Conservative criminal justice reform advocates are making the case that reducing the prison population, treating drug addiction, and giving a second chance to lawbreakers are policy prescriptions that mesh with conservative ideals.
While advocates cite polls that show most conservatives support ideas like providing alternatives to prison for low-level drug offenders, GOP leaders on the criminal justice reform cause know they have more work to do to overcome a tough-on-crime mentality that came to define the 1980s and 90s.
“No one is beyond redemption and hope springs eternal,” said Ken Cuccinelli, the former Republican attorney general of Virginia who spends his time these days speaking out against the harsher sentences from the War on Drugs that helped lead to massive overcrowding in America’s prisons.
Cuccinelli used his appearance this past week at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, outside Washington, D.C., as an opportunity to speak before thousands of conservative activists and leaders about why they should care about mass incarceration in America.
“We [conservatives] need to own this issue if it’s done right,” Cuccinelli said. “The left cannot own it. We have to own it. Somewhere out there is a balance. We should be trying to do it [deal with crime] not just tough, but right.”
In making that case that conservatives should rethink its traditional approach to criminal justice, Cuccinelli and others who spoke during panel discussions at CPAC point to Republican-led states that have already implemented successful reforms.
