The High Cost of Being Tough on Crime

As lawmakers once again signal interest in sweeping federal crime legislation, the shadow of the The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, commonly referred to as the 1994 Crime Bill, looms large. Few people are better positioned to help us understand what that era got wrong and what this moment demands instead than Insha Rahman, incoming president and director of the Vera Institute of Justice and Vera Action. In this conversation, Rahman reflects on encountering the 1994 Crime Bill not as a headline, but through its lived consequences inside prisons, in classrooms stripped of opportunity, and in communities shaped by fear-driven policy.

Rahman makes a critical distinction between the real public safety concerns of the late twentieth century and the political instincts that turned those fears into punitive law. She explains how bipartisan tough on crime consensus produced devastating outcomes, especially for incarcerated people, while doing little to prevent harm. At the same time, she offers a clear-eyed assessment of where the country is now: a public far more skeptical of mass incarceration, more open to prevention, accountability, and second chances, and more aware of the human costs of punishment-first policy.

What follows is a conversation about memory, misdiagnosis, and the urgency of not repeating history at a moment when the country knows more, and has fewer excuses, than it did in 1994.

Insha Rahman: 1994 was actually the first year I moved to the United States. I grew up in Saudi Arabia, which I consider home, and when I was fourteen my parents sent me to boarding school because there were no English-medium high schools there. I landed in Troy, New York, at an all-girls school, and honestly what consumed me at the time was navigating a completely new culture.

I grew up in a very diverse community in Saudi Arabia, with people from all over the world. My family is ethnically Indian. Suddenly I was in upstate New York, where my foreignness felt very pronounced. That’s what I was thinking about in 1994.

Truthfully, I had never even heard of the Crime Bill then. I didn’t really begin to understand it until college, around 1999, when I started reading about it and, more importantly, when I participated in a prison visiting program at Green Haven Prison. That’s when it hit me that we had passed this massive bill that poured billions of dollars into prisons and policing, with consequences that were mostly harmful. I think it took at least five years, if not more, to fully grasp what we had done.

Insha Rahman: In college I was an Africana Studies major, studying African American social movements and liberation struggles here and internationally. I started the prison visiting program my first year at Vassar [College], and I’ll never forget my first time inside a prison. It was one of those moments where you see something and you can’t look away.

I took sociology and religion classes inside the prison with incarcerated men, and you feel the gravity immediately. At the time, more than two million people were incarcerated on any given day. One thing that became very clear was how the 1994 Crime Bill dismantled prison education. A major provision banned federal student aid for incarcerated people. Before 1994, there were hundreds of college-in-prison programs. People could earn credits, degrees, and maintain a sense of dignity and purpose.

That impact often gets overlooked because people focus on policing or prison construction, but the devastation to educational opportunity inside prisons was enormous. All of us want dignity, learning, and growth. The bill stripped that away.

Insha Rahman: I think it’s important to say this clearly: the public safety concerns of the late 1980s and early 1990s were real. Crime was real. It disproportionately affected communities that had been disinvested in for decades. It was absolutely right that people demanded action.

The problem is that while the Crime Bill correctly diagnosed a problem, it offered almost entirely the wrong solutions. The policies were driven by a political imperative to appear tough on crime. If you look at the signing of the bill, it was a bipartisan spectacle. Democrats, Republicans, Black leaders all standing together. Being tough on crime was a political talking point.

But the provisions did very little to prevent crime or break cycles of harm. We now know how devastating those policies were. In 1994, maybe you could argue we didn’t know enough. Today, we absolutely do. And as we face the possibility of another bill rivaling 1994 in scope, it really is a fool me once, fool me twice moment.

Insha Rahman: The politics of fear are incredibly powerful. They’ve always been used to advance political agendas, often authoritarian ones. And the United States is uniquely punitive. We incarcerate at levels far beyond our peer nations, yet we get worse outcomes in safety, rehabilitation, and recidivism. That punitive impulse is deeply tied to this country’s history, including slavery and its evolution into mass incarceration.

But here’s where I feel hopeful. Over the past several years, we’ve done extensive research into what Americans actually want when it comes to crime and public safety. And the results consistently surprise people. The majority of Americans want serious investments in preventing crime in the first place. They want accountable policing, not abusive or unconstitutional policing. And they believe in second chances, not perpetual punishment.

We’re more than forty rounds of research in, and the findings are remarkably consistent. People understand the status quo is not working.

Insha Rahman: In 1994, there was no counteroffer. There was no affirmative agenda for safety that wasn’t rooted in punishment. Today, there is.

Over the last decade, this country has witnessed police violence in an entirely new way, through cell phone footage and viral videos. George Floyd. Eric Garner. Breonna Taylor. That has changed public consciousness. One in two people in this country has had direct or family experience with jail or prison. People understand both that crime is a serious problem and that mass incarceration has failed.

If you offer people an alternative that centers safety, accountability, and justice, they choose it. That’s what’s different now. We know what works.

Insha Rahman: It’s often not complicated. It’s investing in what evidence already tells us works. Treating addiction as a health issue. Making treatment accessible. Using tools like fentanyl test strips and naloxone to keep people alive. Investing in harm reduction and overdose prevention.

It’s also about the basics. Fixing streetlights. Addressing blight. Creating safe spaces for kids to play. Strengthening neighborhoods so they feel alive and connected. Those things reduce crime.

Look at Baltimore. They’ve seen significant reductions in violent crime and homicides, as well as lower-level offenses. Mayor Brandon Scott has invested in recreation centers, targeted and accountable policing, and community infrastructure. He grew up there. He understands that disappearing people into jail, even briefly, fractures communities. What Baltimore shows is that prevention and investment work.

Insha Rahman: Because it’s important to be honest about what this is. These bills are not about public safety. They’re political weapons. They’re cudgels. They do not address the real crises facing our communities.

There is actually broad consensus among the public about what would make people safer. But political debate gets stuck in scoring points, not solving problems. That gap between what politicians argue about and what people actually want is where the harm happens. And shame on them for that.

That repeating 1994 is not inevitable. It’s a choice. We know more now. We have evidence. We have lived experience. We have a real affirmative agenda for safety.

The question is whether lawmakers will listen to the people, or whether they’ll once again default to fear and punishment.