Members of Congress dimmed the prospects for adoption of policies aimed at dismantling racial tracking well before such policies were proposed from 1988 onward. In effect, lawmakers preemptively sealed the fate of the racial justice agenda in ways that ensured it would never take off in the House or Senate. They did so by committing to a colorblind approach to public safety, one that remains today the gold standard of crime-fighting. This chapter offers a close-up look at modern national policymaking during the formative years of 1968 to 1994. It demonstrates that not only were crime policymakers scarcely interested in reducing then-existent racial disparities in criminal justice; they were even less interested in ensuring the newly enacted “get tough” laws did not further exacerbate the disparities. In the context of these proceedings too, racial justice concerns were rejected. Vigorously and nearly unanimously, federal lawmakers embraced instead a long-term, incarceration-centered approach to crime-fighting that carried disastrous racial consequences, and they did so over the course of multiple decades, numerous votes, and several power shifts.

The question of note is why? What were their motivations, and, more directly, were they motivated by the kind of interest group pressure politics that so often prevail in Congressional decision making? The answer to the latter is “no.” It is true the “law and order” approach embraced by Congress was precisely what law enforcement lobbies sought. But the drumbeat from advocates of racial justice and crime prevention was much louder. Ultimately, the primary reason policymakers proceeded with little regard for the black law enforcement experience lay well beyond the walls of Congress.