Alan Jenkins

My Name is Earl—I mean Dick

Vice President Dick Cheney has a stock commencement speech in which he explains that "there are places in the world where failure is final, and one early misstep will decide your fate forever. But America is still the country of the second chance. Most of us end up needing one."

Cheney had better hope he's right about that. Yesterday he took responsibility, sort of, for accidentally shooting Harry M. Whittington during a hunting trip. Until Whittington had a heart attack earlier this week, the White House had implied that the accident was Whittington's fault because he supposedly failed to tell the hunting party that he had returned to the group. Yesterday, in an interview with Fox News' Brit Hume, Cheney said. "You can't blame anybody else. I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend. It's a day I'll never forget."

Luckily for Cheney, the man he shot is a believer in forgiveness. While serving on the board of the Texas Department of Corrections in the 1980's, and after observing the conditions in the state's prisons, Whittington, a Republican, became a voice for prison reform. "Prisons are to crime what greenhouses are to plants," he once said. Whittington also led an effort to move mentally retarded inmates out of the general prison population and supported banning the execution of mentally retarded prisoners.

Cheney's speech and Whittington's advocacy express a widely shared American value: that people grow and change over time and deserve a chance to start over after missteps or misfortune--what many Americans call redemption. It's an important part of opportunity in America. Regrettably, though, the value of redemption is increasingly at risk in our country.

Despite over a decade of dropping crime rates, our country now has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with over 2 million Americans warehoused in our prisons and jails and almost 5 million on probation or parole. Americans convicted of a crime today are far more likely to be sentenced to prison or jail time, and will spend a longer time behind bars, than in past decades. The incarceration rate for women has increased twelvefold since 1970, and incarceration rates for African Americans and Latinos have skyrocketed over the last two decades.

If the Vice President is serious about second chances--and he should be after his recent exploits--he should support a truly redemptive criminal justice system. The Opportunity Agenda's new report, The State of Opportunity in America, includes the following recommendations:

Expanding community policing--a crime prevention strategy that emphasizes community
input, collaboration, and tailored responses to crime and disorder.

Increasing the availability of substance abuse treatment, including using it as an
alternative to incarceration.

Replacing mandatory minimum sentences with criminal sentencing based on individualized culpability, control, and circumstances.

Reviewing criminal justice practices to identify and address the junctures at which
stereotypes and discrimination currently influence the outcome.

Restoring voting rights to people who have been incarcerated and removing other
barriers to their reentry into society.

Alan Jenkins: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 6:47 AM, Feb 16, 2006 in Criminal Justice
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