The case for prison reform

Consider:

• The United States has only 5 percent of the world's population, but house 25 percent of the world's prisoners.
• The United States incarcerates 756 out of every 100,000 people -- five times the world average.
• One in every 31 adults in the United States is in prison, in jail or on supervised release.
• The United States spends $70 billion per year on corrections -- a rise of 40 percent in the last 20 years.
• About 16 percent of adult inmates are mentally ill (and the rate is higher in juvenile institutions).
• About 60 percent of those serving a drug sentence have no history of violence.
• About 80 percent of drug arrests are for possession -- not sales.
• African-Americans make up 14 percent of drug-users, but 56 percent of drug inmates.

I discovered these statistics in an informative Newsweek article written by Dahlia Lithwick who goes on to say "If Americans actually have the conversation about our disastrous prison policies, we'll understand the trends all move in very dangerous directions: we lock up more people, for less violent crime, at ever greater expense, breeding more dangerous criminals who often come out unemployable, violent and isolated."

She also says Sen. James Webb, D-Va., is launching "an ambitious effort to reform U.S. prisons. In addition to proposing a massive 18-month review of the prison system, Webb wants to work toward reducing the overall incarceration rate while refocusing efforts toward locking up truly dangerous criminals and gang leaders, decreasing prison violence, establishing meaningful reentry programs for ex-offenders, reforming the nation's drug policies and improving treatment of the mentally ill."

It's a start, although I fear in "law and order" Texas, most folks just want to "lock e'm up and forget 'em, unless we execute 'em first."