America has the world’s largest prison population already, but Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) warned recently that we could be on the verge of a major crime spike.

“Over the last two years, murders across 56 of our largest cities are up 17 percent. The numbers are even more shocking in some cities. In Chicago, murders jumped 70 percent in the first quarter of this year alone. In Las Vegas, 81 percent. In Long Beach, 125 percent,” Cotton said in his speech at the Hudson Institute yesterday.

Cotton believes that “the worst days of the 1990s” may soon be repeated, and thinks Bill Clinton’s 1994 crime bill should be applauded.

“Hillary Clinton warned about so-called 'super predators' while championing her husband’s crime bill, which is now much maligned by pro-leniency activists,” Cotton stated. 

According to Cotton, it’s the left’s “disturbing amnesia” that leads policy makers toward “criminal leniency.”

“The police aren’t the culprits. In nearly every case, the blood is on the hands of criminals, drug dealers, and gang members. Bill Clinton recently exclaimed to protestors, 'You are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter.' For once, he was right. And it’s the police who are trying to protect those lives and prevent those murders. We shouldn’t stigmatize them, we should thank them," Cotton said. 

"As you probably know, there’s a bill in Congress now that would sharply reduce mandatory minimums for a slew of federal crimes, grant judges wider discretion to depart from these minimums, and apply reductions retroactively so that duly convicted felons will be released early. The bill’s advocates contend that we’re locking up too many offenders for too long for too little, we can’t afford it anyway, and we should show more empathy toward those caught up in the criminal justice system," the senator explained.

According to Cotton, the argument that there is over-incarceration is baseless because it ignores the unknown criminals.

"For the vast majority of crimes, a perpetrator is never identified or arrested, let alone prosecuted, convicted, and jailed. Law enforcement is able to arrest or identify a likely perpetrator for only 19 percent of property crimes and 47 percent of violent crimes. If anything, we have an under-incarceration problem," Cotton stated.

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