Protecting communities from repeat offenders
In the latest video monologue for American Habits, I make the simple point that a core function of state and local government is keeping people safe. I find the spate of headlines of serial offenders committing violent crimes disturbing. As a North Carolina resident, many recent stories out of Charlotte reveal the consequences of soft on crime policies from judges and prosecutors. Unfortunately, it’s a nationwide problem.
As somebody who has visited maximum and mid-security prisons in Louisiana and Texas to cover stories on rehabilitation, I’m sympathetic to the possibilities of second chances. I met prisoners who committed murders as young men in their late teens or early 20s in Louisiana but were still behind bars in their early 80s, clearly much different men now than then.
I also know the positives of incarceration for communities. A point made so well by Jakob Dupuis of the Cicero Institute. Dupuis points out that crime is heavily concentrated among a small share of repeat offenders, and notes that higher incarceration rates can reduce crime by incapacitating the people most likely to keep victimizing communities. This is something that both sides politically understood in 1990s, when tougher sentencing laws were enacted.
Violent crime tears families apart and weakens the trust and security every community needs to thrive. Citizens deserve safe communities and victims deserve justice. A society that tolerates persistent violence weakens both public safety and the legitimacy of the institutions meant to secure it.
—Ray Nothstine
— The Federalism Beat