Around the country and here in West Virginia, more and more people are taking a second look at the criminal justice system. Many people across the political spectrum have started to notice the downside of mass incarceration. They are looking for workable ways to protect the public while reducing the many costs, human and financial, of the current system.

The interesting thing is that a lot of the energy and ideas to take on this task are coming from political conservatives, including those from the libertarian as well as evangelical wings of the movement. The title of a recent article in the Washington Monthly is "The Conservative War on Prisons."

That title might seem strange at first, given that politicians of the right and their imitators have ridden the lock-em-up wave with considerable success for several decades. On the other hand, there are a lot of traditional conservative values that contribute to a critique of prisons. Here are some right (no pun intended) off the bat:

* A major theme of conservative thought is a critique of expensive and inefficient bureaucracies and their irrationalities. Why should prisons get a pass when every other institution is fair game?

* Conservatives of a libertarian bent are all about weaning people from dependence on the state. There is nothing as statist as having several million people, many of whom pose little threat to public safety, under the supervision of government to one degree or another in the criminal justice system.

* For Christian conservatives, the ideas of sin, repentance and redemption are part of the overall package.

* For those concerned about traditional morality, the idea of consigning young people to institutions in which many are raped and sexually abused -- with far reaching consequences -- is a cause for concern.

But don't take my word for it. Consider the words of Newt Gingrich and Pat Nolan from a 2011 Washington Post op-ed: "There is an urgent need to address the astronomical growth in the prison population, with its huge costs in dollars and lost human potential.... The criminal-justice system is broken, and conservatives must lead the way in fixing it."

According to the 2012 Republican Party platform, prisons "should do more than punish; they should attempt to rehabilitate and institute proven prisoner re-entry systems to reduce recidivism and future victimization."

Anti-tax leader Grover Norquist, whose name has been in the news quite a bit these days, referred to the criminal justice system as "the last sacred cow" at a conservative conference. "Spending more on education doesn't necessarily get you more education. We know that -- that's obvious. Well, that's also true about national defense. That's also true about criminal justice and fighting crime."

ALEC, the conservative state legislative council has likewise taken to advocating for reforms to address overcrowding. According to one report from the group, "Taxpayers are not well served by a broken and potentially dangerous prison and parole system. In order to properly protect American citizens, some immediate solution must be found to reduce prison overcrowding so those deemed most violent to society serve their full prison sentence."

Mark Meckler, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, has described himself as "all in on the fight for criminal justice reform here in the U.S." In his blog, Meckler has written quite eloquently about the devastating impact of overincarceration on minority communities: "We're destroying a significant portion of our own population, especially in the inner cities."

It goes beyond words. A number of states that lean to the conservative side have recently passed legislation aimed at reducing prison overcrowding, including Texas, Alabama and Georgia. No doubt more reforms are on the way, possibly including some right here in politically ambiguous West Virginia.

According to the Right On Crime website, a conservative prison reform resource, "When criminal justice systems reduce prison populations and reinvest a portion of the savings in evidence-based methods of reducing crime, not only are taxpayer dollars saved, but more efficient and effective programs can be fiscally prioritized."

This sea change in attitudes toward prisons is encouraging for more than one reason. As David Dagan and Steven M. Teles write in the Washington Monthly article, "This will do more than simply put the nation on a path to a more rational and humane correctional system. It will also provide an example of how bipartisan policy breakthroughs are still possible in our polarized age."

Wilson is director of the American Friends Service Committee's WV Economic Justice Project.