/ Uncategorized / By

The Crime Bill: 20 Years Later

November 5, 2014 | Laurie O. Robinson, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society, George Mason University

robinson_professors_pic_1

Twenty years ago this fall, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 was signed into law. The “Crime Bill” was passed in response to political outcry from both Republican and Democratic parties and the public as crime rose across the country—a crack cocaine epidemic, rising youth and gun violence, and incidents like the kidnapping of young Polly Klass from her California home.

Twenty years ago this fall, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 was signed into law. The “Crime Bill” was passed in response to political outcry from both Republican and Democratic parties and the public as crime rose across the country—a crack cocaine epidemic, rising youth and gun violence, and incidents like the kidnapping of young Polly Klass from her California home.

It is clear that the “crime landscape” has changed dramatically in the intervening 20 years. In 1994, over 50% of the public, according to Gallup, cited crime as the most important issue in the country. Today, only 1% of the US population does. Violent crime rates today are far closer to those found in this country in the 1960s.

Criminologists debate why crime fell so dramatically. But one thing is clear: the science of crime control has made huge advances over this time period, and funding provided in the Crime Bill played a substantial role in supporting that.

But the Crime Bill is primarily remembered for its provisions in three other areas: the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), the prison building program, and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

There were, of course, other important provisions—for example, the drug court program, which spurred the national movement toward problem-solving courts, and the provision giving the US Department of Justice (DOJ) authority to sue police departments for a “pattern or practice” of violating citizen rights.

But attention on the Crime Bill has focused on the three “headline” areas. So it is worth looking back at these and seeing where we are today.

  • COPS: The COPS program put thousands of police on the streets in communities across America, taking the philosophy of community policing with it. Billions of dollars supported the program, with technical assistance supported by the DOJ COPS Office. Surveys in the late 1990s found a majority of police departments saying they embraced community policing (although definitions varied). And yet the recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, highlight that far more work is needed to build law enforcement-citizen trust in many communities across America. It is a sobering wake-up call to many of us who thought more progress had been made.
  • VOI/TIS: The Violent Offender Incarceration/Truth in Sentencing (VOI/TIS) provisions sent billions of dollars to states for new prison beds if states revised their laws to require prisoners to serve at least 85% of their sentences. In retrospect, the harm from this program is clear, as well as its economic impact on the states, with marginal public safety gain. While some recent progress has been made in beginning to reverse mass incarceration—I applaud particularly the efforts of my former boss, Attorney General Eric Holder, to reduce the federal Bureau of Prisons population by 5,000 inmates this year—a recent Bureau of Justice Statistics report is sobering. It found an increase in state prison populations after three years of decline. More work is clearly needed.
  • VAWA: It was exciting in 1994 to oversee the first grants sent out under the VAWA to victims groups, prosecutor offices, and police departments to begin to reform how the criminal justice system addresses domestic violence and sexual assault. A great deal of progress has clearly been made in changing the culture within the justice system—and within the broader society—but one has only to glance at the media coverage surrounding the Ray Rice episode to know there is much more work to be done.

Back in the 1930s, New Jersey Chief Justice Arthur Vanderbilt famously described judicial reform as “no sport for the short-winded.” The same can—and should—be said today for criminal justice reform work.

We need to be in this work—in each of these areas—for the long haul.

Laurie Robinson was assistant attorney general for the US Department Justice Office of Justice Programs at the time the Crime Bill was passed by Congress and was responsible for implementing many of its provisions. She currently serves as the Clarence J. Robinson Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University.