It's All the Rage: Crime and Culture.

• Author: Dilulio, John J., Jr.

In 1994, Delaware Democrat Joseph Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee as it groped its way toward a $30 billion-plus crime bill that had something for just about everyone - prison construction firms, Mayberry-sized police departments, drug rehabilitation therapists, midnight basketball referees, and unemployed executioners. Republican ingrates said the Biden-led bill was full of pork. Untrue! As the GOP rushes to steal poor children's lunch money, they must learn the difference between pork and baloney.

The main baloney in Biden's crime bill was its "100,000 cops" provision. On average, it costs $50,000 a year for a cop, and that's not counting the badges, blue suits, patrol cars, and pension liabilities. And with four shifts (three on, one off), non-patrol work (desk supervisory, special assignment), sick leave, days off, and training time, putting ten sworn officers on the payroll buys barely one around-the-clock beat cop.

Last August, instant analyses by conservative critics found that the bill's $8.8 billion for police funded only 20,000 cops, but even this figure was way too generous. In reality, the bill offered only a fistful of seed money for three years. Sunnyvale, California - the city that inspired "reinventing government" - was offered $450,000 in Biden dollars. But to meet its quota of six cops, it found it would have to spend $8 million of its own. The city said no thanks. In February the Justice Department hustled grants for 7,000 cops to 6,600 other small cities.

Wendy Kaminer's It's All the Rage: Crime and Culture is at its best exploring how America's Joe Bidens - well-intentioned lawmakers who know better - have produced such a large, ineffective, dishonest, and downright dopey body of federal anti-crime legislation. Kaminer, who worked briefly as a public defender and is now a contributing editor to The Atlantic Monthly, examines how over the last two decades the crime issue has turned potential profiles in courage into pandering politicos. The title of chapter seven, "Knowledge is Irrelevant-federal Crime Control," just about sums it up. In a typically pointed passage, Kaminer writes: "Protesting the influence of politics on policy, you feel a little like Claude Rains protesting gambling at Rick's. It's hard not to be shocked! shocked! by the utter politicization of criminal justice debates."

Or for a more contemporary cinematic reference on federal crime policy, how about Dumb and Dumber? In place of Biden's...