A shift in conservative thinking on criminal justice

National Post, 06 February 2020

It was notable that in Trump's state of the union, the only mention of criminal justice and prisons was about getting inmates out of prison.

It was just last week that I wrote that I had exempted myself from following American politics, but this week, I became one of the rubberneckers watching a wreck on the highway. And what a wreck this week provided: a vote-counting debacle in Iowa; rage in Washington, this time not from a relatively placid President Donald Trump but from Nancy Pelosi, who tore up the president’s speech on live television; and a Senate vote on the impeachment of the president.

But amidst all the wreckage, what caught my eye was a brief line in Trump’s state of the union address on Tuesday night.

“Our roaring economy has, for the first time ever, given many former prisoners the ability to get a great job and a fresh start. This second chance at life is made possible because we passed landmark criminal justice reform into law,” Trump said.

It was notable that in a Republican address, the only mention of criminal justice and prisons was about getting inmates out of prison, not adding to their numbers. (Trump had a lengthy section on “criminal illegal aliens,” but that was about immigration more than criminal justice.)

Trump was referring to the first federal criminal justice reform passed in decades, which took effect in January 2019. It’s called the First Step Act, which is actually an acronym — perhaps the most forced one ever given to an act of Congress — for the Formerly Incarcerated Reenter Society Transformed Safely Transitioning Every Person Act.

Continue reading at the National Post:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/father-raymond-j-de-souza-a-shift-in-conservative-thinking-on-criminal-justice?video_autoplay=true