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JUSTICE POLICY INSTITUTE
F EBRUARY 2001
EAST COAST:
1234 Massachusetts Ave NW, Suite C1009
Washington, DC 20020
202-737-7270 • Fax 202-737-7271

http://www.cjcj.org/

WEST COAST:
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Too Little
Too Late:
President Clinton’s
Prison Legacy

The Justice Policy Institute is a project of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice
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Too Little Too Late:
President Clinton’s Prison Legacy1
http://www.cjcj.org/

“We really need an examination of our entire prison policy.”
–President Bill Clinton, Rolling Stone interview, October 6, 2000

Advisory Board Members:

ALVIN J. BRONSTEIN
Director Emeritus
National Prison Project of the ACLU
MEDA CHESNEY-LIND, PHD
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Women’s Studies Program

“The proliferation of our prisons, however necessary, is no substitute
for the hope and order in our souls.”
–President George W. Bush, Inaugural Address, January 20, 2001

Introduction

ELLIOTT CURRIE, PHD
Center for the Study of Law & Society
University of California at Berkeley

Preserving law and order has historically been a Republican issue.

TERENCE HALLINAN
District Attorney
City and County of San Francisco

presidential race, was the first to campaign on crime control in an

RONALD HAMPTON
Executive Director
National Black Police Association

Following Goldwater’s lead, Richard Nixon called for an increase

JULIANNE MALVEAUX, PHD
Last Word Productions, Inc.

an increase in incarceration for low-level drug offenders.2 The

JEROME G. MILLER DSW
President
National Center on Institutions
& Alternatives
JAY RORTY, ESQ.
Attorney at Law
Assistant Federal Public Defender
ANDREA SHORTER
Deputy Director
Names Project Foundation
DR. MIMI SILBERT
Delancey Street Foundation
BRYAN A. STEVENSON, ESQ.
Equal Justice Institute of Alabama

Barry Goldwater, Lyndon Johnson’s losing opponent in the 1964
attempt to counter the prevailing “liberal” mood of the 1960’s.
in punitive crime control measures and a “war on drugs” that led to
Republican National Committee’s unleashing of the now famous
“Willie Horton” advertisement during the race between Vice
President George Bush and Massachusetts Governor Michael
Dukakis solidified the rhetorical advantage held by Republicans in
the law and order arena.

President Bill Clinton:
The Incarceration President
When William Jefferson Clinton took office in 1993, he was
embraced by some as a moderate change from the previous twelve

JPI is a project of the Center
on Juvenile & Criminal Justice

years of tough on crime Republican administrations. Now, eight
years later, the latest criminal justice statistics show that it was
actually Democratic President Bill Clinton who implemented
arguably the most punitive platform on crime in the last two decades.
In fact, “tough on crime” policies passed during the Clinton

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Administration’s tenure resulted in the largest increases in federal and state prison
inmates of any president in American history.
Although Republicans are normally thought to hold the tough on crime mantle, in
President Clinton’s first-term (1992-1996), 148,000 more state and federal prisoners
were added than under President Reagan’s first term (1980-1984), and 34,000 more
than were added under President Bush’s four-year term (1988-1992).3 [See Chart I]

Chart I. In President Clinton’s first-term, he added 148,000
more prisoners than President Reagan did in his first term,
and 34, 000 more than during President Bush’s four year term.

300,000

Increase
in the
number
of
inmates
over their
first 4year
terms.

250,000

277,000

200,000

243,000

150,000
100,000
50,000

129,000

0

Reagan

Bush

Clinton

BJS reports Correctional Populations in the United States, 1996, and Prison and Jail Inmates
at Midyear 1999.

When President Clinton Stole the “Get Tough on Crime” Show
When President Bill Clinton included “the war on crime” as a major tenet in both his
1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns, the past ten years had already witnessed the
largest incarceration increase in the nation’s history.4 During his 1992 campaign, to
illustrate his resolve, President Clinton actually interrupted his campaigning to return
to his home state of Arkansas to oversee the execution of mentally retarded death row
inmate Ricky Ray Rector.5

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Throughout its tenure, the Clinton administration consistently supported increased
penalties and additional prison construction. The Violent Crime Control and Law
Enforcement Act of 1994 provided state and municipal governments with $30 billion
to add 100,000 new police officers, to build more prisons, and to employ more prison
guards, as well as funding for crime prevention programs.

Chart II: Under President Clinton's eight-year term, 225,000 more prison
and jail inmates were added than under President Reagan's watch

700,000
Increase 600,000
in the
500,000
Number 400,000
of
300,000
Inmates 200,000
100,000
0

673,000

448,000

Reagan

Clinton

Source: Correctional Populations in the United States, 1996, Prisoners in 1999,
and Prisons and Jail Inmates at Midyear 1999.

