Sadly, Grover Norquist has made a lot of enemies over the years for his focus on fiscal issues at the expense of hating whatever minority group Republicans blame for the nation's problems at the moment, but I hope they listen to what he has to say on criminal justice issues:
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.
The results of Hawaii's HOPE Program' swift sanctions approach were first championed by UCLA Professor Mark Kleiman. While conservatives and libertarians might be more focused on shrinking government, and liberals more concerned with social justice and racial disparities, the emerging consensus among political elites that the U.S. incarcerates too many people for too much money and at great collective social cost really is remarkable. There are a lot of entrenched interests on both sides, from unions to private corporations, invested in the current system. So the fact that there's something like a public policy consensus emerging on criminal justice matters, one that largely involves a rejection of the dominance of "tough on crime" ideology, is very promising.
