Criminal justice reform is a dormant issue that could facilitate redefine the Republican Party in 2016. Grover Norquist, president Americans for Tax Reform, reports for the December issue Town hall warehouse.
For the past year, the political world has revolved around the 2014 battle for control of the Senate. That was then. Now, pundits are feeling whiplash as they focus on the 2016 presidential election.
The list of potential candidates is widely known. Many issues have already been formulated: repealing and replacing Obamacare, lower taxes, Ryan’s budget plan, and ending the war on energy.
But there’s a recent issue on the horizon that will give each potential Republican presidential candidate a chance to present themselves in a different featherlight, show how they think, capture the attention of a nontraditional and conservative core audience, and lead on a national issue: criminal justice reform.
In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, crime was a earnest problem. Democrats did not want to execute murderers. They told us that murderers and rapists have “problems” and are themselves victims of “root causes.” The victims suffered collateral damage. Governor Mike Dukakis lost his 1988 presidential bid in part by granting furloughs to murderers who had been sentenced by a Massachusetts jury to what they said was “life in prison without parole.”
Liberal judges did not take crime seriously, and state and federal legislators passed “mandatory minimum” laws, eliminating often abused judicial discretion.
A wave of cocaine abuse and a recent crack “epidemic” fueled real fears, and liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans ran into each other, rushing to television cameras to demand longer prison sentences.
The number of Americans incarcerated has increased from 501,000 in 1980 to 2.3 million today. There are 216,362 Americans in federal prisons. There are 1,362,028 Americans incarcerated in state prisons. Nearly 721,654 Americans are incarcerated in local jails on any given day. This has increased the cost of incarcerating criminals to as much as 10 percent of many state budgets. The cost of keeping someone in jail in California for a year is $50,000. America’s 300,000 prison guards often belong to unions. And wages, benefits and pensions have increased dramatically.
In a story that the media finds endlessly fascinating, it was conservative Republicans who led the charge in asking the question: What is the wisest way to employ prison, parole, probation and financial penalties to reduce crime?
Texas Gov. Rick Perry and his Republican legislature have led the way to rethinking criminal justice reform.
These reforms resulted in a 12% reduction in the prison population, while a 22% drop in crime. Perry, speaking at the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference, said his reforms enabled Texas to close three adult prisons and six juvenile detention centers. By expanding proven alternatives to incarceration, such as drug courts, which cost-effectively hold criminals accountable, Texas avoided spending $2 billion to build prisons once thought necessary and instead saved tens of millions by closing unnecessary prisons.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation and its criminal justice expert Marc Levin are now trying to spread the message of Texas success through the Right On Crime coalition, which seeks to aggressively reduce crime while keeping costs low for taxpayers and less disruptive to the lives of those who commit crimes.
Perhaps the minimum sentences are too long. After several decades of experience, can we check how useful and costly they were? Can we reduce crime by more aggressively monitoring probation and parole, house arrest, and ankle bracelets? Is prison the best way to fight drug addiction? Would a more certain sentence, but for shorter periods, be a greater deterrent to crime? And what do we ask/demand that prisoners do with their time behind walls that will make them less likely to reoffend?
About 95 percent of all people incarcerated are eventually released. How much of our money do we spend on preparing them to live sincere and productive lives? Many states prohibit ex-offenders from even obtaining a work permit, making it impossible for a former marijuana seller to get out of prison and become a taxi driver or a hairdresser or any of the hundreds of jobs that various states require licensing.
Legislation based on efforts by Texas and Right On Crime, as well as the American Legislative Exchange Council, has been passed in states ranging from Georgia to Idaho to South Carolina and Mississippi. National Republican leaders, including many who might want to run for president, have taken the lead in this law-on-crime rethinking of criminal justice and prison systems. Indiana Governor Mike Pence passed criminal justice reform legislation and a law that allowed many former criminals to clear their records after years of living under the law.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed drug sentencing reforms into law. Ohio Governor John Kasich reduced penalties for criminals possessing petite amounts of drugs and passed a law making it easier for former felons to obtain professional licenses.
Sense. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Mike Lee (R-UT) co-sponsored the Smarter Sentencing Act to reduce mandatory minimum sentences imposed by the federal government for low-level drug offenses.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed legislation in 2014 providing liability immunity to employers of ex-offenders and creating a “cleansing period” during which crimes committed decades ago would no longer lead to corrections for recent offenses, contributing to Louisiana employed more than 2,000 prisoners serving life without parole despite never having committed a violent crime.
In his recent landmark anti-poverty plan, Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) included proposals to reform the criminal justice system and remove government-imposed barriers to ex-offenders’ reintegration into society.
Moreover, many states are expected to continue this trend in 2015, including Alabama, Utah, Michigan and West Virginia, where committees and task forces are preparing major criminal justice reforms for the next legislative session.
Of the various problems that confront us today and that will arise unexpectedly (who predicted that Ebola or ISIS would play a role in 2014), one is now clearly noticeable and is a real test of how pioneering and capable a candidate is for re- rethinking the senior paradigm, recent and improved crime in criminal justice reform.
