This is an opinion column

Leave it up to an Alabama politician to score political points by attacking a law designed to promote public safety, save taxpayers money, and help integrate inmates back into society. Attorney General Steve Marshall wants Alabama to know he’s tough on crime, but his way of thinking is why Alabama’s criminal justice system is in shambles in the first place.

Unless an inmate has been given a life sentence without parole, he or she will likely leave prison at some point. When that happens, it’s in the public’s best interest that those inmates have the skills and community to avoid a life of crime and a return trip to prison. You wouldn’t know it from Marshall or headlines across Alabama, but that’s the goal of mandatory supervised release provisions which took effect on January 31, 2023.

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Alabama has operated a version of this program since 2016. This isn’t a new law.

“This is unlike anything that’s happened since the law was originally passed in 2015,” said Marshall in an interview with CBS42 last week. “That we’re now capturing individuals who have committed murder, rapes, robberies and we need to make sure that we have victims receiving the adequate notice before these individuals are returned to communities.”

A 2021 amendment to the law created more guidelines and retroactively applied the law. As a result, individuals with longer sentences, including violent crimes, became eligible. That would have happened in the future anyway.

Marshall is correct that victims should have the notice required under the law, but he’s supportive of repealing the law altogether. “We’ve had discussions with [legislators] about kind of how this all plays together,” he told radio host Dale Jackson. “And I’m not sure everybody had their eyes wide open when they passed this bill.”

This is how the “tough on crime” game works. Instead of providing context and common sense, just scare the hell out of voters, claim to champion the victims, and pledge to put the screws to offenders.

It’s easy to split inmates into “violent” and “nonviolent” categories, but it’s not that simple. For example, Al Capone was taken down on tax evasion charges. He wasn’t exactly the kind of individual anyone would want let out of prison early. At the same time, an individual without any prior criminal history who loses his temper and seriously injures someone else would be considered a violent felon. That’s why we need systems that carefully evaluate inmates and their chances of recidivism. It’s smart policy instead of knee-jerk politics.

Indefinitely punishing people who commit crimes is ridiculous. At some point, most offenders serve their sentences. Giving inmates a supervised period of acclimation back into society is much smarter than simply releasing them into the public when their time is up. In fact, it’s much more important for folks who have been incarcerated for longer sentences. They simply aren’t able to return to society as easily.

Yes, it’s possible that some of these inmates on supervised release will commit crimes again. For example, Jimmy O’Neal Spencer tragically murdered two women and a child while on parole in 2018. After Alabama saw a material increase in paroles from 2015-2018, they took a nosedive following Spencer’s crimes. It wasn’t a coincidence.

Continuing to refine and improve early supervised release is the answer, not scrapping it entirely.

Alabamians also need to decide whether their leaders should come up with constitutional incarceration policies or have the Department of Justice (DOJ) do it for them. That’s the reality Marshall conveniently ignores.

Alabama’s Department of Corrections is in ongoing litigation with the DOJ for prison conditions so abhorrent they violate the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

In addition to prison construction and renovation, the 2015 parole reforms and 2021 amendments represent the Alabama legislature’s attempts to address the situation by reducing prison overcrowding without being forced to do so by court order.

Conservatives, in particular, shouldn’t want to keep people in prison any longer than necessary. It is and will always be the ultimate big government solution. Criminal justice reforms are never politically easy, but they are necessary.

Marshall wants legislators to engage criminal justice with their eyes wide open. Voters should too. If Alabamians can’t see a politician who has only been a Republican since 2011 trying to burnish his “tough on crime” reputation, I’m not sure they’re seeing the situation clearly.

Smith is a recovering political attorney with four boys, two dogs, a bearded dragon, and an extremely patient wife. He engages media, business, and policy through the Triptych Foundation and Triptych Media. Please direct outrage or agreement to [email protected] or @DCameronSmith on Twitter.