Gary Fields has this strange article in the WSJ:

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, embroiled in a contentious New York primary, have been calling for changes to a criminal-justice system they say unfairly targets minorities. But both supported the landmark 1994 law that critics say helped foster the system they now attack.

Until relatively recently, there was general agreement that getting tough did contribute to the crime drop, and the debate was over how much.   A book edited by Alfred Blumstein, pretty much the guru of the other side, concluded that tough sentencing accounted for "only" a quarter of the drop.  One quarter because of a single factor is huge, and considering the source I think we can take that as a lower bound of the range of possibilities.

More recently, though, the propagandists of the other side have succeeded in shifting the conversation so much that many people blithely assume that tough sentencing did not work.  This article does briefly cite Newt Gingrich making a mild defense of the law, but overall it reflects the attitude that the get-tough approach was a terrible mistake.  It was not.  The online comments are largely from the perspective that the article is short on.  I hope the reporter reads them.

As for the candidates, they should stand up and proudly say that they did the right thing supporting tough-on-crime policies in the 90s and that we must not forget and repeat the mistakes of the preceding decades.  I won't hold my breath, though.