“The justice system must be held accountable for wise use of tax dollars just as it holds offenders accountable for their actions,” Pat Nolan of the American Conservative Union Foundation writes for The Marshall Project in an open letter to President-elect Donald Trump. Nolan makes the conservative case for criminal justice reform. One of his major points is that “victims should be involved at all stages of the justice process, and the system should aim to repair the harm caused by the crime whenever possible. Offenders should be held accountable to make restitution to their victims.”
Nolan argues that, “There are proven ways to hold non-dangerous offenders accountable without sending them to prison. We should use costly prison beds for the truly dangerous. Prisons are for people we are afraid of, but too often they are used for people we are merely mad at. Cases should be decided individually, not as an assembly line of one-size-fits-all sentences.” As for prisons, they “should do more than warehouse inmates,” Nolan writes. “They should prepare offenders for their return to society by providing educational programs such as GED classes, drug treatment, anger management, and job skills. The cost of these programs is far exceeded by the savings from the resulting drop in crime rates.” He maintains that when policymakers have applied these and other humane principles to the justice system,” crime has dropped, there are fewer people in prison, and the taxpayers have saved billions of dollars.”