Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act 1994

Public Safety and Policing

Since the enactment of the Crime Control Act, U.S. cities and states have increased their law enforcement efforts with the help of appropriations from the federal government. With the stated purpose of controlling and preventing violent crime, the comprehensive law authorized $8.8 billion over six years for grants to add an additional 100,000 police officers to the streets nationwide.

By May 1999, 100,500 law enforcement officers and corresponding personnel had been financed. It was estimated that between 84,700 and 89,400 would be deployed by 2003. However, due to the departure of some officers before others could be trained and employed, the federally funded increase in policing levels may have peaked in 2001 between 69,000 and 84,600. It was further estimated at that time that these levels would fall to 62,700–83,900 in 2003.

Violent Offender Incarceration and “Truth in Sentencing”

In the 1980s, a conservative crime control stance and the war on drugs led to massive prison overcrowding in the United States. In an effort to relieve the overcrowding of the past two decades, a number of states released some habitual violent offenders on account of good behavior or due to early release rules. In order to curb this strategy of prison management, Title II of the Crime Control Act imposed mandatory sentences, obligating violent or sexual offenders to serve at least 85% of their sentences. The Crime Control Act also includes provisions based on the “Three strikes and you're out” doctrine, which dictates that under Three-Strikes Laws, any person convicted of three violent felonies or drug trafficking crimes should receive a mandatory life sentence.

Strengthening the Fight against Violence toward Women

Each year in the United States, approximately 2.1 million women are raped and/or otherwise physically assaulted by an intimate partner. Date rape and physical or sexual assault by a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, or boyfriend accounted for 64% of women who were victimized and/or stalked since age 18. Of the women victimized by rape and physical assault, 33% sought and received medical treatment. In addition, approximately one million women are stalked in the United States each year. Most stalking cases involve victims and offenders who are known to each other, and, of those, 30% of the female victims seek psychological counseling as a result of their experience.

To combat these dismal statistics and to thwart the rise in this type of intimate violence, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was incorporated into the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 under Title IV (P.L. 103–322). This part of the Crime Control Act provides for law enforcement and prosecution grants to states under Chapter 2 of the Safe Streets Act. The act states that the grants

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