The Political Dynamics of Justice Reform in The U.S.

elease. It’s here where the law could have had most its impact on incarceration —
since, as Biden indicated, nearly 88 percent of inmates are held at the state level.
Yet evaluations of the 1994 crime law suggest these state-level provisions didn’t really
work out. The 1994 law led only a few states to adopt harsher criminal justice policies,
and the tougher policies the 1994 law encouraged weren’t the only measures that
fueled mass incarceration overall.
A 1998 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), for which federal
investigators talked to state officials about whether the 1994 law influenced state
policies, noted that just four states adopted “truth in sentencing” laws (TIS) solely as a
response to the 1994 law:
At the time of our review, based upon determinations made by DOJ, 27 states had TIS
laws that met the requirements for receiving federal TIS grants. For each of these 27
states, we contacted state officials to determine whether the availability of such grants
was a factor in the respective state’s decision to enact a TIS law. Based on the
responses to our telephone survey, the states can be grouped into three categories—
TIS grants not a factor (12 states), TIS grants a partial factor (11 states), and TIS grants
a key factor (4 states).
Why did most states apparently not take much direction from the 1994 law? Many state
officials said they were already interested in “tough on crime” measures before the
federal law, GAO investigators found:
According to Ohio officials, the state passed its TIS law in 1995, which is later than the
enactment date of the 1994 Crime Act. However, the officials told us the state law was
based on a July 1993 report by the Ohio Sentencing Commission. Thus, according to
the state officials, the availability of federal grants did not influence the state’s decision
to pass TIS legislation. Rather, according to Ohio officials, a widespread concern about
early release of violent crime offenders was a major factor in the state’s decision to pass
TIS legislation.
Some state officials also argued that the funding incentives were too small to drive big
policy changes. Vermont, for instance, said meeting the federal requirements for “truth
in sentencing” would cost several million dollars but only result in about $80,000 in
federal grants.
A more recent report, published by the National Institute of Justice in 2002, produced
similar findings: “Overall, Federal TIS grants were associated with relatively few State
TIS reforms. There was relatively little reform activity after the 1994 enactment of the
Federal TIS grant program, as many States had already adopted some form of TIS by
that time.”
“Truth in sentencing” laws were also only one way that federal and state governments
embraced mass incarceration. They also flat-out increased prison sentences, adopted
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