This history of American crime policy at the federal level compiles and examines for the first time the record of recent presidential administrations in the area of crime control—their agendas and the legislation actually enacted by the Congress. Nancy Marion analyzes the relationship between politics and criminal justice and concludes, after reviewing the administrations of Kennedy through Clinton, that the federal response to crime has been largely symbolic, and that federal policies tend to have provided political benefit to elected officials while not actually reducing crime by any significant amount. This study and its findings will be of interest to scholars in political science, government, criminology, and criminal justice.