page_title: Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act
section_title: Legacy and impacts
hierarchical_section_title: Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act / Legacy and impacts
context_page_description: The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, H.R. 3355, Pub.L. 103–322 is an Act of Congress dealing with crime and law enforcement; it became law in 1994. It is the largest crime bill in the history of the United States and consisted of 356 pages that provided for 100,000 new police officers, $9.7 billion in funding for prisons and $6.1 billion in funding for prevention programs, which were designed with significant input from experienced police officers. Sponsored by U.S. Representative Jack Brooks of Texas, the bill was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Senator Joe Biden drafted the Senate version of the legislation in cooperation with National Association of Police Organizations.
  Following the 101 California Street shooting, the 1993 Waco Siege, and other high-profile instances of violent crime, the Act expanded federal law in several ways. One of the most noted sections was the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.
context_section_description: The 1994 Crime Bill marked a shift in the politics of crime and policing in the United States. Sociologist and criminologist William R. Kelly states that, "While the longer-term impact of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 was questionable, the political impact was clear — crime control or 'tough on crime' became a bipartisan issue."
  
  Bill Clinton has claimed credit for the reduction in crime rates in the 1990s, stating that, "Because of that bill we had a 25-year low in crime, a 33-year low in the murder rate, and because of that and the background-check law, we had a 46-year low in deaths of people by gun violence.” Crime rates underwent a long period of reduction in beginning in 1991 and declined by 26% during this eight-year period. The primary reasons for this reduction remain a topic of debate. A study by the General Accounting Office found that grant funding from the Community Oriented Policing Services program supported the hiring of an estimated 17,000 additional officers in 2000, its peak year of impact, and increased additional employment by 89,000 officer-years from 1994 to 2001. This was an increase of 3% in the number of sworn officers in the United States. The GAO concluded that the COPS Office potentially had a modest impact in reducing crime, contributing to an approximate 5% reduction in overall crime rates from 1993 to 2001. A published study by criminologists John Worrell and Tomislav Kovandzic found that "COPS spending had little to no effect on crime."
  The Crime Bill has also become emblematic of a shift towards mass incarceration in the United States, although its contribution to the long-term trend of expanding prisons is debated. The Justice Policy Institute stated in 2008 that "the Clinton Administration's "tough on crime" policies resulted in the largest increases in federal and state inmate populations of any president in American history. Jeremy Travis, former director of the National Institute of Justice, described the truth-in-sentencing provisions of the law as a catalyst: "Here's the federal government coming in and saying we'll give you money if you punish people more severely, and 28 states and the District of Columbia followed the money and enacted stricter sentencing laws for violent offenses." The Act may have had a minor effect on mass incarceration and prison expansion. In 1998, twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia qualified for that Federal grant program. Thirteen more states adopted truth-in-sentencing law applying to some crimes or with a lower percentage threshold. By 1997, sixty-nine percent of sentenced violent offenders were in states meeting the 85% "truth-in-sentencing" threshold and over ninety percent faced at least a 50% threshold. The Bureau of Justice Statistics projected in 1999 that, "As a result of truth-in-sentencing practices, the State prison population is expected to increase through the incarceration of more offenders for longer periods of time," and found that the State prison population had "increased by 57%" to "a high of 1,075,052 inmates" while the number of people sentenced to prison each year was only up by 17%. However, a GAO report found that federal incentives were "not a factor" in enacting truth in sentencing provisions in 12 of the 27 states that qualified, and "a key factor" in just four. 
  The legal system relied on plea bargains to minimize the increased case load. Jerry Brown and Bill Clinton later expressed regret over the portions of the measure that led to increased prison population like the three strikes provision.
caption: Total U.S. incarceration by year