Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2001 15:58:12 -0000
From: leecallan@hotmail.com
Subject: [lpaz-discuss] Government doing less to serve
To: lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com
Reply-To: lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com


An article posted today on http://msnbc.com/news
The author is not promoting a reduction in government. The excerpts 
could be used to support other very different arguments. (-;  

`DOING LESS TO SERVE PEOPLE'
"We're doing less to serve people," said James Alan Fox, a criminal 
justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston. "We may be 
serving them with subpoenas as opposed to serving them with housing 
and food. So we're doing more regulating than serving the American 
public."

INCREASES IN LAW AND ORDER
The big increases in law and order reflect the priorities of a series 
of administrations as well as a huge expansion in the war against 
drugs in the 1980s, Fox said. So since 1975, the Border Patrol has 
muscled up from 1,750 agents to 9,100, prison guards from 3,600 to 
13,900 and criminal investigators from 19,800 to 36,000.
The trends are not surprising, government-watchers say. There are 
more laws, more regulations, more pages in the Federal Register, more 
inspectors policing the work of government. In 1975 there was one 
inspector general's office. Today there are dozens. In 1975 there 
were 28,000 employees letting and monitoring contracts. Today there 
are 53,100. Paralegals have zoomed from 15 to 6,425.

Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.

 2001 The Washington Post Company