Doug Mataconis catches Pat Robertson endorsing marijuana legalization, but I think what his exchange with co-host Terry Anne Meeuwsen about the ideology that lead to mass incarceration is far more important:
ROBERTSON: He's tough on crime, tough on crime, lock him up you know? That's how these guys ran, and they got elected, but that wasn't the answer.
MEEUWSEN: It really isn't working and you know, they are now opening in some places, faith based dorms, where the women are being discipled, and in the end they're going back out into society, most of them, it's a wonderful opportunity for the church to lead the way, for them to have restored lives, and that is working, it's a proven commodity.
Robertson goes on to say, "We're locking up people that take a couple of puffs of marijuana, next thing you know they've got ten years, they've got mandatory sentences, and these judges are saying, there's nothing we can do there's mandatory sentences, we've got to take a look at what we're considering crimes," adding that there are young people who go into prison for minor crimes and come out professional criminals. He also says "it's costing us a fortune." Aside from its religious tone, this is the basic rebuke of "tough on crime" you'll hear from any criminal justice reform advocate: Mass incarceration is expensive, draconian, and counterproductive.
The Christian conservative wing of the GOP has actually been on the reform side from some time---it's part of the reason why President George W. Bush was the one to sign the Second Chance Act. But they've mostly focused on using religion to reduce recidivism more than decrying overcriminalization. The fact that religious right audiences are hearing that overcriminalization is the problem--not that Libruls have created a soft, permissive and accepting culture that rewards crime--is significant.
What Robertson is acknowledging is that the U.S. doesn't imprison more people than any other country in the world because we have more criminals, but because we have a systemic problem with at least one obvious solution: We need to lock fewer people up.
