This ad attacking Kentucky Republican Senate Candidate Rand Paul for not being a drug warrior is the sort of thing one really hates seeing from the left:
The ad features Paul saying, "Things that are nonviolent shouldn't be against the law," and cites an AP article in which Paul says drugs aren't a "pressing issue" in Kentucky. According to Ben Smith, the ad is being run by a Democratic PAC, and it echoes attacks from Paul's Democratic rival, Jack Conway. Obviously I'm not a huge fan of Rand Paul, and I disagree with the idea that there shouldn't be any such thing as a nonviolent crime, but this line of attack just reinforces a counterproductive political narrative on criminal-justice matters.
What certainly is a pressing issue in Kentucky is corrections costs -- Kentucky has had one of the fastest-growing prison populations in the country, having grown 45 percent since 2000, from 3,723 inmates to about 20,200 today. Corrections spending has gone up 54 percent in the intervening years, to a total of $553 million in 2009. It's gotten so bad that the Democratic governor of Kentucky, Steve Beshear, pledged to reduce recidivism in order to lower incarceration costs just a month ago. It's hard to see how going after Paul for suggesting nonviolent drug offenders shouldn't be locked up serves that goal, but I guess knowing that a "libertarian" is running for Senate, Democrats are back to being drug warriors.
Reducing the prison population and the external social and financial costs of incarceration, and lowering the burden on state budgets is the kind of issue that progressives, libertarians, and conservatives should all be able to find reason to get behind. According to a recent Pew survey, most Americans, period, agree with the statement ”We have too many low-risk, nonviolent offenders in prison. We need alternatives to incarceration that cost less and save our expensive prison space for violent and career criminals.” The basic problem with criminal-justice reform is that both parties are very used to being the same kind of stupid about crime-related issues.
