A Libertarian-Liberal Alliance Forms to Tackle Criminal Justice Reform

Usually bitter adversaries, Koch Industries and the Center for American Progress have found at least one thing they can agree on: The nation’s criminal justice system is broken.

Koch Industries, the conglomerate owned by the conservative Koch brothers, and the center, a Washington-based liberal issues group, are coming together to back a new organization called the Coalition for Public Safety. The coalition plans a multimillion-dollar campaign on behalf of emerging proposals to reduce prison populations, overhaul sentencing, reduce recidivism and take on similar initiatives. Other groups from both the left and right — the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans for Tax Reform, the Tea Party-oriented FreedomWorks — are also part of the coalition, reflecting its unusually bipartisan approach.

— From the New York Times article: Unlikely Cause Unites the Left and the Right: Justice Reform

While I’d love to fill the pages of Liberty Blitzkrieg with positive news about how things are turning around for the better within American society, there is unfortunately little evidence that this is indeed the case. However, every now and again I do see a positive development worth pointing out. The following article from the New York Times about the recent creation of the Coalition for Public Safety, uniting the Koch brothers and the Washington D.C. based liberal Center for American Progress on the issue of reforming the nation’s criminal justice system, is one such example.

The idea that genuine libertarian types and genuine progressive types have a lot of important issues in common is a concept I have pushed for years. The following venn diagram someone created at the time of the Occupy Wall Street protests demonstrated this overlap perfectly:

For more on this concept, see:

Thoughts on Election Day: Relax—Both Parties Are Going Extinct

#StandwithRand: The Filibuster that United Libertarian and Progressive Activists

Former Aide to Bill Clinton Speaks – “My Party Has Lost its Soul”

Now back to the topic at hand. Prison reform and the absurd cruelty and unfairness of the U.S. criminal justice system has been a key theme here on this site since the beginning. As such, it’s encouraging to see the following.

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Usually bitter adversaries, Koch Industries and the Center for American Progress have found at least one thing they can agree on: The nation’s criminal justice system is broken.

Koch Industries, the conglomerate owned by the conservative Koch brothers, and the center, a Washington-based liberal issues group, are coming together to back a new organization called the Coalition for Public Safety. The coalition plans a multimillion-dollar campaign on behalf of emerging proposals to reduce prison populations, overhaul sentencing, reduce recidivism and take on similar initiatives. Other groups from both the left and right — the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans for Tax Reform, the Tea Party-oriented FreedomWorks — are also part of the coalition, reflecting its unusually bipartisan approach.

For groups traditionally considered opponents, working together has required something of a leap of faith. But they say that they see an opening and are giving the new coalition three years to demonstrate results.

Officials at the Center for American Progress said that they did not make the decision to join the partnership lightly given the organization’s clashes and deep differences with both Koch Industries and many of the conservative groups.

Perhaps some Americans with influence are actually showing signs of maturity. Maybe, just maybe…

“We have in the past and will in the future have criticism of the policy agenda of the Koch brother companies, but where we can find common ground on issues, we will go forward,” said Neera Tanden, the president of the center. “I think it speaks to the importance of the issue.”

Seems as if the above point of view should be the default no-brainer position for any decent, intelligent civilization, but I digress.

With the huge costs to the public of an expanding 2.2 million-person prison population drawing interest from the right and the conviction that the system is unfair and incarcerating too many drug and nonviolent offenders driving those on the left, the new coalition is the most recent example of ideological opposites joining together.

He said momentum behind the effort might be attributed to the fact that advocacy groups have been searching for areas where they can show an ability to work together and that criminal justice reform is one of those rare areas in an era of stark differences over economic and social policy.

Good perspective. I hope to see a lot more of it.

For related articles, see:

Chart of the Day – America’s Prison Population Over the Past 100 Years

The United States: 5% of the World’s Population, 25% of its Prisoners

Land of the Free: American Police Make an Arrest Every 2 Seconds in 2012

A Deep Look into the Shady World of the Private Prison Industry

Poverty Profiteering in 2014 – Introducing Private Probation Companies

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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