Thank You Senator Webb

From his website on the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009.

America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation's prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives.

We need to fix the system. Doing so will require a major nationwide recalculation of who goes to prison and for how long and of how we address the long-term consequences of incarceration.

I would go farther and say that our “system” of “Criminal Justice” is an international disgrace. But that is just me.

Also don’t we already know what is wrong and how to fix it? I would have thought that Prohibition would have taught us some lessons, etc. But then I also thought that the S&L Crisis would have taught us something and I also thought that the meltdown of LTMC would have taught us something and I really thought that the “Great Depression” would have taught us something. But it appears that I have been wrong over and over again.

So, I guess a Commission is better than nothing (see: 911 Commission) and at least he is taking this “national disgrace” seriously and hopefully it will not be a whitewash like that other Commission.

So, thank you Senator Webb for putting this situation front and center at the very least.