THE U.S. NEEDS TO REFORM PRISONS

If you overlooked the Parade Magazine in last Sunday's Star-News, it's
worth digging through your stack of newspapers to read the piece by
U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, "Why We Must Fix Our Prisons." Webb, the
no-nonsense Democrat from Virginia, lists a plethora of statistics
supporting his argument that our corrections system not only is
terribly broken but also is a national disgrace. With 5 percent of the
world's population, the United States houses 25 percent of the world's
reported prisoners. Our country incarcerates its citizens at a rate
nearly five times the average worldwide. About one in every 31 adults
in the United States is in prison, in jail, or on supervised release -
at a cost of $68 billion a year. And our prisons are essentially
"breeding grounds that perpetuate and magnify the same types of
behavior we purport to fear."

The numbers hit at the very heart of our vision of America as a great
democracy. "With so many of our citizens in prison compared with the
rest of the world, there are only two possibilities," Webb writes.
"Either we are home to the most evil people on earth or we are doing
something different - and vastly counterproductive." Many will say
those in prisons have brought it on themselves and are getting exactly
what they deserve. But why such a great discrepancy with the rest of
the world?

It's time to answer some tough questions. But first we need
politicians who are courageous enough to ask them, no doubt at the
risk of ridicule from the tough-on-crime bunch that seems more
satisfied with slamming cell doors than long-term solutions.
Fortunately, Webb, a highly decorated Marine Corps veteran of the
Vietnam War has never been short on courage. One obvious area that
needs to be addressed is our insistence on putting nonviolent drug
offenders in prison. In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison;
today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200 percent. A large
number of those offenders are imprisoned not for dealing drugs, but
for possessing a drug to which they often are physically addicted.
Then there is the volatile issue of race.

African-Americans make up 12 percent of our population. About 14
percent use illegal drugs. That number is almost identical across all
racial and ethnic lines. African-Americans, however, make up 37
percent of those arrested on drug charges, 59 percent of those
convicted, and 74 percent of those sentenced to prison.

Webb has offered no silver bullet. But his willingness to bring the
subject to the table may begin a conversation that up until now we've
not been willing to have.