Black incarceration rates tripled during Clinton era
WASHINGTON—Former President Bill Clinton left a legacy in the prison system during his eight years in office that was more punitive than both of his Republican predecessors Ronald Reagan and George Bush combined, according to a new report from the Justice Policy Institute (JPI).
Furthermore, in the last two decades the rate of Black incarceration more than tripled, rising from 1,156 Blacks in jail per 100,000 Black citizens in 1980 when Mr. Reagan took office, to more than 3,620 per 100,000 Blacks in 1999, near the end of Mr. Clinton’s term, according to JPI’s report, "Too Little, Too Late: Clinton’s Prison Legacy."
After more than a decade in which the Black incarceration rate increased by an average of 138.4 per 100,000 per year, more than doubling the number of Blacks in federal custody between 1980 and 1992, the Black incarceration rate continued to increase by an average of 100.4 per 100,000 during the Clinton era, according to the report.
"President Clinton stole the show from the ‘tough on crime’ Republicans," said Vincent Schiraldi, JPI president on Feb. 19 when his group released its study to reporters. Mr. Clinton was "right to call for criminal justice reform in a recent Rolling Stone interview," Mr. Schiraldi continued, referring to an end-of-his-term interview with the magazine. "He was wrong to do so little about it while he was in office."
Mr. Clinton’s controversial end-of-term pardons—including a major drug "kingpin"—illustrate the inconsistency between Mr. Clinton’s rhetoric and his actions, according to one of the report’s authors.
