This is a great challenge, and I'll answer it by simply referring to one of the principles of our “right on crime” initiative, which is that the criminal justice system must be transparent and include performance measures that hold it accountable for its results in protecting the public, lowering crime rates, reducing reoffending, collecting victim restitution, and conserving taxpayers' money. That sounds easy, but you have to define what performance measures you want to accomplish and then set your priorities based upon that.
I'll give you an example of why I think it's so tough. You say we should not incarcerate those who are engaged just in property crimes or economic crimes. I think of Bernie Madoff in the United States. His were property crimes. They were economic crimes that hurt so many people, and society cried out and said this is a guy who ought to go to jail. Many of those are handled at the federal level, but at the state level drug crimes are an issue.
I would agree we're re-evaluating so you don't send just the average person that has an addiction problem to jail. That's not the objective. But if your motivation is economics, if it's selling to teenagers, and you have a long history of that, there's certainly a point there at which you have to have incarceration. So you have to set your performance measures. Those are difficult to define, but you start there, and then you judge your investment based upon that.
