US passes tough anti-gang law

WASHINGTON - The US House of Representatives has passed tough legislation that imposes a 10-year minimum sentences on people convicted of gang violence, expands the reach of the death penalty and adds years of extra jail time for gang members who are illegal immigrants.

The Gang Deterrence and Community Protection Act of 2005, popularly known as the Gangbusters Bill, passed easily by 279 to 144 in the Republican-led House. Seventy one Democrats supported the Republican majority while 20 Republicans voted against the bill.

Sponsors of the bill said it was necessary because of an alarming increase in gang violence.

The Justice Department estimates there are more than 25,000 gangs active in the United States with more than 750,000 members.

"We're talking about machete attacks, witness intimidation, extortion, cold-blooded assassinations, cutting off peoples' fingers, cutting off their arms, cutting off their heads," the bill's author, Virginia Republican Randy Forbes, said during the House debate.

But opponent Virginia Democrat Bobby Scott replied: "In most jurisdictions, it is already illegal to take a machete and cut someone's hand off. I haven't heard complaints from the local police that they need a new federal law to help deal with those crimes."

The bill imposes a mandatory 10 year-sentence for an act of violence by a gang member. For serious assaults, the minimum goes up to 20 years; for kidnapping, aggravated sexual abuse or maiming, it is 30 years. For crimes resulting in a death, life without parole or the death penalty would apply.

The legislation also requires that juveniles 16 and older be treated as adults for some gang-related crimes. Republican Phil Gingrey, a Georgia Republican, said one of every three murders in the United States was committed by a juvenile with gang connections.

Scott said a person convicted of a fist-fight, for whom it was a second offence, could face 10 years in prison.

The House also passed an amendment that would add a further five years to the sentence when the violator was an illegal immigrant and 15 years if the offender had previously been deported and returned illegally to the United States.

That passed by 266 to 159. Fifty one Democrats supported the amendment and 12 Republicans opposed it. The outlook for the legislation in the Senate was uncertain.

Crime rates have fallen sharply in the United States over the past decade and are now around 33 per cent lower than in 1994. But local police in many areas of the nation report increased incidence of youth and gang violence since 2000.

Mandatory sentences have been a major factor in the growth of the US prison system, which has quadrupled in size since 1980 to a population of 2.1 million, the world's largest.

"Mandatory sentencing has been a significant contributor to the growth of the prison population. In 1980, there were 40,000 people in prison or jail for drug offenses. Today, we have 450,000, many of them as a result of mandatory sentencing," said Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project, a Washington think-tank advocating alternatives to mass incarceration.

But Gingrey said mandatory sentences were a key part of the bill. "With mandatory sentencing, law enforcement will gain leverage over lower level gang members -- leverage that will put pressure on a gang member to 'roll over' on their leadership," he said.

Massachusetts Democrat James McGovern complained that the Republican majority refused to allow debate on 16 Democratic amendments. He called the law "bad policy wrapped in a bad bill" that would do nothing to address gang violence while adding unjustifiable punishments to the penal code.

- REUTERS