Crime & punishment

THE U.S. has the highest incarceration rates in the world. With less than 5 percent of the world's population, it has almost a quarter of the prisoners. According to a recent study, more than 1 in 100 Americans are behind bars for the first time in history.

These simple facts stand as a stunning indictment of a criminal-justice system that is better at sending people to prison than at dealing with crime, including the growing phenomenon of gang violence. We need a top-to-bottom review of a system that too often fails to balance the need for public safety and deterrence with just punishment - punishment that fits the crime.

The U.S. criminalizes conduct that would be better left to treatment and penalties other than imprisonment. Take drugs. The number of jailed drug offenders has soared 1,200 percent since 1980 despite the fact that many of these offenders have no history of violence or high-level drug distribution. Many are behind bars under sentencing guidelines that leave judges no choice.

In another example of dubious penology, too many mentally ill people are treated as miscreants or felons rather than as patients in need of treatment. There are four times as many mentally ill people in prison than in mental health hospitals. Many of these individuals end up back on the streets.

This is not about people convicted of violent crimes. We need to make sure that dangerous criminals and second-time offenders with a history of violence go to jail. As a former prosecutor who served two terms as D.A. in Philadelphia, I'm a strong proponent of incarcerating violent criminals for public safety and deterrence. And I support the death penalty in especially egregious cases.

But I also believe we need to restore judicial discretion in low-level drug cases and other nonviolent crimes. With our federal prisons at 140 percent capacity and with 7.3 million Americans incarcerated or on probation or parole - a number equivalent to 1 in every 31 adults - the issue cannot wait.

SEN. JIM WEBB (D-Va.) has introduced a bill, which I'm co-sponsoring, to create a National Criminal Justice Commission to undertake a comprehensive 18-month review of the criminal justice system, including a comparison of U.S. incarceration rates with countries with similar political systems (including Western Europe and Japan), the cost of incarceration policies, and the impact of gang violence, drug policies and policies regarding the mentally ill.

Our justice system needs repair. Prison for people who don't need to be there is not only unjust but expensive. The country spent $68 billion on corrections in 2008 at an average inmate cost of $49 a day, or $29,000 a year. By contrast, probation costs $3.42 a day and parole $7.47, according to a study by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

The study showed that strong community supervision of lower-risk nonviolent offenders not only cost significantly less than incarceration but cut recidivism substantially. We should be devoting precious law-enforcement resources to finding ways of implementing these findings and create safer, stronger communities. *

Arlen Specter, a Republican, is the senior senator from Pennsylvania.