CPAC Behind Bars

A few weeks back, I highlighted
the friction between ascendant libertarians and ignored social conservatives at
the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). After some time to mentally
digest that red meat laden all-you-can-eat political buffet, one nutritious
morsel still stands out: the surprisingly unified focus on criminal justice
reform. No foolin’.

When crack cocaine was driving a crime and media frenzy in
the 1980s, the GOP cemented its position as the law and order party. George H. W.
Bush would ride the menacing mug of the murderer Willie Horton to a 1988 victory
over a Massachusetts liberal named Michael Dukakis who was pummeled for being a
“card carrying member of the ACLU.” Tougher sentencing laws, crescendoing into
the “three strikes and you’re out” fad of the 1990s, would be passed to tie the
hands of judges who seemed too often to just be administering a slap on the
wrist.

Had one waltzed into a CPAC of that era and announced that a
day would come when a panel of conservative heavyweights would sit on the main
stage and bemoan mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, call for more
real rehabilitation of inmates, and urge the hiring of ex-cons; I dare say a
Martian would have felt more at home. Well, the aliens have landed, and they
are not from Mars—they’re from Texas.

Governor Rick Perry loudly trumpeted the fact that Texas, by
utilizing reforms such as special drug courts, focused more on treatment than
incarceration, had “shut a prison down.” After a little chest thumping about executions,
Perry said, “We’re not a ‘soft on crime’ state. I hope we get the reputation of
being a ‘smart on crime’ state.”

There beside the governor was the spending-conscious and
newly converted Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist
noted that it was time conservatives move beyond just trying to keep the
government from sticking its nose where it does not belong and instead “spend as
much time improving the things that government should be doing.” He concluded,
“We cannot let the left correctly identify a problem and then slap on a
solution that makes it worse.”

Starring in the “I’ve been there” role that the late Prison Fellowship
founder Chuck Colson would have previously played was Bernard Kerik, the New
York City Police Commissioner under Mayor Rudy Giuliani who was George W.
Bush’s nominee to head Homeland Security before a corruption scandal instead landed
him in prison for nearly three years. A man who had once run one of the largest
prisons in the country emerged convinced that the system was “broken” with too
many non-violent offenders (lots of them “good men”) serving time in a place
that is “a training ground for thuggery.” He lamented that when felons are
released, they face a “life sentence,” the legal and societal stigmas that make
it very difficult to legitimately support themselves and their families. It
often added up to a “punishment that did not fit the crime.”

The room was not close to being full for this panel, but
those there were by no means hostile; quite unlike the feisty audience that pit
a national security faction against the civil liberties crowd when the topic
was NSA surveillance. If any “tough on crime” wing remains within the
conservative movement, its proponents were literally or figuratively out to
lunch.

Down in the exhibition hall groups like Right on Crime and
Families Against Mandatory Minimums joined Colson’s Justice Fellowship and were
all well received. Even capital punishment seemed to be on life support with
Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty in the house. While it may not
have been CPAC’s main course, justice reform was certainly the soup of the day.

What might seem to be an unexpected and sudden supernova of
reform is really the result of multiple stars aligning over time.

– First, there was the religious right led by Colson. With
his conservative credentials solidified by extended time in the culture war
trenches, he had been humanizing prisoners and their families for decades through
things like Angel Trees, along the way reminding believers about the
possibility of redemption and their Savior’s words of care for those in prison.

– Second, libertarians have never wanted to hand the state
too big of a sword, especially when it comes to the war on drugs, and their
megaphone has grown louder through Senator Rand Paul and others.

– Third, the skyrocketing cost of locking folks up at a rate
that is tops among countries not named North Korea is making fiscally
conservative lawmakers think twice, especially after promised silver bullets
like private prisons sometimes produced more scandal than savings. In Texas,
for example, a 2007 budget projection on the costs of future prisons did much
to crystallize the issue.

– Fourth, crime dropped to a low enough level where one
could seriously ask if we were not locking up too many people without fear of being
labeled “soft” on the issue.

– Fifth, the “get tough” system was in place long enough
that there had largely been a changing of the political guard since its
enactment, meaning that there were few tough talkers still around who would
have to publicly eat crow.

– Sixth, even if the final policies could also be welcomed
by liberals like Senator Patrick Leahy who is partnering with Paul at the
federal level, the ideas bubbled up independently through conservative or libertarian
think tanks like the Texas Public Policy Foundation and were consistent with
longstanding principles.

– And finally, a state like Texas went first.

The last factor should not be underestimated. Messengers
matter. If only Nixon could go to China, perhaps only Perry could go to prison.
As Grover Norquist noted, if these same good ideas had come from Vermont, they
would have been “laughed at” in red states like Georgia, Mississippi, Florida,
and Missouri that have instead followed the Lone Star State’s lead. (Conservatives
still might ponder whether a guilt by association mindset is worth rethinking—just
in case Vermont happens to get to a good idea first, but that’s another story.)

The net result is a mini-revolution that seems to be pushing
the pendulum back towards a more sensible, scriptural, and financially sustainable
place on the justice and mercy continuum. It also provided a rare moment at
CPAC where libertarians and social conservatives could legitimately lock their arms
rather than raise their fists.

Link to full panel video: http://www.c-span.org/video/?318175-5/criminal-justice-issues

John Murdock is now
trying to align a different set of stars, writing a book on the biblical and
conservative case for creation care from his native Texas.

Become a fan of First Things on Facebook, subscribe to First Things via RSS, and follow First Things on Twitter.