We have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world here in the United States, now totaling some 2.3 million prisoners. Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) has taken on the issue of reforming our criminal justice system, starting with the National Criminal Justice Act of 2009, new legislation that would create a bipartisan commission on reform.

He penned a column for Parade, calling for a “major nationwide recalculation of who goes to prison and for how long and of how we address the long-term consequences of incarceration.” The latter part of the article details what is potentially the most severe of these consequences: the drug war. 6,000 Mexicans were killed last year by drug cartels. Phoenix, Ariz. is second in the world only to Mexico City for total annual kidnappings—370 cases in 2008 alone. The prison system is draining resources that desperately need to be reallocated to eradicating gangs and the drug war from our streets.

Of particular note:

• Approximately one in every 31 adults in the US is in prison in jail or on supervised release
• Total spending on corrections (local, state and federal) adds up to about $68 billion per year
• 47.5 percent of all the drug arrests in our country in 2007 were for marijuana; four of five were for possession and one of five for sales

It would be nothing short of triumphant if more political leaders exhibited this type of leadership on issues that are tough to deal with. No politician wants to be seen by his or her constituents as weak on crime. Glenn Greenwald at Salon published a commentary on Webb’s argument: “My guess is that Webb, having succeeded in numerous other endeavors outside of politics, is not desperate to cling to his political office, and he has thus calculated that he’d rather have six years in the Senate doing things he thinks are meaningful than stay there forever on the condition that he cowardly renounce any actual beliefs.”

Photo: Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) (kalexnova Flickr Photostream/Creative Commons)