“Tough on crime” is only partly about how long you want prison sentences to be, and for exactly what you want them. It also tends to include a lot of tolerance (or overt enthusiasm) for procedurally troubling methods of getting Them off the streets and preserving order, and cracking down on moral decay, and we talk too much about ‘criminals’ rights’, what about victims’ rights?!

Something like a prosecutor who withholds exculpatory evidence isn’t actually “tough on crime”(since it reduces the accuracy with which crime is punished), except in the sense that it reflects the “Even if he isn’t guilty of what he was charged with, he’s scum who is probably guilty of something else and needs to be in a cage where he belongs” mentality. 

Regardless of how strictly ‘punitive’ the public is feeling(whether they are criminal-justice-as-therapy bleeding hearts or hang-em-high capital punishment fetishists), you can really only sell a criminal justice system that routinely produces miscarriages of justice if the people voting for it:
(A)believe that it won’t happen to them or people they care about
and
(B)believe that the people it happens to deserve it, regardless of a few ‘isolated incidents’
and
(C)believe that the things you are being ‘tough’ on are actually ‘crime’.

If your voting population starts shifting in one or more of those areas, you may still have significant support for harsh punishments; but procedural ghastliness or unpopular prohibitions are likely to fall on harder times.

harder to ignore with each passing year

I agree.

As Internet usage continues to expand (while the quality of independent news sources improve) it’s exposing more and more people to precious facts despite the ongoing corporatist onslaught to muddy the waters and obfuscate information that empowers average citizens.

While the Internet is certainly full of FUD, much of it is spread by corporatist lackeys who don’t have the smarts and gusto to stand against truly passionate, ethical, persistent, smarter critical thinkers with a purpose in life beyond almighty ducket acquisition.

We live in a time where we can finally (finally!) raise awareness and money via the Internet to penetrate the corporatist firewall via television commercials, etc. and spread precious facts to average Americans.

That’s how Prop 64 passed in Colorado and that’s how we’ll continue to educate the public about the military/prison-industrial complex.

As I’ve always said it would be, it’s painfully slow… but we are winning.  We’re occupying the entire nation one educated mind at a time.