There’s a great editorial in the New York Times yesterday: A Blue-Ribbon Look at Criminal Justice

The nation’s criminal justice system is in need of an overhaul. This is particularly true of its incarceration policies. Too many people are being put behind bars who do not need to be there, at great cost to the states, and not enough attention is being paid to helping released prisoners re-enter society.

It goes on to endorse the Jim Webb blue-ribbon commission to review the Justice system. Is it possible that people are finally waking up to the notion that we shouldn’t be incarcerating everyone? For years, the default position in society has seemed to be that putting more people in jail was by definition somehow always good. But views are changing, and perhaps the Times has an idea why:

The high imprisonment rate has long been troubling as a matter of fairness, but with the recession it has become an enormous financial burden. States have begun, out of fiscal necessity, to parole prisoners faster and in larger numbers, and to look for alternatives to incarceration. This scattershot approach is far from ideal. It would be better to have experts address these issues at a national level in a more methodical way.

And yes, they even mention the drug war:

The commission also would look at sentencing policies for drug crimes, including their impact on minority communities, something that is long overdue, as well as the involvement of foreign-based gangs in crime in the United States.

Their conclusion:

The Senate leadership needs to push it to a vote, and the House needs to get to work on passing a companion bill. A broad consensus has emerged that the system is broken.

Very nice. I hope it gets a lot of play. It isn’t just that we need the blue-ribbon commission, but we need the discussion and the realization by the public that incarceration isn’t necessarily a good thing. Wouldn’t it be nice someday if we reached a point where the public demanded legislators, police, and prosecutors to defend the specific benefits to society of each use of what should be limited prison resources?

Now, is it just the New York Times talking about this?

No.

In a speech today before the house and Senate, [Missouri Chief Justice William Ray] Price [Jr.] said Missouri’s “broken strategy of cramming inmates into prisons” isn’t working and costs the state millions of dollars each year.

He said the state should focus on rehabilitating nonviolent offenders, instead of sending them to jail. Jailing nonviolent offenders, Price said, frequently leads to higher recidivism rates. 41.6 percent of nonviolent offenders who are jailed, then released, return to jail within two years, he said.

Perhaps we are making real progress. Perhaps people are ready to talk.

But what about leadership?

I was astonished to read this speech delivered yesterday by Attorney General Eric Holder to the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives: