President Nixon's New Look at Justice

IN its first two years, the Nixon Administration often approached the problem of lawlessness in American life with a constabulary zeal that moved many critics to warn that the country faced an era of repression. "I am first and foremost a law-enforcement officer," said Attorney General John Mitchell in 1969. "Law-and-order" often did seem to take precedence over social reform. The Administration pushed such police tactics as stop-and-frisk, no-knock and preventive detention, and stressed the need to liberate the nation's cops from the shackles of liberal Supreme Court decisions that protected the rights of criminal defendants.

Now both the emphasis and the rhetoric have changed. The language of legal reform has replaced draconian appeals. "By reforming criminal justice in America," Mitchell said recently, "and attacking the environmental roots of crime, we may dare to look toward an enlightened day when we will need fewer, rather than more prisons, police stations and even courthouses."

Sweeping a Flood. In an address last week before a national conference on the judiciary at Williamsburg, Va., the President elaborated that theme. In restrained tones, Richard Nixon cast the weight of his office behind the gathering campaign to reform and refurbish a vast judicial system that too often is itself an agent of injustice. It was a curious if temporary blurring of the traditional separation of powers--and a measure of the urgency of the problem--that not only Mitchell but also Chief Justice Warren Burger read the President's speech in advance and made suggestions.

Nixon listed the problems of ramshackle judicial machinery: unconscionable delays in criminal cases, overcrowded prisons, court calendars clogged with trivial cases. "All this," he said, "sends everyone in the system of justice home at night feeling as if they have been trying to brush back a flood with a broom." Ultimately, Nixon argued, "the goal of changing the process of justice is not to put more people in jail or merely to provide a faster flow of litigation. It is to resolve conflict speedily, but fairly." In one of the few suggestions of his earlier rhetoric, Nixon declared: "Justice dictates not only that the innocent man go free but that the guilty be punished for his crimes." Later Mitchell carried the idea a step further, suggesting that there should be a "predictable time" after which a convicted man's chances for appeal would be exhausted.

Some action is beginning to accompany the words. Prison reform, for example, has replaced police training and armament as the Administration's top priority. The three-year-old Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, which has a promised authorization of $1.5 billion next year and $1.75 billion for 1973, expects to dispense roughly one-third of the funds to the states for improving jails and prisons. The Justice Department is starting to develop legislative proposals for a nationwide program to treat drug addicts. Earlier, Mitchell's men had blandly suggested that drug addiction was no concern of theirs.

Crime Capital. After years of soaring crime rates--an increase of 148% in the '60s--some signs point to a nationwide decline, perhaps, Mitchell hopes, as early as next year. During the first nine months of 1970, crime reductions were reported by 23 cities with populations above 100,000, among them Baltimore, Cleveland, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. For the first time since 1956, crime declined last year in Washington, D.C.. which Nixon had called "one of the crime capitals of the nation."

It is certainly not lost on the Administration that a reversal of the rising crime trend next year would strongly increase Nixon's prospects for reelection. Claims of success in combatting crime could keep Democrats on the defensive. In reality, such claims by any President would be misleading, since state and local law-enforcement agencies, not the Federal Government, have primary responsibility for fighting crime --at least street crimes like murder and robbery, which Americans fear most.

Building Morale. In an interview with TIME'S Dean Fischer last week, Mitchell agreed that his emphasis has shifted from strong support of police to pleas for court and correction reform. "When we came into office, the police forces in this country were completely discouraged," he said. "It was my opinion that we had to build up their morale." Mitchell believes that the cops' morale has so improved that he no longer needs to champion their cause constantly. In addition, a somewhat more conservative Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Burger has increased police confidence.

That heightened morale, bolstered by earlier tough talk, has enabled Mitchell to concentrate on broader issues. More than that, reports Correspondent Fischer, Mitchell's 26 months as Attorney General have revealed in him an intelligent capacity for growth. That, as much as anything else, may account for the new perspective in which he views the relationship between crime and the conditions that breed criminals.

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