New “old way” to do things

Ms. S, a petite 40-something black woman, walked in our building Wednesday and announced “I am your unit manager.  Everything that happens in the building goes through me.”  Unit manager?  The old heads just laughed.  “We had unit managers in the 70’s and the 90’s”, they said.

Why is it that Virginia keeps recycling the same tired, unsuccessful ideas from the past?  They didn’t work then, they won’t work now.

As I’ve written before, Governor McDonnell and DOC Director Clarke must get creative and daring in dealing with prisons.

Two good places to start are with the recommendations expressed by “Right on Crime” a conservative think tank with support from the likes of Newt Gingrich, Ed Meese and Grover Norquist.  Longer sentences don’t work.  Reinstituting tired ideas like “unit managers” in prison buildings won’t work.  Real prison reform is needed. 

Then there is research by Professor Philip Cook of Duke and Jens Ludwig of Chicago whose research on controlling crime through reducing prison sentences is both cost effective and innovative.

It’s time for Virginia to get some new ideas in corrections.