RESEARCH PAPER • Mobile computing and its busine.docx

RESEARCH PAPER
• Mobile computing and its business implications
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• Include an abstract, introduction, and conclusion
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the subject
matter.
By Gene StephenS
PHOTOS: PHOTOS.COM
32 THE FUTURIST July-August 2008 www.wfs.org
The outlook for curtailing cyberspace
crime by technology or conventional
law-enforcement methods is bleak.
Most agencies do not have the person-
nel or the skills to cope with such of-
fenses…. Cybercrime cannot be con-
trolled by conventional methods.
Technology is on the side of the cyber-
space offender and motivation is high—
it’s fun, exciting, and profitable (p. 28).
My suggested solution, unfortu-
nately, seems even more “Pollyanna”
today than it did then: “the only real

help is ... conscience and personal
values, the belief that theft, decep-
tion, and invasion of privacy are sim-
ply unacceptable.”
According to Ray Kurzweil’s “Law
of Accelerating Returns,” technologi-
cal change is exponential rather than
linear; thus, “we won’t experience
100 years of progress in the twenty-
first century—it will be more like
20,000 years of progress (at today’s
rate).” Predicting advances and their
impacts on crime and crime fighting
by 2025, then, is analogous to re-
viewing the next 5,000 years of tech-
nological progress in society.
Kurzweil himself made several
forecasts that could have major im-
plications for cybercrime; for in-
stance, he said that by 2010 personal
computers will be capable of answer-
ing questions by accessing informa-
tion wirelessly via the Internet (this
is one prediction that arrived a little
early). By 2019, he held, a $1,000 per-
sonal computer will have as much
raw power as the human brain; pos-
sibly more important, he believed
that computer chips will be every-
where, embedded in furniture, jew-
elry, walls, clothing, and so on. Also
by 2019, computers and humans
would communicate via two-way
speech and gestures rather than key-

boards. Virtual sex via computer will
become a reality, and education, busi-
ness, and entertainment will also be
increasingly computer based. Road-
ways would be automated and com-
puter controlled, while human–robot
relationships will be commonplace.
Possibly the most renowned of
Kurzweil’s predictions is the coming
of “the Singularity”—when comput-
ers become self-aware—and the
melding of humans and machines.
Kurzweil sees this process well un-
internal theft of clients’ identities by
financially struggling and/or greedy
financial service employees; more
cyberporn, cyberstalking, cyber-
harassment, and cybervengeance;
and the use of biometrics and en-
cryption as methods of protecting
data in cyberspace.
In some other areas, my forecasts
weren’t as accurate. My fascination
with the embryonic field of nano-
technology led to a prediction of or-
ganic nanocomputers implanted in
citizens’ brains by the early twenty-
first century. Related forecasts in-
cluded terrorists sending subliminal
messages directly to the brain im-
plants of potential recruits, cyber-
extortion by hacking into brain im-
plants and scrambling or threatening

to scramble information in it, and the
problem of people with brain im-
plants being unable to a separate vir-
tual reality created by cyberoffenders
in flesh-and-blood reality. This fore-
cast may yet come true, however, for
it’s still early twenty-first century,
and there is plenty of time for this
technology and these disturbing
crimes to begin to appear.
In the 1995 article, I was rather
pessimistic about the short-term ca-
pacity of police to cope with emerg-
ing cybercrime:
In a 1981 article for THE FUTUR-
IST, I wrote, “Data from all areas of
the [criminal justice] system will be
computerized and cross-referenced.
Computers will store the modus ope-
randi of convicted felons, and when a
crime occurs, police may call on the
computer to name the most likely
suspects, or, in some cases, the exact
offender” (“Crime in the Year 2000,”
April 1981). It seemed quite logical at
the time, but the forecast turned out
to be overly optimistic; I underesti-
mated the antipathy to change and
the turf protection within the system.
The first paragraph of a subse-
quent article was more on target:
“Billions of dollars in losses have al-
ready been discovered. Billions more

