America's Shame: Can Jim Webb Fix the Prison Gulag?

By Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation. Posted February 16, 2009.

Greg Berman, Director of the Center for Court Innovation -- a non-profit think tank in New York -- said, "The question is: can we come up with meaningful, cost-effective responses to non-violent crime that do not rely on incarceration? Drug courts, mental health courts and community courts -- the so-called 'problem-solving courts' -- all show enormous potential. Most criminal cases are not complicated in a legal sense, but they are committed by people with complicated lives. Scratch the surface and you find addiction, mental illness, joblessness, etc. These problem-solving courts are linking offenders to drug treatment, counseling, job training in lieu of incarceration. But unlike some rehabilitation efforts in the past, they are requiring participants to return to court on a periodic basis to ensure accountability. There is a growing amount of evidence suggesting that this approach can change sentencing practice -- dramatically reducing the use of jail, for example -- while also reducing both substance abuse and recidivism."

Despite a fiscal crisis which has caused at least forty states to make or propose cuts in vital services like education and health care -- and ample evidence of the effectiveness of alternatives to incarceration -- the battle for reform on the state level is still a difficult one.

"It's far from a done deal that this will automatically lead to prison reductions," Mauer told me. "One option is to say let's reconsider sentencing policies, reduce the population, close prisons and save money. The other choice is to say let's cut out alternatives to incarceration, community-based drug treatment, and other programs, and you can see those cost savings very quickly. I think that would be a shortsighted way to go but it's going to be tempting for a lot of legislators to think about doing that. I think that's the battle that is going to be fought in different states."

That's why the effort of Senator Webb and his colleagues at the federal level is so critical. They can galvanize support for repealing unjust policies like those that treat a low-level user of crack the same as a major drug dealer, or five grams of crack the same as 500 grams of powder. They can ensure that we use needed federal dollars for public safety in smart and effective ways. For example, the Second Chance Act to provide job training, drug treatment, and other re-entry programs was passed with broad bipartisan support in 2008 but no funds have been appropriated. Finally, with Senator Webb's commission, we can begin the process of transforming our criminal justice system so that prisons are reserved for violent offenders and other vital resources are used to support alternatives like drug treatment, effective parole policies, education, and reentry programs.

See more stories tagged with: webb, prison, criminal justice, drug laws, state, financial crisis, non-violent offenders

Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor of The Nation.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »