Gingrich is right about this

Yes, Newt Gingrich is a wingnut of the highest order. But, as I have stated before, sometimes the man makes sense.

In this era in which politicians try to outdo each other in who can be tougher on crime and when you wouldn't know from the ads whether you're listening to candidates for county sheriff or judge, Mr. Gingrich brings a little bit of sanity back to the discussion.

And, yes, I know just how bizarre that sounds.

We did some dumb things as teenagers that might have caused a lot of harm. You probably did, too. Fortunately, we didn’t hurt anyone too badly, but we cringe now at how clueless we were about the possible consequences of what we did. 

Teenagers often don’t make very good decisions. Our laws take this into account in many ways: We don’t let young people drink until they are 21, and they can’t sign contracts, vote or serve on juries until they are 18. 

But there is one area in which we ignore teens’ youth and impulsiveness: our criminal laws. Our laws often ignore the difference between adults and teens, and some youngsters are sentenced to life in prison without parole (LWOP). Despite urban legends to the contrary, this law has no exceptions: A teen sentenced to LWOP will die in prison as an old man or woman. No exceptions for good behavior, no exceptions period. No hope.

In an editorial in the San Diego Union-Tribune, Mr. Gingrich and his like-minded colleague, Pat Nolan, demonstrate that those Right on Crime guys can come up with some new ideas that actually make sense.

Leave it to the right wingers to realize that locking someone up in a cell for the rest of their life for something they did as a teenager isn't the best of ideas. Maybe they can afford to look at crime and punishment in a realistic manner because they have their conservative stripes. Maybe it's because Gingrich isn't running for office anymore and can afford to say what he thinks. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that he is right.

When we lock up our youth to spend the rest of their days in prison we are writing off a generation. We are telling kids that they aren't worth our time and effort. Just think of the things you did when you were a teenager. Some of them were quite stupid. And what might have happened if things worked out just a bit differently? Could you have been the one at the defense table looking at spending the rest of your days in a cell?

Too bad this isn't part of our national conversation this fall. It might be quite revealing.

H/T Doug Berman (Sentencing Law and Policy)

In the eye of Newt

Back in December of last year I wrote a post about a conservative group that recognizes the current right wing mantra of "lock 'em all up," isn't working. The name of the group was Right on Crime. And who is one of the people behind Right on Crime?

If you guessed Newt Gingrich, you are correct.

Only, as the law profs over at Sentencing Law and Policy point out, you'd never know it from the campaign rhetoric.

From the Right on Crime website is a reprint of an editorial written by Mr. Gingrich and Mark Earley about how to cut down on recidivism. I'll include some of the highlights.

If two-thirds of public school students dropped out, or two-thirds of all bridges built collapsed within three years, would citizens tolerate it? The people of Georgia would never stand for that kind of failure. But that is exactly what is happening all across the U.S. in our prison systems. 

Last year, some 20,000 people were released from Georgia’s prisons to re-enter our communities. If trends of the past decade continue, two-thirds of them will be rearrested within three years. That failure rate is a clear and present threat to public safety. 

Not only is this revolving door a threat to public safety, but it results in an increasing burden on each and every taxpayer.

What those on the right don't seem to realize is that if you want to lock someone up and throw away the key, someone's got to foot the bill. Either you have to spend more money to run the state or you have to find the funds from someone else's basket.

Just as a student’s success isn’t measured by his entrance into high school but by his graduation, and a bridge’s value isn’t measured by its completion but by its long-term reliability, celebrating taking criminals off the street with little thought to their imminent return to society is foolhardy. 

The key to public safety and fiscal sanity is not just getting dangerous people off the streets but also making sure that men and women who eventually leave prison have changed and can stay crime-free on the outside.

Another thing the right wingnuts don't seem to think about is what to do with folks once they get out of prison. You can't just turn them back out on the street because they are virtually unemployable due to their criminal record. If you don't offer some type of assistance they will be forced to return to a life of crime just to survive.

Now, of course, the editorial then morphs into an advertisement for (yet another) religion-based organization with its hands out asking the state for funds.

But, aside from the plug, at least someone on the right of the political spectrum is looking beyond mere campaign rhetoric and actually asking how might a problem be solved. I may not care for Mr. Gingrich's politics in general, but, I do applaud his willingness to think outside the box when it comes to the problems in our criminal (in)justice system.