have gone undetected. Trillions will
be stolen, most without detection, by
the emerging master criminal of the
twenty-first century—the cyberspace
offender” (“Crime in Cyberspace,”
September-October 1995). Admit-
tedly vague, it still seems to be a
fairly accurate evaluation of the evo-
lution of cybercrime.
In the same article, I correctly fore-
cast an explosion of cellular phone
time theft and phone fraud; in-
c re a s e d c y b e r a t t a c k s a n d f r a u d
against government and business;
massive credit card theft and fraud;
By Gene StephenS
In 1981, crImInal-justIce scholar Gene
stephens wrote an artIcle for the
futurIst on “crIme In the Year 2000,”
and In 1995, an artIcle on “crIme In
cYberspace.” In both, he suGGested the
role the computer and Internet would
plaY In crIme and crIme fIGhtInG In the
future. here, he revIews what he Got
rIGht, what he Got wronG, and whY, and
he suGGests the tYpes of cYbercrImes
and cYbercrIme fIGhtInG that wIll
occur bY the Year 2025.
© 2008 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite
450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.
THE FUTURIST July-August 2008 www.wfs.org 33

nologies spotlights the long-ignored
issues of who owns the World Wide
Web, who manages it, and who has
jurisdiction over it. The answer now
is: Nobody! Can the world’s most
powerful socio-politico-economic
network continue to operate almost
at random, open to all, and thus ex-
cessively vulnerable to cybercrimi-
nals and terrorists alike? Yet any at-
tempt to restrict or police the Web can
be expected to be met by extreme re-
sistance from a plethora of users for a
variety of reasons, many contradictory.
Another reasonable prediction
would be that the Internet will be-
c o m e n o t o n l y t h e n u m b e r- o n e
means of communicating, conduct-
ing business, socializing, entertain-
ing, and just living, but indeed will
handle a huge majority of such inter-
actions; thus, failure to establish and
enforce some basic ground rules will
likely lead to socioeconomic disaster.
If exchange of resources is to be ac-
complished almost exclusively over
the Internet, anonymous surfing will
be a potential threat. Moving funds
without identification could not only
perpetrate individual fraud, but also
bankrupt the system itself. Biomet-

rics and more-advanced systems of
ID will need to be perfected to pro-
tect users and the network. In addi-
tion, multinational cybercrime units
will be required to catch those prey-
ing on users worldwide, as Web surf-
ers in Arlington, Virginia, and Victo-
ria, British Columbia, may be victims
of cyberscams perpetrated in Cairo
or Budapest. Coordination and coop-
eration will be keys to making the
Internet a safer place to travel and
conduct business.
larger capacity usage, but also, by
virtually starting over with the secu-
rity aspects in mind, the future Inter-
net will be safer and more difficult to
attack and disable.
Nanotechnology will increasingly
impact cyberspace by the late 2010s,
and as we try to gain the most advan-
tage possible from new technologies,
new security gaps will emerge that
could turn into nightmares if not
handled carefully. For example, as
data nanobots are implanted in users’
brains (later, organic bots will become
an integral part of the individual),
special attention will have to be paid
to providing advanced firewalls to
keep intruders from cracking into the
bots and terrorizing the recipient.
Could there be a more frightening
crime than having your brain-stored

knowledge erased or scrambled, or
hearing voices threatening to destroy
your memory unless you pay extrav-
agant blackmail? Welcome to the
prospects of mindstalking.
Designer nanobots may also be
loosed on the World Wide Web to en-
gender types of mischief and de-
struction not yet contemplated. All
advanced technology has the capac-
ity to be used for good or evil, de-
pending on the developer/user; and
nanotech would appear to be the ul-
timate example, as it literally can be
used to develop either nanosize
weapons that could destroy the
world or nanosize defense systems
that could protect the planet.
Who’s in Charge?
T h e e x p o n e n t i a l l y i m p ro v i n g
capabilities of emerging Web tech-
der way by 2025 as nanobots begin
to surf the human bloodstream on
search-and-destroy missions to com-
bat pathogens and data nanobots
augment human intelligence and ac-
cess to information. Transhumans will
be on their way to having an inter-
nalized capacity to communicate and
interact with humans, machines, and
other transhumans.

