Prison reform? A longshot, unfortunately

Prison reform?  A longshot, unfortunately

by digby

I wrote a piece for Salon today about the strange beltway optimism surrounding bipartisan prison reform of all things.  It reminded me a lot of the equally weird optimism surrounding immigration reform in the wake of the 2012 election.

Anyway, here's an excerpt:

The bill that seems to have everyone feeling so positive about bipartisan comity is the Smarter Sentencing Act, which has the backing of such disparate groups as the ACLU and the Heritage Foundation. Ted Cruz says he’s for it too. It basically will give courts more discretion in sentencing and lower the daft mandatory sentences for drug crimes from 20-, 10- and five-year mandatory minimums to 10, five and two years. Considering the tremendous overcrowding in federal prisons this seems like a no-brainer. 

Unfortunately, there are a few roadblocks. Sen. Chuck Grassley thinks mandatory minimums are an important crime-fighting tool. And for reasons of their own, Sens. John Cornyn and Jeff Sessions are likewise opposed. But perhaps the biggest obstacle to any kind of bipartisan criminal justice reform (that makes any sense) is the fact that the Republican base is not only strongly opposed to it, GOP political consultants would be deprived of one of their most potent lines of attack. (And, just as likely, Democratic challengers would cynically use it against them.) 

When push comes to shove, this is the evergreen Republican go-to election attack. We saw it just recently in the fall campaign. 

It never gets old. And after what we’ve just witnessed from the hate radio talkers and the Fox news pundits and the right-wing twitter hordes on Ferguson, the attitudes that frame that ad are as common as they ever were. 

And even more depressing, those attitudes are more pervasive than we may realize.

Read on to see a study which says that when people find out about racial disparities in arrest and sentencing they are less likely to support prison reform.  I'm not kidding.

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