Page 5 of The Dream Hotel

Despite Success, Challenges to Crime Law Persist

Disagreement Over Small, but Important Part of the CPA Presents a Campaign Opportunity Ahead of the Elections.

By Alejandro Arteta and Lily Khan, with assistance from PressBot

Washington —A legislative fight is brewing in the Senate over the renewal of key provisions of the Crime Prevention Act, twenty years after the landmark legislation was passed. The battle is likely to become heated, with three prominent members eyeing it as a campaign issue ahead of the presidential elections.

The CPA was passed after the mass shooting at the Super Bowl halftime show in Miami, in which 86 people were shot dead on live television before the broadcast was pulled by CBS, and another 32 were killed off camera before the gunman was successfully apprehended.

The traumatic event, witnessed live by 113 million Americans, led to historic protests across the country. Democratic lawmakers called the Super Bowl massacre a “watershed moment” and demanded strict gun control, while Republicans seized on the findings of the FBI investigation to argue that the fault lay solely with the gunman, Luca Schmidt.

Mr. Schmidt, of Coconut Grove, Florida, left a long trail of evidence leading up to his crime: two domestic violence complaints filed by his mother; bump stocks and ammunition purchased on his personal credit card; a grievance against a team doctor for whom he worked as a lab assistant; angry texts about getting no respect from the football players; and online searches on ways to bypass stadium security.

Mining relevant information became the focal point of the CPA, which gives authorities broad access to private records and allows them to use commercial data analytics tools as part of their investigations. President Casey Graham charged the Risk Assessment Administration with identifying and detaining individuals who are likely to commit violent crimes.

In the twenty years since the law was passed, hundreds of potential murderers have been identified, and detained in public safety centers for investigation and prosecution. The dismantling of the notorious 53rd Street gang in Chicago, whose members had been waging a protracted war against rival groups, has been one of the RAA’s biggest success stories.

The RAA has also been effective at preventing suicides by firearms, and is credited with saving tens of thousands of American lives per year, thanks to its rapid alert system.

But there have been occasional failures as well, including the case of Lana Delgado, the beloved stage actress who was mistakenly referred to a commitment clinic while she was receiving treatment for multiple sclerosis at NYU Langone, or Milo Coleman, the five-year-old child whose parents received a notification that they were to bring him to a public safety center. Cases like these, critics say, are evidence that the scope of the CPA should be more limited.

Polls show that the public remains supportive of the pre-crime legislation, with a majority (62%) viewing it as a necessary tool for law-enforcement agencies and slightly more than a third (34%) concerned about its reach.

The current clash in the Senate is about the ability of private detention contractors to issue extensions to the suspects in their custody, without the need for government approval, and the types of data that the RAA can legally use in its algorithms.

The battle does not fall neatly along party lines. Senator Adriana Jimenez (D-California) has partnered with Senator Jamie Hutchinson (R-Oklahoma) to denounce the reach of the CPA, which they say jeopardizes fundamental rights and increases government spending. They plan to introduce an amendment that would limit the authority of private contractors and prohibit the RAA from using certain kinds of private data.

Others, including Senator Cora Jenkins (D-Texas) and Senator Vicente Torres (R-Texas), argue that the CPA strikes an appropriate balance between safety and liberty at a time when criminals can unleash massive violence with extraordinary speed. “No one who watched those innocent people be gunned down on that fateful February day can sit by and wait for another massacre,” Senator Jenkins told reporters.

Reached for comment, Risk Assessment Administrator James Wesley pointed to the 42.6% decrease in gun deaths in the last twenty years. Deaths by suicide plunged a dramatic 48%. “I think the numbers speak for themselves,” he said.