TeChnology’s PoTenTial
imPaCTs on Crime
What follows are my forecasts for
how these developments might af-
fect crime and crime fighting over
the next two decades.
Computer and Internet use will
become increasingly seamless, as
hands-free, voice-activated commu-
nications and data entry and re-
trieval will be commonplace by the
early teen years of this new millen-
nium (the 2010s). The world commu-
nity will have moved a long way in a
few short years, since by late 2007,
1.25 billion people already had ac-
cess to the Internet, though only
about 2% of the world population
regularly accessed it. Science-fiction
writer William Gibson, who coined
the term cyberspace in his 1982 short
story, “Burning Chrome,” forecasts
that a fully wired world—a single
unbroken interface without need for
computers—will complete the evolu-
tion to full access of all Earth’s citizens.
The Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) set up the
Internet and fostered its early devel-
opment, but DARPA will likely over-
haul its invention in the 2010s. Not
only will the outcome be faster and

“ Computer and Internet use wIll beCome InCreasIngly
seamless, as hands-free, voICe-aCtIvated CommunICatIons and
data entry and retrIeval wIll be CommonplaCe.”
fleece infidels for funds to pursue
their goals and to provide an avenue
for recruiting others to their flock.
The Internet presents opportunities
to target one’s enemies for economic
and even physical destruction via
cyberterrorism.
Identity theft—already the num-
ber-one crime in the United States
and rapidly expanding throughout
the Internet world—can be expected
to increase at a faster pace and wreak
havoc on the financial and social
worlds of millions around the globe.
It well may be that the only way to
gain control over identity theft will
be the suggested DARPA reconfigu-
ration of the Web and its security ap-
paratus.
These, however, are short-term cri-
ses, which may soon become out-
moded by the ubiquitous wireless
c o m m u n i c a t i o n s n e t w o r k t h a t
should be fully evolved by the
middle to late years of the 2010s.

With no computers, and only sig-
nals in the air to handle all social and
economic activity, expect new cyber-
crimes yet to be invented. Unless a
values revolution (whether spiritual,
religious, or humanistic in origin) oc-
c u r s a n d h u m a n s / t r a n s h u m a n s
choose to refrain from stealing, kill-
ing, and defiling one another, you
can bet creative malcontents will de-
velop new methods to manipulate
the system for their own ends.
In the quest for speed and effi-
ciency on the Web, networks will
grow in size and scope. For example,
a network including all branches of a
large bank grows when several
banks merge and becomes larger still
when all banks in a region join to re-
in individualistic societies such as
the United States would likely be
similar to that in these fictional por-
trayals—rebellion, with a goal of de-
stroying the web of control.
A counterforce that could create a
different type of harm for the indi-
vidual would be continuance of the
policy of no control of the Internet,
allowing often destructive activity—
e.g., harassment, terrorism, and
fraud—without jurisdiction and au-
thority to curtail it. Which would be
worse would depend on which value

dominates—security (i.e., safety and
order) or civil liberties (freedom and
chaos). As always, the role of public
safety in all this is to find the balanc-
ing point, where the degree of safety
is enough to allow the pursuit of in-
dividual happiness.
CyberCrime Progression:
Pigeon DroPs anD iDenTiTy
ThefT
As technology advances at a diz-
zying pace, so will the ways and
means of those wishing to use the
rapidly changing cyberspace as a
tool/milieu for fun and profit, or
worse. In the immediate future, the
increasingly creative scams to bilk
Internet users of their resources will
continue, with literally scores of new
schemes appearing daily on the Web.
Sheiks, abandoned Russian women,
and unclaimed lottery winnings will
be joined by relatives seeking heirs
and other electronic pigeon drops yet
unimagined.
For those who burn with faith or
passion for a cause, the Internet will
continue to provide a means both to
The maTrix may be real
Kurzweil predicts that the equiva-
lent of 4,000 years of technological

