congress, after all, is mostly self-policing -- self-non-policing, really. The culture of silence on Capitol Hill is reminiscent of neighborhoods dominated by the Crips and the Bloods; members hardly bother to file complaints with the internal ethics committees anymore. And Congress doesn't have a mayor, much less a Mayor Giuliani.

But there is a Federal Election Commission and a Department of Justice, and they could be much more aggressive about investigating and punishing minor infractions on the Hill. That could send a message that the rule of law still extends to Congress, and there would be side benefits, too. In New York, police found that many turnstile-jumpers were carrying illegal weapons, or were wanted for more serious crimes. Not all fare-beaters were felons, but many felons were fare-beaters, and many fare-beaters who weren't felons turned out to be excellent sources of information about friends who were. The crackdown on petty crimes gave law enforcement a perfect excuse to grill potential offenders. If the chiselers who fudge disclosure reports aren't the real bad guys, they could probably rat out colleagues who are. "The research shows that crooked people tend to behave crookedly," Kelling said.

But more police do not necessarily mean less crime. The real challenge, Kelling said, is "increasing the sense of presence." Cops driving around in cruisers don't help as much as cops walking beats or riding bikes. Community police officers become fixtures in neighborhoods, interacting with good guys and bad guys. Soon good guys feel more comfortable turning to them, and bad guys feel less comfortable committing crimes. In New York, this was reinforced by a computer program that provided updated statistics about high-crime areas. Police commanders then flooded these hot spots with officers.

Congressional crimes aren't always committed under the congressional dome, but perhaps community policing strategies could still work on the Hill. FEC staffers and FBI agents could walk the halls of the Capitol and pay surprise visits to K Street offices and Beltway fundraisers, getting to know the model citizens and the perps, trolling for tips about which senator is living beyond his means and which lobbyist has set up a bogus think tank, checking out disclosure forms for red flags. They could focus on "hot spots"--defense appropriations, if Cunningham's case is any guide, or congressional earmarks in general, or leadership PACs. They could hang around the 2 a.m. sessions where leaders bring up thousand-page bills that no one else has read.

But in urban America, law enforcement has recognized that it doesn't have to accept the status quo, that out-of-the-box thinking can tilt the playing field against criminals. Members of Congress have no better reason to be passing bills in the dead of night than members of gangs have to be hanging out on street corners in the dead of night. Cities such as Los Angeles and New Orleans have enacted curfews to keep juveniles out of trouble. Maybe Congress needs a curfew, too.

Some commentators -- mostly liberals -- have proposed another out-of-the-box solution to congressional crime: raise congressional salaries, so that members won't be tempted by bribes. These commentators sound a lot like the criminologists -- mostly liberals -- who used to argue that the best way to fight crime was to fight poverty. That view has faded in recent years, just as the view that poverty caused terrorism was widely discredited by the middle-class backgrounds of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers.

But a massive summer jobs program for teenagers has helped reduce crime in Boston, while an intense crackdown on truancy has contributed to New York's success. And some law enforcers who scoffed at after-school programs and midnight basketball now believe they're useful crime-fighting tools -- not so much because they can help teens become model citizens, but because they keep teens busy at times when they might otherwise be committing crimes.

So how can we keep members of Congress busy? Perhaps there should be sanctions for members who miss hearings or votes without valid excuses, the congressional equivalent of a truancy crackdown. Or members could be required to spend a fixed amount of time with constituents. (This would also force them to face their victims and acknowledge their humanity, a common tactic against recidivism.) Presumably, the less time congressmen have to meet privately with lobbyists and other special interests, the less time they have to subvert the public interest. In fact, some reformers -- again, mostly liberals -- believe that public campaign financing is the only way to overhaul a system that forces politicians to spend most of their time begging special interests for cash. The urban analogy would be the decriminalization of drugs, which proponents believe would eliminate the profit motive that fuels so much gang violence.

