ATF Referrals Down Policy, Personnel Shifts Cited for Drop in Agency Cases Referrals for federal prosecutions by the ATF have declined sharply during the Clinton Administration. Shown here are ATF officers confering after the shooting at the school in Conyers, Ga., May 20, 1999.
Experts say the decline is due to shifts in policy and personnel.
A report released today by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, associated with Syracuse University, shows that the total ATF cases sent to federal prosecutors declined by 44 percent from 1992 to 1998. Further, the report shows that the ATF's role in prosecuting firearms violations has declined during that time period. By 1998, the share handled by other agencies doubled to 24 percent. But according to experts who study the ATF, the decline in referrals does not necessarily reflect a reduced commitment to gun control or the bureau by the Clinton administration. According to William Vizzard, a retired ATF agent who wrote the only scholarly history of the bureau and is now a criminal justice professor at California State University in Sacramento, the dip in referrals merely signals policy and personnel changes.