![]() ![]() ![]() The law imposed tougher prison sentences at the federal level and encouraged states to do the same. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election in part by painting Dukakis as “soft on crime,” Democrats were acutely worried that Republicans were beating them on the issue.īiden reveled in the politics of the 1994 law, bragging after it passed that “the liberal wing of the Democratic Party” was now for “60 new death penalties,” “70 enhanced penalties,” “100,000 cops,” and “125,000 new state prison cells.” Polling suggested Americans were very concerned about high crime back then. Politically, the legislation was also a chance for Democrats - including the recently elected president, Bill Clinton - to wrestle the issue of crime away from Republicans. It was an attempt to address a big issue in America at the time: Crime, particularly violent crime, had been rising for decades, starting in the 1960s but continuing, on and off, through the 1990s (in part due to the crack cocaine epidemic). ![]() The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, now known as the 1994 crime law, was the result of years of work by Biden, who oversaw the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time, and other Democrats. Now, with Tuesday’s presidential debate looming, the 1994 law may be another way for President Donald Trump to attack Biden as Trump tries to spin his own punitive criminal justice record positively. And while Biden has released sweeping criminal justice reform plans that aim to, in some sense, undo the damage of policies he previously championed, Biden’s history has led to skepticism among some progressives and reformers. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), can now justify their votes for the law - by pointing to the provisions that weren’t “tough on crime.”īut with Biden’s criminal justice record coming under scrutiny as he runs for president, it’s the mass incarceration provisions that are drawing particular attention as a key example of how Biden helped fuel the exact same policies that criminal justice reformers are trying to reverse. That’s how politicians like Biden, as well as previous Democratic rivals like Sen. And while the law had many provisions that are now considered highly controversial, some portions, including the Violence Against Women Act and the assault weapons ban, are fairly popular among Democrats. The 1994 crime law was certainly meant to increase incarceration in an attempt to crack down on crime, but its implementation doesn’t appear to have done much in that area. The truth, it turns out, is somewhere in the middle. As recently as 2016, Biden defended the law, arguing it “restored American cities” following an era of high crime and violence. The law, he’s argued on the campaign trail, had little impact on incarceration, which largely happens at the state level. If you ask Biden, that’s not true at all. They say it led to more prison sentences, more prison cells, and more aggressive policing - especially hurting Black and brown Americans, who are disproportionately likely to be incarcerated. If you ask some criminal justice reform activists, the 1994 crime law passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton, which was meant to reverse decades of rising crime, was one of the key contributors to mass incarceration in the 1990s. One of the most controversial criminal justice issues in the 2020 election may be a “tough on crime” law passed 26 years ago - and authored by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. ![]()
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