Crime Control Impact:
A shift in resources from communities to corrections
The money and resources spent by governments and private interests on the criminal
justice system is so large that it is having a profound impact on our economy, and as a
result, our society. In 1994, just two years after President Bill Clinton took office, there
were 1.4 million prison and jail inmates in the U.S. and by 1997, the criminal justice
system employed more than two million people,6 and cost taxpayers more than $70
billion a year. One estimate suggests that by 2002, the criminal justice system will cost
taxpayers more than $200 billion annually.7 Today, there are more people working in
the criminal justice system than are working in community and social service occupations
(like employment, vocational, mental health and substance abuse counseling).8 Ironically,
these are the occupations that are most likely to be geared towards preventing crime,

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and helping to rehabilitate ex-offenders, as opposed to occupations that are designed to
arrest, prosecute, detain and imprison. With two million people behind bars in the

U.S., and 4.5 million people on probation and parole, America ends the Clinton-era
with at least 8.5 million people who are either under the control of the correctional
system or working for the criminal justice system.
While everyone is affected by the nation’s quadrupling of the prison population, the
African American community has borne the brunt of the nation’s incarceration boom.
From 1980 to 1992, the African American incarceration rate increased by an average of
138.4 per 100,000 per year. Still, despite a more than doubling of the African American

incarceration rate in the 12 years prior to President Clinton’s term in office, the African
American incarceration rate continued to increase by an average rate of 100.4 per 100,000
per year. In total, between 1980 and 1999, the incarceration rate for African Americans
more than tripled from 1156 per 100,000, to 3,620 per 100,000. (See Chart III)

Chart III. The number of African Americans in prison rose
throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, and grew even
higher by the end of the Clinton-era.
4,000
3,500
3,000

Rate
per
100,000

2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0
1980

1985

1990

Source: Prisoners in 1994 and Prisoners in 1999.

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1993

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Incarceration Outstrips Education
President Clinton consistently touted education as a priority for his administration but
he enacted laws that increased prison funding and had the consequence of reducing
higher education funding. For example, in 1996 he stated
Today, more than ever before in the history of the United States, education is the
fault line, the great Continental Divide between those who will prosper and those
who will not in the new economy. If all Americans have access to education, it is no
longer a fault line, it is a sturdy bridge that will lead us all together from the old
economy to the new...Because of costs and other factors, not all Americans have access
to higher education. Our goal must be nothing less than to make the 13th and 14th
years of education as universal to all Americans as the first 12 are today.
-President Bill Clinton, Princeton University Commencement Address

Yet, by signing the Violent Crime Control Act and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which
provided prison construction funds to the states, President Clinton’s policies had already
helped shift funds from higher education to corrections. By 1995, state expenditures for
prison construction grew by $926 million, while expenditures for university construction
fell by an equivalent $954 million.9 That year, more was actually spent by states around
the country building prisons ($2.6 billion) than building universities ($2.5 billion).10

President Clinton’s Prison Legacy
Unlike state prison systems, the President and Congress have direct control of the federal
prison population. Under President Reagan’s eight year term, the number of prisoners
under federal jurisdiction rose from 24,363 (1980) to 49,928 (1988), and under
President George Bush’s four-year term, the federal system grew to 80,259 (1992).
However, under President Bill Clinton, the number of prisoners under federal
jurisdiction doubled, and grew more than it did under the previous 12-years of Republican
rule, combined (to 147,126 by February, 2001).11 As of December 31, 1999, a year prior
to the completion of his term in office,12 the Clinton Administration already well
outstripped the Reagan and Bush Administrations with a federal incarceration rate of
rate of 42 per 100,000. This was more than double the federal incarceration rate at the
end of President Reagan’s term (17 per 100,000), and 61% higher than at the end of
President George Bush’s term (25 per 100,000). (See Chart IV) Fifty-eight percent of
these inmates (63,448) are serving time for drug offenses—a 62% increase since 1990.

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Chart IV. Under President Clinton, The Federal Prison Population Soared.

45
40
35

42

Federal
30
Incarceration
Rate per
25
100,000
20
15
10

26
17

5
0

Reagan

Bush

Clinton*

Source: Correctional Populations in the U.S. 1999, *As of February 1, 2001, 2000 rates
are not yet available so year-end 1999 data were used for President Clinton.

