Asking The Right Questions About Crime

With Mexican narco-terrorists, America's insanely high incarceration rates and increasing calls for decriminalizing personal marijuana use all in the news, some commentators are asking whether being tough on crime has been successful.

That, alas, is the wrong question and a pungent example of how virtually any discussion about crime in general and drugs in particular is skewed from the outset.

This is the right question:

How can Americans continue to reconcile a criminal-justice system that is inherently biased against minorities, the poor and recreational users of marijuana?

Don't expect a ready-made answer to that, but legislation introduced by Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter to create a blue-ribbon commission charged with conducting a top-to-bottom review of the entire criminal justice system and offering concrete recommendations for reform is a good start.

By the way, if you are skeptical about that incarceration rate, consider this: Although the U.S. has only five percent of the world's population it has 25 percent of its prison population.

Photograph by Jim MacMillan