Incarceration Nation Revisited: Webb to the Rescue!
By Pat Racimora on June 30, 2009 at 1:00 PM in Current Affairs
It is a scandal. It breaks families and our economy. My first post on the crises in our prisons got a great response from many of you, but we didn’t come up with many solid answers. Then I got an email from the Press Secretary for Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) who had actually seen my toon and story! She sent me a lot of information, and now I have hope. See what you think.
First off, Senator Webb is one of the few politicians I trust. He’s a brilliant, no-nonsense guy with a solid track record and broad, impressive experience base. I would bet his crap tolerance level is zero. So, I wasn’t surprised when I heard what he was doing. In his words:
America’s criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation’s prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives. We need to fix the system. Doing so will require a major nationwide recalculation of who goes to prison and for how long and of how we address the long-term consequences of incarceration.
Senator Webb has been concerned about our prisons and the people we stick in them for years, with the last two years spent putting together a plan and supportive coalition. He cites some astounding stats. Check these out:
1. The United States has by far the world’s highest incarceration rate. With five percent of the world’s population, our country now houses twenty-five percent of the world’s reported prisoners!
2. More than 2.38 million Americans are now in prison, and another 5 million remain on probation or parole.
3. Our prison population has skyrocketed over the past two decades as we have incarcerated more people for non-violent crimes and acts driven by mental illness or drug dependence.
4. Four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.
5. The costs to our federal, state, and local governments of keeping repeat offenders in the criminal justice system continue to grow during a time of increasingly tight budgets.
6. Existing practices too often incarcerate people who do not belong in prison and distract from locking up the more serious, violent offenders who are a threat to our communities.
7. Transnational criminal activity, much of it directed by violent gangs and cartels from Latin America, Asia and Europe, has permeated the country. Mexican cartels alone now operate in more than 230 communities across the country.
8. Mass incarceration of illegal drug users has not curtailed drug usage. The multi-billion dollar illegal drugs industry remains intact, with more dangerous drugs continuing to reach our streets. Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980.
9. Incarceration for drug crimes has had a disproportionate impact on minority communities, despite virtually identical levels of drug use across racial and ethnic lines.
10. Post-incarceration re-entry programs are haphazard and often nonexistent, undermining public safety and making it extremely difficult for ex-offenders to become full, contributing members of society.
So, what does Senator Webb propose doing about a system that is raiding our treasure and not making our lives any safer?
He is proposing that a commission study this program and come up with solid recommendations. OK, before you say “Holy crap, not another committee” you must understand that some of the best legislation affecting real change in our country has emerged from effective well-run commissions. And the problem is now way too sprawling to approach in any other way.
The National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009, introduced by Senator Jim Webb on March 26, 2009, will create a blue-ribbon commission charged with undertaking an 18-month, top-to-bottom review of our entire criminal justice system. Its task will be to propose concrete, wide ranging reforms designed to responsibly reduce the overall incarceration rate; improve federal and local responses to international and domestic gang violence; restructure our approach to drug policy; improve the treatment of mental illness; improve prison administration; and establish a system for reintegrating ex-offenders.
You know, if I had to pick a person who I thought could come through with something concrete and enduring, Senator Jim Webb would be my choice, even before knowing that his legislation existed. Let’s all watch where this goes.
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