The 1994 crime bill included a number of provisions that increased incarceration at the state level, such as:

> $9.7 billion in funding for prisons, [including] incentive grants to ... qualifying states that enforced mandatory sentencing of 85% of a person's sentence conviction,

> [eliminating federal grants for] lower-income prison inmates to receive college educations during their term of imprisonment,

and funding for 100,000 more police officers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law