The Hill News

When I was involved in prison-reform efforts with ex-offenders, as an activist in courts and as a critic in articles and books decades ago, I was surprised to find that conservative judges were better at enforcing change than liberals. They were, it seemed, more comfortable exercising power once they were convinced of the injustices demonstrated.

That irony â€" one would presume that liberals were more humane â€" was apparent again recently when reports showed that conservative states had cut prison populations by way of programs diverting prisoners, in appropriate cases, to community-based programs rather than incarceration. The motives were founded on economic grounds; the costs of incarceration were escalating with no reduction in crime rates to warrant them. The wisdom of the result is more important than the ground for getting to it. So we should celebrate getting to a better place in the criminal justice system.

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