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

harsh mandatory minimum sentences, and encouraged police and prosecutors to
be tougher on criminals — most of which happened separately from the 1994 law.
That’s reflected in the statistics, which show that incarceration rates were climbing
rapidly before the 1994 crime law and actually started leveling off a few years after.
This is relevant to Democratic attempts to reverse mass incarceration, too. For
example, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), another presidential candidate, has introduced a
bill that would encourage states, with financial incentives, to cut back incarceration — a
sort of antonym to the 1994 crime law. But as Fordham Law School criminal justice
expert John Pfaff wrote for Vox, the approach overstates “the role of federal policy in
expanding state prison populations” and “the role federal policy might play in reducing
those populations.”
In this way, a clear reading of the 1994 law’s actual effects is very relevant not just to
Biden’s politics, but criminal justice reformers’ efforts to undo mass incarceration.
Still, the 1994 law reflects Biden’s “tough on crime” history
Whatever the effects of the 1994 crime law and Biden’s reasons for supporting it, it is
only one piece of Biden’s much longer history backing “tough on crime”
policies that at the very least attempted to escalate incarceration nationwide.
Here are some examples from his record, drawn partly from Jamelle Bouie’s previous
rundown at Slate:
Comprehensive Control Act: This 1984 law, spearheaded by Biden and Sen.
Strom Thurmond (R-SC), expanded federal drug trafficking penalties and civil
asset forfeiture, which allows police to seize and absorb someone’s property —
whether cash, cars, guns, or something else — without proving the person is
guilty of a crime.
Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986: This law, sponsored and partly written by Biden,
ratcheted up penalties for drug crimes. It also created a big sentencing disparity
between crack and powder cocaine; even though the drugs are
pharmacologically similar, the law made it so someone would need to possess
100 times the amount of powder cocaine to be eligible for the same mandatory
minimum sentence for crack. Since crack is more commonly used by black
Americans, this sentencing disparity helped fuel big racial disparities in
incarceration.
Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988: This law, co-sponsored by Biden, increased
prison sentences for drug possession, enhanced penalties for transporting drugs,
and established the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which coordinates
and leads federal anti-drug efforts.
Just as with his comments around the 1994 law, Biden was also explicit about what his
goals were with these other measures. In 1989, at the height of punitive anti-drug and
mass incarceration politics, Biden even went on national television to criticize a plan
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