America's criminal justice system is broken.
How broken? The numbers are stark:
• The United States has 5% of the world's population, yet possesses 25% of the world's prison population;
• More than 2.38 million Americans are now in prison, and another 5 million remain on probation or parole. That amounts to 1 in every 31 adults in the United States is in prison, in jail, or on supervised release;
• Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980, up from 41,000 to 500,000 in 2008; and
• 60% of offenders are arrested for non-violent offensives--many driven by mental illness or drug addiction.
Numbers only tell part of the story.
While heavily focused on non-violent offenders, law enforcement has been distracted from pursuing the approximately one million gang members and drug cartels besieging our cities, often engaging in unprecedented levels of violence. Gangs in some areas commit 80% of the crimes and are heavily involved in drug distribution and other violent activities. This disturbing trend affects every community in the United States.
Ex-offenders are also confronted with a lack of meaningful re-entry programs. With the high volume of people who are coming out of prisons, it is in the self-interest of every American that national leadership design programs that provide former offenders a true pathway towards a productive future.
An examination is required as to what happens inside our prisons. Our correctional officers deserve better support in dealing with violent criminals under their supervision. It is also imperative that we facilitate a safe environment for all inmates, and examine ways to better prepare them for their release back into civil society. The de-humanizing environment of jails and prisons compounds these challenges.
Without question, it is in the national interest that we bring violent offenders and career criminals to justice. The purpose of this legislation is not to let dangerous or incorrigible people go free. Rather, it is to determine how best to structure our criminal justice system so that it is fair, appropriate and--above all--effective.
No American neighborhood is completely safe from the intersection of all of these problems.
Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009. This legislation, which I originally introduced in March, creates a Presidential level blue-ribbon commission charged with conducting an 18-month, top-to-bottom review of our nation's entire criminal justice system, ultimately providing the Congress with specific, concrete recommendations for reform.
The committee hearing can be seen via webcast live today at 3:00pm.
The goal of this legislation is nothing less than a complete restructuring of the criminal justice system in the United States. Only an outside commission, properly structured and charged, can bring us complete findings necessary to do so.
Fixing our system will require us to reexamine who goes to prison, for how long and how we address the long-term consequences of their incarceration. Our failure to address these problems cuts against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness.
Today's hearing "Exploring the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009," chaired by cosponsor and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs, Senator Arlen Specter and ranking Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, also a sponsor, provides a platform for Judiciary Committee members to hear witness testimony from a wide spectrum of political ideologies and backgrounds including my own statement, about the need to make this commission a reality.
The National Criminal Justice Commission Act has already garnered wide support from across the political and philosophical spectrum, including 29 sponsors in the Senate, among them many senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. My staff and I have engaged with more than 100 organizations and associations, representing the entire gamut of prosecutors, judges, defense lawyers, former offenders, advocacy groups, think tanks, victims rights organizations, academics, prisoners, and law enforcement on the street. This engagement is ongoing, and support continues to grow.
My goal, shared by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, is to pass this legislation soon and to enact it into law this year. Obviously we appreciate any measure of support and assistance in this difficult undertaking. For more information, please visit my website, www.webb.senate.gov.
Supporters of the wrongly convicted and criminal justice reform marching on Saturday in state capitols of: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas.
www.freedommarchusa.org
FREEDOM MARCH 2009 -- On June 27, 2009, marchers are gathering in state capitols to raise awareness of wrongful convictions, spotlight the need for criminal justice reform, and show support for a death penalty moratorium. This is an opportunity to raise united voices for justice.
Saturday, June 27, 2009 9:00 A.M. – 11 A.M.
Completely organized by grassroots volunteers -- www.freedommarchusa.org/
NATIONAL MEDIA COORDINATORS:
Sherri Heath , Media Coordinator (405)308-6238 oufan59@hotmail.com
William Newmiller (719) 651-9205 bill@newmiller.com
Freedom March 2009 -- Modern science and technology have shaken the once strong faith many placed in the accuracy of our criminal justice system. Thanks to DNA, hundreds have been exonerated—many after spending years on death row. Research by Seton Hall law professor D. Michael Risinger indicates that 3.3%-5% of those convicted of crimes are factually innocent. We support policy initiatives that:
1. Raise the accuracy rate in judgments of guilt and innocence.
2. Resolve credible post-conviction claims of innocence.
3. Remedy the tragic impact of wrongful convictions.
For those who are guilty of crimes, we support enlightened approaches to incarceration that nurture genuine rehabilitation and reintegration of productive citizens whenever possible.
Lawyers make gobs of money from the criminal justice system. When someone is arrested they will pay whatever it takes to defend themselves from the system. And just because some lawyers get richer in other areas of the law or some lawyers are not getting rich off the criminal justice system is no excuse for the lawyers.
The lawyers make the laws and make the money from the system. Let's place the blame here where it belongs--on the lawyers.
politicians.
The REAL money makers are the prison/industrial complex. There are towns whose entire economy is tied up in having private prisons built and then hiring lobbyists to go to state capital to get prisoners sent there along with asking for longer sentences to keep those people there thus making even more money for the local towns and cities.
