Conservatives, Crime Policy (Ross Douthat: Reduce Prison Population to Help GOP win Votes)

Ross Douthat ^ | 26 Mar 2009 | Ross Douthat

[GOPGuide]

snip

But drop down to ground level for a moment, and consider Ta-Nehisi's response to my post on prison reform. Here we have an issue - the design of our criminal-justice system - that's of burning concern to the African-American community. It's not an easy issue to wrestle with by any stretch: My preferred approach to reform, for instance, would marry a reduced incarceration rate to a substantial increase in the police presence on America's streets, which if implemented clumsily (as most policy shifts are) could mean fewer black men behind bars, but more tragedies like the death of Ta-Nehisi's friend. But it's also an issue where conservatives could embrace policy shifts without compromising their core beliefs - the question of where to strike the "build prisons or hire cops" balance is a practical rather than a philosophical one - and in the process, I think, substantially change the way the Republican Party is perceived in the black community. Also, it would be the right thing to do.

This is something I think that arguments like Steele's - which are common on the American Right - lose sight of. As I remarked in the context of the Europe-or-America debate, there are a lot of big-picture political issues that boil down to philosophical differences, and that can't (and shouldn't) be resolved or finessed through clever policy thinking. But there are also a lot of political issues that boil down a question of resource allocation: We're going to spend X dollars on prisons and police (or on the military, or on the school system or the highways or what-have-you), and the question is how. And getting that "how" right can make an awfully big difference - to the African-American community, and to many other people as well.

[GOPGuide]

Douthat is a "modernizing", "Centrist" Republican of the Frum ilk, btw.

[GOPGuide]

My preferred approach to reform, for instance, would marry a reduced incarceration rate to a substantial increase in the police presence on America's streets, We'll need the extra police to put the people just released from Jail under Douthat's plan BACK into jail. True Genius!

[GeronL]

Obama thinks jailing criminals is counterproductive too... they need some counseling is all I guess.

[GOPGuide]

You would expect that from Obama, but the author is a REPUBLICAN.

With Republicans like these, who needs communists?

[roamer_1]

“Douthat” must mean “Dumbsh*t” in some language.

[GeronL]

maybe we need to return to the really old days and just forget prisons and cops. If you become an outlaw then you are outside the protection of the law and can be shot and killed with impunity.

[GOPGuide]

I believe Douthat is ethnically French, to great embarassment of all Frenchmen, I’m sure...

[Rockingham]

This is fantasy as public policy. Releasing prisoners and boosting the police presence in the Black community would lead to more arrests, more prosecutions, and more incarcerations . . . oops!

[browardchad]

My preferred approach to reform, for instance, would marry a reduced incarceration rate to a substantial increase in the police presence on America's streets, which if implemented clumsily (as most policy shifts are) could mean fewer black men behind bars, but more tragedies like the death of Ta-Nehisi's friend. But it's also an issue where conservatives could embrace policy shifts without compromising their core beliefs - the question of where to strike the "build prisons or hire cops" balance is a practical rather than a philosophical one - and in the process, I think, substantially change the way the Republican Party is perceived in the black community. Also, it would be the right thing to do.

I read the above this morning, and thought: no way the author could mean this, so I'll leave it for later.

Later arrived, and I read it again, and again, and at the Atlantic, and at the link to Ta-Nehisi, and I had to conclude that yes, the author means what he's written.

I guess I, or almost anyone else with half a brain, could rephrase it, but why bother? Let Dathout's idiocy-as-policy stand, naked, in the public square.

[GOPGuide]

Let Dathout's idiocy-as-policy stand, naked, in the public square. He's the new "Court Eunuch" at the NYTimes editorial page. No wonder they chose him, he's barely to the right of Dowd.