When it comes to education, pensions, health care, Social Security, and hundreds of other government functions, conservatives are a beacon for fiscal responsibility, accountability, and limited government — the very principles that have made this country great. However, when it comes to criminal-justice spending, the “lock ’em up and throw away the key” mentality forces conservatives to ignore these fundamental principles.
With nearly every state budget strained by the economic crisis, it is critical that conservatives begin to stand up for criminal-justice policies that ensure the public’s safety in a cost-effective manner.
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In the 1970s, conservatives focused on the urgent need to rein in an epidemic of violent street crime that many argued was a result of the misguided academic theories of the 1960s that advocated treatment and rehabilitation of criminals. The idea among “experts” was that rehabilitation worked on everyone — even violent criminals. Within a decade, American streets were overrun with released and reoffending criminals, and the academic theories had been debunked.
Unfortunately, the ideological pendulum then swung too far in the other direction. Conservative reformers brandishing the phrase “tough on crime” tackled misconduct by incarcerating more people and giving them longer sentences. The new conventional wisdom was that rehabilitation never worked — so why even try?
This attitude led America to our current situation. Today, 2.3 million people sit in U.S. prisons — nearly one in every 100 adult Americans. America has the highest known incarceration rate in the world. Many of the incarcerated are guilty of non-violent crimes and afflicted with drug or mental-health problems, for which they receive little treatment, even when full rehabilitation is possible.
As the size of the prison system has grown over the last three decades, its cost has quadrupled. Corrections spending is currently among the fastest growing line items in state budgets.
This extensive and expensive incarceration regime is worthwhile to the extent that it is the most cost-effective means of protecting the public; however, research indicates we have long since reached the point of diminishing returns, and numerous case studies can be used as evidence that more prison spending does not necessarily provide greater public safety than alternative approaches.
Consider Texas, a state legendary for being “tough on crime.” When the Lone Star State’s incarceration rates were cut by 8 percent, the crime rate actually dropped by 6 percent. Texas did not simply release the prisoners, however. Instead, it placed them under community supervision, in drug courts, and in short-term intermediate sanctions and treatment facilities. Moreover, it linked the funding of the supervision programs to their ability to reduce the number of probationers who returned to prison. These strategies saved Texas $2 billion on prison construction. Does this mean Texas has gotten “soft on crime”? Certainly not. The Texas crime rate has actually dropped to its lowest level since 1973.
The lesson from Texas is that conservatives can push reforms that both keep Americans safe and save money, but only if we return to conservative principles of local control, performance-based funding, and free-market innovation.
Our forefathers effectively deployed shaming and executions in the town square. If you want to bring up alternatives to "lock'em up" you can do it without invoking, incorrectly, the founders.
All of it is just "fiddling around the edges" if we don't address the fundamental problems in our culture that lead to millions upon millions becoming drug addicts in the first place.
Mr. Norquist, you are 100% correct. As a former prosecutor, I have watched the Ohio criminal code nearly double in length over the last twenty years. When I see sentences of years in length for selling or possessing marijuana, I can only think about how much that is costing taxpayers. And for what? The guy selling pot on the corner is replaced by someone else within minutes of his arrest. We need to reexamine this whole thing.
Mr Norquist is simply wrong. The idea that prisons are filled with non violent pot dealers is a myth.
The reason we can now walk down the streets of NYC is because the country rejected this fuzzy headed nonsense a long time ago. The reason we have lower crime now is BECAUSE THE CRIMINALS ARE IN JAIL. I too am a former Prosecutor ( Mr Weaver) and this is an essay that could only be written by a rich man living in a gated community with zero interaction with real criminals.
The idea that the Texas crime rate is down due to letting crinminals out of jail is the classic logical fallacy of ' Post hoc Ergo Propter hoc". There are many reasons for the fall in the crime rate over the last 20 years. BY FAR the most important is putting the repeat criminals in jail for significant sentences and the truth in sentencing laws.
Mr Norquist, if you wish to work for the legalization of Pot, go for it. If you wish to cut costs by paying real wages to prison guards instead of union driven wages, go for it. But suggesting criminals be let out of jail to prey on the populace to slighly reduce your taxes is insane. We have been down the road before, clearly you have forgotton what happens, if you ever knew.
IMHO you're even closer than Mr Norquist. There's another undercurrent in play besides the "tough on crime" and rehabilitation one - there's also the overcriminalization angle working. Put simply, the line between something that's an irritant and something defined as a "crime" - especially "non-violent" kinds - has moved excessively. I think the founding fathers would be appalled if they saw the encroachments on individual Liberty as applied today.
The older I get the more I'm wary of zealotry and crusades. As CS Lewis put it, the tyranny of the well intentioned is perhaps the most oppressive of all. We see this on the sub-legal-limit DUIs, the criminalization of smoking, etc. In one episode of COPS a man was arrested after being called out of his home by the officer to act as a witness - he'd been drinking in his own home and was cited under "public intoxication" when the officer called him out into the public space. Sounds like entrapment to me...
Anyway - we conservatives have a choice: Liberty or Nanny State enforcement. I side with the former - time to reform the code and get rid of the frivolous stuff, the mandatory sentencing, etc.
Mr. Norquist wants us to go down the never ending path of new, modern measures- designed by the university types to protect their own interests - to handle criminals. We have actually been very successful in reducing crime in this country, mostly because of the prisons. In Arizona over half of all prisoners released from our major prisons return. I say if we locked them up till they reach age 65 or so the crime rate would keep dropping.
