|  Gregory D. Lee Read Greg's bio and previous columns here April 10, 2009 The Liberal Fix for U.S. Prisons Recently Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) wrote the cover story for the popular Parade Magazine titled: “Why We Must Fix Our Prisons.” Sen. Webb embraces a long-held liberal belief that, because the U.S. has the world’s highest incarceration rate, this automatically makes it evil. Based on my 30-years of law enforcement experience, I see things differently. Sen. Webb wrote, “In 1984, Japan had a population half the size of ours and was incarcerating 40,000 sentenced offenders, compared to 580,000 in the United States. As shocking as that disparity was, the difference between the countries now is even more astounding – and profoundly disturbing. Since then, Japan’s prison population has not quite doubled to 71,000, while ours has quadrupled to 2.3 million.” Japan is not the United States. The cultures are completely different. Japanese culture dictates that you care what your neighbors think of your conduct. You don’t want to be the one responsible for disgracing the family reputation. Many Americans don’t have this concern, and our prisons are full of them. The U.S. has a predominant culture, but because this country has a variety of competing cultures from around the world, it is slowly being eroded. Obviously, the opportunity to blend the world’s cultures is a wonderful thing, and has helped us achieve the best the world has to offer. The downside is that the U.S. also has to accept the worse things these cultures bring. Perhaps the most important factor in higher prison rates is that the U.S. has some of the most sophisticated, well-trained and relatively corruption-free police forces on Earth. The pay, training, standards and efficiency of American police agencies are the envy of the world. U.S. law enforcement has the ability to detect and solve more crimes than most other countries, so it only stands to reason that more law violators are arrested, convicted and sent to prison. In the late 1980s, there was a national move afoot to enact “three strikes” laws and sentencing guidelines that ended federal parole and extended state prison sentences. As a result, much to the chagrin of liberals, convicts are spending significantly more time in prisons, and the national crime rate has fallen accordingly. The vast majority of Americans firmly believe that if someone commits a crime, regardless if violence is involved or not, he needs to be punished for it. What is so hard to understand about that? The senator mentioned in his article that people are going to prison for “non-violent criminal behavior.” I suppose Bernie Madoff should escape prison because he didn’t kill anybody. Do the crime, do the time. It’s an American cultural thing, Sen. Webb. Also, Sen. Webb plays the race card by implying racism is the reason blacks are tried and sent to prison for drugs more than any other race. He writes, “. . . African Americans – who make up about 12 percent of the total U.S. population – accounted for 37 percent of those arrested on drug charges . . .” The truth is that more blacks sell and use drugs than any other racial group among U.S. citizens, so it stands to reason a larger percentage of this group will be in prison. Sen. Webb ends his article by writing, “With so many of our citizens in prison compared with the rest of the world, there are only two possibilities: Either we are home to the most evil people on earth, or we are doing something different – and vastly counterproductive. Obviously, the answer is the latter.” I don’t see any counter-productivity at all. Sen. Webb conveniently forgets to mention that a third of all persons incarcerated in this country are illegal aliens. Factor those numbers out and the U.S. isn’t as “evil” as Sen. Webb would like you to believe it is. If you want to spend stimulus that will benefit everyone, senator, build more state-of-the-art prisons to further reduce crime and protect the American people. Don’t consider releasing criminals from prisons early so we can appear to be a kinder and gentler nation. Those liberal good intentions will backfire, as usual. Gregory D. Lee is a retired DEA Supervisory Special Agent and the author of three criminal justice textbooks. He can be reached through his web site: www.gregorydlee.com. © 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission. Click here to talk to our writers and editors about this column and others in our discussion forum. To e-mail feedback about this column, click here. If you enjoy this writer's work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry it. This is Column # GL072. Request permission to publish here. | 
