On Prisons, Can the US learn from Japan?

Somewhere along the meandering career path that led James Webb to the U.S. Senate, he found himself in the frigid interior of a Japanese prison. A journalist at the time, he was working on an article...

...Webb said the United States could learn from the Japanese prison system. In his book, A Time to Fight, he wrote that the Japanese focused less on retribution. Sentences were short, and inmates often left prison with marketable job skills. Webb said the system was modeled on philosophies pioneered by Americans, who he says have since lost their way. From the Houston Chronical.

OK. If Sen. Webb says so.