The Federal prison population has increased more than 7-fold over the past 20 years.

Unfortunately, the elimination of incentives such as parole, good time credits and funding for college courses, means that fewer inmates participate in and excel in literacy, education, treatment and other development programs.

Rather than following through on the proven crime and violence prevention techniques that work, we are back to tough-talking sound byte policies that have been proven to not only fail to reduce crime but actually increase crime, waste taxpayers' money and discriminate against minorities.

Mandatory minimums have been shown to be discriminatory and waste the taxpayers' money.

Unequal funding resources also results in unequal educational opportunity when you consider studies that show that one half of low income students who are qualified to attend college do not attend because they can't afford to.

Each year over 2,500 commercial vessels enter the Port of Hampton Roads alone, so adequate funding for port security is a significant issue for those of us who live in Richmond and Hampton Roads.

There is nothing Federal about local volunteer fire departments.