Ohio needs criminal justice reform: Ken Blackwell

CINCINNATI — If you do the crime, be prepared to do the time. That’s a standard of justice in the United States that most of us support. Accompanying that standard is the principle that, once individuals pay the penalty for their crime, their slate can be wiped clean and they can rejoin society as productive members again. That’s where we too often fall short.

Forbes reported in 2020 on a study that showed “roughly 70 million Americans (or one in three adults) have been arrested or convicted of a crime. Of those, at least 7.7 million people have been imprisoned at some point in their lives.”

The article noted that, even after they have served their sentences, previously incarcerated Americans “saw their annual earnings reduced by more than 52% when compared with their peers,” resulting in “an annual aggregate loss of $55.2 billion” to local communities across the country.

This is especially a problem in Ohio, where prisons in 2020 were at 115% of capacity. “More than 16% of new inmates who entered state prisons between July 2019 and June 2020 were incarcerated because of drug possession crimes,” The Columbus Dispatch reported. Ohio spends $1.8 billion a year to keep roughly 50,000 people in prison.

For all these reasons, it’s very encouraging to see the Ohio Statehouse and Congress working so diligently to pass supplementary criminal justice reform this year.

For many offenders, prison is where they need to be. Ohioans should be adamantly opposed to the kind of soft-on-crime prosecutors supported by progressive activists like George Soros. That said, on moral, family value, and fiscal conservative grounds, our state should also believe in second chances for appropriate, nonviolent offenders who serve their time while demonstrating good behavior and spiritual redemption.

After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, when violence and unrest erupted across the country, I joined more than 100 conservative leaders in signing a memo entitled, “Justice, Not Chaos Needed for a More Perfect Union.” We urged the U.S. Department of Justice to work with the Trump administration to make sure that, rather than defunding police, as some radically proposed, they implement reforms that would hold officers accountable for unlawful acts.

Ohio lawmakers understand the need for smart criminal justice reform. U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, for example, has always followed a principle he laid out in 2016: “If you’re actually going to let people out of prison early, we better make sure they’re not violent people. So let’s do it, but let’s do it right.”

Exactly. Jordan and others in Congress who support reform have always made sure it is done right.

One bill currently under consideration, called the Clean Slate Act, will do exactly that.

Clean Slate will expunge the records of nonviolent offenders who have already served their time and demonstrated years of good behavior. By eliminating a lifetime criminal record that would otherwise affect their ability to obtain employment and housing, the bill will help reintegrate them back into society.

Since people with hope have more reason to stay on the straight path, Clean Slate will reduce recidivism in Ohio, just as similar initiatives have done in other states. It will protect children by bringing broken families back together. It will help businesses, and the overall economy, by minimizing the COVID-related jobs and supply-chain shortages. It will also reduce entitlement spending and the cost of prisons, one of the fastest-growing areas in state budgets.

I believe in Jesus’ admonitions to forgive those who wrong us. So many of his teachings were about the importance of giving people another chance. If that was Jesus’ standard, it should be ours, as well. The Clean Slate Act will integrate this standard into the American judicial system, and the Ohio delegation should support it without delay.

Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow with the Family Research Council, is a freelance author, former Cincinnati mayor, and former Ohio Treasurer and Secretary of State.

Have something to say about this topic?

* Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication.

* Email general questions about our editorial board or comments or corrections on this opinion column to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at [email protected].