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By Pat Nolan|Published Date: April 02, 2009
Senator Jim Webb (D-VA), in Senate bill 714, has proposed the creation of a National Criminal Justice Commission to “review all areas of Federal and State criminal justice costs, practices, and policies.” The bill is co-sponsored by Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), who is a former prosecutor.
This top to bottom review of our criminal justice system is sorely needed. Senator Webb emphasized five reasons the legislation is critical:
- With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses 25% of the world's reported prisoners.
- Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980.
- Four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.
- Approximately 1 million gang members reside in the U.S., many of them foreign-based; and Mexican cartels operate in 230+ communities across the country.
- 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.
I met with Senator Webb early this year to discuss the concept of a commission. We spent 45 minutes batting ideas back and forth, exploring what governments are trying in some parts of the United States or in other parts of the world. Senator Webb had invited me to testify before the Joint Economic Committee in October, 2007, about the costs of mass incarceration. The Senator is as much a policy wonk as I am, so it was an animated conversation. I was very impressed with his deep knowledge of, and an insatiable curiosity about, what may work to improve our system. This is not a headline-grabbing, show-horse of a legislator. He is definitely a workhorse, and we are fortunate to have such a thoughtful and hardworking sponsor for the bill.
The Senator’s interest in criminal law reform began right after he departed from the Marine Corps. On assignment from PARADE Magazine, he was allowed inside Japanese prisons to see what they were doing to suppress crime and punish offenders. He wrote about his observations and mentioned his vivid impressions often as we contrasted the American penal system with the Japanese system. He picked up on my frequent mention of the importance of including victims in the criminal justice process. He told me that the Japanese require reparations, and we discussed why that is good for both the offender and the victim.
Most of us who deal with the criminal justice system believe that it is clearly broken. That is not a knock on any of the dedicated people that are working within the system. Instead, it is a criticism of our policy makers, who have built a Rube Goldberg-like contraption of criminal laws and sentencing policies based on whim and anecdote. There is no coherent focus to our criminal code, and sentences bear little resemblance to the harm done by a crime. Seemingly trivial errors are punished with many years in prison, while horribly violent crimes often get less time.
I applaud Senator Webb for tackling this very important task. He needs your help to get the bill passed. Please write or call your Senators and Representative and ask them to co-sponsor S 714. In case you don’t remember who your legislators are, you can use our Legislative Action Center to look them up and send them an email. However, a phone call from you would be even more effective. The Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121.
Please share this information with your friends, co-workers, neighbors, and the folks at church. Everyone agrees that our criminal justice system doesn’t work very well. This bill will give us a chance to make it work for us.
In His service,
Vice President, Prison Fellowship
Resources
Materials from Past Hearings and Symposiums
- Joint Economic Committee Hearing, conducted by Senator Webb, "Mass Incarceration in the United States: At What Cost?" October 2007
- Joint Economic Committee Hearing, conducted by Senator Webb, "Illegal Drugs: Economic Impact, Societal Costs, and Policy Responses," June 2008
- George Mason University Symposium, hosted by Senator Webb and the GMU Administration of Justice Department, "Drugs in America: Trafficking, Policy and Sentencing," October 2008
- Senator Webb's Keynote Address to the Brookings Institution's Policy Roundtable on the Challenges to Prisoner Re-entry, December 2008
News Articles and Commentaries
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