Chicano youth gang activity in the 1990s rose notably in Los Angeles and Chicago, two of the cities with the nation's highest numbers of Mexican Americans, but gang activity rose in almost every U.S. city, including throughout Texas. The political response to gangs such as the Mexican Mafia and 38th Street was a dramatic escalation of the Reagan Administration's War on Drugs. Racialized fears of Black and Brown “superpredators” resulted in tough-on-crime policies in the 1990s, culminating in the infamous "Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act" of 1994. The law provided local funding to hire over 100,000 new police officers; created grant programs to incentivize drug-related arrests; gave states funds to build massive new prison facilities; and disproportionately criminalized crack cocaine over cocaine. Some have argued this bill led directly to the U.S.' rise of mass incarceration.