long article....
But should we treat support of the bill as evidence that neither candidate has the interests of African-Americans at heart, and that the Democrats are a hopeless vessel for those demanding racial equality?
You might draw that conclusion if you were a child, or not born yet, at the time of the bill’s inception and did not experience the political strife of the 1980s and 1990s. But context matters, as do details. The story of the 1994 crime bill and its impacts cannot be easily summed up in a few sentences.
more in between...
Everything Alexander said about what was in the crime bill is true, but incomplete. The bill was not strictly about incarceration. Also included in the $30 billion were funds aimed at crime prevention: community policing, drug treatment and so-called “midnight basketball” leagues to help keep teens out of trouble. The landmark Violence Against Women Act was established in that bill, which has helped reduce domestic violence by two-thirds, a steeper drop than the overall decline in violent crime. And the bill included an assault weapons ban, although congressional Republicans refused to renew it a decade later.
Clinton also tried to contain the Senate’s more conservative impulses, successfully narrowing the scope of its “three strikes” mandatory life sentence provision in the final version. “We shouldn't litter it up with every offense in the world,” Clinton admonished, saying it should focus on the “relatively small number of people that are wreaking heartbreak and devastation and death.”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/02/22/dont_punish_clinton_sanders_for_1994_crime_bill_129729.html
The Republicans were very stubborn about what they wanted in the Crime Bill.
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