The formerly incarcerated and elected officials symbolically buried the 1994 Crime Bill in Foley Square Tuesday afternoon on what marked the act’s 28th anniversary.
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was lauded when a Democratic-led Congress and then-President Bill Clinton enacted it in 1994, but in the three decades that followed, the legislation has been widely blamed among criminal justice advocates for bloating prisons across the country. The legislation created stricter criminal sentences for various offenses, and ultimately led to the creation of more prisons nationwide.
