Last month was National Criminal Justice Month, by designation of the U.S. House of Representatives. But you probably missed it because the House didn’t get around to passing the resolution, offered by Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), until April 1.
Among points Poe made: three million Americans are employed by the justice system; seven million adults are on probation, parole, or incarcerated; millions of Americans have been victims of crime and have lost income, medical expenses, and suffered emotionally; the cost of crime exceeds the billions of dollars spent each year running the criminal justice system. Although annual government spending on criminal justice hit $204 billion in 2005, the resolution says thirty-five percent of Americans have very little or no confidence in the criminal justice system, and although crime totals have dropped since the early 1990s, most Americans believe crime is increasing.
Link: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=hr110-945