Clinton Justice Department: Fastest Growing Agency
“During the Clinton administration, the Department of Justice grew faster
than any other agency of the federal government.”
-The Washington Post, February 9, 2001.
An analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse in January 2001, mapped
out growth of the criminal justice sector, versus the decline in other federal government
departments. The 1999 federal payroll had 25 percent fewer civilian employees—in
relation to population—than it did in 1992. Meanwhile, the number of federal criminal
investigators increased from 1 for every 30 federal employees in 1992, to 1 for every 20
twenty employees by 1999. Measured in constant dollars, from 1993 to 1999, spending
on the Environment Protection Agency declined 15 percent, the Energy Department
was down 28 percent, and NASA dropped by 21 percent. During the same period,
spending on the Justice Department rose by 72 percent, leading the pack of a handful
of federal agencies that had saw their budgets rise.13
In the last days of his presidency, President Bill Clinton told a reporter from Rolling

Stone magazine that mandatory minimum sentences were “unconscionable” and “we

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Chart V. America ends the Clinton-era with a higher incarceration rate than
experienced under the Bush and Reagan administrations.

500
450
400
Rate
per
100,000

476

350
300
250

332

200
150

247

100
50
0

Reagan

Bush

Rate of Incarceration for State
and Federal Inmates at End of Tenure for Presidents
Clinton*
Reagan, Bush, and Clinton Source: Correctional Populations
in the United States, 1996 and Prisoners in 1999, *As of February 1, 2001,
2000 rates are not yet available so year-end 1999 data were used for President Clinton.

really need a re-examination of our entire prison policy.”14 With a state, federal and jail
inmate population that has grown by over 673,000 inmates since 1993, President Bill
Clinton managed to contradict the last eight years of his stance on crime control in one
sentence. President Clinton devoted two consecutive campaigns to “getting tough on
crime,” signing into law a bill that included the largest increase in crime control funding

ever, 15 and promoting measures that revoked sentencing discretion from federal judges.
In his last days in office— when he could no longer make lasting criminal justice policies—
President Clinton repudiated one of the major tenets of his approach to crime control.

President Bush’s Challenge
Recently Republican Governors in New York and New Mexico have called for an easing
of the war on drugs and for diversion of non-violent drug offenders from prison. Voter
initiatives that will send thousands of drug offenders into treatment instead of prison
passed by double-digit majorities in both Arizona and California.

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During the final year of George W. Bush, Jr.’s term as Governor of Texas, the State’s
prison population became the largest in the nation, edging out California’s, even though
13 million more people live in California than in Texas.16 In 1999, as Governor, George
W. Bush, Jr. signed more death warrants than any other governor in the U.S.17 Having
shown his conservative mettle on the crime issue, and having spoken of his own
tribulations with alcohol abuse and a past conviction for drunk driving, President Bush’s
challenge is now to help others who are caught up in the criminal justice system to
achieve the same kind of redemption he has. Based on his campaign platform, and a
sober analysis of bi-partisan support for criminal justice reform, the authors recommend
that President Bush begin his presidency by breaking with the policies of the last
administration in two ways:
1. Deliver on his $1 billion promise for drug treatment.
During the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush-Cheney 2000 issued a brief on drug policy
that promised to provide an additional $1 billion for states to expand local drug treatment
programs. Following through quickly on this promise will help states marshal resources
to treat drug abuse through model programs, and will help the President emphasize
prevention over prison. The administration might consider providing matching funds
to states that follow the Arizona and California models—diverting less serious offenders
into rigorous sentencing options like drug treatment, employment/restitution programs,
and community service.18
2. End the Crack/Powder Cocaine sentencing disparity.
“One of the things that we have got to make sure of in our society is that
our drug-prevention programs are effective. And I think a lot of people are
coming to the realization that maybe long [mandatory] minimum sentences
for first-time users may not be the best way to occupy jail space and/or heal
people from their disease. And I’m willing to look at that.”
—President George W. Bush, on Inside Politics, CNN, January 18, 2001.

In 1986 and 1988, two federal sentencing laws were enacted that made the punishment
for distributing crack cocaine 100 times greater than the punishment for powder cocaine.
The result of these laws is that persons convicted of federal crack offenses, who tend to
be African American, receive much harsher penalties than those convicted of powder

