If you’ve been following the 2020 Democratic primary, you know that Joe Biden is getting absolutely pummeled for having written the 1994 Crime Bill. Known formally as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, the bill was passed at the tail end of a major crime wave, and allocated funds for more cops, more prisons and increased punishments for gang-related crimes.

Critics today see the bill as the impetus for mass incarceration, and in turn, many of the racial inequities we deal with today. To be clear, the war on drugs started much earlier, and mandatory minimum sentences were mostly enacted in the late 1980s, but nevertheless, the 1994 crime bill has become something of a sacrificial cow; an embodiment of the “tough on crime” mindset that has infamously made the United States the #1 jailer in the world.

Hindsight is 20/20, and many of the leading candidates today have slammed Joe Biden for writing such a disastrous piece of legislation (Bernie Sanders voted for it, but maintains it was only because the bill cracked down on domestic violence and rape). Of course, many of these candidates were not yet practicing politics in the early 90s, so it’s difficult to gauge how much they actually knew better, and how much they’re benefitting from hindsight.

What Did People Actually Think Of Crime In 1994

I wasn’t old enough either to be reading headlines in 1994, and it got me wondering what people actually thought about the bill — and crime in general — during the worst epidemic of violent crimes and property crimes in the 20th century. A quick look at a Gallup opinion poll from 1992 shows that 83% of Americans thought the criminal justice system was “not tough enough,” and only 2% thought it was “too tough.” Likewise, when asked what is the most important problem facing the country, “crime” was the number one answer from 1994 to 1998.

So clearly it wasn’t just suburban parents who were worried about crime. It was almost universal.

I got to wondering what critics had to say about the crime bill — the journalists whose job it is to criticize, postulate, and make grand predictions. Did any of them have the foresight to predict the impending disaster, or were they just as complacent as everybody else?

To answer this question, I compiled a random sample of 30 opinion pieces from The New York Times that specifically dealt with the topic of crime, written between June and December 1994 (the crime bill was signed in September of that year). In reading these articles, which included both professionally-written and reader submitted pieces, I got an intimate look at how both liberal and conservative commentators, as well as the general public, felt about crime in the mid 1990s.

Here’s the 5 main takeaways:

1. Everyone Was Terrified of Crime

The tone across all 30 articles was serious, angry, and dire. Nobody was making light of the situation, or proposing that the crime problem was being overblown in any way. By 1994, crime rates had actually lowered slightly from their peak a couple of years earlier, but this rarely came up, and was never used as evidence against taking action. In fact, one letter mocked the idea that crime rates were actually dropping, as the writer described how they were mugged a week earlier and the cops had refused to report it.

Only 2 of the articles came close to downplaying the crime wave: A Movie Made Me Do It criticized the premise some conservative politicians were putting forward that violence in films and TV was making kids commit crimes, and Stalking the Predator criticized the new sex offender laws, which were not shown to reduce recidivism, the author contended.

2. Kids With Guns

A common theme among the op-eds was the growing prevalence of children as both victims and perpetrators of violent crime. Five of the articles shared tragic stories of prepubescent children getting caught up in violence, and several more articles discussed teenagers. A particularly startling quote in Dear Mr President stated that “mothers [must] caution their children to lie down while watching television because of the danger that “random” bullets might come flying through their apartment windows.”

“That’s a Baby In There” talks about an 11 year old gang member who was accused of murdering another child before getting murdered himself. The author writes, “his alleged crime, his age and his death have combined to provoke a universal revulsion, a feeling that things have gone too far.”

In The Embarrassing Collapse of the Crime Bill, a teenager from Brooklyn talks mournfully about the plight of his neighborhood; “My primary concern is just staying alive. That’s the rough part. I didn’t think, when I was growing up, that it could get this bad. I’ve lost 19 friends.”

3. Red Tape

There was also an overwhelming sense that cops, prosecutors and community leaders had their hands tied and were unable (or unwilling) to truly address the problem. For example, even as young children were increasingly the perpetrators of crimes, cops in New York State were not allowed to enter the home of a juvenile to make an arrest. Another op-ed discussed the need to address guns in schools, and the fact that preventative equipment like metal detectors and electromagnetic door alarms still eluded many schools.

A reader-submitted letter complained about a needle exchange that opened in their neighborhood, and the influx of crime that came with it. Another letter gripped with the irony of getting pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt while drugs were being sold openly across the street.

On the crime bill itself, liberals and conservatives alike would criticize it as posturing, as being “pudgy on crime,” as funneling money into communities without any rationale, or as being downright negligent. “While the politicians in Washington are exploring absurd new depths of ineffectiveness and ineptitude,” one author wrote, “ the slaughter of Americans, especially the urban young, continues unabated.”

4. Prevention vs Punishment

The buzzwords of the day were prevention vs punishment: Democrats wanted more funds for community development, diversion programs, and drug rehab. Republicans wanted more cops, more jails and longer sentences.

However, most writers for the New York Times wanted both. In Shots In the Subway, the author quotes New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, saying, “this is the way we think you should approach the problem of crime. You should be tough on enforcement but you should also put an equal emphasis on prevention.” Giuliani becomes something of a folk hero for liberals. Though a Republican, Giuliani fervently supported funding for crime prevention, often at the admonishment of his Republican peers.

5. Death Penalty

If liberal commentators did object to the crime bill, it was most often because the bill authorized the use of the death penalty for 50-odd Federal offenses. Liberals were also fighting to include a racial justice provision, which would allow people of color facing the death penalty to enter as evidence the pattern of racial bias in sentencing capital punishment. The provision did not ultimately make it into the crime bill, to the ire of many liberal critics.

Predicting The Future

Of all 30 articles, there were only a few glimpses into the issues that would define the present. In Gingrich Mugs the Crime Bill the author writes about an attempt to lower mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenders — a provision that did not appear to make it into the final bill. A reader writes about the issue under-funding rape kits, a middle school teacher warns of using overly-harsh punishments on youth offenders, and a commentator praises New York City’s decision to raise the standards for new police requirements, writing that such efforts could help curb police corruption and brutality.

Decades later, each of these issues would take center stage; many of them still major talking points today. However, it would be generous to say that they were adequately debated back in 1994. These were just footnotes in a sea of editorials covering the painful narratives of street crime, the fears of eroding communities and concerns about leaders who weren’t taking enough action.

Tough on Crime? Soft on Crime?

Today, criminal justice reform is easily the biggest “bang for your buck” improvement this country could make. By merely reducing sentences and emphasizing rehabilitation, the United States could save billions in detention costs and vastly improve poor communities by reuniting families and putting more Americans to work.

But is it right to look back on the 1994 crime bill as an unforgivable mistake — a racist piece of legislation, so soaked in blatant and unconscious bias anyone associated with it must have their right to practice politics revoked?

One could also argue that criminal justice system, prior to 1994, was in fact too soft on crime; that police were unable to arrest youth offenders, that cops were so strapped they couldn’t respond to a street mugging. Undoubtedly the bill was an overcorrection; it tipped the scale a bit too far in the opposite direction. But in reading the heart-wrenching stories of young children murdering and getting murdered, one can absolutely understand how the public felt like something MUST be done. It’s no surprise that the bill was, in fact, supported by many black leaders, who felt that action was long overdue. Its biggest opponents? Republicans who didn’t think prevention was worth stretching the Federal budget.

Would you have been tough on crime back in 1994? If you’re the kind of person who aims to be on the right side of history, chances are, yes.