advancement will occur during the
first two decades of the twenty-first
century, so it is extremely difficult to
forecast what will happen. The con-
cepts, theories, and formulas for
many of these changes have yet to
emerge from the plethora of ongoing
research and development.
Still, some speculation is possible.
For instance, every square meter of
atmosphere hugging the earth may
be filled with unseen nanodevices
designed to provide seamless com-
munication and surveillance among
all people in all places. Humans will
have nanoimplants, facilitating inter-
action in an omnipresent network.
Everyone will have a unique Internet
Protocol (IP) address.
Since nano-storage capacity is al-
most limitless, all activity and utter-
ances by people everywhere will be
recorded and recoverable. Transpar-
ency will become increasingly ubiq-
uitous as word and deed—whether
spoken or acted out in anger, frustra-
tion, or as a joke—can be almost in-
stantly compared to “the record.”
Can human or even transhuman be-
havior evolve rapidly enough to
withstand such scrutiny? If current
laws were enforced with this level of
supporting evidence, who could pay
for the prison space required to carry

out the mandated punishment?
Another possibility would be the
perfection of The Matrix, as Gibson
envisioned in a series of popular
books and movies, where a powerful
central force controls all activity in a
seemingly free society. The reaction
“ Could there be a more frIghtenIng CrIme than havIng your
braIn-
stored knowledge erased or sCrambled, or hearIng voICes
threatenIng to destroy your memory unless you pay extravagant
blaCkmaIl? welCome to the prospeCts of mIndstalkIng.”
THE FUTURIST July-August 2008 www.wfs.org 35
rect attack on the user—possibly
even invading his brain and memory
stored in neural networks.
As nanoscience advances to the
point that bots in the atmosphere
capture and record all spoken and
physical activity, the choice for law
enforcement—and society—will
evolve: Do we tightly control all
human interaction by holding indi-
viduals responsible for every deed
and action (each of which is sup-
p o r t e d b y p e r m a n e n t l y s t o r e d
evidence) in an efficiently networked
Web, or do we allow creativity and
individualism to emerge by refusing

to set boundaries and jurisdictions
on the Internet, leaving it much as
it is today—without management
or enforcement?
Choosing a “total control” future
might curtail cybercrime and make
the Web a safe vehicle for communi-
cation, socializing, commerce, etc.,
but at a substantial cost to privacy,
freedom of speech, and other civil
liberties. Choosing a “nobody-in-
charge” future might allow a free
flow of information and exchange of
goods and services without govern-
ment interference, but with a sub-
stantial threat to the economic and
social lives of individuals and society
itself posed by cyberoffenders.
By 2025, the whole concept of the
Internet and cybercrime may be
dumped into the dustbin of history.
The greatest threat then might be the
extreme difficulty of separating
virtual (cyber) reality from physical
reality. Already, psychologists warn
that perception can be more impor-
tant than truth: If cyberreality is
m o re c o n v i n c i n g t h a n p h y s i c a l
reality, the virtual world might be-
come the “real” world. Welcome to
The Matrix. ❏
About the Author
Gene Stephens, distin-

guished professor emeritus
of the University of South
Carolina, Columbia, South
Carolina, is the criminal jus-
tice editor of THE FUTUR-
IST. His last article, “Policing
the Future: Law Enforcement’s New Chal-
lenges,” was published in March-April 2005.
His address is 313 Lockner Court, Colum-
bia, South Carolina 29212. E-mail
[email protected]
preme, without recourse, and where
mistakes are not allowed, where “the
record” is proof positive, and where
there is no place for plea bargaining,
mediation, or arbitration? Have we
evolved to this level of “perfection”?
Taming The CyberCriminal
The future path through cyber-
space is filled with threats and op-
portunities, most of which cannot
even be imagined today. With the
equivalent of 5,000 years of techno-
logical progress expected between
2000 and 2025, it’s difficult to fore-
cast the dilemmas that lie ahead, but
thanks to the creativity and genius of
William Gibson, Ray Kurzweil, and
others like them, some predictions
have been made and can be used as
a basis for forecasting future cyber-
crime and crime fighting.

