Back in August, national anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist penned a "Right on Crime" Op-Ed in the Deseret News, sharing the byline with Derek Monson, policy director at Utah's own Sutherland Institute. The opinion piece recommended that Utah "reserve costly prison beds for the most dangerous offenders" - a point even the ACLU wouldn't argue with!
But Norquist and Monson got major one thing wrong, captured well in this quote:
"As conservatives, we pride ourselves on being tough on crime, but we also must be tough on criminal justice spending."
The authors correctly assert that smarter spending on corrections could allow Utah to avoid building an additional 2,700 prison beds in the next two decades. But their Op-Ed implies that Utah is currently spending too much on its criminal justice system in general, and on corrections, in particular.
