Grover Norquist: Conservative principles and prison

[Winehole23]

Conservative Principles and Prison


by Grover Norquist

Let’s stand for limited government, federal accountability, and reduced spending.

http://www.nationalreview.com/images/spacer.gif

When it comes to education, pensions, health care, Social Security, and hundreds of other government functions, conservatives are a beacon for fiscal responsibility, accountability, and limited government — the very principles that have made this country great. However, when it comes to criminal-justice spending, the “lock ’em up and throw away the key” mentality forces conservatives to ignore these fundamental principles.
With nearly every state budget strained by the economic crisis, it is critical that conservatives begin to stand up for criminal-justice policies that ensure the public’s safety in a cost-effective manner.



In the 1970s, conservatives focused on the urgent need to rein in an epidemic of violent street crime that many argued was a result of the misguided academic theories of the 1960s that advocated treatment and rehabilitation of criminals. The idea among “experts” was that rehabilitation worked on everyone — even violent criminals. Within a decade, American streets were overrun with released and reoffending criminals, and the academic theories had been debunked.

Unfortunately, the ideological pendulum then swung too far in the other direction. Conservative reformers brandishing the phrase “tough on crime” tackled misconduct by incarcerating more people and giving them longer sentences. The new conventional wisdom was that rehabilitation never worked — so why even try?


This attitude led America to our current situation. Today, 2.3 million people sit in U.S. prisons — nearly one in every 100 adult Americans. America has the highest known incarceration rate in the world. Many of the incarcerated are guilty of non-violent crimes and afflicted with drug or mental-health problems, for which they receive little treatment, even when full rehabilitation is possible.


As the size of the prison system has grown over the last three decades, its cost has quadrupled. Corrections spending is currently among the fastest growing line items in state budgets.


This extensive and expensive incarceration regime is worthwhile to the extent that it is the most cost-effective means of protecting the public; however, research indicates we have long since reached the point of diminishing returns, and numerous case studies can be used as evidence that more prison spending does not necessarily provide greater public safety than alternative approaches.


Consider Texas, a state legendary for being “tough on crime.” When the Lone Star State’s incarceration rates were cut by 8 percent, the crime rate actually dropped by 6 percent. Texas did not simply release the prisoners, however. Instead, it placed them under community supervision, in drug courts, and in short-term intermediate sanctions and treatment facilities. Moreover, it linked the funding of the supervision programs to their ability to reduce the number of probationers who returned to prison. These strategies saved Texas $2 billion on prison construction. Does this mean Texas has gotten “soft on crime”? Certainly not. The Texas crime rate has actually dropped to its lowest level since 1973.


The lesson from Texas is that conservatives can push reforms that both keep Americans safe and save money, but only if we return to conservative principles of local control, performance-based funding, and free-market innovation.


State and local governments must be empowered to move toward rehabilitation programs that are best for their communities. Hawaii, for example, pioneered the HOPE Court, a community court that constantly drug-tests offenders and informs them that they will be immediately incarcerated if they fail. In the HOPE Court, positive drug screens have been reduced by 91 percent, and revocations and new arrests have been cut by two-thirds.
Further, corrections funding must be performance-based. Additional funding for corrections agencies must be given as a reward for reducing recidivism rates, not simply on the basis of the volume of prisoners they house. Similarly, prisons and community corrections programs should be evaluated on the number of discharged offenders who are less of a threat to public safety (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/259263/conservative-principles-and-prison-grover-norquist?page=2#) than when they entered.



Conservative principles don’t have to change to make the criminal-justice system successful, but the stance conservative leaders take must. There is no reason that conservatives should be tied to the “lock ’em up and throw away the key” strategy; rather, we must stand for the very principles of limited government, federal accountability, and reduced spending that our forefathers effectively deployed. I ask my fellow conservative leaders to reconsider the “tough on crime” approach so that we can cost-effectively increase public safety. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/259263/conservative-principles-and-prison-grover-norquist?page=2

[Winehole23]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-02-09-probationviolators09_ST_N.htm

[George Gervin's Afro]

So cut,cut,cut at any cost has consequences?

[Winehole23]

Everything has consequences. You agree with Norquist?

[vy65]

How is expanded governmental monitoring of released convicts a conservative agenda item?

