The leading general in President Johnson's War on Crime is no fire-eating, cigar-chomping prosecutor, willing to work with existing laws so long as they put criminals behind bars. As Director of the National Crime Commission, James Vorenberg wants to overhaul those laws to make them more effective and equitable, instead of just applying them more energetically.

Soft-spoken and scholarly, he is sensitive to deficiencies in the present system which most old hands on the firing line take for granted. Since he acquired more of his knowledge from the law library than the courthouse, his first practical experience with the nuts and bolts of crime has been, he admits, a "series of shocks."

Vorenberg's first and most important problem -- his "sharpest shock" -- has been simply the lack of accurate information about crime. He believes that in order to suggest constructive changes in the law, and in methods of law enforcement, the commission must analyze the nature and causes of crime--the volume and effects of different kinds of offenses, and the characteristics of victims and offenders.

Too often, he contends, victims do not report crimes and the police cover them up to convince the public they are doing their job. He hopes that the task force on the "assessment of crime problems," one of five groups assigned to study major areas of criminal justice, will develop new ways of classifying and reporting crime statistics. The commission must "go out and find it out from the people to whom it is happening."

Vorenberg's assignment, however, is much broader than merely reporting and analyzing the facts. According to President Johnson, who called on him to take a leave of absence as Professor of Law at Harvard, Vorenberg must "get to the innermost recesses of the problem," formulate a "national strategy," and suggest legislation over the entire range of criminal justice. And so, in addition to the assessment task force, he has designated groups to study:

* The organization and function of local police forces--what jobs they should be asked to perform, and how much discretion they should have in performing them.

* The courts--what controls, for example, should be placed on plea bargaining, the process by which a great majority of cases are disposed of without trial in the lower courts, either through a decision to dismiss the case or a plea of guilty.

* Federal and local correctional facilities -- how to insure that they prepare the offender for a more constructive life once he returns to society, rather than merely punishing him in order to deter others from the same course.

* Science and technology -- the ways in which new developments in computers, chemical analysis, etc., can be applied to the various areas of criminal justice.

Since the commission has only about 30 staff members, each task force contracts out a major part of its research to experts throughout the nation. The Institute of Defense Analysis, for example, a non-profit organization operating out of Harvard, MIT and the University of California, is doing a $500,000 report on possible uses of systems analysis and other scientific advances. But the staff and commission members will decide which suggestions to incorporate in the final report. They will also organize it and rewrite many parts of it. The commission has begun exchanging ideas and information with state committees, which many governors have appointed at the request of former Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach.

Vorenberg politely refuses to discuss the recommendations which the commission will make in its report to the President. But interviews with staff members illuminate a few of the proposals the task forces are now considering and the directions in which they are moving.

The task force on the police, for example, is expected to suggest colleges of police science, expanded pre-recruit training, models for in-service training and new criteria for the selection of police officers, and increased salaries. The groups will very likely propose ways to use civilians more extensively to do clerical and desk jobs, and to provide attorneys within the departments to advise the police. A very revolutionary proposal for a single law enforcement office combining the functions of both the police and district attorney was seriously considered earlier in the year, but has apparently been dropped.

The task force on courts is expected to recommend reforms in procedure to make plea bargaining more visible and regular. This process, involving over 90 per cent of the criminal cases, typically consists of informal negotiations between the attorneys and the judge as to what punishment will be appropriate if the accused pleads guilty, and whether the case may be dismissed. Plea bargaining is one of Vorenberg's main concerns, for as he told a national symposium on science and criminal justice in June, "these decisions are made -- usually by conscientious people -- operating under enormous time pressure and with little or no information about the background of the offender or the likely effect of any particular decision that is made."

Drawing on the work of the Vera Foundation, a non-profit research organization, the commission will very likely recommend that bail requirements for most crimes be reduced, and that programs which help the poor to pay this money be expanded. Studies by the foundation indicate, according to one staff member, that "bail is not a necessary part of the process--he'll show up for trial without it" and that if the suspect cannot obtain bail money "something about jail seems to increase his chances of being found guilty."

It may be possible to use nonlethal gases to neutralize intruders and chemicals that would color a fleeing vehicle or leave a burglar with a distinctive, unshakable odor.