As Prisons Squeeze Budgets, GOP Rethinks Crime Focus – WSJ.com

GAINESVILLE, Ga.—Weeks after his election as Georgia governor in 2010, Nathan Deal was pulled aside by a conservative state lawmaker with urgent business to discuss.

Many GOP governors and legislators are doing an about-face and trying to cut prison populations. Neil King reports. Photo: Getty Images.

Rep. Jay Neal, a small-town pastor, said he had the seeds of a plan to cut Georgia’s swelling prison population, which was costing taxpayers over $1 billion a year. The governor-elect didn’t let Mr. Neal get far.

“The minute I mentioned what I wanted to do, he jumped in with what he wanted to do,” Mr. Neal recalled. “And it turns out we were talking about the same thing.”

That pairing of a pastor with a former prosecutor, both Republicans, helped pave the way for dramatic revamping of Georgia’s criminal code. New rules enacted over the past two legislative sessions are steering nonviolent offenders away from prison, emphasizing rehabilitation over jail time, and lessening the penalties for many drug and property crimes.

Georgia is the latest example of a Republican-led state drive to replace tough-on-crime dictums of the 1990s with a more forgiving and nuanced set of laws. Leading the charge in states such as Texas, Ohio, Kentucky, South Carolina and South Dakota are GOP lawmakers—and in most cases Republican governors—who once favored stiff prison terms aimed at driving down crime.

via As Prisons Squeeze Budgets, GOP Rethinks Crime Focus – WSJ.com.