The Internet as we know it—com-
puters, Web sites, e-mail, blogs,
e-commerce, etc.—may be outdated
as soon as the early years of the next
decade (the “twenty-teens”). All
communication will be handled by a
seamless, wireless network of air-
borne signals moving between nano-
bots and individuals with transmit-
ters implanted in them. At this point,
cyberoffenses will become very per-
sonal, as an attack on the Web is a di-
duce costs and speed service deliv-
ery. Then a national banking net
emerges and is soon replaced by a
multinational and finally a world-
wide net. While the network be-
comes more powerful as it grows, it
also becomes more vulnerable to at-
tack. A shutdown of a regional net
would create havoc, but the slack
could be picked up by other nets. If
the worldwide net is closed, how-
ever, true chaos would ensue, leav-
ing banks and their customers at the
mercy of blackmailers, extortionists,
or terrorists. Thus, the larger the net-
works (e.g., energy, medical, educa-
tion; regional, international, world-
wide), the more critical security
becomes.
On the other hand, there may be a
greater threat evolving from the
powerful technology available to

thwart cybercrime and, indeed, all
criminal activity. Authorities have
long said, “If you have nothing to
hide, you have nothing to fear” when
talking about police state surveil-
lance capabilities. This theory may
well be tested by the evolving tech-
nology of the next few years: All ac-
tivity could be seen and recorded,
ready for retrieval and prosecution.
Next comes the development of pre-
ventive strategies. Do we really want
to live in a society where law is su-
“ the greatest threat mIght be the extreme
dIffICulty of separatIng vIrtual (Cyber)
realIty from physICal realIty.”
for more InformatIon
• DARPA: www.darpa.gov and the Internet Society Web site
at www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml
• WilliAm Gibson: www.williamgibsonbooks.com and
www.skierpage.com/gibson/biblio.htm
• RAy KuRzWeil: www.kurzweilai.net and
www.kurzweiltech.com
• nAnotechnoloGy: www.crnano.org/whatis.htm and
www.nanotech-now.com
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further
reproduction prohibited without permission.

COMMENTARY
Now is the Time to Reform our
Criminal Justice System
SENATOR JIM WEBB*
On 26 March 2009, I introduced in
the U.S. Senate a piece of legislation
designed to establish a National
Criminal Justice Commission. The
Presidential level blue-ribbon com-
mission would be charged with con-
ducting an 18-month, top-to-bottom
review of our nation’s entire criminal
justice system, ultimately providing
the Congress and state governments
with specific, concrete recommenda-
tions for reform. The goal of this
legislation is nothing less than a
complete restructuring of the crim-
inal justice system in the United
States. Only an outside commission,
properly structured and charged, can
bring us complete findings necessary
to do so.
Despite burgeoning prisoner
populations, our communities and
neighborhoods are not safer and we
are still not bringing to justice the
actual criminals who perpetrate vio-

lence and criminality as a way of life.
Fixing our system will require us to
reexamine who goes to prison, for
how long and how we address the
long-term consequences of their in-
carceration.
Prior to joining the Senate, I spent
time as a journalist. 25 years ago,
I became the first American journalist
to report from inside the Japanese
prison system. It was when I was
investigating the Japanese criminal
justice system that I became aware
of the systemic difficulties and
challenges that we face here at home.
In 1984, Japan had a population half
the size of ours and was incarcerating
40,000 sentenced offenders, compared
with 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.
I strongly believe that there is a
compelling national interest for us to
examine this issue and reshape our
criminal justice system at the federal,
state, and local levels. Our failure to
address these problems cuts against
the notion that we are a society

founded on fundamental fairness.
I believe the high-level commission
that I am advocating will provide us
with that opportunity.
*Jim Webb, author of A Time to Fight:
Reclaiming a Fair and Just America
(2008), is Senior U.S. Senator for Virginia.
Email: http://www.webb.senate.gov
Criminal Justice Ethics
Vol. 28, No. 2, October 2009, 163�167
ISSN 0731-129X print/ISSN 1937-5948 online
# 2009 Senator Jim Webb
http://www.informaworld.com DOI:
10.1080/07311290903181184
http://www.informaworld.com
To begin to understand the need
and urgency of such a commission,
let’s start with a premise that many
Americans are not aware of. With 5%
of the world’s population, our coun-
try now houses 25% of the world’s
reported prisoners. We have an in-
carceration rate in the United States,
the world’s greatest democracy, that
is five times higher than the average
incarceration rate of the rest of the
world. With so many of our citizens
in prison compared with the rest of
the world, there are only two possi-

