Sanders Voted for the Very Criminal Justice Measures He’s Denouncing

Bernie Sanders has gotten lots of applause over the years by championing criminal justice reform. However, those laws he wants to reform happen to be laws he voted for.
This Tweet expresses an oft heard sentiment of Sanders’:

We need to end the tragic reality that the United States has more people in jail than any other country on earth.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) September 28, 2015

It’s an issue that separates Sanders from many on the campaign trail. Unfortunately, it’s also an issue he helped to create.

In 1994, Sanders voted for two bills as part of President Bill Clinton’s “tough on crime” initiative. They were the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Ominibus Crime Bill. Both bills strengthened federal sentencing guidelines, with the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act instituting a federal “three strikes” law and greatly expanding the application of the death penalty.

Maybe Sanders had a change of heart?

Actually, no. Sanders was rallying against harsh criminal justice guidelines just months prior to voting for those laws.

Here’s the video:

But it is also my view that through the neglect of our Government and through a grossly irrational set of priorities, we are dooming tens of millions of young people to a future of bitterness, misery, hopelessness, drugs, crime, and violence. And Mr. Speaker, all the jails in the world, and we already imprison more people per capita than any other country, and all of the executions in the world, will not make that situation right. We can either educate or electrocute. We can create meaningful jobs, rebuilding our society, or we can build more jails.

The bills Sanders supported also offered money to states in exchange for their building of additional prisons and increasing criminal sentencing. A report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that 27 states and the District of Columbia applied those new standards, resulting in a near doubling of average prisons sentences.