Grover Norquist Organizes Conservatives for Prison Reform (?!?)

by | Jan 14, 2011 | Crime and Punishment, Neoliberalism, Political Ideology | 5 comments

I just came across an article in Salon about Grover Norquist. Norquist, a staunch anti-tax advocate has helped to organize a conservative prison reform group, Right on Crime. A quick look at their statement of principles sees a reliance on neoliberal rhetoric–note the reference to performance measures, to incentives, and to consumers. But rather than pushing neoliberal penality, what Norquist is doing is taking the neoliberal framework and using it against itself. Or at the very least using it in ways that it hasn’t been used before. It’ll be extremely interesting to see what type of support he can get from this movement. Prisons are hamstringing state budgets but it isn’t clear to me that the same forces responsible for using crime as a political tool are interested in reforming the system.

5 Comments

  1. Asad
    Asad on January 15, 2011 at 1:22 pm

    I can definitely agree with Grover Norquist’s positions on things like tax reform and smaller government, and epecially on the statement from the Right on Crime website;
    “our reliance on prisons, which serve a critical role by incapacitating dangerous offenders and career criminals but are not the solution for every type of offender. And in some instances, they have the unintended consequence of hardening nonviolent, low-risk offenders—making them a greater risk to the public than when they entered.”

    But I sincerely believe that the prison system has become an integral part of the American economy and politics, and efforts at changing the status quo is gonna be met with some serious resistance. Government is self-perpetuating, and isnt always set up for the good of the governed, so something has to be done to address that fact. If that means political Blocs designed to reduce government influence, or rethinking the prison system and philosophy from the ground up, then thats what needs to be done.