Campaign issues: Crime

BUSH	GORE
Extra $2.8bn to tackle drugs	50,000 more police
"Two strikes" mandatory sentence for sex offenders	"Three strikes" only for "truly violent crime"
Stronger penalties for first time cocaine possession	Address disparities in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine use

No candidate can afford to be seen as weak on crime.

As with the issue of gun control, a string of high profile and particularly violent cases has kept public alarm over the subject high.

Nonetheless in the past decade violent crime rates have actually dropped dramatically across the country.

Meanwhile the likelihood that a criminal will be punished for a serious crime and the amount of time he or she is likely to spend in prison are higher now than they have been since the 1970s.

Addiction should never be treated as a crime. It has to be treated as a health problem. We do not send alcoholics to jail in this country

Ralph Nader
Green Party

However, the decline in crime rates has not been reflected in the nation's prison population which has surged to record highs.

The main cause is the introduction of tough mandatory minimum sentencing for drugs in the 1980s and for violent crimes in the 1990s.

But the cause of the precipitous fall in crime is the subject of heated debate.

Race, crime and punishment

In the political arena, the combination of race issues and crime has proved complex and controversial.

Crime facts

Murder rates have fallen by about 5% annually since 1994

In 1999 violent crime was at its lowest level in 30 years

Steepest declines have been in big cities like New York

In 1999 prison population was a record 1.8 million

Young African-Americans are disproportionately represented among both homicide victims and offenders.

They are six times more likely than their white counterparts to be incarcerated for crimes against people, four times more likely to be locked up for property crimes and 30 times more likely to be confined in state facility for drug offences.

There is also the issue of the death penalty - a punishment that remains popular with a broad range of American voters.

Since the punishment was reintroduced in 1977, the number of executions has been steadily rising year-on-year.

Texas, under the governorship of presidential contender George W. Bush, leads the field in the number of death penalties carried out, with more than 35 in 1999 alone.

I want to set another new, specific goal: to cut the crime rate year after year-every single year throughout this decade

Al Gore

For years the human rights group Amnesty International has been leading a campaign against capital punishment in the US and highlighting concerns about racial bias in capital punishment.

According to some reports, the odds of a death sentence for cases in which blacks have killed whites has been shown to be as much as 11 times higher than in cases where a black victim has been killed by a white person.