Debunking Charlie Kirk’s op-ed on prison reform

Charlie Kirk, executive director and founder of Turning Point USA, wrote an op-ed in The Hill on May 24 titled “Trump has exposed Democratic hypocrisy on prison reform.”

I already debunked Kirk’s first Hill op-ed, which had no evidence at all to back up its central claim. This one has data, but it is not used to back up its central claim.

As the title implies, Kirk attacks Democrats for attacking Trump’s attempt at reforming sentencing: “Democrats were immediately outraged by this blatant attempt on the part of the president to take positive action on something for which they have long been in favor.”

The key paragraph: “The idea that serious people would oppose something that is a major step in the right direction simply because it isn’t everything they can imagine illustrates and exposes their true agenda; they don’t want to solve a problem for their constituents, they just want to have the problem to run on in the next election.”

This line of attack was echoed the same day by the conservative New York Post editorial board. And has been a conservative talking point since the Trump event.

Kirk paints prison reform as a bipartisan goal with “an unlikely union between CNN commentator Van Jones and Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist,” which is accurate.

The House bill Kirk refers to is the Prison Reform and Redemption Act, sponsored by Reps. Doug Collins, R-Ga., (FYI my congressman) and Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. According to USA TODAY, “the bill would require the federal prison system to evaluate inmates after sentencing and provide services to help them avoid becoming repeat offenders, including drug treatment, job training and mental health counseling.”

The newspaper also reported that “the House bill is less comprehensive than one that was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in February. That legislation not only had programs to help inmates avoid a return to crime, it also relaxed drug sentencing laws and gave some inmates sentenced under laws that would be relaxed a chance to apply for release from prison.”

The Facts

Kirk cites some overview facts about prisons (state and federal): 1) two million Americans are in prison, 2) of which nearly 95 percent will eventually be released. 3) This year alone, America will release almost 700,000 prisoners and 3) if patterns hold, well over 50 percent will commit another crime and go back to prison. I’ll take these as true though calculating recidivism rates is a problem because there are so many definitions of the key concept.

Then he offers some specific ones about federal prisoners: 1) There are 183,881 inmates under Bureau of Prison custody held in federal prisons, 2) with 54 percent under 40 years old. 3) Of that population, 71 percent are serving sentences of 15 years or less, and 4) 95 percent will be released at some time.

#1 is accurate, based on the link to the federal Bureau of Prisons Kirk provided. #2 has no link, but according to BOP data from April, is correct. #3 is also correct based on same data. The last is also true, based on National Reentry Resource Center data.

I fact-check these to not only point out that they are true, but to point out that despite their accuracy they have no value to the argument. How Kirk uses them is key to defining their value. The fact is he doesn’t. They serve no purpose. If indeed his main claim is that Democrats are hypocritical about this issue, he has no evidence to back up that. Kirk may think that painting a picture of the need for prison reform may add to his hypocrisy charge, but the fact of the need for prison reform doesn’t assail Democrats.

The numbers paint a picture of the specific need for stopping recidivism, but Democrats aren’t against that idea. In fact, the Democrats Kirk names argue this bill would increase recidivism. While Kirk makes a show of numbers and suggests he is interested savings and even individual freedom, his lack of evidence on the Democrats shows he is doing exactly the kind of political “issue-keeping” he accuses Democrats of. His audience isn’t those interested in prison reform. It’s not only an audience of one (Trump) but the millions who want to hold to their hardened dislike of anyone “against” him.

Rhetorical bluster

After all his numbers, Kirk argues: “Democrats have long wanted to [reform prisons]. Until now, when they no longer want to because the president also wants to.”

And Kirk then ends on what seems to be the most emphatic point: “[Democrats’] self-righteous professing of compassion for the least among us has been relentless and deafening. Presented with an opportunity to create meaningful change and make a real difference in the lives of real people, they balk. They posture, they protest, and they whine. Using his superpowers, President Trump has exposed them to be both dishonest and pathetic.”

There are two key moments where Kirk tries but fails to provide evidence for his claim.

First, Kirk criticized the rapper Meek Mill for pulling out of the president’s event on prison reform. Kirk references but doesn’t cite a TMZ report that Jay Z persuaded Mill to back out. Mill denied Jay-Z played any role in his not attending, saying in a statement the event became more about Trump and him, not the issue itself. TMZ also reported Jay-Z himself said he did not do anything to persuade Mill.

But Kirk barrels on with his criticism, with no evidence: “You see, when Meek Mill gets a chance to sit down and attend a meeting with the president of the United States, who has the power to create change, he declines because it might hurt his record sales. Suddenly he is against something he was for, before he was against it.”

Saying something this obvious is tragic, but needs to be said: one can be for prison reform and against a bill that tackles this issue.

Kirk’s phrase describing the president’s power is key here, especially in light of his overall criticism of Democrats.

Kirk’s op-ed begins with fawning, sycophantic praise of Trump: “With so much media-manufactured controversy surrounding President Trump, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that our president possesses superpowers unlike any we have seen in his recent predecessors.” [By the way the “media-manufactured” stuff Kirk links to are Trump’s bogus claims about a “spy” in his campaign and the NFL anthem policy.]

So it’s not surprising that Kirk makes the narrative Trump versus all comers, here Democrats and rappers. But as The Marshall Project points out, the prison reform bill “gives Trump what he wants: To look tough to his base by not budging on sentences while also showing evangelicals he believes in ‘second chances.’”

And The Washington Post opines that “there are more questions than answers about what prison reform could look like under the administration of a president who counts private prison companies among some of his top campaign donors and who has not given any specifics on what he wants in a bill.”

In Kirk’s unbridled enthusiasm for painting his narrative that “both sides are in the business of manufacturing argument,” he conveniently leaves out the GOP critics of this bill.

NBC News reports that “Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who chairs that committee, has said that he’s not interested in bringing up prison reform measures that address just a limited component of criminal justice reform. He said there’s widespread support for his comprehensive bill, called the First Step Act, in the Senate, and that Congress should take up meaningful reform.” Across the aisle, a Democratic senator agreed. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who has been working with Grassley on the issue, told NBC the Senate bill “reforms sentencing guidelines and gives judges more discretion.”

And that brings us to Kirk’s main attack on Democrats. Kirk writes that Democrats “oppose Trump ideas because his plan does not yet speak to sentencing guidelines and requirements.”

First, this isn’t Trump’s plan, as the Post makes clear. Two, Kirk stretches his criticism to the point of inaccuracy by exaggerating the criticism made by the Democrats, and of course, some GOPers. Kirk writes that these people would oppose “a major step in the right direction simply because it isn’t everything they can imagine illustrates and exposes their true agenda…”

Kirk strains logical consistency here, with no evidence. He takes a Congressional dispute — here between the House and Senate bills — and morphs it into an opportunity to not only attack the “Left” but paint Trump as the all-powerful and all-compassionate leader he is not.

In the statement Kirk references, but apparently didn’t read closely, the Democrats point out all the other groups against the House bill for its many flaws. The Marshall Project has a good summary of the issue here.

And of course, there are Democrats for the bill, particularly one of the sponsors, who replied to his Democratic colleagues’ statement with his own.

But Kirk doesn’t do nuance or even notice the two groups. The divide in the Democrat party is summarized well here by The Atlantic. The magazine points out that even this House bill could face problems on “the right from the same Sessions allies, like Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who led the charge against criminal-justice reform in the final years of the Obama administration.”

In the end, Kirk sounds more like Trump everyday in rhetoric and reckless disregard for evidence.