Young people aged from 14 to 29, mostly men of various minority groups, could go and play basketball during the peak crime hours of 22:00 to 02:00, immediately, thereafter, attending informative programs that gave them helpful skills for everyday life.
It was later added to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and was signed by President Bill Clinton.
[17] The plan was widely criticized by conservatives such as House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich, who cited midnight basketball as an ineffective and wasteful use of federal funds.
[18] Some, such as Rush Limbaugh, even called the proposal racist, given the largely African American populations targeted by the program.
When Midnight Basketball was discussed in the media in relation to the anti-crime bill, 98.2 percent of the time it was being shown negatively was when it was coming from an identifiable conservative-Republican.
[12] The programs goals were to help young people get to a place where they would be self-sufficient and well-versed in how to act and live successfully, while staying away from violent or harmful situations.
[12] Empirically, a 2006 study of the 1990-1994 period during which rates of most crimes in the United States peaked, and when urban midnight basketball programs were initiated as a crime-prevention strategy, found that—while confounding factors were likely involved—property crime rates fell more rapidly in cities that were early adopters of the original midnight basketball model than in other American cities in the same period.
Participants were not at risk of committing a crime when they attended basketball, and there were police officers stationed in the building to make sure of this.
An article from Texas stated that it "has cut crime in one Fort Worth neighborhood 89 percent on nights when games are held.
The program helps show the young men a sense of community, friendship, and sportsmanship that they wouldn't have gotten to experience on the streets.