BS tough on Crime 2012 Vermont

[Her Sister]

8. Get Your Memes Right: The 1994 Crime Bill Didn't Create Mass Incarceration

German Lopez points out today that the 1994 crime bill wasn't responsible for mass incarceration:

States preside over the great bulk of the US justice system. So it's actually state policies that fueled mass incarceration....Federal criminal justice policy, including much of the 1994 crime law, focuses almost entirely on the federal system, particularly federal prisons....In the US, federal prisons house only about 13 percent of the overall prison population.

That's true. And there's one other thing to add to that: by 1995, when the crime bill took effect, state and federal policies had long since been committed to mass incarceration. Between 1978 and 1995 the prison population had already increased by more than 250 percent. Between 1995 and its peak in 2009, it increased only another 40 percent—and even that was due almost entirely to policies already in place.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/02/get-your-memes-right-1994-crime-bill-didnt-create-mass-incarceration


More in link...