A new, hyphenated word is about to enter your political vocabulary. Say it with me: Over-criminalization.

For conservatives in particular, the word will introduce a concept both fresh and counter-intuitive — that the desire to mete out disproportionate punishment to some criminals, while highly satisfying and politically popular, is ultimately ineffective.

And not at all fiscally conservative.

...the Great Recession has caused us to put a price tag on even our most favorite reflexes. At the cost of more than $1 billion per year, one of every 70 adults in Georgia is now under some sort of state supervision — a higher rate than all but three other states. The federal average is one in 100.

“Yet despite this growth,” the report said, “Georgia taxpayers haven’t received a better public safety return on their corrections dollars. The recidivism rate has remained unchanged at nearly 30 percent throughout the past decade. "