James Webb and Prison Reform/Criminal Justice Reform

[Lizard_King]

here. (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/28/webb/)

[Tman]

No better person to lead it IMO. He's hit a number of points (non-violent aka drug, criminally ill, lack of standards across prisons, etc) that I agree with.

It's an 18 month panel - so will take a while to see where they are headed.

BTW - for those who want to jump right to Webb's floor speech, here it is (http://webb.senate.gov/email/incardocs/FS_CrimJust_3-26-09.pdf)

[Mordrak]

Obama's answer annoyed me as well, but after thinking about it, his response I think opens up an opportunity. Marijuana has gone from something that corrupts our children and leads to harder drugs to something a president can joke about. If he doesn't take marijuana seriously, why should our laws?

It's progress--in an indirect way--I guess.

[Anti-Bunny]

something a president can joke about.


Clinton joked about it with 'I didn't inhale'.

[Lizard_King]

Nancy Reagan joked about it with "Just Say No".

[RyanMichael]

Kudos to Webb. If only a few more politicians actually had some backbones on the issues that mattered. Instead we get Biden joking about how we won't be lifting the embargo on Cuba anytime soon and Obama making jokes about marijuana instead of actually taking a substantive stance.

[Anaxagoras]

Obama's answer annoyed me as well, but after thinking about it, his response I think opens up an opportunity. Marijuana has gone from something that corrupts our children and leads to harder drugs to something a president can joke about. If he doesn't take marijuana seriously, why should our laws?

It's progress--in an indirect way--I guess.

He wasn't laughing about marijuana. He was laughing at the idea of decriminalizing it. That isn't progress by any measure.

[MikeSofaer]

He wasn't laughing about marijuana. He was laughing at the idea of decriminalizing it. That isn't progress by any measure.
Well, it's the step after ignoring the idea, if you believe Gandhi.

[Lizard_King]

He wasn't laughing about marijuana. He was laughing at the idea of decriminalizing it. That isn't progress by any measure.
Not just that, but he was acting as if the emphasis of the question was a suggested economic reform plan via legalizing pot. That's disingenuous or stupid, but neither is a happy option when it comes from the result of a candidacy the internet made possible. I don't particularly mind if he caves to popular pressure (from idiots) on this issue, but there's no need to be condescending and deceptive about it.

Especially after the week where he sends Hillary to tell Mexico our drug policy has failed, we haven't owned up to it so far, so we are going to do even more of the exact same but feel guiltier about it. Someday someone will be able to successfully reframe our drug policy as the foreign policy issue it actually is in its essence, and that guy is the one who will have a legacy that's worth a damn.

Anyway, I hope Webb gets the support he needs for this. Talking about the treatment and origins of our criminal (and criminalized) population is a great entry point to a wide variety of issues that no one wants to get in the open, and even if his complaints were constrained to prison reform that would be more than enough.

[bago]

This was an obvious dodge. It's along the lines of the first Socialist Preznit having to nationalize banks with a fig-leaf while slipping some health care reform kind of move. Can't afford to be seen as any kind of -ist, which is why opponents are labeling him as every kind of -ist they can before breakfast.

[Lizard_King]

Webb starts the media blitz by, uh, going on NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102486450). I guess that's what's tough about pursuing causes that matter. Maybe he still has some capital left over from his focus on Iraq and veterans.

[bdfinally]

Why would starting on All Things Considered be a bad thing...just askin'

[Hawkeye Fierce]

Why would starting on All Things Considered be a bad thing...just askin'I suspect because it's a relatively small venue in the grand scheme of media.

[LesJarvis]

I suspect because it's a relatively small venue in the grand scheme of media.

Without further context I can't really evaluate your claim (i.e. without defining "grand scheme" and so on), but as radio news goes, NPR is exceptionally popular (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/23/AR2009032302972.html?hpid=sec-artsliving). The weekly audience for all the programming fed by Washington-based NPR -- including talk shows and music -- also reached a record last year, with 23.6 million people tuning in each week, an 8.7 percent increase over 2007. More than half of NPR's daily audience comes from its two "core" news shows, "Morning Edition" and the evening "All Things Considered." "Morning Edition's" average daily audience, 7.6 million, is now about 60 percent larger than the audience for "Good Morning America" on ABC and about one-third larger than the audience for the "Today" show on NBC.

[Dirt]

I remember watching a program on National Geographic about a prison in Australia. They interviewed a couple of people in there who had also spent time in American prisons. They commented on how inhumane prison life is like in the USA.

I'm beginning to wonder when privatization of any social institution has been a good thing? Healthcare is insanely expensive. So is our prison system. Electricity in CA went through the roof.

[cesare]

I remember watching a program on National Geographic about a prison in Australia. They interviewed a couple of people in there who had also spent time in American prisons. They commented on how inhumane prison life is like in the USA.

I'm beginning to wonder when privatization of any social institution has been a good thing? Healthcare is insanely expensive. So is our prison system. Electricity in CA went through the roof.

I'm increasingly realizing how complete and utter garbage corporate media is as well. The highest quality news I get is from NPR and BBC, privatized media gives us Clear Channel and Fox News (and I'm complaining more about quality and signal:noise ratio than political bias).

[Hawkeye Fierce]

Without further context I can't really evaluate your claim (i.e. without defining "grand scheme" and so on), but as radio news goes, NPR is exceptionally popular (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/23/AR2009032302972.html?hpid=sec-artsliving).Huh. I'm pleasantly surprised. Ok, I don't know why it's a bad thing that Webb brought this up on NPR.

[Lizard_King]

I suspect because it's a relatively small venue in the grand scheme of media.

Yeah, that was all I was saying. But I stand corrected with respect to the audience size.

[bdfinally]

Cool, I thought I had read that last week in the Post and even tho I listen to them alot, I too was surprised by the size of the audience. Now if they can just get the endowment into something safe...

[Lizard_King]

The current status of Webb's work (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/05/AR2009070502483.html). Requires free login to read the first page, although the second (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/05/AR2009070502483_2.html) and third are openly available.