A Conservative Initiative I Can Love

Allow me to recommend to you the Statement of Principles of the Right on Crime movement, which was launched by very conservative Texans but nonetheless makes a great deal of sense.

Conservatives correctly insist that government services be evaluated on whether they produce the best possible results at the lowest possible cost, but too often this lens of accountability has not focused as much on public safety policies as other areas of government. As such, corrections spending has expanded to become the second fastest growing area of state budgets—trailing only Medicaid.

Conservatives are known for being tough on crime, but we must also be tough on criminal justice spending. That means demanding more cost-effective approaches that enhance public safety. A clear example is our reliance on prisons, which serve a critical role by incapacitating dangerous offenders and career criminals but are not the solution for every type of offender. And in some instances, they have the unintended consequence of hardening nonviolent, low-risk offenders—making them a greater risk to the public than when they entered.

Well, hallelujah. It's about time we got some conservatives to admit that jailing people for non-violent crimes is not just stupid, it's a terrible waste of money. And what is a liberal to make of this:

An ideal criminal justice system works to reform amenable offenders who will return to society through harnessing the power of families, charities, faith-based groups, and communities.

Why, he can only agree!

And this, while vague and bureaucratic, certainly points in the right direction:

Because incentives affect human behavior, policies for both offenders and the corrections system must align incentives with our goals of public safety, victim restitution and satisfaction, and cost-effectiveness, thereby moving from a system that grows when it fails to one that rewards results.

The purpose of the criminal justice system is not to punish criminals or to wreak revenge on those who hurt us; it is to make our society safer. If conservatives really are going to accept this notion, and take a look at the data on what helps and what doesn't, this could be a real area of bipartisan cooperation in our oh-so-partisan age.

While I'm on the subject, let me propose a list of problems that I would be very happy to work with conservatives to solve:

• There are too many Americans in prison; in terms of public safety, we would be much better off sending fewer people to prison and having more police on the streets
• Americans sue each other too much
• Too many occupations require licenses, certifications, or credentials, from hair dressers to yacht dealers
• Too many professions are given monopoly status (for example, dental hygienists can't open their own businesses but must work for dentists)
• Zoning and other local rules set too many limits on business activity
• It's too difficult to built new electrical infrastructure, e.g., the Cape Wind wind farm