Working With Unlikely Allies: A Conversation With Marc Levin

At Reinvesting in Justice, Marc Levin, policy director of the Texas-based conservative group Right on Crime, talks about the need to work towards criminal justice reform with stakeholders from across the ideological spectrum, both in Texas and nationwide. 

The following is a transcript of the podcast:

Avni MAJITHIA-SEJPAL:
Hello, this is Avni Majithia-Sejpal and you're listening to the New Thinking podcast. I'm here at the Dallas City Hall for Reinvesting and Justice, a regional conference that brings together a wide range of criminal justice practitioners to discuss challenges and highlight innovative work being done in the field of criminal justice today, both in Texas and elsewhere.

I'm joined here by Mark Levin, who is the director of this Center for Effective Justice at the Texas Public Policy foundation and policy director of its Right on Crime initiative in Austin. Mark, welcome.

Marc LEVIN:
Thank you.

MAJITHIA-SEJPAL:
Today's big topic is reinvesting in justice. From where you sit, what does reinvesting in justice look like and why is it so important?

LEVIN:
What we really think is important is to make sure that we're getting a good return on our investment and tax dollars in the criminal justice system, and I think what we see as we look around the country is that there's this gap in resources and sometimes the financial incentives aren't right. For example, in certain systems, especially juvenile systems, counties have an incentive to send offenders to the state level because they're the state, at the state institutions bears the full cost of it, when in fact programs that are closer to home get better results. So when we talk about reinvesting in justice, I think that we have to make sure that the financial incentives are right, that we're not actually incentivizing the most expensive and often least effective option. That's really an important focus of ours.

MAJITHIA-SEJPAL:
You just spoke on a panel about working with unlikely allies. Can you explain what that panel was about and also what you yourself spoke about?

LEVIN:
Sure. Well, Right on Crime is a conservative criminal justice reform initiative, and so we have a statement of principles that signed by people like Newt Gingrich and former Texas governor, Rick Perry. We obviously come from the right side of the spectrum but we work with a number of groups across the spectrum where there's common ground, and of course we've seen with criminal justice reform, there's perhaps more common ground than virtually any other issue today in the American political landscape.

At the end of the day, I think all of us, regardless of our political views, we want less crime, we want fewer victims, we want people to go from involvement in the criminal justice system to a productive, law-abiding life, to be able to find economic opportunity. We want to keep families together. We recognize that every major religious tradition and even people that aren't religious, know that humans have a possibility of redemption, that people can change and be transformed, whether it's spiritual or otherwise. I think that provides the foundation for really changing the criminal justice system so that we focus not on getting even, but on getting results and that we don't really confuse the people we're afraid of with those we're mad at, as far as making sure we're prioritizing the use of prison. Certainly, there's some people that need to be incarcerated, but we've gone too far in terms of using prisons when in many cases it can make people worse, particularly low-risk and nonviolent offenders.

Here in Texas, we've had a great collaboration with the Texas Smart on Crime Coalition, which includes ourselves, the Texas Association of Business, Goodwill, Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, Christian Life Commission, and other groups all coming together under this Texas Smart on Crime Coalition to advance a legislative agenda that really is making sure that we rightsize the criminal justice system and that we move people to programs that are more effective and ultimately get people out of the criminal justice system and into law-abiding, productive lifestyles.

MAJITHIA-SEJPAL:
Speaking of unlikely allies, how exactly do you work to create common ground with a diverse set of stakeholders? What are some of the advantages doing that, and on the flip side, what are the challenges from your experience?

LEVIN:
Well, I think the advantages are certainly are that you can broaden the appeal of this issue and reach out to new constituencies and demonstrate that there really is a consensus behind solutions that both reduce crime and incarceration.

A challenge I would say is that it's important for everyone in a coalition to be able to maintain their identity, and so we obviously don't make any bones about the fact that we're conservatives, we're on the right side of the spectrum, that we really place a heavy emphasis on personal responsibility, but there are other ways of holding people accountable besides putting them in prison. In fact, for example, we know that people on probation pay 98 times more restitution than those in prison to victims, which is perhaps the most important outcome, particularly for people that have been stolen from, that they want to make sure they get their money back, or we've seen kids that stall where they're able to do service restitution.

But the bottom line is that when we're working with people across the board, that everyone realizes that while there's many issues where we overlap on those where our agendas aren't necessarily contradictory, it's just some group's agenda goes further than another group, they continue to have their own space to do that. It's been very effective, I think.

