Faiz Shakir on the 1994 Crime Bill:

[George II]

"Biden wrote the bill to make it difficult for Democrats to vote against it."

[Todd79]

1. Bernie voted for it

And he wasn’t a Democrat.

[Sloumeau]

2. Biden supported the 1994 Crime Bill because African Americans in Delaware,

the state where he was Senator, were at least as worried about crime as White people were. Some people may not realize this, but the worst crime is often in the poorest neighborhoods and the poorest neighborhoods are often populated by a lot of black people. When the 1994 crime bill was enacted. It was supported by a majority of Black Americans. Why? They supported it because of all of the crimes that were being committed against Black people.

The biggest problem with the 1994 Crime bill was not the crime bill itself. It was the way that it interacted with sentencing guidelines for drug possession, the way that various police officers focused on arresting Black people while ignoring White people, and the way that judges tended to judge Black people more harshly than white people. Because of Reagan's "War on Drugs", sentencing for drug possession was overly harsh, and soon some of our nation's prisons had 70% occupancy of people with drug related charges--many of them there for simple possession. This meant that people were in jail who should have been in drug treatment, and it meant that violent criminals were let out of jail early due to overcrowding.

If decriminalization of drugs such as marijuana, and the balancing of drug laws, such as between cocaine and crack cocaine, and an emphasize on drug treatment instead of locking drug addicts up, had occurred before or at the same time as the 1994 Crime bill, a lot of the worst effects of the Crime Bill would not have occurred, while the positive effects of the Crime Bill, keeping violent felons off the streets for longer periods of time, would have been more effective.

The 1994 Crime Bill ended up being part of a perfect storm. When combined with overly punitive possession laws, the stupidity of locking up drug addicts instead of offering them treatment, the racism of sentencing people more harshly for crack cocaine than standard cocaine, and insufficient space in prisons, it meant too many people being locked up for too long while people who should have been locked up longer were released early. It represents a classic example of the law of unintended consequences.