BS tough on Crime 2012 Vermont

[Her Sister]

19. Sanders, now a reformer, once boasted of being tough on crime

https://www.yahoo.com/news/sanders-now-a-reformer-once-boasted-of-being-223600102.html



Sanders, now a reformer, once boasted of being tough on crime

Sanders has long spoken against the folly of putting more people in prison while ignoring the social problems that cause crime. But the senator from Vermont voted for a bill that is now widely considered by criminal justice reform advocates to epitomize the “tough on crime” approach that led to the explosion of prison populations in the 1990s.

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which later passed in a different form as the Omnibus Crime Bill of 1994 (Sanders voted for both), expanded the death penalty and offered incentives to states to lengthen prison sentences. These “truth in sentencing” laws contributed to the era of mass incarceration that Sanders now says he deplores.

“The common wisdom was to lock them up and throw away the key,” said Inimai Chettiar, director of the justice program at the Brennan Center at New York University Law School. “Sanders’ evolution is similar to that of many mainstream politicians on both sides.”

That includes Sanders’ rival Hillary Clinton, who was also a supporter of the Crime Act as first lady. It was a legislative priority of her husband’s, during a time when Democrats and Republicans were hoping to win votes by addressing constituents’ concerns about the “epidemic” of crack cocaine and violent crime. (Bill Clinton recently apologized for his role in contributing to mass incarceration.)

But Clinton began rethinking her criminal justice reform platform long before Sanders appears to have done so.