It really is a new political climate.
Jim Webb, a centrist Democrat from Virginia, introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate to thoroughly re-examine the justice system to address the excessive levels of incarceration and the lack of effective rehabilitation in our prisons.
As Webb’s bill pointed out:
- With 5% of the world’s population, our country now houses 25% of the world’s reported prisoners.
- Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980.
- Four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.
- Approximately 1 million gang members reside in the U.S., many of them foreign-based; and Mexican cartels operate in 230+ communities across the country.
- Post-incarceration re-entry programs are haphazard and often nonexistent, undermining public safety and making it extremely difficult for ex-offenders to become full, contributing members of society.
Incredibly, Ryan Grim reports that:
Jim Webb stepped firmly on a political third rail last week when he introduced a bill to examine sweeping reforms to the criminal justice system. Yet he emerged unscathed, a sign to a political world frightened by crime and drug issues that the bar might not be electrified any more…
The bill was cosponsored by the entire Senate Democratic leadership and enthusiastically welcomed by prominent liberal bloggers. The blogosphere, dominated by younger activists, has been particularly open to calls for drug and criminal justice policy reform.
Support for the proposal has come in from the right, too. The Lynchburg News and Advance a conservative paper that publishes in the hometown of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, weighed in favorably.
I have been following politics for over 40 years. During that time, anyone who raised the issues of excessive incarceration and lack of rehabilitation would have immediately been branded as a simpering fool, too weak willed to stand up to criminals who threaten the fabric of society.
Our prison system is a national scandal, and has been dysfunctional for decades.
The fact that a Democrat can introduce a bill like this without conservative demagogues trying to take advantage is a powerful indicator that political winds have indeed shifted.
