Pros And Cons Of Crime Control And Law Enforcement Act Of 1994

Abstract/Executive Summary

Get Tough Bill, Tough on Crime Bill, the Crime Bill of 1994 or more formally known as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 was and is “one of the most influential pieces of criminal justice legislation in the last 50 years'' (Eisen & Chettiar, 2020). Written in part by current United States President, Joe Biden, and signed into law by former President Bill Clinton, this policy served, in part, as an attempt to reposition the Democratic party as “tough on crime”, as an image of being “soft on crime” over the years was a common attack at that time. As stated in the bill itself, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 was “an act to control and prevent crime” (Crime Bill, 1994).

Overall, its 33 titles were intended, in one way or another, to reduce violent crime or to toughen societal retribution against people who commit crimes of violence. Like most omnibus bills that package disparate elements, the Crime Bill had something for nearly all interested parties” (Rosenfeld, 2023). A third strength I’ll mention would be the fact that the rate of crime did indeed drop during that time period; “the incarceration rate jumped by more than 60 percent from 1990 to 1999, while the rate of violent crime dropped by 28 percent. In the next decade, the rate of incarceration increased by just 1 percent, while the violent crime rate fell by 27 percent” (Roeder et al.,

I found evidence that made a case for both sides of the fence as the result appears to be somewhere in the middle pertaining to the overall success. Although crime rates decreased in the 1990s there is mixed evidence that shows that the three sentencing provisions were a strong determinant of that reduction. Crime did indeed decrease across the 90s, but it appears to be due to a combination of tactics pre-Crime Bill, as well as factors outside of criminal justice reform legislation. What the data does show is that mandatory sentencing laws did play a significant role in the dramatic increase in mass incarceration, particularly the incarceration of Black and brown men. These laws were extensions and doubling down of Regan-era legislation that had clear racially discriminatory practices and purposes (Taifa, 2021). Although mass incarceration was happening (and increasing) before the crime bill, it exacerbated the trend by providing significant incentives to increase sentencing terms (largely to non-violent offenders) and the number of