Making the case, now a quarter century after the 1994 Crime Bill, for the Reverse Mass Incarceration Act
Lauren-Brooke Eisen and Inimai Chettiar, who helped draft of the Reverse Mass Incarceration Act back in 2015 (first discussed here), have this new New York Daily News commentary making the case for this approach to prison reform under the headline "Joe Biden, Cory Booker, the 1994 Crime Bill and the future: How to unwind American mass incarceration." I recommend the full piece, and here are excerpts:
As the 2020 field of candidates gets more crowded, Democrats have started weaponizing one of the most influential pieces of criminal justice legislation in the last 50 years — the 1994 Crime Bill. Joe Biden, a key author of the bill when he served in the Senate, has doubled down, while his primary opponents correctly point to how it helped contribute to mass incarceration.
The debate is important, but an exclusive focus on the past underplays a crucial question: Moving forward, how will the country end mass incarceration that decades of federal funding helped create? And what are presidential candidates’ plans to reverse failed policies?
The size of the U.S. prison system is unparalleled. If each state were its own country, 23 states would have the highest incarceration rates in the world. People of color are vastly overrepresented. African Americans make up 13% of the country’s population but almost 40% of the nation’s prisoners.
In response, Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), along with Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-CA), have just reintroduced the Reverse Mass Incarceration Act. The bill, which they first introduced last Congress, provides financial incentives to states (which house 88% of America’s prison population) to reduce imprisonment rates. It starts to unwind the web of perverse incentives set in motion by the Crime Bill and other laws.
To receive federal funding awards under the Act, states must reduce the imprisonment rate by 7% every three years and keep crime at current record lows. States can choose their own path to achieve those goals, since the legislation sets targets instead of dictating policy....
The federal government has a long history of using federal funds to shape the criminal justice landscape. For example, a bill passed in 1968 — amid concerns over rising crime rates — set up grant programs that allocated money to states to be used for any purpose associated with reducing crime. Over two years, it authorized $400 million (roughly $2.7 billion in today’s dollars) in grants. Two decades later, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 played a central role in government policy in the War on Drugs by reinstating mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession, establishing $230 million (nearly $500 million today) in grants to fund drug enforcement while not permitting funding of drug prevention programs.
The 1994 Crime Bill extended that trend. It promised $8 billion ($13 billion in today’s dollars) to states if they adopted “truth-in-sentencing” laws, which required incarcerated individuals to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. A study by the Urban Institute found that between 1995 and 1999, nine states adopted truth-in-sentencing laws for the first time, and 15 states reported the Crime Bill was a key or partial factor in changing their truth-in-sentencing laws. By 1999, a total of 42 states had such laws on the books....
Over the past decade, states have taken steps to move away from harsh sentencing laws. And Congress has made reforms to sentencing at the federal level, including the FIRST STEP Act, passed last year.
Certainly, one piece of federal legislation alone will not end mass incarceration, just as the 1994 Crime Bill was not solely responsible for causing it. Innovative changes at the local level must continue.... But the Reverse Mass Incarceration Act is one of the strongest steps the federal government can take to end mass incarceration. By providing financial incentives to help power important changes at the local level, it’s a national bill that would help set a tone across the country. It will encourage states to orient criminal justice strategies across the country toward more just and fair outcomes.
A few prior related posts:
Comments
Post a Comment