The prison guards unions in CA and other states push for harsher tactics as well in order to keep prisons full thus ensuring lots of overtime and money sent in to provide for prisoners which goes to local economies
That's why it's called the prison/industrial complex. It has become an industry.
AND most defendants don't have money so the taxpayer has to foot the bill through public defenders.
And they get paid a minimum amount of money in a great many states and are less inclined to provide a first class defense thus putting more people in prison because the poorly paid PD's would rather talk the people into accepting plea bargains and saving the PD's from having to do any real work.
It is not only people that do not have resources that get arrested. And if you have resources you are forced to pay whatever it takes.
Give me a break!
We had large black market cash flows in the 1930s during prohibition, with associated violence. For some reason, we think that in maintaining large cash flows now, we won't get a similar result.
I also think my approach is the fiscally responsible approach. We don't need to be wasting the amount of money we're wasting now by maintaining environments that produce large black market cash flow.
When you have people making money off incarcerating people then what can you expect. It is much the same as health care for profit. When profit is the focal point of an operation then all else will suffer to see these profits keep getting higher.
I know Americans are terrified of government running programs like health care, education, agriculture, prisons etc. but this is the only legitimate way to see these departments are run as correctly as possible.
But we must also blame the lawyers, and until some heat goes on the lawyers(who are most at fault here) there will be no change.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/
I also recommend Sasha Abramsky's, American Furies: Crime, Punishment, and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment. It is well documented and offers a powerful description of the cruelty and human rights violations taking place right here in the United States.
Today we spend a fortune keeping people behind bars, but very little is spent to keep first time prisoners from becoming repeat offenders. Its my belief that at the heart of this misery is the issue of drugs. Drugs finance gangs, people steal to buy drugs, people eventually loose their humanity due to drugs.
I think the answer is in legalization taken a step at a time. First pot followed by others. Taxed and controlled so that the expenses of dealing with the victims of drugs can be covered. It has to be a policy that allows access but also offers the users hope and a future. Maybe legalization is a panacea as well but I think it is worth a try. Anything has to be better than locking people up forever.
The war on drugs has been just like the war on terror: a politicized giveaway to special interests with little concern for actual strategy. And this blue ribbon commission will likely offer more of the same. Secure the border and deport the alien gang members, THEN call in the experts to round out the program.
The VERY FIRST THING TO DO IS GET RID OF MANDATORY MINIMUMS.
Simple. Give sentencing back to judges and NOT prosecutors.
Most people don't realize that judges rarely if ever under the USSG have any choice about sentences and just hand down what the PROSECUTOR wants.
And the method they use is barbaric beyond belief. Racist as well.
I noticed you didn't even mention that ONCE. So how about getting rid of that bit of criminal nonsense?
As for what happened to you,that's indeed tragic but not even rare.The DOJ is as bad as any local law enforcement agency out there.
One of the cases we handled mirrored what we had heard and was brought to light by Tommy Chong when he went down. An insurance agency, was wrongfully targeted and extreme charges were brought. They threatened the client with arresting his wife and all of his grown children as being accomplices unless he pled guilty and they did this in order to prevent their misdeeds from becoming public as we started scrutinizing the case during appeal.
Tommy Chong had the exact same threat used against him to get a guilty plea.
Plead guilty or your wife and co workers all go down as well.
It is pure Stalinism.
One of the reforms would make it VERY easy to sue prosecutors and all officers when this sort of conduct is brought to light. BUT they are rarely, very rarely held up to the same standards as the rest of America.They get away with murder, LITERALLY, all the time.
And we get shafted and have well over 2 million people behind bars.
So unless Webb is serious and having Graham on the panel means it will go nowhere because he will use it to try and undermine any and all efforts at reform by claiming the Obama admin is trying to let murderers and rapists into your living rooms.
Our system is backward like this for a reason.
The lawyers make the most money when the defendent must pay out of his nose to defend himself. And if the system completely lacks integrity one needs a lawyer that much more.
And if the vast resources of the state are aligned against the individual it is only that much more profitable for the lawyers. The state should defend not only prosecute but search for the truth and work for the defense of the defendant.
But this will not happen with the very powerful lawyer lobby working to keep profits for lawyers high at the expense of the people.
This my friends does not make our society safer, it just makes us North Korea wrapped in the American Flag
Oh wait, that will never happen, it would affect to many white people.
We need to abolish the DHS, reduce the size of police forces, and stop being fascists.
"Law and Order" is out of control and more a threat to freedom than the criminals.
to me that most folks are pretty convinced that decriminalizing of even legalizing drugs would
solve a lot of the crime problems in America. Then why don't our leaders listen to us?? The
answer is simple, a great many of our leaders are making money off the war on drugs. if
drugs were legalized..bye bye jobs, and bye bye appropriations. Uncontrolled capitalism is
JUST as bad as communism.. our country is in trouble and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
To quote POGO " WE HAS MET THE ENEMEY AND HE IS US".