How much of that cost is mandated by ACLU pushed "humanitarian" treatment? Prisoners have better facilities to live in than my troops did when I was in. Of course that's 30 years ago, and it doesn't have seem to have changed.
I'm not impressed.
In my opinion, there are several underlying issues here.
First, I believe one of the expenses driving prison "costs" is related to "jail house" lawyers who have free access to our legal system due to their indigent status.
I deal with, on a daily basis, I might add with litigation from prisoners complaining that there were unfairly treated in a disciplinary hearing by not being able to cross examine security guards or internal investigators or have access to the name of the fellow prisoner who "snitched" on them.
I know these basic discovery rights come from Supreme Court cases and the Constitution but I also know these rights as applied to prisoners are based on relatively recent decisions. Nonetheless, the prisoners in my state have no fear of litigation because it costs them nothing to litigate and the state an untold amount to process this litigation.
I realize that there are some problems in the prison system with abuse of authority, which drove some of the Court's decisions, but these are not widespread as the media portrays. Unfortunately, I do not have a good answer for this.
Second, one of the reasons, at least for Texas, that Mr. Norquist overlooks, is the fact that the many Texans own guns. Thus, even a criminal must realize he is taking his life in his hands. As Mr. Brokaw noticed, guns make people nervous for a reason.
Third, in essence, I agree with andy fr dc and right every time. In our country and at this time, we, meaning the country as a whole, are constantly reinforcing bad behavior while constantly punishing good behavior.
Some examples include our taxation and wealth distribution system, no fault divorce laws, prison litigation, and gun control.
In other words, there is seeming no cost to society as a whole if politicians take money through taxation from responsible A and give it to irresponsible B, creating obstacles for individuals to be able to protect themselves because there are so many irresponsible individuals abusing the right of gun ownership, or by letting moms and dads out of the marriage contract, aside some sort of abuse, simply because it is easier. Of course, too many studies on these subjects show there are other costs for being irresponsible.
As someone mentioned, maybe it is time for some public shaming, of course, that supposes one can do something shameful, which presently is in question.
Here we have Grover Norquist, a man of unassailable conservative credentials, who proposes something even some on the other side of the aisle can get behind -- and he gets attacked by a good chunk of his fellow conservatives.
I suppose some of you object to drowning government in a bathtub because its death would be too quick and its pain not sufficiently excruciating.
In my humble opinion, our entire legal system has become a sham, a shell game played between attorneys, prosecutors and judges. When justice is served, it is in spite of - not because of - our current legal system.
One's legal career is based solely on what cases are won, and/or the publicity the case generates.
Justice has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Want to quickly and cheaply eliminate violent crime? Start by making executions public again.
Gang violence will disappear overnight.
I volunteer down at the county jail in Pittsburgh, I ask the inmates if they know what they are; I tell them they are a paycheck to every person remotely connected to the criminal justice system. As distasteful as it is these people are the raw material for this system; they go in slot A and come out slot Z, and then rinse and repeat. Grover seems to suggest that if we were just more efficient that would be in accordance with the founding principles. I would argue that the solution lies elsewhere
Thank you Mr. Norquist for injecting a little sanity into a largely irrational system. The system is irrational because it provides disincentives for proper behavior.
For example, most prison systems release enormous numbers of prisoners each year directly out of secure prison facilities with a pat on the back and a couple of bucks. No job, no money, no place in society. Are we really surprised when a majority of them return to prison within three years?
Worse yet is the fact that in most systems over 50 percent of the prisoners are there for a nonviolent offense. They are eating up society's resources for dealing with the violent criminals. We don't need to simply open the prison doors and let these people out. We do need to be smart and make sure a man or woman who is going to be released has a job, a home and enough supervision to at least give them the opportunity not to reoffend. Theoretically, most offenders would get their issues addressed by treatment programs while in high security. They would then move to lower less costly security as they serve their time and finally end up in a halfway house before release where they would be required to get a job in the community, save some money, be drug and alcohol tested regularly and be reintegrated. Unfortunately only a small percentage get to do this.
There are many ways to provide greater public safety at lower cost if we are rational.
I'd need to see more detailed statistics to be convinced by Norquist's argument. I wonder how much could be saved by decriminilizing drug possession and securing the border. In some states (CA comes to mind), we must be spending a lot of money incarcerating people who never should have been allowed to enter the country in the first place.
I agree with much of your premise. One way to make it possible is to legalize most drugs, especially marijuana, reducing the prison populations and gaining tax funding for rehab and education.
The readers denouncing Mr Norquist here need to go look at the examples given on the Families Against Mandatory Minimums website (all non-violent offenders) to see the kind of colossal waste that goes into the USA's incarceration system.
And btw andy fr dc, New York state expanded rehabilitation alternatives for drug criminals during the 1990's while the streets of New York were becoming safer. The incarceration rates of New York state actually dropped during the 90s while they rose pretty much everywhere else.
Folks, remember David Frum? He was a regular writer at NRO until a few years ago, when he fell out of fashion and went his own way.
His book, "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again" includes a discussion of prisons. I don't have the book handy, but I read it. As I recall, he particularly mentioned better food for prisoners (why, I don't know). His point was, as with the current column, was that "lock them up and throw away the key" is not the best.
David Frum is still occasionally mentioned at NRO, usually in a negative sense, the way that guys/gals talk about their ex. A pity, that. It's not that Frum's way is the best way; but it's not the worst, either.
