Webb Leads the Charge for Much-Needed Drug, Prison Reform

A historic turning point in criminal justice and drug policy in America?

The fourth week of March was arguably just that:

On the way to Mexico City, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton became the first senior U.S. official to accept co-responsibility for the cartel-driven drug violence now ravaging Mexico. Clinton acknowledged that "our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade," and that our three-decade-long war on drugs has simply "not worked."

In New York state, Gov. David Paterson and the Democratic legislative majority announced they'd reached agreement to roll back the punitive "Rockefeller drug laws" of the 1970s, starting with then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller's insistence on mandatory minimum prison sentences for first-time, nonviolent drug offenders.

But the biggest breakthrough of all may have come in the U.S. Senate, where Virginia's Jim Webb, a Democrat, joined by two Republican and 13 Democratic colleagues, sponsored legislation for a high-level National Criminal Justice Commission.

This could be the official eye-opener, the crucial re-examination of America's penal and drug policies that the nation has so sorely needed for years.

Why?

First, its chair would be appointed by the president -- and President Obama has called Webb twice to commend his effort. A commission-endorsed reform agenda would provide Obama with the cover for major changes in this politically charged area.

Second, the Senate Democratic leadership is enthusiastically in favor and there's smaller but significant Republican co-sponsorship -- Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, ranking GOP member of the Judiciary Committee, and South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, ranking member on the Crime and Drugs subcommittee.

A third positive: Webb -- highly decorated Marine combat veteran and Navy secretary under President Reagan -- can hardly be labeled a "softie" on crime. He and his staff have spent two years researching the prison and drug issues, hearing from prosecutors, judges, crime victims, former offenders, inmates, and police. "It was like tapping a nerve," Webb declares. "All are saying we have a real mess on our hands."

Webb defines the base problem: With just 5 percent of world population, the U.S. has 2.3 million people behind bars -- 25 percent of all prisoners worldwide. "Either we have the most evil people on Earth living in the United States, or we are doing something dramatically wrong."

Webb contends that our prisons, many severely overcrowded, have become "places of violence, physical abuse and hate," costing federal, state and local governments a tough-to-justify $68 billion a year.

We're "warehousing" the mentally ill in our prisons where, the senator notes, they get scant professional treatment. Then he focuses on "the elephant in the bedroom" -- the rise in drug incarcerations. In 1980, the U.S. incarcerated 41,000 drug offenders; today the figure tops 500,000 -- a 1,200 percent increase.

The commission, says Webb, would have to wrestle with the fact that more than half of Americans age 12 and over have at some time have used an illegal drug. "In talking of legality and illegality, what does that do to the fiber of our society? I saw more drug use at Georgetown Law School than anywhere else I've been. A lot of those people went on to be judges."

Yet what's the answer? Should we be arresting people for recreational drug use -- or, Webb adds, for addiction?

Then there's race: African-Americans, he observes, comprise 12 percent of our population, use drugs at close to the national average, but represent 37 percent of drug arrests and 74 percent of drug offenders sentenced to prison. How's that to be explained?

Conversely, Webb underscores how seriously gangs are impacting American society. Some, though not all, ride on the back of the drug trade. Mexican drug cartels, the most violent and visible, are operating in 230 American cities, not simply along the border. MS-13 gangs, notorious for drug smuggling, gunrunning and hits for hire, have spread across the U.S., recruiting 2,000, Webb notes, in Northern Virginia across the Potomac from Washington.

Then there's the problem of rural towns, hard hit by globalization, actively seeking prisons as a source for jobs. But many American guards receive only brief on-the-job training. Webb contrasts this with Japan, where guards have a year's preparation and inmates legitimately regard them as "mentors, disciplinarians, and friends."

Bottom line: Webb's commission, if Congress approves it, will have a massive, complex agenda. Yet its findings could prove a vital turning point, not only for the federal government (which holds just 10 percent of prisoners) but for state and local governments nationwide. Many might be inspired to create their own commissions.

Some say Webb, representing historically conservative Virginia, is threatening his own political future. But if he can get us off the dime, thinking and acting fresh on crucial prison and drug issues, he'll be serving America as vitally as the bravest of his erstwhile Marine colleagues.

Contact Neal Peirce at nrp@citistates.com.