Webb urges congressional review of incarceration

By: | Times-Dispatch
Published: March 26, 2009

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., wants a "top-to-bottom review" by Congress of the nation's criminal-justice system with an eye toward reducing the growing prison population.

With the support of the White House and some Senate Republicans, Webb is proposing a blue-ribbon commission spend 1½ years looking at law-and-order issues.

Webb's office says the panel should take a sweeping look at the way the nation controls crime, metes out punishment and returns felons to society.

A background document says of the commission: "Its task will be to propose concrete, wide-ranging reforms to responsibly reduce the overall incarceration rate; improve federal and local responses to international and domestic gang violence; restructure our approach to drug policy; improve the treatment of mental illness; improve prison administration, and establish a system for reintegrating ex-offenders."

Webb has been speaking out on the prison issue for over a year, warning of the economic and social consequences of housing a growing population of criminals.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, holding nearly 2.4 million people behind bars. An additional 5 million are on probation or parole.

According to Webb's office, President Barack Obama supports the investigation; so, too, does Sen. Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican, former Judiciary Committee chairman and ex-federal prosecutor, who is facing a tough re-election campaign.

Other supporters include the current Judiciary panel head, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., and the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois.

In Webb's home state, prison population has been growing steadily since 1995, when Virginia dumped parole for fixed sentences -- an initiative of the Republican former governor Webb narrowly defeated in 2006: George Allen.

Webb's proposal will get a big public-relations boost this weekend. He's written a cover story on his idea for Parade magazine, which is carried in the Sunday editions of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and many other American newspapers.