NO ONE WINS

A look at the Violent Crime Control

and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and how it affected the black community

by Michaela Booker

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Overview

1. Introduction
1. Research Question
2. Literature Review
3. Data and Methods
• Methodology
4. Results (analysis/interpretation)
• Trends in Incarceration Rates
• Racial Disparities and Incarceration
• Trends in Sentencing
5. Conclusion

Introduction

The goal for this paper is to look at the following things: develop a clear understanding of the Crime Bill, as well as understanding the lasting effects of the Crime Bill by looking at trends in incarceration rates, sentencing and racial disparities both federally and through the states, and looking at the way in which the Crime Bill gave way to a number of systemic issues such as mass incarceration and longer sentencing.

Hypothesis: Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, also known as the Crime Bill, has given birth to a number of systematic issues such as mass incarceration and the school to prison pipeline with the target communities being minorities and all others following.

Research Question: What effect, if any, did the 1994 Crime Bill have on the Black community?

So what is the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994?

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The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which falls under a number of names such as the Clinton Crime Bill, but is most famously referred to as the Crime Bill is a bill that was passed during the Clinton Administration. The Crime Bill is also the largest in American history.

Provisions and Grants? There were a number of them, but for the sake of time, here are the few that are further explained in the paper.

1. Gang Crimes in regards to sentencing and how they were to be penalized.
2. Juveniles and sentencing.
3. Three Strikes.
4. Sentencing Minimums.
5. 100,000 new police officers.

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Systemic Effects of the Crime Bill

For every change, and provision, there was a harmful consequence for minorities, but more specifically the black community.

The Crime Bill led to systematic issues such as:

• Mass Incarceration
• Higher Prison Sentencing
• Over-Policing
• School to Prison Pipeline

Literature Review

1. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
2. Locking up Our Own Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman
3. Black Silent Majority: the Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment by Michael Fortner
4. Usual Cruelty: the Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System by Alec Karakatsanis
5. After Life Imprisonment: Reentry in the Era of Mass Incarceration by Robert Sampson and Marieke Liem
6. Long-Term Sentences: Time to Reconsider the Scale of Punishment by Marc Mauer
7. Fear of Judging: Sentencing Guidelines in the Federal Courts by Kate Stith and Jose Cabranes
8. Citizenship Status, Race, Ethnicity, and Their Effects on Sentencing. LFB Scholarly by Wu Jaejoong
9. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences by Jeremy Travis
10. How Long People Go to Prison Around the World by Kyle Jaeger
11. The Fact Sheet provided by the U.S. Department of Justice

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Data and Methods: Methodology

I chose to forego using a traditional independent and dependent. Although, in the paper, you will see wording such as control variables those were the things I was looking at in order to understand the overall effects of the Crime Bill.

How were things measured?

1. The Crime Bill: content analysis.
2. In order to grasp the entirety of the bill and its effects on the United States, and more specifically minorities, I will use a combination of approaches.

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Methodology Cont.

• By looking at statistical data, it also allows for the examination of the numerical findings for things such as incarceration rates, sentencing rates, and the likelihood for someone to return to prison after getting out.
• By looking at it via content analysis, it allows for the examination of the information as a whole.
• By looking at the bill as a whole, I can assess what the impact was supposed to be.
• Through comparative analysis, it allows for the examination of the overall impact; what did the judicial system look prior to the bill versus after as well as what incarceration rates looked like prior to the bill and after.

Results

School to Prison Pipeline

• Juvenile Provision
• 13 and older charged with certain serious violent crimes can be charged as an adult.
• 1 in 4 black males go to prison
• $100,000 spent per prisoner with only $10,000 spent per student.
• Black men will make up 6 percent of the college population and 40 percent of the prison population.

Trends in Incarceration Rates

• Every sector increased 4x in the 1990’s than in the 1970s.
• Could it be traced back to the crime wave of 1960s/1970s?
• Yes, but if you look at the federal rates it increased the most in 1990’s after the Crime Bill which had a 9.7 Billion dollar prison funding.

Trends in Incarceration Rates Cont.

• This graph allows for a look at the population growth of prisons between 1980 and 2010.
• It is important to look at the growth after 1990.
• After the 1990s population rates increased by 30 percent.

Racial Disparities and Incarceration Rates

• It is no secret that black and brown communities tend to be policed at higher rates or that black men under 40 with little to no education make up most of the prison population.
• “African Americans are not significantly more likely to use or sell prohibited drugs than whites, but they are made criminals at drastically higher rates for precisely the same conduct” . - Michelle Alexander

Black on Black: The role of the black elite in the Crime Bill

• A number of affluent black people played a role in the passing of the Crime Bill including a number of politicians, educators, and more such as Congressman Charles Rangel , U.S. Representative Kweisi Mfume, then chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) , and many more.
• Little to no impact on them or their push for political power/capital.

Trends of Sentencing and “Tough on Crime”

• Three-Strike Rule
• “Mandatory life imprisonment without possibility of parole for Federal offenders with three or more convictions for serious violent felonies or drug trafficking crimes.”
• Impacted the black community, judges, and lawyers.
• There are a number of costs associated with the Crime Bill be it the cost of human life or the cost of taxpayer dollars.
• 13th Amendment: The new form of slavery.
• For example, the longer that one person is held in prison, for say a low drug offense, the more that a taxpayer has to pay for that one person.

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Trends of Sentencing and “Tough on Crime” Cont.

• The U.S tends to sentence people much longer but there is no evidence that longer sentencing helps the individual in fact there is evidence of the opposite.
• Kalief Browder
• Rikers Island jail
• Couldn't make bail
• Committed suicide after being released
• Was in Rikers for allegedly stealing a backpack

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Trends of Sentencing and “Tough on Crime” Cont.

• Even the look of prisons is much different.

Conclusion

Hypothesis: Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, also known as the Crime Bill, has given birth to a number of systematic issues such as mass incarceration and the school to prison pipeline with the target communities being minorities and all others following.

Research Question: What effect, if any, did the 1994 Crime Bill have on the Black community?

• Ultimately, the evidence supports the hypothesis presented above that the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 gave birth to a number of systematic issues within the black community.
• In order to fix the issue, it had to be addressed that there was an issue.
• Many do not know about the harmful effects of the Crime Bill or about the many people, including prominent black politicians and presidential candidates, who played a vital role in the passing of the legislation.