WASHINGTON
Alarmed by prisons that are clogged with mentally ill people, drug users and other non-violent offenders while well-armed gangs and drug lords often go unpunished, Virginia Sen. Jim Webb will launch a wide-ranging and politically risky campaign today to overhaul the nation's criminal justice system.
With nearly 2.4 million Americans now behind bars, Webb said, "our incarceration rate has exploded.... But at the same time we aren't really solving the problems."
With backing from senior Democratic senators and quiet encouragement from President Barack Obama, Webb will introduce legislation to create a bipartisan commission on criminal justice reform.
Webb said he wants the commission to educate itself and then the American public on some little-understood realities about crime and punishment.
His bill reads like an indictment of the current system, noting that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, that minorities make up a disproportionately large share of prison populations, and that half of prisoners will return to prison within three years of release.
Webb said he hopes that once people begin to understand that such a high rate of imprisonment has done little to stop violent crime or drug trafficking, they'll support changes.
The proposal is the product of two years of study by Webb and his staff. A pair of hearings and a half-day convocation Webb led on the subject last fall at George Mason University led to a flood of inquiries from prosecutors, defense lawyers, crime victims, judges and prison administrators across the country, Webb said.
"It was like tapping a nerve." And from all quarters, he said, the message was: "This is a mess. This is just a mess. And we have to figure out a way to fix it."
Webb's bill does not suggest specific reforms but directs the commission to make suggestions that would reduce incarceration rates and keep mental patients and nonviolent offenders from going to prison.
The commission could be the most ambitious attempt to re-examine and reform the criminal justice system since the 1960s, said Mark Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit group that supports reducing incarceration rates.
"It is a huge undertaking," he said.
Webb has briefed Obama's staff on the plan and discussed it with the president earlier this week. He has secured pledges of support from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Democratic whip Dick Durbin of Illinois and expressions of interest from prominent Republicans, including Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Webb also has talked the issue over with Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who invited Webb to his office and shared the texts of several speeches voicing his own concern about criminal sentencing.
The senator said Kennedy told him that too many judges "don't understand prisons" and "don't pay that much attention to what happens after we've moved the cases."
Webb gained national attention last year for his successful effort to secure a new GI Bill underwriting college costs for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For a time, he was considered a prospect to run for vice president on the Obama-led Democratic ticket.
After winning his Senate seat by a razor-thin margin in 2006, "he's improved his standing" with Virginia voters, said Mark Rozell, a political scientist at George Mason University. "He's now seen as a strong incumbent."
But Rozell added that "being hard on crime is the politically safe place to be.... There's just not a lot of public sentiment out there to do something about incarceration time.
"Whether he's doing the right thing or not, politically it's risky."
Webb, a lawyer, said his interest in the issue goes back to his days as a Marine Corps officer, sitting on courts-martial, and it was honed during law school when he did volunteer work on behalf of a young black Marine accused of war crimes in Vietnam.
Later, as a freelance journalist working for Parade magazine, Webb toured prisons in Japan and was struck by how different that country's approach to offenders is from America's, he said. With a population half that of the United States, Japan had just 40,000 people in prisons and jails, he said; the U.S. system had more than 500,000 locked up.
That was 25 years ago; today's prison population is nearly five times as large.
Webb has served as Navy secretary and written several books since then but still does occasional articles for Parade. He wrote a cover story on his prison initiative for Sunday's editions.
He said he expects some political blow-back, particularly from state Republicans.
"Every statement I've ever made on this, every forum I've had, I've said we want to put those who perpetrate violence, those who commit crime as a way of life... we want those people to go to jail," Webb said.
His concern is that "we've spent so much energy chasing down the little guy that we haven't been able to focus properly on the violence and the transnational organized crime that really threaten us."
Dale Eisman, (703) 913-9872, dale.eisman@pilotonline.com
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Doing 3 months ...
Judges hand out 90 days "JAIL" time like candy at Halloween. After 3 months in jail ... you will most likely have lost your Job, Your Residence, your kids, Girl Friend, Created a nice Big Black Mark on your elgibility for another job ... and perpetuate the cycle ... you will steal or deal again to make whatever $ you can...
People who ditch out on Child Support .. Have a "City Jobs Bank" that the city can put these people to work if they Don't have a Job to PAY child support. GET things DONE around the city. Instead of Paying High Salaries for remedial jobs ... use these people to PAY the Child Support... Saves the City $$, Keeps the Person Out of Jail, Gets the Child the MONEY they need.
