Abstract

Can Reno be the People's Lawyer?

Attorney General Janet Reno was holding court in the heartland. Her February 5 tour of Kansas City included a hospital, a school in a Black neighborhood and lunch at the Palestine Senior Citizens' Center. At the last event a nice mixture of neighborhood leaders, law-enforcement officials and local polls turned out to tell her about the good they were doing with the proceeds of their county antidrug sales tax. Reno praised the mix of drug treatment, prevention and enforcement projects trotted out for her by Claire McCaskill, the Jackson County prosecutor, and she linked Kansas City's efforts with grass-roots programs all across the country where people are beginning to come together to grapple with the interconnections among crime, drugs and poverty.