My latest piece at Investor's Business Daily: "Mass Incarceration: Tell Hillary Clinton Punishment Matters"

My newest piece at Investor's Business Daily starts this way:

It's easy to forget that in 1991 the U.S. murder rate was well over twice what it is today. In a speech last week at Atlanta's Clark University, Hillary Clinton showed she doesn't understand her call for an "end the era of mass incarceration" will endanger lives. She now proposes to end mass incarceration by "keep(ing) more nonviolent drug offenders out of prison." 

There are good reasons to decriminalize drug possession, though Clinton mentioned none. Furthermore, she is wrong in believing that decriminalization would end mass incarceration. 

In 2012, less than 7% of inmates at state and federal prisons were in for possessing illegal drugs. And it was rarely just for possession of marijuana. There are no national data, but data from Arizona indicate as few as 0.3% were incarcerated for marijuana possession, and those cases involve people arrested multiple times. 

In California, even adding together trafficking or possession offenses, only 1% of state prisoners are incarcerated for marijuana offenses. . . .

The piece is also available here.