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The 1994 crime bill that Bill Clinton signed into law came to haunt Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Bill Clinton signed the bill because of the fact that America faced soaring crime rates. This fact is validated by the polls that indicated that 37 percent of Americans claimed that crime was a big issue.

The bill contained several key provisions. For example, the law gave states federal money to hire 100,000 police officers on the streets. Also, it allocated dollars for states to build prisons. Another item protected women from domestic violence and punished perpetrators for using guns when they committed these acts. Also, the law required states to set up a sex offender registry by 1997.

The most controversial aspect of the law was to deny federal Pell grants to inmates, a move that eliminated their educational opportunities while in prison.

In 1994, Hillary Clinton jumped on the anticrime band wagon by calling criminals super predators. However, by 2016 the mood of the public changed on the crime issue. Several factors contributed to this phenomenon. First, the law has played a role in an explosion of the prison population! The United States has the highest prison population in the world.

This fact is clearly indicated when demographics are studied. Although Latinos make up 26 percent of the population, a Latino male has a 1-in-6 chance of being sentenced to prison. A white male has a 1-in-17 chance of being placed in a detention facility. Yet the laws impact on African-American men is truly stark. A newborn African-American male child has a 1-in-3 chance of being sent to prison in his lifetime. This statistic, along with police shootings of unarmed black men such as Shawn Bell in New York City, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, not to mention Sandra Bland, who lost her life in a Texas jail cell, gave rise to our citizenry turning against Americas law enforcement methods. This point helped to turn public opinion against the Clinton crime measures of the 1990s.

During the election, Hillary Clinton was heckled and booed on the campaign trail. The Black Lives Matter group that was organized in response to police violence constantly reminded the voters of the Clinton role in anti-crime measures.

Hillary Clinton had to deal with an angry African-American electorate. This fact was indicated on Election Day. In 2008 as well as 2012, Barack Obama received roughly 96 percent of the African-American vote. Yet in 2016, Hillary Clinton lost because of a low turnout of African-Americans. She received 92 percent of votes from African-Americans who went to the polls. That was the smallest percentage for a Democratic candidate since 1960.

In other words, the Hillary Clinton of 1994 became an opponent of Hillary Clinton of 2016.

Originally posted here:
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: How the '90s crime rate hurt Hillary Clinton - SCNow