NEW YORK TIMES: …Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Rand Paul want to ease mandatory minimum sentences. Gov. Chris Christie wants to release nonviolent offenders pending trial without bail. Gov. Scott Walker, former Gov. Rick Perry and former Senator James Webb want to expand drug treatment as an alternative to prison. Senator Marco Rubio wants to make it harder to convict federal defendants without proving intent.
The focus on overhauling the criminal justice system comes at a time of protests over the use of lethal force by the local police and unrest in cities like Baltimore and Ferguson, Mo., and represents a profound shift in American politics. Where the elder George Bush won the presidency in part by attacking his opponent as soft on crime and Bill Clinton enacted landmark crime legislation pouring police officers into the streets and ratcheting up sentences, today’s candidates across the ideological spectrum have concluded that previous leaders went too far…
The issue has drawn together an odd-bedfellows coalition of liberals and libertarians seeking bipartisan solutions. Mr. Paul has worked across the aisle with Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, and several other candidates have also been working in this area. In Texas, Mr. Perry diverted some drug offenders to treatment, generating praise from liberals and conservatives alike. Mr. Cruz has signed on to several pieces of legislation to change the system… (more)
EDITOR: The federal judge system has worked behind the scenes for these reforms for over a decade. We wish our friend Appeals Court Judge Edward Becker could have lived to see this.
Sometimes change takes a very long time… perhaps decades. But it only occurs if good people are prepared to patiently invest in bringing it about.
Society perceives them as ‘nuts’ at the outset. At the end they go unnoticed. But they know what they helped accomplish.
