Home > BlogGeorgia Representative Jay Neal testified in Salem,OR in favor of sentencing reforms. To listen to the audio, click the link below:
Bill Meyer Show Podcast
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Reducing crime needn’t mean building bigger prisons
By Grover Norquist
Published: November 21, 2012, www.bendbulletin.com
As a taxpayer advocate, I was troubled to learn that Oregon’s growing prison population will cost the state $600 million in new spending over the coming decade.
Conservatives like me are known for being tough on crime. But we must also be tough on criminal justice spending, backing cost effective approaches that hold offenders accountable and protect public safety. While prisons play an essential role by keeping serious criminals off the streets, they are not the most effective sanction for every offender.
Oregonians know this to be true. For years, conservatives have looked to Oregon’s corrections and sentencing policies as an excellent model for other states. Under these policies, Oregon has used most of its state prison space for violent and sex offenders and has reduced recidivism rates through local community corrections programs that are based on scientific evidence about what works.
To continue reading, click here (.pdf): Reducing crime needn’t mean building bigger prisons
Last year, Texas was ranked with the 17th highest burden occupational licensing imposes on the workforce. A full one-third of low-income occupations in Texas are licensed.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation and Right on Crime have long alerted policymakers to the inherent issues with overusing occupational licensing. This practice inhibits economic growth, restricts employment, and can serve as a form of economic protectionism.
In fact, studies have pointed to billions in losses each year attributable to occupational licensing and the lower rates of employment in licensed professions as compared to unlicensed professions.
Occupational licensing can and does serve a public purpose—specifically, when there is an information imbalance or public safety issue that occupational licensing can protect against.
But when we’ve begun licensing hair shampooers and equine teeth floaters, we have to ask ourselves what purpose our occupational licensing system serves: protecting the public or protecting established industries?
Another important question that should be put to each occupational licensing scheme is whether restrictions on applicants with criminal histories play a role in protecting public safety. An occupational license for an ex-offender should take into consideration whether the offense on the applicant’s record is related to the profession or the situations in which the profession would lead the applicant.
A recent article from Austin-American Statesman exemplifies the importance of stepping away from overly restrictive occupational license.
A security alarm installer, Adam Waters, recently moved to Texas from North Carolina. He was apparently so skilled at his profession (not to mention his 25 years of experience) that he worked on the North Carolina Governor’s home, the home of a mayor, and even some buildings on local air force bases.
But Texas denied him a license to install alarms in our state. The reason given was that he received deferred adjudication after failing to pull over in Lee County. (He claims he didn’t hear or see the police officers.)
Mr. Waters clearly messed up. He shouldn’t have been speeding and he shouldn’t have failed to pull over immediately. No one would condone his actions.
But does this incident make him such a risk that he’s unable to obtain a license to install security systems in Texas? Does this one incident eviscerate 25 years of experience in his occupation? Did the licensing agency here in Texas check and see if he had ever incurred any complaints in relation to his work in those 25 years? Is a Texas agency that doles out occupational licenses a better judge of character than the Governor of North Carolina?
Or have we gone just a bit too far with occupational licensing in Texas?
Did you know only 5% of the kids in prison have committed violent crimes? Learn more from this video by Mistakes Kids Make:
Vikrant Reddy joined The Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis today to talk about conservative ideas for criminal justice reform. They spoke about Senator Rand Paul’s speech to Howard University yesterday, as well as our broader Right on Crime issue set. LISTEN NOW!
Also, here is a blog post up at the DC where Lewis describes the interview and podcast.
This morning, Right on Crime policy analyst Vikrant Reddy interviewed with Paul Strand of the Christian Broadcasting Network. Vikrant spoke about the Texas model of criminal justice reform, and about how other states are following suit. He specifically discussed issues like overcriminalization, alternatives to incarceration and reducing criminal justice costs.
Here is a picture of the interview, which took place outside the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s headquarters in Austin.
Vikrant Reddy interviews with Paul Strand of CBN News
Watch this interesting TV interview of Asa Hutchinson, a leading Right on Crime signatory. He discusses why conservatives are supporting innovative and effective criminal justice policies that reduce crime, costs and recidivism.
The interview aired on Canadian television.
Read the full text of Senator Rand Paul’s speech at Howard University today. He focused on how conservative values, including those that deal with criminal justice reform, can better people’s lives and limit government power.
Here is an excerpt from the speech today.
Our federal mandatory minimum sentences are simply heavy handed and arbitrary. They can affect anyone at any time, though they disproportionately affect those without the means to fight them.
We should stand and loudly proclaim enough is enough. We should not have laws that ruin the lives of young men and women who have committed no violence.
That’s why I have introduced a bill to repeal federal mandatory minimum sentences. We should not have drug laws or a court system that disproportionately punishes the black community.
We were pleased to read this article in The Washington Times by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. The good senator is supporting Right on Crime principles of fighting crime, prioritizing victims and saving taxpayer dollars. He is trying to move legislation that would reform the federal mandatory minimum laws currently on the books.
Senator Paul knows that there is a growing movement of conservatives who are trying to do smart criminal justice reform, based on our time-honored principles of limited government and personal responsibility — and he is helping to lead this reform effort with his steady drumbeat of articles, speeches and new media outreach. It’s both good policy and good politics, and we hope that other senators will follow suit. Below is an excerpt from the article.
Judges will tell you that current federal sentencing laws — known as mandatory minimums — don’t actually do anything to keep us safer. In fact, judges will tell you that mandatory minimums do much harm to taxpayers and to individuals, who may have their lives ruined for a simple mistake or minor lapse of judgment.
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Ignoring these rights comes with several tangible costs. In the last 30 years, the number of federal inmates has increased from 25,000 to nearly 219,000. That is nearly a 10-fold increase in federal prisoners, each of whom cost the taxpayers $29,027 a year to incarcerate. The federal prison budget has doubled in 10 years to more than $6 billion
Right on Crime has for some time now noted the overcriminalization of our schools and the general lack of common sense in implementing school discipline policies.
This trend may have hit its apex when a seven-year-old in Maryland took a few bites out of a toaster pastry, noticed it looked like a gun, and said so. He may have even thrown in a “bang-bang” sound effect for good measure.
The school felt this behavior warranted a suspension. The seven-year-old—a second grader—was suspended for two days.
Overcriminalization in schools and a dearth of common sense in applying discipline policies have created a system where this behavior was deemed so disruptive the student must be sent home for two days.
Now, the Maryland Legislature is considering legislation that would prohibit the suspension or expulsion for pictures of guns or hand shapes resembling guns when no direct acts of violence are involved. Instead, in those instances, schools with concerns about students’ behavior would have to call in the parents for a conference.
Irrespective of legislative action, parental involvement should always be a component of school discipline. Common sense should always be used to implement school discipline policies that keep students safe and avoid overreliance on the court system.
And toaster pastries should be conclusively deemed non-threatening and non-disruptive.