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Mike Huckabee on Crime and Punishment
"It is a necessary part of our criminal justice system for those crimes for which there is no alternative, but God help the person who ever does it without a conscience and feels the pain of it."
They [Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback, John Cox, Alan Keyes, Ron Paul,Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter] all vowed to increase funding for abstinence education, to veto hate crimes legislation and to oppose embryonic stem cell research. They all agreed multiculturalism "weakens and divides" the country.
Instead, he campaigns on a compassionate approach to wrongdoers, especially those whose crimes are the result of drug or alcohol addiction. At Philly's Finest, he condemned the "revenge-based corrections system," sounding every bit the sort of squishy liberal that the Bill O'Reillys of the world long ago scared into the shadows. "We lock up a lot of people we are mad at rather than the ones we are really afraid of," he said. "We incarcerate more people than anybody on earth." As governor, Huckabee pushed for drug treatment instead of incarceration for nonviolent offenders.
How can we change a drug-addicted culture? Do we say, "If these people weren't poor, or if they only knew what drugs did, then they wouldn't be doing this"? If so, you'd prepare a bunch of informational videos and explain the danger. And in fact, that is just what much of government has been doing. And has it worked? No. Will it ever work? No. Why not? Because taking drugs appeals to the self-centered, pleasure-seeking people we are by nature. If we're convinced of that selfish nature, we take a different tack: "If you use drugs, we're going to put you in jail and confiscate your car." We must come to see that our core problem is not a lack of education but a lack of righteousness. We don't need more information as much as we need new hearts.
Character Makes a Difference, by Mike Huckabee, p.172-173 Jun 1, 2007
While those who deal drugs and entice others into enslaving addictions deserve prison sentences, we end up locking away many non-violent drug users, some of whom spend longer periods in prison than they would if they committed a violent crime. A major reform in dealing with drug offenders in Arkansas was the establishment of drug courts, where a non-violent drug offender could be directed to enroll in drug treatment programs or heavily supervised community service. The recidivism rate dropped to 31%. More significantly, the cost per day was lower than that of prison, while at the same time allowing the offender to regain his or her life.
From Hope to Higher Ground, by Mike Huckabee, p. 89 Jan 4, 2007
We'll ask for drug courts to be expanded because it makes more sense to treat people with a drug problem rather than simply incarcerating them and putting them in a place where their problems are not dealt with. That's one of our initiatives.
State of the State address to the Arkansas legislature Jan 9, 2001
Americans went through a period of permissiveness in the 1970s. Some advocated that criminals really were not bad people, but just individuals who were themselves victims of either poverty or lack of education. Those who believed in such a view typically favored counseling over incarceration, but rising crime rates and a demand of the public made it clear that "coddling criminals" is a terribly failed idea. In the 1990s, the pendulum swung harshly back in the opposite direction and very popular policies such as "three strikes and you're out" and "no parole provisions" were adopted. Being tough on crime is certainly more popular than being soft, but America needs to be careful that in our attempt to stoutly enforce our laws and protect our citizens, we do not end up with a system that is based more on revenge than restoration. A revenge-based criminal justice system seeks to measure out as harsh a judgment as is possible so as to satisfy the natural inclination to get even.
From Hope to Higher Ground, by Mike Huckabee, p. 87 Jan 4, 2007
If we're convinced of that selfish nature, we take a different tack: "If you use drugs, we're going to put you in jail and confiscate your car." We must come to see that our core problem is not a lack of education but a lack of righteousness. We don't need more information as much as we need new hearts.
Character Makes a Difference, by Mike Huckabee, p.172-173 Jun 1, 2007
We'll ask for drug courts to be expanded because it makes more sense to treat people with a drug problem rather than simply incarcerating them and putting them in a place where their problems are not dealt with. That's one of our initiatives.
State of the State address to the Arkansas legislature Jan 9, 2001
Indicate which principles you support to address crime: -Support programs to provide prison inmates with vocational and job-related skills. -Implement penalties other than incarceration for certain non-violent offenders.
2002 AR Gubernatorial National Political Awareness Test Nov 1, 2002