I know this is red meat for their base but haven't the last 20 years taught us anything in terms of the explosion in our prison system with the "3 strikes and you're out" legislation?
Ending the war on drugs would go a long way towards alleviating prison overcrowding. Just focus on violent criminals. I hate illegal drugs as much as anyone but prohibition of addictive substances does not work and always results in criminal organizations making tons of money. Focus on education and treatment. Throwing a drug user or even a drug dealer in prison is a waste of time. As long as it is illegal and there is a heavy demand, there will always be drug dealers to replace them.
After Obama pardoned thousands of criminals that are back out on the streets committing new crimes now, I'd be happy at this point to just have the ones that are in locked up without releasing them early.
In principle, I oppose mandatory minimum sentencing. I prefer that punishments be handed down by those who hear the evidence - judges and juries. However, I understand why we have them. We have them for the same reason we have a lot of goofy mandates for how teachers do their jobs - because at some point, somewhere, somebody who previously had discretion to use common sense decided to do something stupid (or at least something that seemed stupid) instead. In fact, it was so stupid and/or happened enough times that it motivated the public to stop worry about the Kardashians for a few minutes and start bugging their members of Congress. In the case of crime, it's hearing about somebody getting a lax sentence for a terrible crime. Usually it's the Right that gets mad about this sort of thing, but if the crime or the demographics of the perpetrator and/or the victim meet the convenient criteria that can be exploited to drive a favored political narrative, the Left gets mad about it too. Link. Some things are worth noting on this. First, you can support mandatory minimum sentencing (or longer sentences) and still favor criminal justice reform. There's a disturbing trend in political discourse that criminal justice reform is synonymous with laxer punishments in general. I don't think that's necessarily the case. Personally, I consider myself a reform advocate, but I favor it mostly in the drug realm. I think we should sharply scale back laws against drug use. Drug addicts should receive treatment, not jail time. They're sick people, not bad people. However, drug dealers and drug lords are bad people who should get into serious trouble. And violent criminals? F*ck 'em. The minute you inflict serious bodily injury or death on somebody or rape somebody (especially a child), you pretty much deserve to have the book thrown at you. Furthermore, I don't mind a three-strikes rule for this sort of thing if the strikes are actually for violent crimes. (Illegal entry isn't a violent crime.) Second, I'm not a fan of the nationalization of crime as a political issue. If your crime is truly interstate or international in nature, then I don't have a problem with Congress making the rules. Ditto for crimes committed against federal judges and law enforcement officers. However, the overwhelming majority of crimes are state offenses, and that's where they should belong. If you shoot a local or state police officer or a state judge, you should be charged in state court under state law. Kathryn Steinle's murderer should be charged in California state court, and we shouldn't scrounge around to make up a federal law to charge him with. If California decides to go lax on him, that's their prerogative, as sick as that might be. We either believe in states' rights or we don't. I do.
So we should quit incarcerating three-time felons because the prisons are getting crowded? We could significantly reduce the crowding by preventing illegals from entering the country. Problem solved.
