A LITTLE SANITY FROM THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION

Ever since Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller, I've associated conservatism with harsh criminal penalties but that may be changing, in part due to the huge economic costs of incarcerating so many people. Even a "scholar" at the Heritage Foundation seems to get it:

States Seek To Save By Avoiding Jail Time
by Ari Shapiro

All Things Considered, March 19, 2009 · For years, the lawyers who represent poor people have complained that their offices are overworked and underfunded. Now some states are starting to believe that the solution is not to throw more money at the system. Instead, they're talking about putting fewer people in jail.

"Criminal punishment is the greatest power that government regularly uses against its own citizens. So from a conservative standpoint, any great power needs to have very clear limitations on it," says Brian Walsh, a senior legal research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Walsh recently wrote a paper called "Enacting Principled, Nonpartisan, Criminal Law Reform."

"The idea that more criminal law is always better, harsher sentences are always better — that's not a conservative principle," he says.