The U.S. boasts 25% of the world's incarcerated population. How did this happen? It took a rare bipartisan effort-President Ronald Reagan's abolition of federal parole, President George H.W. Bush's Willie Horton boogeyman, and President Bill Clinton's 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill (which put $10B to building new prisons) all helped to balloon our prison system. Today, 1 in 3 Americans have a criminal record. Last week, a group that boasts the support of the billionaire Koch brothers, Dick Armey's Freedom Works, the ACLU and the Center for American Progress launched The Coalition for Public Safety, a group focused on reforming the criminal justice system. They may seem like an odd bunch, but certainly is no more so than the bipartisan effort that led us into this mess.

The launch of The Coalition for Public Safety marks a turning point in the stalemate which has prevented real change in the past. Democrats feared prison reform would compromise their political seats by attacks from Republicans accusing them of being soft on crime. The Republicans didn't want to yank job and construction rich prisons from their states.

Why the motivation now? Maybe concern about the $80 Billion annual price tag or the fact that the Hampton's social circuit will be short a few millionaires this summer ("Goodness, ten years in federal prison for securities fraud? But it's not like he shot someone!"). Whatever the motivation, America seems primed for a breakthrough. The $5 million seeded for the Coalition by the Koch Brothers suggests they are serious.
Having spent both 16 years in the Mass. State Senate advocating and authoring any number of criminal justice policy initiatives and 30 months in a federal prison camp, I think I have a unique perspective on what might work.

Unlike state prison systems where getting ten years might result in parole at three years, there is no such thing as federal parole. When you get ten years with the feds, you're going to do close to nine.

I would also note that the idea of Piper Kerman's book turned Netflix hit, "Orange is the New Black", receiving Emmy Award nominations as a comedy belies the horrible reality of prison life for women. From my personal experience,as it is supposedly based on Kerman's experience at the same camp I was in, there is hardly a character portrayed in the series that has any sense of truth. The overwhelming majority of women sentenced for non-violent drug crimes are women who were the prime custodian for their children-some 90%. There is no comedy to be found when you sit with an inmate wailing because she's just been told that her child is dead, having been shot in gang crossfire and she won't be allowed to attend the funeral. There is nothing funny about it at all.

Criminal justice reform will give Massachusetts yet another chance to take our place as the nation's progressive leader-but we have a way to go to regain that moniker. During the last three years Massachusetts has pushed legislation to build new prisons. We were the only 1 of 17 industrial states to do so. Meanwhile,Texas and Wisconsin actually closed prisons and began the process to drastically reduce prison populations. Even worse, the MA legislation introduced was for "bail jails" formerly known as debtor's prisons -designed to hold people pre-trial who simply cannot afford bail. I thought we outlawed those in the 50's. Having died at the end of 2014, let's hope that legislation doesn't resurface.
Irony is not absent from the current dialogue. As states make marijuana legal (either for recreation or medical use), there will be millions of dollars generated for legal marijuana growers and distributors. Most, if not all, of these business people are white- last year Massachusetts distributed 35 new licenses for marijuana dispensaries and not one license to a Black or Latino. How ironic (or tragic) would it be if they invested their legal pot profit in for-profit prisons.

Prisons which incarcerate Black and Latino people in jail for, you guessed it, using marijuana. Democratic Senators Cory Booker, (New Jersey) and Sheldon Whitehouse,(Rhode Island) and Republican Senators Rand Paul, (Kentucky) and John Cornyn, (Texas) are leading the criminal justice reform effort in Congress. The consensus inside and out is that it is time to reform the criminal justice system. We need to evaluate the prosecutor's powerful discretionary decision on who and what to charge, the trial (plea) system, the devastation of families and communities (especially in urban communities), the consequences of having a criminal record and, most importantly, where the $80 B might be better spent. We are not short of pressing matters like health care, education and rebuilding the nation's infrastructure.

Just last week, President Clinton apologized to Mexico for the mess caused south of the border by the War on Drugs. A good step forward-but what about the millions of Americans sitting in jail, prisoners of this war? It's time to make it right for American citizens.