Non-Violent Offenders - - Work them Work Them ... Give them a broom in the low income areas ... and have them sweep the sidewalk. Clean Up Our Neighborhoods! Paint the Playgrounds ..
prison reform
If you had an illness like cancer,or diabetes or depression, do you think sitting and talking about it would cure it? I bet you would be looking for a realistic treatment. Locking up offenders with the illness of addiction is like treating depression with a lobotomy. Didn't our country learn something from that one? Our country needs to invest in the medical research for a realistic cure to addiction. Sentences are calculated using guidelines by the Va sentencing commission and a judge can ignore those guidelines. A 3 yr calculation can get you 30 years in Virginia. We have spent Billions on this Drug War. It isn't any better. If you have never had a addict in your family, that can change by morning, for families who have, my prayers are with you. We need realistic drug treatment and judges need to follow the calculated sentencing guidelines. Thanks Senator Webb for having the courage to look for new solutions to old problems. Building new prisons won't change the problem, but a realistic medical treatment may give million a chance for a normal life and give our children their parents back.
Sentencing Reform
I apologize for the incorrect spelling of pedophile.
Sentencing Reform
We need people like Sen. Jim Webb, Julie Stewart, FAMM (Families Against Mandatory Minimums), President, Congresswoman, Maxine Waters, Congressman, Robert "Bobby" Scott, and Rep. Danny Davis to make sentencing reform happen. The fact that judges do not have the authority to override a sentence and review cases individually is ludicrous. The reality is unfair sentencing is unjust. Why do murderers, rapists and pedifiles receive a lesser sentence than a low level, non-violent drug dealer? The "War on Drugs" needs serious reform. Most of the "Kingpins" are still on the streets. Parole should be reintroduced in the Federal system and there should be employment opportunities made available specifically to reintegrate these "human beings" into society.
As someone who speaks from experience
I have had a few friends and even a family member spend some time in jail for non-violent "crimes". For one the only crimes truly committed were stupidity and a really poor defense. There are plenty of people out there who go to jail for extended periods of time for crimes which are quite petty. The punishment should fit the crime, as of now the punishments on average are quite horrifying compared the crimes committed. It's just fine for many of you to denounce these "criminals" until someone close to you is branded as a criminal unjustly and thrown in jail for a long period of time. Jail is not the "cure all" for crime - I can say from personal experience that those coming out of jail have more of a criminal mindset than when they went in. Jails and prisons are criminal factories. Let's find solutions rather than just getting revenge. Revenge does not equal justice.
Clean Slate
One thing you hard-nosed people need to realize is that once you've paid the penalty for your crime, the slate should be wiped clean. One shouldn't pay the rest of their lives for an offence, especially if it's a first and only time offender. If we give ex prisoners a fair chance to redeem and reform their lives, then we'll see the recidivism rate go down. Forgiveness and redemption are one of the major tenets of Christianity, but the attitude of some so-called "christians" you wouldn't think that. Yes some should be punished with incarceration for certain crimes, especially repeat offenders, but give them a second chance at life and a chance to redeem themselves. We have all said or done things, legal or not, that we regret. This hard-heartedness has got to stop. Many of us go around harming others emotionally and get away with it, because it's not against the law, when causing emotional harm can be worse than causing physical or financial harm. Many people get away with causing harm on others--and even though it's legal it's not any less wrong or immoral. As a Caucasian-American, I must say that I believe all these laws and incarceration policies stem from the fear of blacks that
I stopped listening at dehumanization
"Throw these monsters in jail and KEEP THEM THERE."
The above represents stupid and childish thought. Defining people as monsters or animals is the first step to putting them wholsale into gas chambers. The point many have tried to make below is that most people in jails aren't violent "monsters" or at least don't start out that way. If you and your ilk are going to pretend every human being who is locked away or has ever been locked away is more or less as bad as Charles Manson, there is nothing to talk about. You've already lost.
Nations Prison System
I also fully agree. We don't need to put NON-VIOLENT offenders into the prison system. It teaches them how to become VIOLENT offenders. I find Florida's law of MAXIMUM PRISON time for VOP (violation of probation), to be total nonsense. So many hardened criminals are on the streets and our sheriff's are more concerned with finding and filling the prison system with NON-VIOLENT offenders, instead of actually WORKING to arrest VIOLENT offenders. What is our nation coming to, when it's more important to put a non-violent person into our already, extremely overcrowded prisons, instead of rapists, murders, etc?
Exactly Right!
"minorities make up a disproportionately large share of prison population". The reason for that is that they are responsible for a majority of the criminal activity. Don't believe me, check the statistics in any city. The African-American community needs to step up and set new values and expectations for it's own! Webb's bill is just another way of justifying the "your just doing this because I'm black" mentality. I'd like to see some of the black community leaders do something positive in their own community for once!
moose
You're still confused. I have personally witnessed the system do the opposite of what you say. Conviction on three strikes rule, no parole and maximum sentence.
Parole options should exist. Judges should have discretion in sentencing. Prisons need to be opportunities for correction and not graduate schools for thuggery.
Juvenile justice programs, community interventions, an intensified effort to educate all children based on the need of each is where our efforts need to be focused.
Try getting involved in service to our less fortunate communities, hear what the people in the trenches are saying. Then tell me about a simple solution.