Newt Gingrich is a founding member of “Right on Crime” a
conservative advocacy group calling for fewer prisons, shorter sentences and
lower incarceration rates. They focus on
reducing recidivism through a “cost-effective criminal justice system”. They seek less imprisonment and strategies
that emphasize restitution, work and treatment.
In a policy statement, Right on Crime set out: “one way to save money is reduce our reliance
on prisons which serve a critical role by incapacitating dangerous offenders
and career criminals but are not the solution for every type of offender… [an]
unintended consequence of [prison’] is hardening many non-violent low risk
offenders and making them worse than when they entered.”
That it is conservative Republicans pushing prison reform
while the nation’s first “black” President has done little to nothing to seek
such reform is an irony inmates are still coming to grips with. If for no other reason than my own
excessively long sentence, I am hoping for a GOP landslide in 2012.
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