[Bartleby]

"There is no reason that conservatives should be tied to the “lock ’em up and throw away the key” strategy . . . . I ask my fellow conservative leaders to reconsider the “tough on crime” approach so that we can cost-effectively increase public safety"

:smokin

If conservatives are serious about slowing the growth of corrections costs, they will have to overall federal drug laws. And I expect that to happen about the same they start drafting legislation to slash defense spending.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Everything has consequences. You agree with Norquist?

Yes

[2centsworth]

There was a study done at Carnegie-Mellon that showed rehabilitation is more than possible. However, redemption is another story.

"Conservatives" don't quite understand the concept of forgiveness.

Offenders who don't re-offend within 7.7 years are less likely to commit an offense that the general population.

WHY DO WE DISCRIMINATE FOR A LIFETIME?
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/journals/263/redemption.htm

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/images/jnl263/hazard-rate-large.jpg

[ElNono]

Come on boutons... I'm waiting for the obligatory "Bubbas" post... I know you're reading this thread... :lol

[boutons_deux]

"The Texas crime rate has actually dropped to its lowest level since 1973"

He Who Cherry Picks Get His Cherry Popped.

His Texas Cherry Proves Nothing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052402210_pf.html

Decriminalizing marijuana would be a huge step but the "Christian" assholes won't have anybody touch their legislated morality. Lots of blacks and browns have trouble getting jobs for many reasons, but an arrest record of marijuana is always a show stopper.

Sounds to me like he's sorta almoist just-mabye anti-PIC, but then he's for privatizing rehab, RIC.

Remember: Norquist is famous for his "shrink govt 'til it's small enough to drown in a bath tub". aka, a St Ronnie "govt IS the problem" True Believer.

[ElNono]

:lol

[ElNono]

At least there was no Bubbas there... :lol

[boutons_deux]

TX is full of bubbas, and they like dubya executing those 500+ criminals, not one of which was executed in error, according to wealthy dubya, the fake bubba (although his stupidity is pure bubba).

[Winehole23]

How is expanded governmental monitoring of released convicts a conservative agenda item?It's cheaper and more effective than locking them up and throwing away the key reflexively. Policy should be judged by the public safety outcomes, not the perceived harshness to convicts.

[boutons_deux]

I'm sure, since it's Norquist, GOVERNMENTAL monitoring will be outsourced to private firms, sooner rather than later, just like prisons have been outsourced to private firms.

[RandomGuy]

How is expanded governmental monitoring of released convicts a conservative agenda item?

Because it costs a LOT less than prisons, and is as much, if not more, effective.

It also allows for local solutions to local crime, as opposed to top-directed "one size fits all" solutions.

[baseline bum]

To go off topic for a minute, this statement shouldn't go without contention.


When it comes to education, pensions, health care, Social Security, and hundreds of other government functions, conservatives are a beacon for fiscal responsibility, accountability, and limited government — the very principles that have made this country great

Can anyone say it was really conservative principles that made this country strong? It seems a much simpler answer is
1) We have lots of land.
2) Our land isn't frozen most of the year like lots of Russia's or all of Canada's.
3) When we took that land we had an ocean between us and the empire who claimed us.
4) The natives were unorganized, thus allowing us to pick off one tribe at a time. e.g., divide and conquer.
5) Since we're separated from the rest of the first world by two oceans, our nation wasn't ravaged by either WWI or WWII.

[2centsworth]

To go off topic for a minute, this statement shouldn't go without contention.



Can anyone say it was really conservative principles that made this country strong? It seems a much simpler answer is
1) We have lots of land.
2) Our land isn't frozen most of the year like lots of Russia's or all of Canada's.
3) When we took that land we had an ocean between us and the empire who claimed us.
4) The natives were unorganized, thus allowing us to pick off one tribe at a time. e.g., divide and conquer.
5) Since we're separated from the rest of the first world by two oceans, our nation wasn't ravaged by either WWI or WWII.

not sure you're giving enough credit to the founders and our system of government. Many would argue we have been a force of a lot more good than bad. However, you're free to disagree.

[boutons_deux]

"conservatives are a beacon for fiscal responsibility"

dubya and St Ronnie each TRIPLED the federal debt.

If a conservative's or a Repug's lips are moving, he's lying and/or slandering. (See CPAC speeches from past weekend, an exercise in non-stop Repug civility)

[vy65]

Because it costs a LOT less than prisons, and is as much, if not more, effective.

