Agreement on a tricky subject

The New York Times has an editorial about crime in America:

Politicians, who do not agree on much else, agree that the nation’s broken criminal justice system needs to be fixed. A bipartisan group of House members introduced a bill recently that would establish a blue-ribbon commission to study the issues and propose solutions.
The United States has the highest reported incarceration rate in the world. Prisons and jails are filled to bursting with nonviolent offenders. There are a wide array of approaches, including drug treatment programs and prisoner re-entry projects, that could bring these numbers down, save taxpayers’ dollars and give prisoners a real chance to get their lives back on track.
Some of the resources being wasted on incarcerating minor law-breakers should be redirected to more serious threats to public safety, including violent gangs. Some of the money should be put back into badly overburdened federal, state and local budgets.
A commission of respected criminal justice experts would examine these problems and come up with an action blueprint. That could overcome the inertia in Congress and state legislatures.
When Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, proposed creating such a commission, his idea quickly attracted wide support. It is a rare cause in Washington that has the backing of the Fraternal Order of Police, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the ACLU, and the Marijuana Policy Project.
Senator Webb’s bill passed the Judiciary Committee in January, and he has been pushing for a vote from the full Senate. The House bill closely tracks his. Given the current fiscal pressures and rare bipartisan agreement, there is a real chance to address the criminal justice system’s very serious problems. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should seize the moment and move these bills quickly.