The mantra that led many conservatives to embrace the issue of criminal justice reform was a statement of common sense. Criminals come in all shapes and sizes, and there is a big difference between the people we are upset with and the people we are afraid of.
In the former group, we might include those guilty of important but still minor nonviolent crimes, such as drug possession. Such people need to be arrested and punished, of course — this isn’t an endorsement of San Francisco’s current lawlessness. But for most such crimes, the effectiveness of a prison sentence has diminishing returns as it grows longer.
One of the main points of the criminal justice system is to improve society and reduce crime levels in the most cost-effective way possible. And as a mere abstraction in the mind of a would-be criminal, is a five-year sentence really that much worse than a four- or a three-year sentence? Those sentences cost taxpayers a lot of money per day, after all. With such offenders, so long as they haven’t committed violent acts, don’t you get the biggest bang for your buck right up front?
Might it not work just as well to deprive those who commit minor crimes of their freedom just for a short period and force them into a diversion program through which they have to make full restitution? Might it not be more effective to hold over such an offender’s head the possibility that they will lose their probation and their freedom instantly and miss their child’s birthday party week next week if they step out of line again?
Moreover, those coming off lengthy sentences impose additional costs on society if their prison records prevent them from making an honest living. Should the state really be paying to send minor offenders to prisons that effectively serve as Crime University, when many of these people are just addicted or mentally ill, in need of some help and a second chance? It’s a lot cheaper than building new prisons to house everyone.
So much for the people we’re upset with — but what about the people we are afraid of? Violent criminals need to be put where they can’t hurt anybody. Rapists, robbers, murderers, child molesters — they need to be separated from the rest of us for our own protection. Long sentences are exactly the right prescription in such cases.
That’s common sense for most people but apparently not for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. The worst presidential candidate of 2020 this side of Michael Bloomberg is responding to his city’s surging murder rate with a program that gives $1,000 cash to gun criminals. Seth Barron writes:
I thought I was reading the Babylon Bee, but apparently, this is real. What the hell is wrong with de Blasio that he would suggest paying teenagers for committing violent crimes with guns — which is effectively what this is? Conservatives often ask what good are gun control laws if they aren’t enforced. Here we have a case of a politician who demands gun control laws but then turns around and pays people to break them and commit violent offenses with the guns they illegally own!
Apparently, this has been tried before — and its advocates proudly boast about how it basically doesn’t work. As Barron notes, the same program in Stockton, California, boasts in its own literature that only 29% of participants have become suspects in new gun crimes in the time since they participated in the program. “Similarly,” Barron writes, “the Sacramento program boasts that 44% of its 50 members ‘had no new arrests.’ Of course, that doesn’t account for the 17 original participants who dropped out or were arrested in the first six months.”
This needs to be stopped. This is exactly the kind of program that will kill off public support for criminal justice reform forever.
And please, do not defund the police. Defund de Blasio before he puts New York City taxpayers’ money into something even dumber than this.
