One of the big criticisms against Hillary Clinton is
her support of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 -
hereafter referred to as the Crime Bill.
I'm going to come right out now and say that I don't
see the logic in holding it against her when Sanders voted for it. Yes, he made
a speech against it, but then he voted for it and cast himself as tough on
crime in later political races. That seems wrong, but I also find it stupid
that people focus more on her support as a 16 year old girl for Goldwater than
her not that much later support as an adult for McGovern.
As it is, there were reasons to be both for and
against the Crime Bill, and they aren't all the reasons that are perceived
today.
It was a response to increased shooting violence,
often related to drugs and gangs, but it was also inspired by the Waco Siege
and a 55 year old white entrepreneur opening fire at a law firm in San Francisco. It's understandable
that people were afraid.
Here are some of the provisions:
Federal Assault Weapons Ban - this is where it came
from, but it expired in 2004, and attempts to renew it lead us into a whole
different kind of argument. Still, there are a lot of people who would support
this now..
Driver's Privacy Protection Act - Set up rules for
privacy with DMV records. Abortion opponents had been using driving license
databases to track down providers and patients, but California had already started
working on these laws after DMV record access allowed Rebecca Schaeffer's murderer
to track her down.
Creation of state sex offender registries - when
someone gets in trouble for not registering as a sex offender, that started
with the Crime Bill.
Mandatory drug testing for those on federal
supervised release - As drugs were seen to be a big part of the increase in
crime, this would have been a pretty natural inclusion.
Violence Against Women Act - I do know advocates for
women who find that VAWA does more harm than good, but as written it was
supposed to help prevent and investigate violence against women, as well as
increasing grants for battered women's shelters and creating a National
Domestic Violence Hotline.
New federal offenses were added, some related to
gang membership which may have been unconstitutional.
Community Oriented Policing Services were funded - I
know why they thought this would help, and also that it didn't.
Three Strikes and you're out - I believe some states
had been moving in this direction previously, but yes, this was a part of the
Crime Bill, and a destructive one.
Federal Death Penalty Act - 60 new death penalty
offenses were created.
Elimination of inmate education - Previously inmates
could be eligible for Pell Grants and this was taken away.
Those last two shed some light. It has been well-established
now that administration of the death penalty is racist, though it may not have
been as well understood then. There was an attempt to include a provision to
remove the death penalty if it could be shown to be racist, but I don't believe
that made it into the final bill.
There was a lot of contention on the bill. It
started out as bipartisan, but one of the big hoped for items was money for
rehab programs, and it was argued against as "welfare for criminals".
I know some people did end up having more funding for rehab programs, so they
appear to have gotten part of that, but could the Pell Grants have been taken
away as a bit of tit for tat? Surely that is part of the problem with omnibus
bills, but that is how Congress works.
Also, many of those new death penalty crimes were
offenses that would be strongly associated with gangs, like a drive-by shooting
resulting in death, or a carjacking resulting in death.
The gangs were seen as a scourge (and members as
"superpredators"), and there were reasons for that. Doing something
made sense, but most of the improvements that have happened have not been seen
as a result of the Crime Bill, and harmful results have been seen. I'm not sure
all of that would have been obvious.
Anyway, we're going to delve into that a bit more
tomorrow, but let's just note that disparate sentencing for crack versus other
forms of cocaine was already there, as well as the introduction of drugs into
the population, and racially biased policing - all already present.
Actually, that leads to one interesting provision
that I didn't mention. The Crime Bill required the Department of Justice to
issue an annual report on use of excessive force by law enforcement officers. I
didn't mention it earlier not because I forgot about it, but because the
reports were not issued.
Perhaps that should be revisited.
There are a lot of articles out there, but here are
a few:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2016_04/on_the_crime_bill_liberals_are060254.php
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