The White House and Congress would like to take credit for the fall in crime rates, but Morgan O. Reynolds, director of the NCPA Criminal Justisce Center, says there is clear evidence the federal government has increased crime rates, not lowered them.

For instance, the murder rate in the one city under the federal government's direct supervision -- Washington, D.C. -- is second only to that of New Orleans, twice that of New York City and eight times higher than the national average. Nationally:

• After the Warren Court's 1966 Miranda decision, there was a sudden and permanent decline in the rate of confessions, from 55 to 60 per 100 arrests to only 40, with a corresponding decline in the arrest clearance rate.

• Federal mandates created in 1974 to divert juveniles from the justice system have contributed to the doubling of violent crimes by teenagers over the last 10 years (see figure).

• Federal funding formulas inadvertently subsidize crime by sending money to communities that fail to control crime and withdrawing it from those that succeed in holding crime down.

• Also, crime grants transfer money from poor states (with low crime rates) to rich states (with high crime rates) and from rural areas (with only two-thirds of urban income) to urban areas.

In addition the federal welfare system bears major responsibility for the breakdown of the family, which in turn has spawned a massive increase in crime. And federal policies in education have helped lower the quality of public schools by rewarding those that fail, and inferior academic achievement has contributed to juvenile and adult crime.