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cocaine charges, a much larger portion of whom are white. For example, someone
convicted in federal court of distributing 5 grams of crack cocaine automatically receives
a 5-year, mandatory minimum sentence, while it takes 500 grams of powder cocaine to
trigger a 5-year mandatory sentence.
Despite the fact that about 2/3 of crack cocaine users are white or Hispanic, 84.5% of
defendants convicted of crack possession in federal court in 1994 were African American,
10.3% white, and 5.2% Hispanic according to data from the United States Sentencing
Commission. Trafficking offenders were 4.1% white, 88.3% black, and 7.1% Hispanic.19
By contrast, powder cocaine offenders were more racially mixed. Defendants convicted
of simple possession of cocaine powder were 58% white, 26.7% black, and 15% Hispanic.
The powder trafficking offenders were 32% white, 27.4% black, and 39.3% Hispanic.
As a part of the 1994 crime bill that President Clinton signed, the U.S. Sentencing
Commission—a body designed to develop and oversee federal sentencing guidelines—
was directed to study the effects of these laws. In 1995, they recommended equalizing
the quantity of crack and powder cocaine that would trigger a mandatory sentence.
Congress rejected that recommendation, which marked the first time it had done so
since the establishment of the commission. President Clinton followed Congress and

signed the rejection into law.
Groups ranging from the Cato Institute to the Rand Corporation have urged the federal
government to revisit the cocaine sentencing disparity and mandatory minimums. As
President Bush struggles to unite a fractured body politic, this bi-partisan issue is an
excellent way to bring people together around criminal justice reform. Having already
proven he can be tough on crime, President Bush must now prove that he is able to be
smart on crime as well.
This report was funded by a generous grant from the Center on Crime,Communities and
Culture of the Open Society Institute. Special thanks to Gregory Caldwell of CJCJ, Doug
McVay of Common Sense for Drug Policy, Marc Mauer from the Sentencing Project, and Dr.
William Chamblis from George Washington University, for their editorial and research assistance.

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References
1
2
3

4
5
6
7
8

9
10
11

12

13
14
15
16

17
18

19

Authored by Lisa Feldman, Vincent Schiraldi, and Jason Ziedenberg.
For more detailed information see William Chambliss’ 1999 book Power, Politics, and Crime,
Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1999.
In total, 673,000 inmates were added to state and federal prisons, and jail, during President Bill
Clinton’s two terms in office. In George W. Bush’s one term in office, 343,000 state and federal
prison and jail inmates were added. Under President Ronald Reagan’s two terms in office,
448,000 state and federal prison and jail inmates were added nationwide. In Chart I, we only
compared the first four years of President Clinton with the first four years of President
Reagan’s term, and President Bush’s four-year term for consistency.
Correctional Populations in the United States, 1996. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice
Statistics, 1999.
Jack Newfield, “On both sides-and on Bill, Too!” The New York Post, December 16, 1998.
Sidra Lea Gifford. “Percent Distribution of employment and payrolls for the justice system by
level of government.” Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2000.
W. Chambliss, Power, Politics, and Crime, 1999.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 1999, there were 1,404,540 people working in
community and social service occupations, and 463,360 working in Farming, Fishing and
Forestry Occupations—“National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates” Washington,
D.C.: Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2000.
National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), 1995 State Expenditures Report
(Washington, D.C.: NASBO, April 1996),77 Table A-6;98, Table A-22
From Classrooms to Cellblocks: A National Perspective, Justice Policy Institute, Washington
D.C., Feb. 1997
Federal prison population counts from Hill, George and Paige Harrison. Prisoners Under
Jurisdiction of State or Federal Correctional Authorities. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice
Statistics, 2000. February 2001 population figure from Federal Bureau of Prisons website,
www.bop.gov.
The 1999 rates were used because, as of this writing, year-end 2000 federal incarceration rates
were unavailable. The 1999 rate was taken from Beck, Allen. Prisoners in 1999. Washington,
D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2000.
Burnham, David and Long, Susan. “The Clinton Era By the Numbers: His Legacy: More
Money for Enforcement, Less Money for a Range of Services.” The Nation, January 29, 2001.
Tom Teepen. “Now he tells us: At last, Clinton speaks out on criminal justice reform.” The
Atlanta Journal and Constitution, December 12, 2000.
W. Chambliss, Power, Politics, and Crime, 1999.
There were 163,190 people incarcerated in Federal and State correctional facilities in Texas at
year-end 1999. From 1990 to 1999 the rate of incarceration in Texas increased by 98,081
prisoners, a 172.7% increase over nine years. Beck, Allen. Prisoners in 1999. Washington, D.C.:
Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2000.
According to the National Coalition to End the Death Penalty, 40 people were executed in
Texas in 2000. Virginia, with 11 executions, had the second highest number.
“Governor Bush Announces Additional “Tools for Parents”: A New Plan of Action to Reverse
The Tragic Increase in Teen Drug Abuse: Proposes $2.767 Billion in New Funding.” BushCheney 2000. www.bush2000.com
Crack Cocaine Sentencing Policy: Unjustified and Unreasonable. Washington, D.C.: The
Sentencing Project, 2000, http://www.sentencingproject.org/brief/1003.htm.

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