In spite of having the demeanor sometimes of a bull in the proverbial china shop, U.S. Sen. Jim Webb also has the reputation of a legislator who’s unafraid to take on Herculean tasks.
In the last session of Congress, the freshman U.S. senator looked at the huge number of armed services veterans returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and realized the decades-old GI Bill was in need of serious updating.
Himself a Vietnam vet (in addition to being a former secretary of the Navy), he took on the job of crafting a new GI Bill and shepherding it through the Byzantine legislative process to ultimate passage.
That would have been a career-capper for any legislator; for a freshman, it was a success almost unheard of.
Now, Virginia’s senior senator has turned his attention to reform of America’s criminal justice system. Thursday, Webb introduced the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 in Congress, with bipartisan support from top Democratic and Republican senators. His top GOP ally is Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
America’s prisons — both federal and state — are overflowing with prisoners. The United States has about 5 percent of the world’s population; we have about 25 percent of the world’s known prison population, Webb estimates.
Something, somewhere is seriously wrong.
In his speech Thursday introducing the legislation, Webb pointed out some stark and startling statistics.
In 1980, the U.S. had about 41,000 drug offenders behind bars. Today, that number is up to more than half a million, an increase of 1,200 percent. Black Americans (12 percent of the population, 14 percent of drug users) account for 37 percent of those arrested on drug charges, 59 percent of those convicted and 74 percent of those sent to prison.
The causes of crime are many; society’s cost of protection is huge. Yet despite all the added police officers on the street, the prison building boom and abolition of parole in many states, Americans feel no safer.
Much of this country’s criminal activity can be traced back to drug use. Addicts — who often can’t hold down a job but need the cash to get their next fix — make up a great proportion of the prison population. But what if our political and judicial systems began to view addicts as individuals with an illness that needed treating before any crime were committed?
That’s the challenge Webb has tackled. Just think of the changes that could arise if society just modifies its thinking about crime, drugs and addiction. It’s truly mind-boggling.
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