The conservative take on criminal justice reform was debated at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
A CPAC panel discussed policy tools that would send fewer people to prison while maintaining public safety, reported Nathalie Baptiste of Prospect.org.
The strongest advocate for maintaining the status quo was David A. Clarke Jr., the African-American sheriff of Milwaukee County since 2002. Clarke acknowledged that the United States spends approximately $80 billion a year on its criminal justice system. But he dismissed most recent reform efforts, saying, “All this is going to do, at best, is shift the costs” down to the state and local level as with California’s prison Realignment.
Alternatively, the former attorney general of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, supports reform efforts and noted that “Over the last 10 years, (Texas) has reduced both their budget for prisons and their crime rate by double-digit percentages.”
Pat Nolan of the American Conservative Union supports a move toward an evidence-driven public health model: the government would only prosecute certain crimes like rape, murder and robbery while targeting major drug traffickers as opposed to street dealers and other nonviolent drug offenders, Baptiste reported.
Clarke countered that such attempts to reduce incarceration may simply be normalizing criminal behavior in communities that can least afford it.
“If you’re a struggling mom living in a slum or a ghetto…” Clarke said “…you’re doing everything that you can to keep your kid away from that dope dealer standing on the corner….”
In at-risk communities, without support structures in place for social alternatives to incarceration like those mandated by California’s Proposition 47, Clarke does not believe that the most effective way to keep a community healthy is “by cuddling up to criminals.”
https://sanquentinnew.wpengine.com/optionb-org-support-group-overcoming-effects-incarceration/
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