1. Bc I have to accept that the 1994 Crime Bill is now a permanent fixture of the 2020 campaign, here’s a thread that pulls together the numbers that we have on it.

If you follow me, you know where this is heading.

Forthwith, a thread on why the 1994 Act is a distraction:

2. It obviously didn’t CAUSE mass incarceration because prison populations grew by +750K (+243%) by the end of 1994.

They would grow by only another +560K until peaking in 2009—and most of that growth isn’t due to the 1994 Bill.

3. In fact, as I’ve shown repeatedly, prison population growth SLOWED in the wake of the 1994 Act. The key inflection point to look at—I can’t stress this enough—is not 1994, but 2001.

It’s not about the law. It’s about the politics and culture of fear.

4. Some more granular evidence. When ppl say “the 1994 Act caused mass incarceration,” they mean it caused STATE-level incarceration, since ~90% of all prisoners are held in the states.

There were two ways the Act could have done this: VOI/TIS and COPS.

5. VOI/TIS = Viol Offender Incarceration/Truth in Sentence grant program. It set aside up to $10B over ~7 years to states that locked up more ppl for violence and for longer.

Except most states said it didn’t matter, and they left $7B—70%!—unclaimed. Money left on the table.

6. Moreover, there’s no evidence that the VOI/TIS grants led to much change. Graphically, can’t see any difference across states that said it mattered a lot, a little, not at all, or didn’t use.

More rigorous efforts (underway) reach the same basic conclusion.

7. How about COPS, which set aside billions to fund more policing?

COPS might have affected how we police, and may still matter to this day, but for the question of mass incarceration?

Over COPS’ existence, arrests have FALLEN. It’s not driving up the #s entering the system.

8. So neither VOI/TIS nor COPS appears to have had much real impact on state prison populations.

Now, most 1994 Act provisions dealt w Feds, and Fed pops DID rise, by +113K from 1994-2010.

Had that never happened, US prison pop would’ve been 7% lower. Not nothing, but not much.

9. Finally, a few important points about the context of the 1994 Act that often get lost.

First, that whole “Biden/The Act can’t be racist bc the Congressional Black Caucus was on board too.”

They were, in the end. But they weren’t happy about it.

10. Second, the political basis for a punitive crime bill in 1994 wasn’t necessarily too preposterous.

Yes, crime was dropping. But it wasn’t clear yet.

In 1994, we only had data to ~1992. No clear drop yet—esp given then drop-then-spike of the 1980s.

Ppl were still v. scared.

11. Also, while we discuss the crime drop as this big, huge, steady decline—which, i the end, it was!—at the start, it was pretty slow.

By and large, MORE ppl were victimized during the crime-declining 1990s than the crime-rising 1980s.

It’s kind of a mind-twisting stat.

12. Was stripping Pell Grants and (trying to) pay states to lock more people up and expanding federal (only fed!!) death penalty and (only fed!!) 3-strike laws the right way to go?

No.

Did we know better even then?

Yes.

This isn’t a DEFENSE of the Bill.

But context matters.

13. So: the 1994 Bill didn’t cause mass incarceration. It didn’t even push it in any real way.

Which should NOT SURPRISE us. States already spend SO MUCH on criminal justice that fed grant programs can’t do much.

VOI/TIS came to discounts of abt 2%. That’s not going to do much.

14. Centering the 1994 Bill reaffirms a (mistaken) narrative that states will do whatever the Feds throw them money to do.

Not so.

There may be ways to throw money smartly, but have to think about it carefully: https://twitter.com/JohnFPfaff/status/1100069143716552711

15. But most important:

(1) Mass incarceration is a local problem, not a federal one, and will be solved locally.

(2) Mass incarceration is ultimately a political problem (the 2001 story), not a policy one (the 1994 story).

/fin (but, you know… not)