Policymakers hoping to find meaningful offsets to fund disaster aid will have look at: 1) Where there's a lot of money, 2) where the spending is unjustifiable, and 3) where the politics and public opinion are conducive to allowing cuts, since there are very few areas in which that's true.

Criminality has no color, but in America what has happened is we have condensed criminality into a specific look. So we say things like people who have a "SAFE" look usually don't face this or that type of punishment.

Some think drug courts are the utopian answer to both drug use problems and over-incarceration. Drug courts are part of a kinder, gentler drug war. Mind your manners, pass clean urine screenings, and everyone wins. The reality is much different.

The notion of a white girl getting hauled off to jail for a harmless expression of intellectual curiosity is dubious, to say the least. And though the rise of "zero tolerance" policies in American schools should theoretically be race-neutral, that's not the reality.

I am one of those people who've been released from prison, but I'm still stuck in the criminal justice system.

We have a problem, you know, and it's only getting worse. It doesn't strike us equally -- it's a problem that mostly affects young men, minorities, and people without high school diplomas.

Although the decline in juvenile incarceration is encouraging to advocates, there is still little reason to celebrate. The criminalization of youth behavior and the school-to-prison pipeline continue to feed young people into the criminal justice system.

I firmly believe that at some point during his second administration President Obama is going to address the issue of mass incarceration in America. What I fear is that he is going to wait so long, and ultimately do so with such caution, as to minimize his potential impact.

Reforming marijuana laws is a crucial part of fostering a fairer and more cost-effective justice system. The fact that these laws are finally starting to change is a heartening and remarkable development.

With the closing of state hospitals and reductions in mental-health hospital beds, the criminal justice system has come to assume the primary role for responsibility for the mentally ill.