What you should know about Joe Biden’s 1994 crime bill

This appeared in The Millennial Source

On September 13, 1994, then-President Bill Clinton signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, often referred to today as simply the 1994 crime bill.

The bill was authored and championed by then-Senator Joe Biden and sought to address a wave of crime in America, which had been a bipartisan concern for many preceding decades.

Initially a legislative victory for Biden, the bill is now a liability in his campaign to become president. Many critics claim that it has led to mass incarceration and has helped create the modern police state, which has most dramatically affected communities of color. The actual effects of the bill continue to be debated, but to fully understand it, it’s important to understand the context in which it was created.

Crime in America

From 1960 to 1990, crime rates in the United States steadily climbed in almost all categories.

In 1960, there were roughly 1,887 crimes per 100,000 people. By 1990, those numbers had more than tripled to just over 5,820 crimes per 100,000 people.

Even when accounting for population growth, the number of rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults in 1990 were…