Fareed Zakaria devotes his latest TIME column to televangelist Pat Robertson’s about-face on the war on drugs.
The topic reminded this observer of John Hood’s recent column on an issue that has generated significant bipartisan cooperation in recent years: criminal justice reform.
Another area of bipartisan cooperation last year was sentencing reform. Thanks in part to a privately funded project called Judicial Reinvestment, state lawmakers and the Perdue administration crafted a plan to improve the supervision of paroled North Carolina felons and make better use of incentives and drug-treatment programs to manage nonviolent offenders.
Both liberals and conservatives saw the resulting Judicial Reinvestment Act as a step towards spending public dollars more wisely while reducing recidivism in North Carolina’s criminal-justice system. The bill drew broad bipartisan support and became law, potentially saving North Carolina taxpayers nearly $300 million over the next few years in lower operating and capital costs for prison beds.