‘Terrorist’ arrests don’t tell the story
By Boston Herald editorial staff
Monday, September 4, 2006
news.bostonherald.com
Something very odd is going on in the FBI, other federal law enforcement agencies, the Justice Department and perhaps the federal courts too. Most people arrested on charges related to suspected terrorist activities aren’t being prosecuted.
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, a watchdog group that often concentrates on the Justice Department, examined the records of 6,472 terrorism-connected federal cases started since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Some 64 percent of the 4,910 “disposed of” were not prosecuted; another 9 percent were acquitted or saw charges dropped. (These cases do not include prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.)
Still, 1,329 convictions is a fairly large number. Of these, though, half received sentences of 28 days or less. Only 5 percent received sentences of five years or more.
Perhaps some ordinary bad guys are being swept up in cases wrongly classified as related to terrorism? (Remember at the time of the London terrorist arrests when Michigan police caught up with a bunch of guys with a trunk full of cell phones? Suspicious? Yes. Terrorists? Hardly!)
It is hard to tell what’s behind the numbers.
But look at the cases classified as related to international terrorism, 1,391 of them: Of the 1,027 completed cases, 67 percent were not prosecuted, not much different from the larger group. And of the 213 convictions, the median sentence again was 28 days.
The length of sentences is puzzling, especially in light of the median length in cases brought during the two years before Sept. 11: 41 months. Another oddity: The number of cases begun has fallen off sharply in the last two years, almost matching the number of cases brought in the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks.
In comments on the report, the Justice Department said a referral alone does not mean that criminal charges should be filed, and the length of sentence does not reflect the value of breaking up a conspiracy early.
True in individual cases. It’s the slender results of all the cases - two-thirds not prosecuted; median sentence only 28 days - that make us wonder if there’s not a lot of wheel-spinning going on. |