It also allows for local solutions to local crime, as opposed to top-directed "one size fits all" solutions.

The idea is that the government would play a much greater role in monitoring, supervising, and re-incarcerating offenders if need be. That's more "government intrusion," even if its at a lower cost.

[Winehole23]

Norquist is trying to correct the reflexes of NRO readers.

There's nothing conservative in particular about stressing accountability, efficiency and rationality, but these are popular themes among self-styled conservatives.

[baseline bum]

not sure you're giving enough credit to the founders and our system of government. Many would argue we have been a force of a lot more good than bad. However, you're free to disagree.

That's a different topic entirely. The fact that our becoming the most powerful nation in the world correlates with its most socialist period (WWII through the early Boomer years) seems to refute the idea that conservatism is responsible for our power. Not that I'm trying to claim Roosevelt is what made us rich: Germany, England, Japan, and France being piles of rubble was almost certainly the driving force there.

[Winehole23]

Medicaid expansion and addresing severe mental illness through the justice system


A friend forwarded me a handout being circulated (https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6HJLeMEu3hlUURXUVA3NXNGbWc) at the Harris County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council detailing a pair of studies of "Kendra's Law" out of New York, which provides court-ordered outpatient mental health treatment to a small subset of probationers in the "most desperate need for psychiatric treatment."

According to the handout, "Taken together, the two reports establish that assisted outpatient treatment (“AOT”) drastically reduces hospitalization, homelessness, arrest, and incarceration among people with severe psychiatric disorders, while increasing adherence to treatment and overall quality of life. The independent evaluation further indicates that the effectiveness of Kendra’s Law is not simply a product of systemic service enhancements, but is in part attributable to the value of AOT court orders in motivating treatment compliance." In particular:

During the course of court-ordered treatment, when compared to the three years prior to participation in the program, AOT recipients experienced far fewer negative outcomes. Specifically, the OMH study found that for those in the AOT program:

• 74 percent fewer experienced homelessness;
• 77 percent fewer experienced psychiatric hospitalization;
• 83 percent fewer experienced arrest; and
• 87 percent fewer experienced incarceration. The related findings of the independent evaluation were also impressive. AOT was found to cut both the likelihood of being arrested over a one-month period and the likelihood of hospital admission over a six-month period by about half (from 3.7 percent to 1.9 percent for arrest, and from 74 percent to 36 percent for hospitalization). What's more:

Kendra’s Law also resulted in dramatic reductions in the incidence of harmful behaviors. Comparing the experience of AOT recipients over the first six months of AOT to the same period immediately prior to AOT, the OMH study found:

• 55 percent fewer recipients engaged in suicide attempts or physical harm to self;
• 49 percent fewer abused alcohol;
• 48 percent fewer abused drugs;
• 47 percent fewer physically harmed others;
• 46 percent fewer damaged or destroyed property; and
• 43 percent fewer threatened physical harm to others. Even more encouraging, such improvements were to some extent sustainable beyond the time participants received intensive services. For those who spent more than six months in assisted outpatient treatment, increases in use of medications and reductions in hospitalization "were sustained in the post-AOT period, whether or not intensive services were continued."

Who knows if these outcomes would be replicable in Texas, but these data - particularly the bit about outcomes sustained beyond the probation period - made me think once again about the proposed Medicaid expansion under the federal Affordable Care Act. And since we're on the subject, I should reference a recent report referenced at Sentencing Law and Policy (http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2012/09/new-report-examines-what-aca-can-means-for-corrections-and-public-safety-.html) titled, The Affordable Care Act: Implications for Public Safety and Corrections Populations (http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=eevWdtJOZE5x%2FKADUt%2B3IM9XBSPEwGhC). That analysis noted that "About half of all people in jails and prisons have mental health problems and about 65 percent meet medical criteria for alcohol or other drug abuse and addiction," so clearly Medicaid expansion would impact many people who cycle through the justice system. What's more, "Pre-release and reentry programs might also be better able to connect people who are leaving jail or prison with community-based intervention services," which would definitely have implications for folks mandated to receive intensive services under some version of Kendra's Law (not to mention folks receiving psychiatric meds leaving prisons and jails). The report concluded that:

