SEN. WEBB'S CALL FOR PRISON REFORM

This country puts too many people behind bars for too long. Most
elected officials, afraid of being tarred as soft on crime, ignore
these problems. Sen. Jim Webb, a Democrat of Virginia, is now
courageously stepping into the void, calling for a national
commission to re-assess criminal justice policy. Other members of
Congress should show the same courage and rally to the cause.

The United States has the world's highest reported incarceration
rate. Although it has less than 5 percent of the world's population,
it has almost one-quarter of the world's prisoners. And for the first
time in history, more than 1 in 100 American adults are behind bars.

Many inmates are serving long sentences for nonviolent crimes,
including minor drug offenses. It also is extraordinarily expensive.
Billions of dollars now being spent on prisons each year could be
used in far more socially productive ways.

Senator Webb -- a former Marine and secretary of the Navy in the
Reagan administration -- is in many ways an unlikely person to
champion criminal justice reform. But his background makes him an
especially effective advocate for a cause that has often been
associated with liberals and academics.

In his two years in the Senate, Mr. Webb has held hearings on the
cost of mass incarceration and on the criminal justice system's
response to the problems of illegal drugs. He also has called
attention to the challenges of prisoner re-entry and of the need to
provide released inmates, who have paid their debts to society, more
help getting jobs and resuming productive lives.

Mr. Webb says he intends to introduce legislation to create a
national commission to investigate these issues. With Barack Obama in
the White House, and strong Democratic majorities in Congress, the
political climate should be more favorable than it has been in years.
And the economic downturn should make both federal and state
lawmakers receptive to the idea of reforming a prison system that is
as wasteful as it is inhumane.