A growing conservative movement to reform criminal justice laws to both save money and improve public safety “began in Texas, as it often does in Republican states, with a view on the budget,” Right on Crime spokesperson Ken Cuccinelli told The Stream in a recent interview that promoted using data-based policies instead of the often inefficient systems in place today.

“They wanted to save money without sacrificing public safety. That began a national effort out of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which is where Right on Crime was born.”

The former Virginia Attorney General argued that data-driven criminal reform, using what he called “evidence-based mechanisms,” can save taxpayers money, lower recidivism rates and keep families more intact. He also noted that “90 percent of the prisoners in this country are state prisoners, so if you really want to change a culture of incarceration and criminal justice as it relates to the offenders, the states are really where the action is.”

Right on Crime’s “Statement of Principles” describes ways to apply “time-tested conservative truths” to criminal justice to more effectively serving the public — including the criminals Right on Crime wants to rehabilitate. For example, “policies for both offenders and the corrections system must align incentives with our goals of public safety, victim restitution and satisfaction, and cost-effectiveness, thereby moving from a system that grows when it fails to one that rewards results.”

Among the libertarian and conservative activists, intellectuals, politicians and attorneys general who have signed the “Statement” are Princeton professor John J. DiIulio, governors Jeb Bush and Rick Perry, former attorney general Edwin Meese, and commentators William J. Bennett and Erick Erickson.

Focused on Results

Rehabilitation doesn’t mean setting targets for prisoner reduction, Cuccinelli told The Stream. “I’ve stood next to the ACLU in Virginia and listened to one of them say, ‘We need 25 percent less people in our prisons.’ I’m sitting there, thinking, ‘Where did that number come from?’ Do we need 25 percent less rapists in prison? I don’t think we do! There is a dramatic difference in how the left approaches any attempt at reducing jail population versus how the right approaches it. Our priority is still public safety, and I do not believe that is the priority for the left.”

Cuccinelli noted that “Our biggest audience for intellectual conversion is conservatives,” pointing to efforts in Republican-led states like “Texas, Georgia, the Dakotas, Mississippi. These are places that wanted to save money and get better outcomes. And until they really turned to focus on it, they didn’t know they could do both.”

Right on Crime doesn’t have a set of policy prescriptions, but acknowledges that “every state is different, and they have different places where they are inefficient in the system. What we try to do is bring the evidentiary experiences of other states to bear in new states that are willing to step back and see what works worst. Texas was first, so we have the most data there. They have lowered their prison budget compared to what they expected to spend, something like a fifth — and their crime rate is down 12 percent.”

He also cited a successful juvenile delinquent program in St. Louis, Missouri, that provides more personalized attention to young criminals than Virginia, adding that “for the money they spend, they get much lower recidivism rates. They end up, ultimately, spending less money, even though they have more facilities” than Virginia’s comparable program.

“That model, combined with an attentive culture, [provides] a lot more opportunity. So that’s an area for efficiency in Virginia that our principles could be implemented, and we have been advocating for that.”

Both Parties are Slowing Reform

The interview took place just weeks after Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, who beat Cuccinelli in the gubernatorial race in 2014, announced he would restore voting rights to more than 200,000 convicted felons. While he backs allowing some felons to vote, Cuccinelli said the issue is not a priority of current prisoners.

“The most important, single occurrence, as it relates to recidivism, is do [former inmates] get a real job or not. Voting rights is a political hot potato; on the scale of what’s important in their lives as they’re coming out, that’s way down the list.”

Cuccinelli also criticized what he called the “fry-the-litterbugs caucus” in the GOP that see “the solution to everything is higher penalties, electrocute more people.”

He reserved some harsh words for President Obama. “When the president does things like walk 6,000 people out of federal prison and just say, ‘You can leave early,’ without what appears to be much discernment on a case-by-case basis about whether that’s appropriate for them — he just wants to say he let people out early — he does egregious and permanent harm to the effort by so many of us to sincerely reform the system.”

Families are Important

Getting the job wasn’t the only thing important to inmates’ success. Many prisoners “want to maintain relationships with their families,” Cuccinelli said. “To keep them engaged with their families can have such a big impact.”

The data shows that when inmates stay engaged with their families, their children are better off and they have a lower recidivism rates when they leave prison, said Cuccinelli. He pointed out that in Virginia, many prisons are in rural parts of the state, as many as five hours away from the urban centers where two-thirds of the state lives.

While this benefits the taxpayer because of lower costs, and provides jobs to many citizens who need them, “if those prisons were within striking distance of the Urban Crescent, family visitation would be much easier to achieve.” He also said the state has “been very slow to use technology like Skype to let people stay in touch.”

“Ninety-five percent of everyone in prison is coming out, state or federal. What we ought to be focused on for those 95 percent is making sure they come out better than when they went in.”

Editor’s Note: The Stream reached out to the office of a leading conservative opponent of some of the reforms advocated by Right on Crime to provide another view on criminal justice reform. Several communications were not returned by press time.