“The time would certainly seem to be ripe for new left-right alliances on criminal justice reform. This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider a new bill from Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) that would create a national criminal justice commission to review all aspects of America’s police, criminal courts, and prisons. Webb’s bill comes on the heels of a sobering set of developments: The U.S. has for some time now accumulated the world’s largest prison population, both proportionally and overall. DNA testing continues to clear people wrongly convicted and imprisoned for violent crimes. And the federal criminal code has swelled from the three laws proscribed in the Constitution to, by one estimate, more than 4,000 laws today. Still, the prospect of any sort of lasting alliance seems unlikely, mostly because conservatives, libertarians, and liberals view the legal system in fundamentally different ways.” (11/30/09)