That's the title of an opinion piece by Grover Norquist in Friday's Orange County Register, which I spotted in Professor Berman's Sent Law & Policy blog today.
Conservatives pride themselves on relentlessly questioning government agencies: Is this program producing results? Do the results justify the cost? Can the project be done less expensively? These are typical conservative questions about education, pensions, health care and dozens of other government functions – except one: criminal justice.
The size and cost of America's prisons has quadrupled in the past three decades. In states like California, the annual cost of incarceration is around $50,000 per inmate. When looking for reasons why California is going bankrupt, just multiply that figure by the 170,000 inmates that live in the state. Moreover, 34,000 California prisoners are serving life sentences as a result of the "three strikes" law, for which the state prison guards' union lobbied intensely. Certainly, some violent criminals should be out after the first strike, but the law applies to many low-level, nonviolent offenders, too.
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In reality, prisons can make citizens less safe. When low-risk, nonviolent inmates mingle with career criminals, predators and gang leaders, they too often leave prison more dangerous than when they entered. In some states, nonviolent offenders, such as drug users, shoplifters and bad-check writers, make up two-thirds of the prison population.
Research shows, however, that public-safety outcomes improved when states focused on keeping the worst offenders in prison, but strengthened alternatives for lesser offenders.
Furthermore, lengthy prison stays pull people away from school, family obligations and religious institutions – all of the things that conservatives rightly emphasize as critical to good citizenship.