MAJITHIA-SEJPAL:
What does it mean to be right on crime?

LEVIN:
First of all, we believe in small government and obviously prisons are kind of the epitome of big government. Of course, they're very expensive for taxpayers. Certainly, some people do need to be incarcerated, but we need to do a better job through things like actuarial risk and needs assessments of matching the right offender with the right program and identifying many people who can be safely diverted, whether it's into drug treatment, to drug court, mental health court, veterans court. We have new tools now, whether it's electronic monitoring or medication-assisted treatment for things like heroin addiction that is very effective. We definitely have to think outside the cell. We have a statement of principles that talks about that, it talks about performance measures for various entities within the criminal justice system, so we actually measure results. Talks about the importance of restitution to victims, essentially moving from a system that grows when it fails to one that rewards results.

MAJITHIA-SEJPAL:
Today in Dallas, we're seeing a range of speakers and participants, from judges and public defenders to police chiefs, councilmen, and neuroscientists. Has this generated any interesting insights or conversations for you? What are some of the ideas you're coming away with?

LEVIN:
Well, it's great to have all these stakeholders at the table and I think that it helps us understand that each part of the system can affect the other, so you have to have solutions that bear that in mind. One of the interesting areas I think is indigent defense. We have people here from that community and one of the areas we recently did a paper on pre-trial justice that examined the importance of early representation by counsel, because oftentimes the setting of bail, for example, and conditions can determine whether somebody stays in jail for months pending their trial or that they're released including onto preach trial supervision. When you just have the prosecutor and the judge who work for the government involved in that, they may miss certain factors that would demonstrate this person is very likely to return to court and that they're very unlikely to commit an offense while on release, and so the defense counsel can bring those factors to the forefront.

Interestingly, about half of the people that stay in jail, they end up getting probation, even though they've been in jail all this time up until their trial. The penalty is effectively served before they've ever been convicted, and so I think that's a really wrong and backwards approach. I think that by working with judges and counsel for the indigent who are either appointed, or we have a pilot program now in Comal County, Texas where it's essentially a voucher program and the defendants themselves can choose from a list of capable counsel. And we've worked with the Texas Citizen Defense Commission on that. That's going very well. That actually really emphasizes the fidelity of the client to the attorney in that relationship, and it's also monitoring the caseloads to make sure you don't have either 600 cases being handled by one attorney where they're just basically pleaing them out quickly without investigating them. Making sure that system is working well, that has a big impact on the jail, for example, because you're getting people out who don't need to be there.

The mental health system, we've had a lot of discussion here about that, that we need to have places where, for example, in San Antonio they have a 24-hour crisis center where somebody who's yelling at the top of their lungs at McDonald's can go there instead of the jails, so it's another option for police. Again, it's a matter of bringing everyone together and finding these solutions that also may involve the mental health system or other social services, not just the criminal justice system.

MAJITHIA-SEJPAL:
You mentioned the Red Hook Community Justice Center earlier. I was curious to know your thoughts on the work of a community justice center like Red Hook?

LEVIN:
Red Hook has been terrific. I know they recently had an anniversary celebration and it really emphasizes restitution and community service. One of the things that we'd like to do in the next legislative session here in Texas is make sure that judges can discharge fines and fees for people who are indigent by having them do community service instead. Obviously, trying to replicate the Red Hook Center would be ideal, but I think giving even just regular courts more tools to really get people on the right track is very important.

We're big believers in restorative justice, things like victim-offender mediation, where we recognize that victim is really the individual that was stolen from, for example, rather than the government. Too often, we have cases where someone's paid all this money in fines to the government, but the victim still hasn't gotten restitution, so we need to recognize a lot of victims want an apology, they like the idea of meeting with the offender and making sure they understand the effect of the crime on them and on the neighborhood. Things like Red Hook really provide a more personal form of justice rather than large bureaucracies. I think that's one of the reasons it's had such good results.

MAJITHIA-SEJPAL:
Thank you so much, Mark, for sitting down with me today. That was a very interesting conversation.

LEVIN:
Well, thank you.

MAJITHIA-SEJPAL:
I'm Avni Majithia-Sejpal and I have been sitting down and talking with Mark Levin at Reinvesting in Justice. To listen to more New Thinking podcasts or to learn more about our work. You can visit our website at www.courtinnovation.org. Thanks for listening.