Joe Biden has been attacked by politicians on the left – and now, thanks to Donald Trump, on the right – for his role in shepherding the 1994 crime bill through Congress.
One of these attacks is cynical. The other is dangerous. It’s worth recalling what life in much of urban America was like in the early 1990s. A sample:
“The death yesterday of a 41-year-old armed security guard from Long Island was not an uncommon occurrence in East New York,” The Times reported on Dec. 20, 1993. “Indeed, it followed 13 other killings in the 75th Precinct in the last nine days.”
“What was uncommon about the killing,” the report continued, “was that it broke a 20-year record for homicides in a single precinct, although with a footnote. Maurice Matola, the victim, was by unofficial count the 124th person killed this year in the 75th Precinct. … Last night, a shooting on Georgia Avenue made Anthony Broadnax, 17, the 125th person killed.”
Fast-forward more than two decades to another story in The Times about the same neighborhood. “Once the ‘Killing Fields,’ East New York Has No Murders in 2018,” ran an April 2018 headline, noting that the neighborhood had experienced a 129-day stretch without homicides. Citywide, New York ended last year with just under 300 murders, down 85% from the 1,960 it suffered in 1993.
If the murder rate in New York had persisted at its 1993 level over the next 25 years, 49,000 people would have been killed. Instead, some 15,000 were. That’s 34,000 New Yorkers spared. Nationwide, the equivalent figure exceeds 150,000. Those were the teenagers who did come home that night, the mom or dad or sibling who wasn’t missed at dinner. It’s one of the most impressive social achievements of the past 30 years.
What did the 1994 crime bill have to do with it? There’s a topic for a long debate. The bill coincided with an economic boom and the cresting of the crack-cocaine wave. But economic growth has no obvious correlation with crime (homicide rates fell during both the Great Depression and the Great Recession). And property crimes have continued to fall despite the current opioid epidemic.
What really changed after 1994 was that we hired more cops, incarcerated more offenders and policed a lot better. The crime bill wasn’t the only reason those changes took place, but it did move the country in the right direction: of more policing and tougher enforcement and a powerful refusal to continue defining criminal deviancy down in the face of those who said we just had to take it. It was an act of moral clarity married to political possibility, which is what statesmanship is all about.
The result is a vastly safer country. That Biden played a major role in it is something for him to trumpet.
Side effects? There have been a few. There may be a case that long prison terms cripple the lives of offenders, with disproportionate consequences for racial minorities. But locking up violent offenders (whose victims are also, disproportionately, racial minorities) creates a far greater margin of safety for those who don’t disobey the law.
There are also plenty of stories of abusive and sometimes trigger-happy policing. But there’s also mounting evidence that under-policing hits minority communities much harder than over-policing. Just look at Baltimore, city of discouraged cops, terrified residents – and a record-high homicide rate.
As for the political criticism, Biden can shrug off Trump’s cheeky tweet that “African Americans will not be able to vote for you” since it only reminds voters that Trump sees him as his most formidable rival. Besides, it was support from the Congressional Black Caucus that helped get the bill passed in the first place.
But the former vice president would be smart to take on the barbs from the left, especially from people like Bill de Blasio. The progressive new York mayor could never have been elected to his current office (much less aspired to a higher one) had 25 years of ever-lower crime not made New Yorkers remarkably nonchalant about the need for safe streets. “Makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep,” as Kipling wrote, is the pastime of people who lack either the wit to recognize the source of their good fortune or the decency to be grateful for it. Or, in de Blasio’s case, both.
Bret Stephens is a columnist for The New York Times.
