Rolling Back Overcriminalization

Conn Carroll / December 13, 2010

Between 2000 and 2007, the United States Congress created 452 entirely new crimes, a rate of over one new crime every week. By the end of 2007, the U.S. Code included more than 4,450 federal crimes, with an estimated tens of thousands more located in the federal regulatory code. Worse, a joint study released this May by The Heritage Foundation and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), found that more than half of the bills that would have added or modified non-violent, non-drug criminal offenses in 109th Congress (2005-2006) Congress were not even referred to their respective judiciary

President Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General Ed Meese writes at NRO about a House rules change that could be a first step toward a solution: (more…)