The ACA is not a panacea – it will not eradicate the societal factors that contribute to excessive poor health among African Americans and other minorities, nor will it eradicate other biases within the criminal justice system that contribute to disparate rates of incarceration. It does, however, pose an opportunity to level at least one dimension of the playing field – access to treatment for mental illness and addiction – two problems that increase the likelihood of arrest and recidivism. In doing so, it may help reduce racial/ethnic disparities in incarceration. Mandating mental health services for folks with the most severe psychiatric problems could reduce the frequency with which they cycle through the criminal justice system, as is depressingly common, and if the NY results are any indication, could also prevent a good deal of crime and substance abuse among those with the most severe mental health needs. And if Texas were to expand Medicaid eligibility in 2014, it would present an opportunity for financing such services that at the moment seem fiscally out of reach.http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2012/09/medicaid-expansion-and-addresing-severe.html?spref=fb

[Winehole23]

expanding Medicaid to cover severely disturbed convicts sounds jarringly un-conservative, but if such expenditures measurably save money, improve public safety and get psych cases out of prison where they don't belong, what's the problem?

[boutons_deux]

"conservatives are a beacon for fiscal responsibility, accountability, and limited government"

"we must stand for the very principles of limited government, federal accountability, and reduced spending that our forefathers effectively deployed"

:lol what falsely self-congratulatory, dishonestly revisionist bullshit.

Locking up 3M+, most of them non-violent, creates 1000s of long-term, safe jobs for sadistic, loser prison staff. CCA, etc keep spending $Ms to keep the politicians privatizing prisons, a CONSERVATIVE principle.

"Mandating mental health services for folks with the most severe psychiatric problems"

focusing on "them folks" is hardly the solutions. The bigger problem is that many 100Ks should not be in prison at all.

eg, drug addiction is a health problem, not a criminal problem.

And arresting and/or imprisoning people for marijuana is a CRIME by the "justice" system.

[Winehole23]

lot of straw, very little responsiveness to the topic there.

[Winehole23]

par for the course. kneejerk partisan gobbledygook.

[boutons_deux]

I addressed Nortwist:

"focusing on "them folks" is hardly the solution"

Considering his famous role as tax-cutting, pledge-forcing bully, it's very weird to see him addressing severely mentally ill prisoners. Ostensibly humanitarian, he's got a long way to go before he's convincing.

[Drachen]

The idea is that the government would play a much greater role in monitoring, supervising, and re-incarcerating offenders if need be. That's more "government intrusion," even if its at a lower cost.

Yet it is still less "government intrusion" than being in prison and having guards look up your asshole every day.

[Winehole23]

I addressed Nortwist:

"focusing on "them folks" is hardly the solution"

Considering his famous role as tax-cutting, pledge-forcing bully, it's very weird to see him addressing severely mentally ill prisoners. Ostensibly humanitarian, he's got a long way to go before he's convincing.not a panacea, as the Grits article points out, but jailing psych cases without treating them creates enormous inefficiencies for the penal system and considerable expense to the public. I'm not sure why it should trouble you that Norquist can see the sense in that, except that it may tend to break your rigid political caricature.

[Winehole23]

topically related:


The Cook County Department of Corrections in Chicago is one of the largest single-site pre-detention facilities in the world, with an average daily population hovering around 9,000 inmates. It is estimated that 35 percent of this population is mentally ill.

According to a May 2015 report by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Illinois cut $113.7 million in funding for mental health services between 2009 and 2012. Two state-operated inpatient facilities and six City of Chicago mental health clinics have shut down since 2009. The report goes on to detail that Governor Bruce Rauner's 2016 budget proposal to slash $87 million of funding for mental health services could cause an estimated 16,533 adults to lose access to care.http://www.vice.com/read/what-life-is-like-inside-the-massive-jail-that-doubles-as-chicagos-largest-mental-health-facility

[boutons_deux]

not a panacea, as the Grits article points out, but jailing psych cases without treating them creates enormous inefficiencies for the penal system and considerable expense to the public. I'm not sure why it should trouble you that Norquist can see the sense in that, except that it may tend to break your rigid political caricature.

those enormous inefficiences are tax $100Ms that pour into for-profit prisons, etc.

Norquist and other tax-cutters ALWAYS protect hosing taxpayer $100Bs to Corporate Welfare Queens, while "cutting taxes" means screwing the 47% if not the 99%.