"Almost 10 percent of young African American men are behind bars. Many legal scholars argue that the prison system locks those men out of civic life long after time served -- and that the social fabric of all American communities suffers as a result," NPR's Talk of the Nation reports. Guests include Charlayne Hunter-Gault, correspondent, NPR; Charles Blow, columnist, New York Times; Dwayne Betts, spokesperson, Campaign For Youth Justice; Michelle Alexander, author, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness" 

Washington Post columnist Joe Davidson writes about the long-term consequences of criminal justice policy bias brought out by a class-action suit against the U.S. Census Bureau.

Following a peaceful protest which resulted in a misdemeanor charge that was eventually dropped, a Michigan woman found that she was unable to get a job with the U.S. Census for having "a positive match with a criminal history record maintained by the FBI."

"We like to think that you are innocent until proven guilty in our system, but using an arrest record turns that around on its head," stated Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project.

"The Obama administration has the perfect opportunity to move forward on prison reform," writes Craig Welkener of the Justice Fellowship on AOL News. "Economic pressures are making over-criminalization fiscally unfeasible, and research-driven solutions are available. Moral issues like prison rape are crystal clear. President Obama can credibly use the bully pulpit to point out what the American criminal justice system must learn: Compassion is not the enemy of public safety."

"The rest of the world is starting to notice the United States' incarceration follies," states sydnicated columnist Neal Peirce.

"Case in point: 'Why America locks up so many people,' the recent cover story of the Economist magazine, showing the face of a forlorn Statue of Liberty behind bars.

"The grim statistics noted: Some 2.3 million people, more than the population of 15 of our states, are now incarcerated -- one in 100 adults. That's quadruple our 1970 imprisonment rate. For hard-to-defend reasons, and at staggering fiscal cost, we incarcerate people at a rate five times Great Britain's, nine times Germany's, 12 times Japan's."

The House of Representatives today passed legislation that would establish a national commission to conduct a thorough evaluation of the nation's justice system and offer recommendations for reform in a range of areas, including sentencing policy, rates of incarceration, law enforcement, crime prevention, substance abuse, corrections and reentry.