With the New York primary just days away, a policy fight has erupted on the left regarding the 1994 Clinton Crime Bill. I have a piece today over at Newsweek on the subject. Here’s an excerpt:

The Crime Bill maddens today’s BLM activists because it earmarked $7.9 billion in grants to the states for the building of prisons. To be eligible for the funds, states had to meet certain conditions. The idea was to encourage the states to embrace the stricter policies found in the federal system, which had abolished parole and limited good time credits for prisoners, which allow well behaved inmates to earn an earlier release date.

Many states were eager to do just that. During the 1990s, America was building a new prison every week, on average. And as soon as those facilities opened up, they were soon operating beyond their original design capacity.

Many of the prisoners were young minority men, nonviolent drug offenders who were serving mandatory minimum sentences.…

Hillary has tried to sound like a reformer, saying, “We need a true national debate about how to reduce our prison population while keeping our communities safe.” 

Such throwaway lines are not nearly enough for BLM activists. For them (and others too), support for the 1994 Crime Bill is the political equivalent of Hillary’s vote to support the Iraq war: It was a key indicator of policy judgment—and the Clintons failed the test.

I also point out that Cato’s 1995 Handbook for Congress called for repealing the Clinton Crime Bill precisely because it would lock up thousands and thousands of people who do not belong there. We urged policymakers to call off the drug war and to reserve prison space for violent offenders. Alas, Congress turned away from our policy advice.