Up in Arms Over Crime

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And anger. The criminal-justice system is not working in America. It is absurdly slow, overburdened, understaffed, inefficient, random in its selection of who is to be punished. From the muggers' and rapists' perspective, the uncertainty of imprisonment, indeed the likelihood of avoiding it, is actually an incentive to commit crime. Out of 550,000 reported crimes in New York City in 1983, police made 106,000 arrests, but only 13,500 suspects wound up behind bars. Observes Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Richter Jr. of Charleston, S.C.: "The Goetz incident is just symptomatic of what's going on everywhere. People are just sick and tired of being pushed around by punks."

Indeed, many of those who defend Goetz say his indictment is really an indictment of the system, which they say is stacked in favor of the criminal. Two of the youths who accosted Goetz on the subway were granted immunity from prosecution as an enticement to testify against Goetz before the grand jury. Goetz, by contrast, was refused partial immunity and decided not to testify. Declared Barry Slotnick, one of Goetz's lawyers: "This is a case of the muggers against the muggees, and Round 2 was won by the muggers." William Kunstler, who is representing one of the wounded youths, saw the issue differently. Said he: "The indictment is the first step back on the road to sanity in this case."

In theory, at least, a citizen should have the right to protect himself if the state is unable to do so. But few would argue that anyone who enters a subway or walks lonely streets at night should pack a pistol and be ready for a shoot-out. By choice of vocation, thugs are handier with guns than are Wall Street brokers or Macy's salesclerks. Moreover, bystanders can get caught in the cross fire.

The initial praise for Goetz's dramatic act starkly underscored an increasingly hard-line attitude toward crime in recent years. More than 1,500 citizen crime-fighting groups have sprung up in 38 states, determined to be "nosy neighbors" and serve as the eyes and ears of police. Local spending on police increased by an impressive 65% between 1978 and 1983, according to one survey of some 600 U.S. cities. Despite some resistance to the huge costs, fully 35 states have embarked on prison-expansion programs. State legislatures are enacting laws to limit parole, stiffen sentences and provide new rights for the long-neglected victims of the senseless violence in urban America.