CorrectionsOne Special Report: Prison Reform

Why Prison Reform is likely and what it will look like:
An interview with Sen. Webb's team

On March 26th, Senator Jim Webb of Virginia – a democrat and a Vietnam combat veteran – introduced the National Criminal Justice Commission Act’ to the Senate. The act will "create a blue-ribbon commission to look at every aspect of our criminal justice system with an eye toward reshaping the process from top to bottom."

This means an expert commission will study the system at the local, state and federal levels before proposing an agenda for “wide-ranging” prison reforms.

The Commission will make recommendations designed to:

• Re-focus incarceration policies to reduce the overall incarceration rate while preserving public safety, cost-effectiveness, and societal fairness
• Decrease prison violence
  Improve prison administration, including competence & career enhancement of administrators
• Establish meaningful re-entry programs for ex-offenders
• Reform our nation’s drug policies
• Improve treatment of the mentally ill
• Improve responses to international & domestic criminal activity by gangs & cartels
• Reform any other aspect of the system the Commission determines necessary

Last month, CorrectionsOne asked readers to send in their questions regarding Sen. Webb's Prison Reform Act. We sent those questions to Kimberly Hunter, Sen. Webb’s press secretary, who provided us with the following responses:

C1 Readers: One of the duties of the Commission is to "improve prison administration, including competence and career enhancement of administrators." Are there any indications of specific problems with existing correctional professionals?

KH: Corrections officers face enormous challenges in the workplace, from violence to a lack of resources for training.

Neither corrections officers nor offenders are served by the inadequacies in our prison system ... Full Interview