"A Nat-Con Case for Criminal Justice Reform"

The title of this post is the title of this new essay authored by Marc A. Levin at Law & Liberty. I recommend the full piece, and here is just a taste from the start and closing of the piece:

From the halls of Mar-a-Lago to the streets of Chicago, all Americans have a stake in the fair application of criminal law by a system they can trust. Indeed, there cannot be a policy area in which a principled approach is more important than in criminal justice, where lives and liberties are at stake.  So how do the principles of the emergent national conservatism movement apply to criminal justice policy?  Can they inform a center-right approach to public safety that draws on the overlap between national conservatism’s Christian worldview and universal truths?

A July 2022 manifesto entitled “National Conservatism: A Statement of Principles” crystallizes the tenets of this movement that seeks to address many Americans’ apprehension about the coarsening of our culture and erosion of our national identity.  These concerns naturally implicate the criminal justice system, which becomes the last backstop when society’s norms and institutions from the family to the education system prove inadequate, leaving the law as the only remaining form of social control, weak as it often is....

[N]either conservatives of any stripe nor anyone else should back policies that are inconsistent with public safety. However, within that universe, the principles of the manifesto are consistent with four factors for evaluating criminal justice policies: 1) Are they deeply rooted in our best traditions and in alignment with our founding principles of liberty?; 2) Do they protect and strengthen families?; 3) Do they address not just individual culpability but also drivers of criminal activity, including family breakdown, exposure to trauma, addiction, mental health, and the neighborhood environment; and 4) Do they nurture and sustain the public’s confidence in the rule of law as an expression of our shared morality?

Those policies that check these boxes can lead to a stronger, fairer, safer, and more unified nation, an objective that both national conservatives and all Americans can embrace.