Twenty years ago this week, in 1994, then-President Bill Clinton signed a crime bill. It was, in effect, a long-term experiment in various ways to fight crime.
The measure paid to put more cops on the beat, trained police and lawyers to investigate domestic violence, imposed tougher prison sentences and provided money for extra prisons.
Clinton described his motivation to pass the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act in stark terms.
"Gangs and drugs have taken over our streets and undermined our schools," he said. "Every day, we read about somebody else who has literally gotten away with murder."
[For more of this story, written by Carrie Johnson, go to http://www.npr.org/2014/09/12/...-as-terrible-mistake]
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