Today's Pilot Online talks about Senator Webb's introduction later today of bipartisan legislation, the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009. According to the Pilot article, Webb's commission could amount to "the most ambitious attempt to re-examine and reform the criminal justice system since the 1960s." Given the fact that, as Webb says, "our incarceration rate has exploded.... But at the same time we aren't really solving the problems," it's high time we addressed this issue as a nation.In his most recent book, "A Time to Fight," Senator Webb has a chapter entitled, "A Criminal Injustice." As I wrote when I reviewed the book on RK in May 2008, Webb discusses an America that "has gone completely jail-happy," one in which "African Americans, who make up about 12 percent of our society, comprise more than half of all our prison inmates" -- largely for drug offenses. On that last point, Webb says point blank that "the hugely expensive antidrug campaigns we are waging around the world are basically futile," that drug addiction "is a medical condition" that needs to be treated medically not criminally, and that "The time has come to stop locking up people for mere possession and use of marijuana." Of course, it's hard to say these things if you're a politician, and Webb is well aware that the phrase "soft on crime" can "ruin one's reelection chances."
Yet Webb speaks out anyway. And thank goodness he does, because conversations like these are sorely needed in this country, as are serious, fundamental changes in the way we do business in a wide variety of areas. As Webb writes, "[o]ur country is in the middle of a profound, many-headed crisis" which can be summarized as "Rome is slowly burning."
Unfortunately, "[t]hose who do not want significant reform enjoy the emotional arguments that occupy untold hours of political commentary while keeping our citizens distracted from the issues that truly threaten our future."
Fortunately, we have Jim Webb in the Senate, ready to "get past these artificialities and focus on the long-term good of our country." The question is, who will join him?
