CRIME/JOE BIDEN: [Audience member: “What’s your view on the crime bill that you wrote in 1994 which showed prejudice against minorities? Where do you stand today on that?”]
“Well, first of all, things have changed drastically. That crime bill, when it voted, the Black Caucus voted for it, every Black mayor supported it across the board.
And it didn’t — the crime bill itself did not have mandatory sentences except for two things. It had three strikes and you’re out which I voted against in the crime bill. But it had a lot of other things in it that turned out to be both bad and good.
I wrote the Violence Against Women Act, that was part of it. The Assault Weapons Ban and other things that were good.
What I was against was giving states more money for prison systems that they could build, state prison systems.
And you have 93 out of every 100 people is in a state prison not in a federal prison because they built more prisons.”
-Joe Biden, “Read the full transcript of Joe Biden’s ABC News town hall,” abcnews.go.com, Oct. 15, 2020