Implementing Criminal Justice Reform
本文分析了1984年《综合犯罪控制法案》的通过过程与核心条款，包括保释、量刑、精神错乱辩护和没收法律的重大改革，并重点讨论了司法部在实施该法案中的作用。
On October 12, 1984, President Reagan signed Public Law 98-473. It was the latest in what has become an annual ritual of the enactment of a continuing resolution to enable most federal agencies to continue to spend money after Congress fails to pass appropriations bills. But this continuing resolution contained much more than just funding provisions. Title II of the new law is entitled the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. It contains the most significant changes in the federal criminal justice system ever enacted at one time. The act contains 23 chapters, of which the first 12 are most significant. With minor exceptions, the provisions were enacted precisely as drafted by the Department of Justice and were submitted as part of the president's crime control program. Included in Chapters 1 through 12 is a complete revision of the bail laws to permit pretrial detention in cases where the government establishes at a hearing that no conditions of pretrial release will ensure that the defendant will not commit further crimes and will appear for trial. A new sentencing system, which abolishes parole and creates a guidelines system to aid judges in imposing a sentence consistent with other sentences for equally serious offenses, was established and will go into effect in 1986. A narrowing of the insanity defense took effect immediately. Also, in the first 12 chapters are important improvements in the forfeiture laws, which are powerful weapons designed to separate top echelon organized crime figures and drug traffickers from their illegal profits; a strengthening of the narcotics trafficking penalties; amendments to the labor racketeering statutes; and over 35 other separate provisions that either amend substantive or procedural sections in the federal criminal code to close gaps or to add new offenses in response to new forms of criminal activity. The enactment into law of the major procedural reforms contained in the chapters on sentencing, bail, the insanity defense, and forfeiture represents a tremendous victory for the administration in the House of Representatives and a culmination of over a decade of bipartisan cooperation between the Justice Department and the Senate Judiciary Committee. These procedural changes, and the thrust of many of the bill's substantive changes in the criminal laws, had their genesis in the early 1970s when attorneys in the department's Criminal Division drafted monumental bills to completely revise * The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 contained some of the most significant changes in the federal criminal justice system ever enacted at one time. The act overhauled the bail provisions, the sentencing system, the insanity defense, and the forfeiture laws, as well as created a number of new substantive offenses. The enactment was accomplished through years of effort by the Department of Justice to develop most of its provisions. However, the passage of the act by Congress required steady political pressure by the White House and some unusual maneuvering in the House of Representatives. This article discusses the passage and basic provisions of the act, and then focuses on the Department of Justice's role in implementing it.