Democrats aren’t afraid of being called soft on crime anymore.
As Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday championed the first decrease in the federal prison population in more than three decades, it was abundantly clear that Obama administration officials are operating in a political environment fundamentally different than their Democratic predecessors.
President Bill Clinton had to maintain a constant tough-on-crime tone to deflect Republican attacks — Michael Dukakis disastrously rode in a military tank to fend off Republican criticisms — but Team Obama has plenty of political cover to make wide-ranging reforms to the criminal justice system.
In outlining the drop of 4,800 federal prisoners during the last year, Holder name-dropped some atypical allies: Tea Party favorites Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, and even the Heritage Foundation.
That such an appeal came from an Obama Cabinet member who has inspired unrivaled GOP scorn showcases just how politically safe the plan is for the White House.
“Clearly, criminal justice reform is an idea whose time has come,” Holder insisted. “And thanks to a robust and growing national consensus — a consensus driven not by political ideology, but by the promising work that’s underway, and the efforts of leaders like Sens. Patrick Leahy, Dick Durbin, Mike Lee and Rand Paul — we are bringing about a paradigm shift, and witnessing a historic sea change, in the way our nation approaches these issues.”
Such confidence is rooted in the fact that Libertarian-leaning members of the Republican Party have decried what they view as racial disparities in the justice system and budget hawks have lamented the cost of overcrowded prisons.
It’s not all good news for the White House, though.
The number of inmates at state prisons in 2013 increased for the first time after shrinking every year since 2009. The Justice Department said that state prisons had 6,300 more inmates at the end of 2013 than the year before.
But even Republicans less supportive of President Obama’s plans to decrease the prison population and scrap mandatory minimum sentences aren’t going out of their way to criticize the administration’s plan.
“We don’t have anything for you on that,” one House GOP leadership aide said when asked by the Washington Examiner for reaction to Holder’s announcement.
“Nothing right now,” replied another senior aide for a Republican senator.
While conservatives have little problem labeling the president as soft on terrorism, as they have done repeatedly during his campaign to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Obama’s critics aren’t nearly as eager to rake him over the coals for his approach to domestic crime.
That approach reflects a shift in public perception about the criminal justice system.
A new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute found that even a slim majority of white respondents said black Americans and other minorities don’t receive the “same treatment” as whites in the criminal justice system. While black and white Americans have vastly different opinions on racial inequality, the survey found, the criminal justice system is an area where the groups increasingly agree.
The central argument for Obama’s plan, advocates said, is that reducing the prison population actually lowers crime and recidivism rates.
“[Prosecutors] are charged with protecting the public and enforcing the law,” said Inimai Chettiar, director of the Justice Program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. “Prosecutors increasingly agree that they can advance public safety and justice without excessively relying on incarceration.”
That’s the message Obama and his allies will trumpet in an attempt to get traction on sentencing-reform legislation, long stalled on Capitol Hill, and to ensure the soft-on-crime albatross does not take flight.
“Since President Obama took office, both overall crime and overall incarceration have decreased by approximately 10 percent,” Holder said Tuesday. “This is the first time these two critical markers have declined together in more than 40 years.”