They may be right. But the last decade suggests it's possible to make real progress without such radical measures. And many criminologists now believe the most powerful deterrent to crime is not lowering potential payoffs or providing alternative activities, but making potential offenders worry about consequences. For example, prosecutors in Boston made gang culture much less attractive when they started slapping draconian prison sentences on known troublemakers, like the 15-year stint one gangster received for possessing a single bullet. Maybe Duke Cunningham needs to go away for life, as a warning to his peers.

Or maybe his peers should go with him. "In some neighborhoods, the scoundrels are just replaced by new scoundrels," Kelling said. "But getting the worst offenders off the streets makes a difference." In Pittsburgh and Atlanta, for example, prosecutors used the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to take down entire street gangs. There's a partisan case to be made that the GOP leadership in Congress -- which took power in 1995 by pledging to slash government and end Democratic corruption, but has expanded government while rewarding its K Street benefactors -- now qualifies as a corrupt organization.

Then again, modern research suggests that severe punishment isn't as important as swift and sure punishment. "It's like housebreaking a puppy: If you don't discipline him the second he does something wrong, it doesn't work," said Jean O'Neil, research director for the National Crime Prevention Council. "You have to drive home the connection between crime and punishment."

In any case, potential offenders won't worry about getting punished if they don't worry about getting caught, which requires them to worry about getting seen. Cities such as Baltimore and Chicago -- not to mention casinos, hotels and convenience stores -- have sent that message successfully by installing surveillance cameras in high-risk areas. C-SPAN doesn't air the behind-the-scenes huddles where laws are crafted, but maybe there should be cameras in members' offices and the Capital Grille.

Good lighting also discourages crime. And the congressional equivalent is strict disclosure: Crooked politicians hate "sunlight" as much as muggers. But other design strategies that have helped create the effect of surveillance in urban areas -- the author Jane Jacobs called it "eyes on the street" -- could have more literal applications in Congress. Maybe congressional offices should have more windows, so anyone can see what's going on inside. Maybe members should switch desks with their receptionists. "They're called back rooms because nobody can see what's going on in the back," said Art Hushen, a Tampa police officer who specializes in design issues. "People act differently when they think they're being observed."

Criminologist Timothy D. Crowe, the author of "Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design," suggests that congressional offices should have open layouts, avoiding the indoor equivalent of dead-end alleys. Good design can also allow gatekeepers to control access to potential crime spots, or at least find out who's there for what purpose.

Of course, Congress is supposed to be the people's house; everyone's allowed to be there for any reason. But that's where the urban analogy breaks down a bit: Most victims of congressional crimes -- the American taxpayers -- live nowhere near Congress. That makes it a lot harder to set up a neighborhood watch group. And many criminologists agree that it's hard to revitalize bad areas unless potential victims are empowered and mobilized to reclaim their communities. O'Neil said that citizens must feel victimized before they act, and she's not sure Americans realize they were victimized by Cunningham and Abramoff. "If I have to explain for 20 minutes why this is hurting you," O'Neil said, "that's a tougher problem." Blumstein noted that local groups often take tough stances against streetwalkers, who they see every night, but not against call girls, who commit similar offenses behind closed doors. "Congress is like the call girls," Blumstein said. "People don't feel the impact directly." And what can they do about it, except call their congressman?

If ordinary voters seem powerless to dismantle Washington's culture of corruption, rank-and-file members of Congress are not. Criminologists find that even in the worst neighborhoods, most residents are law-abiding citizens who want to help police; they're just afraid of the thugs who run the show. Levin pointed out that high schools have persuaded students to break their culture of silence since Columbine, and school shootings have dropped significantly. "Snitching used to be seen as some kind of Nazi activity, but now it's acceptable to inform on a student who threatens to blow up the school," he said.

Maybe someday, it will be acceptable to file an ethics complaint. But for now, reform is in the hands of prosecutors and voters. And it's worth recalling that crime rates skyrocketed for years before urban America reached the enough-is-enough stage.

"These things take a while to sink in before people decide they're not going to take it anymore," Levin said. "I don't think we're there yet."

Author's e-mail: grunwaldm@washpost.com

Michael Grunwald is a staff writer on The Post's National desk.