WALTER RUSSELL MEAD ON the Republicans’ new interest in prison reform.

The American prison system as it has operated in recent decades is a serious and ugly unresolved problem that by some measures is becoming untenable. According to famed legal scholar Bill Stuntz, we’re perhaps the most penal country in history, imprisoning a larger percentage of our population even than the Soviet Union under Stalin. Our system is expensive, discriminatory, often cruel, and profoundly socially disruptive. Though the rate of incarceration of blacks has declined recently, it is still disproportionate to the size of the overall black population, and because of this and the poor employment prospects for convicted felons, black communities have been decimated.

If this reform push by the GOP is serious, it’s good news for two reasons. First, it will generate significant momentum towards reducing the iniquities of our current system. The policies that are being pursued by different states are too various to take a position on as a whole: some are likely sensible, others not. In general, we prefer reforms that focus on less draconian sentences for drug use and policies that seek to penalize lawbreakers without necessarily sticking them in prison.

Second, it’s a sign that the GOP is still evolving in productive ways. After the last election, many triumphant Democrats suggested that the Republican Party was in utter shambles and might never fix itself. More and more, it seems these assessments were premature. In areas from health care to prison reform, the Right has clearly been doing some soul searching.

Not only do we need prison reform, we need criminal law reform. There should be far fewer crimes, and prosecutors should be under more scrutiny.