On March 23, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., made comments signaling his strong support for the House’s criminal justice efforts. Discussing times when he had changed his mind, Ryan pointed to the justice system as an area that had not previously needed reform, but had since come to accept the consensus conservative prescriptions to improve the nation’s criminal system. While Ryan failed to point to specific action, several bills have already received wide bipartisan support in the Judiciary Committee.
Ryan recounts how he “spent the last few years touring poor communities around America — rural areas, inner cities — learning about just how people are trying to struggle with poverty,” when asked about whether he has ever changed his mind. He came to the realization that “there are a lot of people who have been in prison who committed crimes that were not violent crimes and who, once they have that blight on the record, had been in prison, their future is really bleak.”
He then gets to the heart of the matter, “We overcompensated on some of our laws … ending up hurting their lives and hurting their communities.
“That is why – and I talked with [House Judiciary Committee Chairman] Bob Goodlatte about this last night – we’re going to bring criminal justice reform bills, which are now out of the Judiciary Committee, to the House floor and advance this, because what we’re learning is — what I learned — I didn’t necessarily notice before is, you know, redemption is a beautiful thing. It’s a great thing,” the Speaker stated. “Redemption is what makes this place work — this place being America, society — and we need to honor redemption and we need to make redemption something that is valued in our culture, in our society, and in our laws.
“When a young man comes out of prison — a person who is not a violent criminal, who did something where he really needed addiction counseling; he needed some of other kind of mentoring, maybe faith — that he can actually go back and be a productive member of society, be a good husband, be a good father, make a difference … reach his potential,” he added.
A recently published study by the U.S. Sentencing Commission tells the story of the sorry state of American justice. Roughly half of federal offenders who left prison in 2005 were rearrested within 8 years. This means that even though the United States has the largest imprisoned population in the world, and after our country saw the largest jump in its incarceration in history, the system is not working like it should.
According to still another study, about 68 percent of released prisoners were rearrested after three years. People released from prison should be less likely to commit crimes. Not more.
This is not a new problem. For years the Right has been looking for ways to safely reduce American prison populations not by letting everybody out, but by making the system deter crime rather than perpetuate it. Mississippi, Georgia, Texas and North Carolina are just some in the long list of states that have done the difficult work of governing and showed how responsible legislation can make the government save lives while also getting leaner.
The House is currently considering three critical pieces of legislation that would presumably get floor time if Ryan follows through on his comments. Among these are the Sentencing Reform Act and the Criminal Code Improvement Act, both of which Americans for Tax Reform has endorsed, as well as the Recidivism Risk Reduction Act.
The Sentencing Reform Act would refocus sentences to target the worst drug trafficking offenders while giving judges the discretion to give lower sentences to small-time nonviolent offenders. This would ensure that we are using scarce law-enforcement resources where they will do the most good.
In addition, the Criminal Code Improvement Act would add much-needed protections for every-day Americans who may not know the entirety of the list of 5,000 federal crimes they can be charged for. If you do not know you are committing an obscure crime, you should not be prosecuted. It has been a basic common law principle for over 1,000 years.
Lastly, the Recidivism Risk Reduction Act would implement the practices of alternative incarceration, risk assessment and proven programing to put the “Corrections” back in the Correctional system.
As the Senate lags, the House seems poised to take the lead on this necessary and popular issue. Paul Ryan’s leadership on criminal justice reform is yet another example of taking a Right on Crime approach to make America safe again.
Grover Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform and a signatory to the Right on Crime Statement of Principles. Jorge Marin is federal affairs manager for Americans for Tax Reform.Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
