WASHINGTON -- Remember midnight basketball?
Scornful Republicans who are taking over the House of Representatives do, and they are planning to reopen this year's angry debate over federal funding for crime-prevention measures in hopes of getting rid of midnight basketball and other so-called prevention programs.
The House GOP's "Contract With America" calls for a $5 billion cut in prevention programs that were in cluded in this year's hard-won $30 billion crime bill.
Republicans want to see fewer dollars for Democratic "social welfare programs" and more in flexible block grants "to the communities that have the highest crime rates," said Rep. Bill McCollum, a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee and one of three candidates running for House majority whip.
"Let them decide what do to with it, whether to hire a new cop or whether to use it for midnight basketball," said the Republican lawmaker from Florida.
Some conservatives are urging even deeper slashes in prevention -- and for the money to be shifted to grants for state prison construction.
"Federally funded midnight basketball, gender sensitivity training, dance and crafts classes will not reduce crime," said John P. Walters, who worked in the drug czar's office during the Reagan-Bush era and is now president of the New Citizenship Project, a conservative think tank in Washington.
vTC "More federal welfare spending cannot save communities that are unwilling to supervise and care for their young people," Mr. Walters said.
The outlook in the new Republican-controlled Senate for reopening the bill is less clear. Senate Republican leader Bob Dole of Kansas and others have not endorsed the full House GOP legislative plan.
Attorney General Janet Reno and other Clinton administration officials are girding for a renewed battle to protect the crime prevention measures, which they insist will cost taxpayers far less money than additional courts and prison cells in years to come. Crime prevention "is a matter that is not Democrat or Republican, it's a matter of common sense," said Ms. Reno, who promised to work with Congress, law enforcement and juvenile justice officials to protect prevention programs.
Associate Attorney General John Schmidt met with 20 leaders of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Chicago a week after the election to rally them to the cause.
Questioned by Democratic and Republican mayors, Mr. Schmidt said the Clinton administration remained committed to full funding of the programs in the 1994 crime bill, but he couldn't predict where the GOP-controlled Congress would go. "If we say we're committed and Congress isn't, it doesn't get us very far," Mr. Schmidt said.
While they voiced doubts about some of the prevention programs authorized in the 1994 crime bill, the mayors said they needed the additional federal aid that was promised.
"What doesn't work doesn't work, but if you have better prevention programs you won't have to spend all the money on the end of the criminal justice system, on more prisons, more prosecutors," said Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.
But Knoxville Mayor Victor Ashe, president of the conference, said GOP proposals for more flexible federal spending rules would be welcomed by local officials. "I think most mayors would tell you that a block grant approach and greater flexibility is the preferable way to go," Mr. Ashe said. "Obviously, the level of funding is yet to be determined and that will be a subject of considerable discussion."
Last week, Ms. Reno sounded open to some changes in the rules, saying the Clinton administration wants to make sure that dollars "get to communities where they count, and they are distributed in the most cost effective manner possible and done so without waste."