Webb to take on prison reform

Sen. Jim Webb is looking to "reshape America's entire criminal justice system."

With backing from senior Democratic senators and quiet encouragement from President Barack Obama, Webb will introduce legislation to create a bipartisan commission on criminal justice reform. Webb said he wants the commission to educate itself and then the American public on some little-understood realities about crime and punishment.

His bill reads like an indictment of the current system, noting that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, that minorities make up a disproportionately large share of prison populations, and that half of prisoners will return to prison within three years of release.

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Webb's bill does not suggest specific reforms but directs the commission to make suggestions that would reduce incarceration rates and keep mental patients and nonviolent offenders from going to prison.

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That crisis - particularly the nation's drift toward mass incarceration - "is dramatically affecting millions of lives, draining billions of dollars from our economy, destroying notions of neighborhood and family in hundreds of communities across the country, and, most importantly, it is not making our country a safer or a fairer place," he said.

good luck Mr. Webb.