Crime on the Hill.

Everyone agrees something must be done about crime. The bill the U.S. Senate passed in November is not the something that must be done.

It sounds hopelessly redundant to say, once again, that the causes of much of the crime that afflicts us lie in the social and economic injustice of this society, but it's true, and we've said it. Nothing in this crime bill does anything about that, and nothing persuades us that the Clinton Administration is planning to do much of anything about it.

It also sounds hopelessly redundant to say, once again, that locking up more people for longer periods of time solves nothing. Nearly all prisoners are released sooner or later, and the lengthier the sentences and the more barbaric the conditions they are subjected to while imprisoned, the more embittered exprisoners we will have living among us.

There is nothing wrong with the notion that the Federal Government must spend money to help states and cities fight crime. A portion of the Federal aid spent in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s under the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration was put to good use in explorations and experiments in community-based policing and corrections. Not all was spent on harebrained schemes like the purchase of combat helicopters for unneeded SWAT teams in medium-sized cities. But that Federal aid is long gone, the good with the bad, and it looks as if almost all of the new Federal aid, if the Senate bill becomes law, will be of the bad kind.

More crimes would become Federal instead of local. So what? More crimes would become subject to the death penalty - fifty-two, to be exact. Have members of the Senate ever read the Constitution? Their bill authorizes the admission into evidence of allegations about a defendant's earlier conduct, unrelated to the current allegations, for certain crimes. And it permits, in some situations, secret procedures to deport aliens.

Last spring, Attorney General Janet Reno was heard to say, "We are not going to solve the crime problem by sending everyone to prison for as long as we can get them there and throwing away the key." But where was the Justice Department while the Senate was proposing to spend $22 billion to do just that? "They were not a presence," said one Democratic aide. "They exercised about zero influence over this bill."

And, finally, there is the issue of what the editorial page of The Washington Post calls "number abuse" and proposes - facetiously, we hope - to add to the new list of capital offenses. The Senate, it seems, voted to finance the crime bill with the $22 billion the Clinton Administration expects to save by cutting the Federal work force.

"That would be fine," said The Post, "except that eight months ago the Senate voted to use most of the same $22 billion for something else.... Nor is that all. Some Senators now want to use the well-traveled sum a third time.... The personnel cuts have yet to be made, and already they have paid for two deficit reductions and one expenditure increase." Is it possible, without joining the movement toy execute members of Congress, to hope they will come to their senses some day - about crime as well as numbers?