bilities: Either we are home to the
most evil people on earth or we are
doing something vastly counterpro-
ductive. Obviously, the answer is the
latter.
Since 1980, incarceration rates in
the United States have skyrocketed.
Over the past two decades, we have
been incarcerating more and more
people for non-violent crimes and
for acts that are driven by mental
illness or drug dependence. We are
warehousing the mentally ill in our
prisons. With four times as many
mentally ill people in our prisons as
in mental health institutions, we need
to understand that these people in
prison are not receiving the kind
of treatment they need in order to
remedy the disabilities that led to their
incarceration.
The ‘‘elephant in the bedroom’’ in
many discussions about the criminal
justice system is the sharp increase in
drug-related incarceration over the
past three decades. In 1980, we had
41,000 drug offenders in prison; today
we have more than 500,000. This is an
increase of 1,200% and a significant
proportion of this population is incar-
cerated for possession or non-violent
offenses stemming from drug addic-
tion and related behavioral issues.

Justice statistics also show that
47.5% of all the drug arrests in our
country in 2007 were for marijuana
offenses. Additionally, nearly 60% of
the people in state prisons serving
time for a drug offense had no
history of violence or of any signifi-
cant selling activity. Indeed, four out
of five drug arrests were for posses-
sion of illegal substances, while only
one out of five was for sales. An
estimated three-quarters of the drug
offenders in our state prisons were
there for non-violent or purely drug
offenses. And although experts have
found little statistical difference
among racial groups regarding actual
drug use, African-Americans*who
make up about 12% of the total U.S.
population*accounted for 37% of
those arrested on drug charges, 59%
of those convicted, and 74% of all
drug offenders sentenced to prison.
At the same time, we’re putting
too many of the wrong people in
prison, while not solving the pro-
blems to bring safety to our commu-
nities. Approximately 1 million gang
members live in our country today.
This is an issue that affects every
community in the United States. For
example, the media have recently
paid much attention to the Mexican
drug cartels*and they are the most
violent and visible gang networks

today*but this is not a problem
that exists only along the Mexican
border. The Mexican cartels are oper-
ating in 230 American cities across
the United States. The incidents on
the border should be understood to
illuminate the largeness of the pro-
blem and scope of the challenge.
An examination is also required as
to what happens inside our prisons.
When I was looking at the Japanese
system many years ago, their system
Senator Jim Webb
164
of prison administration was basically
designed on a traditional military
model. You could not be a warden in
a Japanese jail unless you started as a
turnkey. Before becoming a turnkey,
individual candidates had to take
national examinations, and have a
year of preparation and training in
psychology and counseling techni-
ques. Furthermore, the Japanese pro-
motion systems were internal, as in
the United States military. Corrections
provided a quality career path, and
the system created highly trained
people from the very beginning. We
don’t have that in America. Prisons

vary warden to warden, and they vary
locality to locality. We need to find a
better way to manage correctional
facilities in our country and to provide
better support to our correctional
officers in dealing with violent crim-
inals under their supervision.
We also have a serious problem
with prison violence and sexual vic-
timization. It is imperative that we
establish a safe environment for all
inmates, and examine ways to better
prepare them for their release back
into civil society. In addition, we
have many people in our prisons
who are very ill, many suffering
from hepatitis and HIV, and they
are not getting the treatment they
deserve. The de-humanizing envir-
onment of jails and prisons com-
pounds these challenges.
Over the course of last year, as we
began talking about the idea of a
National Criminal Justice Commis-
sion, we started being contacted by
people all across the country*people
from every different part of the
criminal justice system that comes
into play when we talk about in-
carceration. It is a very emotional
issue. I heard from Supreme Court
Justice Kennedy, from prosecutors,
judges, and defense lawyers, from

