Hillary Clinton Delivers "Super-Predators" Speech Supporting 1994 Crime Bill

First Lady Hillary Clinton delivers a speech at Keene State College in New Hampshire supporting the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, in which she uses the now-infamous “super-predators” terminology. In her remarks, Clinton stated: “They are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘super predators.’ No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.”

While Clinton did not explicitly label super-predators as African-American youth, the context of her speech and the subsequent impact of the 1994 crime bill suggest it was a reasonable inference. Analysts determined the bill was a major factor in an explosion of the incarceration rate of Black men. The “super-predator” theory, promoted by criminologist John DiIulio, predicted a wave of violent juvenile crime that never materialized, yet the rhetoric provided political cover for harsh sentencing policies that disproportionately affected communities of color.

Twenty years later, in February 2016, Clinton apologized for the language: “Looking back, I shouldn’t have used those words, and I wouldn’t use them today.” The speech exemplifies how racially coded language and discredited criminological theories were used to justify mass incarceration policies that devastated Black and Latino communities throughout the 1990s and 2000s.