Professor John Pfaff was quoted in a Politifact article that reviews the facts surrounding the impacts of then-Senator Joe Biden’s 1994 crime bill.
It’s impossible to draw a straight line between any of these changes and the crime bill. Many factors play a role.
“Criminal policy is driven mostly by state and local decisions, not federal,” Fordham University professor John Pfaff noted.
Also, crime fell during the 1990s, and that relieved the pressure to put more people behind bars.
…While Biden’s bill incentivized states to adopt truth-in-sentencing laws that would effectively extend the amount of time offenders’ served on average, most states had already passed such measures by the time the federal law took effect.
Almost all states that adopted them afterward said that the bill didn’t really influence their decisions, Pfaff said.