Only a few decades ago, conservatives were known as the champions of “tough on crime” measures. But since then, America’s prison population has swollen to the point where the United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, and 23 percent of the world’s prisoners.
It’s an oft-repeated statistic, and one that more and more conservatives are listening to. A panel of conservative legal experts joined the Federalist Society on Friday to debate the merits of this new wave of conservative criminal justice reform.
Conservative policymakers in Texas have recently been at the forefront of sentencing reform. Marc A. Levin of the Texas Public Policy Foundation spoke about his state’s success in increasing participation in institutions like drug courts, which focus on rehabilitation and reduced recidivism rates rather than prison time. Criminals still answer for their offenses, but according to Levin, “There are other ways to do that besides locking people up.”
Since undertaking reforms, Texas’s crime rate has dropped 22 percent, and their incarceration rate 12 percent. Where they once struggled to find enough prison beds, they have now been able to close three adult prison units and several youth facilities since 2011.
Former U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey was not as enthusiastic about axing sentencing laws, jokingly referring to himself as the “luddite” on the panel. Mukasey observed that often news articles relate the drop in crime rates as “despite” harsh sentencing laws. “There is a relationship,” he insisted.
When it comes to changing sentencing laws, “We ought to be awfully careful,” Mukasey said.
Many who still support mandatory minimums, like Prof. William G. Otis of Georgetown University, believe that without these guidelines judges have too much discretion. The mandatory minimum laws “put honesty in sentencing,” he said, after “judges had been doing a lousy job for two decades.”
But Levin stressed that reforming sentencing does not mean conservatives no longer stand for holding criminals accountable. He said that despite what began as a decent principle, “the pendulum swung a bit too far and we swept in a lot of low-level, non-violent criminals.”
As a consequence, strict mandatory minimum sentencing laws can land non-violent offenders in prison for years over a small drug offense. They have also been shown to disproportionately affect minorities.
Heritage scholar John G. Malcolm argued that crime rates have plunged in the last several decades, and that a significant portion of this reduction cannot be attributed to harsh sentencing laws. As much as 65 percent of the crime reduction remains unexplained by America’s tough sentencing policies, according to his review of various studies.
Malcolm also noted that while 29 states have recently taken steps to roll back mandatory minimum sentencing laws, crime rates have dropped across the country.
