As I previously wrote for The Fix, Biden led the effort to pass the bill which some have argued had such a transformative impact on the criminal justice system — specifically related to incarceration rates — that its impact is still being felt decades later. While he has been criticized for recently pushing back on the belief that his crime bill generated mass incarceration, Biden previously acknowledged the role he played in passing legislation in the 1980s that toughened sentences for drug possession. At a January breakfast commemorating the birthday of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., he said:

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“It was a big mistake when it was made. We thought, we were told by the experts, that crack — you never go back; it was somehow fundamentally different. It’s not different,” he told the crowd. “But it’s trapped an entire generation.” He “may not have always gotten things right,” he added.

Perhaps this response was not sufficient for Trump, but it was far more than anything the president offered in response to his own approach to rising crime in urban areas.

While Trump is taking credit for criminal justice reform, his track record advocating for harsh responses to criminal activity greatly precedes his political career — most notably his affiliation with the Central Park Five.

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A group of five teenagers was wrongfully imprisoned following the brutal sexual assault of a woman in Central Park in 1989. The teens were deprived of food, drink and sleep for more than 24 hours before they falsely confessed to the crime.

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During the 2016 presidential election, Yusef Salaam, one of the teenagers, wrote about how the current president responded to the headline-grabbing story for The Washington Post.

“During our trial, it seemed like every New Yorker had an opinion. But no one took it further than Trump. He called for blood in the most public way possible,” he wrote. “Trump used his money to take out full-page ads in all of the city’s major newspapers, urging the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York. I don’t know why the future Republican nominee bought those ads, but it seems part and parcel with his racist attitudes.”

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“Trump has never apologized for calling for our deaths. In fact, he’s somehow still convinced that we belong in prison,” Salaam added. “It’s further proof of Trump’s bias, racism and inability to admit that he’s wrong.”

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As long as Biden is pursuing the Oval Office, he will repeatedly be questioned — and fact-checked — not just about his involvement in the mass incarceration complex, but what he would do to reverse it if elected.

And in the wake of the release of “When They See Us,” a new Netflix series examining the story of the Central Park Five, it is likely that conversations about Trump’s involvement in the case will resurface. Perhaps the president believes his support for criminal justice reform will help some forget that when given the chance in 2016 to offer a different approach to calling for the death of innocent teenagers, he doubled down.

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“They admitted they were guilty,” he said on CNN during the 2016 election. “The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty. The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous.”

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