police on the street, and from former
offenders and people currently in
prison. All of them believe that we
have a mess here*a mess*and that
we have to get a holistic view of it in
order to understand how to solve it.
As to the design of this legislation,
we are looking to shape a commis-
sion with bipartisan balance. The
President would nominate the com-
mission’s leader. The Majority Leaders
and Minority Leaders of both houses
of Congress would appoint two
members each, in consultation with
their respective congressional judiciary
committees. Finally, the Republican
and Democratic Governors Association
would each nominate one member.
It is also imperative to get a group
of people in our country with cred-
ibility and with wide expertise to
examine specific findings and to
come up with policy recommenda-
tions in an 18-month time period.
The purpose of this is not to have a
group of people who are going to sit
around and simply remonstrate
about the problem.
The Commission shall review all
areas of Federal and State criminal
justice practices and make specific
findings, to include an examination
of:

. Reasons for increase in the U.S.
incarceration rate compared to his-
torical standards;
. Incarceration and other policies in
similar democratic, western coun-
tries;
. Prison administration policies, in-
cluding the availability of pre-
employment training programs
and career progression for guards
and prison administrators;
Now is the Time to Reform our Criminal Justice System
165
. Costs of current incarceration po-
licies at the federal, state, and local
level;
. The impact of gang activities, in-
cluding foreign syndicates;
. Drug policy and its impact on
incarceration, crime, and senten-
cing;
. Policies as they relate to the men-
tally ill;
. The historical role of the military

in crime prevention and border
security; and
. Any other area that the Commis-
sion deems relevant.
We believe that these are the most
pressing concerns, and that these
issues need to be examined carefully
and comprehensively.
The first step for the commission
would be to give us factual findings,
and from those findings the second
step would be to give us recommen-
dations for policy changes. The same
issues addressed above in terms of
the findings will apply in terms of
the policy recommendations: how we
can refocus our incarceration poli-
cies; how we can work toward prop-
erly reducing the incarceration rate in
safe, fair, and cost-effective ways that
still protect our communities; how
we should address the issue of prison
violence in all forms; how we can
improve prison administration; how
we can establish meaningful re-entry
programs.
In terms of this last issue, with
such a high volume of people coming
out of prisons, we must, on a national
level, assist local and state commu-
nities to decrease recidivism. It is in
the self-interest of every American

that national leadership design pro-
grams that provide former offenders
a true pathway toward a productive
future.
The National Criminal Justice
Commission Act has already gar-
nered wide support from across the
political and philosophical spectrum,
including 29 sponsors in the Senate,
among them many senior members
of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
My staff and I have engaged with
more than 100 organizations and
associations, representing the entire
gamut of prosecutors, judges, de-
fense lawyers, former offenders, ad-
vocacy groups, think tanks, victims
rights organizations, academics, pris-
oners, and law enforcement on the
street. This engagement is ongoing,
and support continues to grow.
It is my hope that the Congress
will pass this legislation this year.
Although criminal justice reform is
not a popular issue, the problems in
our criminal justice system threaten
every community in the United
States and challenge our notion of
fairness.
When we have 5% of the world’s
population and 25% of the world’s
prison population, there are better

ways to keep our communities safe.
When we still have public safety
issues in every community because
of gang violence, and particularly
transnational gang violence at this
moment, there are better ways to
keep our communities safe. That is
the purpose of having such a com-
mission: to get the greatest minds in
the country together with a specific
timeline to bring specific findings
and policy recommendations to Con-
gress and the states. This commission
of experts will wrestle with the entire
gamut of criminal justice in this
country. Not simply incarceration,
Senator Jim Webb
166
not simply gang violence, not simply
re-entry, but all the pieces of our
criminal justice system, so that we
can have a much needed and long
overdue restructuring of how we
address the crime in this country.
Note
[Based on Senator Webb’s congressional
floor speech to introduce ‘‘The National
Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009.’’]

Now is the Time to Reform our Criminal Justice System
167

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