JUDGES PANEL SAYS NO!

I was relieved to read the panel of judges that decreed California State’s prison system ‘overcrowded and inhumane’ (2010) and ordered the release of 10,000 inmates by the end of this year, 2013, denied Governor Jerry Browns (and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) PLAN to comply. Browns recent last ditch proposal to accomplish reducing the prison populations was to contract with the Private Prison Industry and transfer the ‘surplus’ prisoners out of the State's prisons and into the Private Prisons springing up like dandelions all over the state. It is worth noting how Gov Brown waited so long in the game to present his solution to the Panel, having dragged his feet for the last 3 years (the State was granted 4 years to comply with the judgement) before only now putting forth his shortsighted, saves-no-money (would in fact COST the State taxpayer $700 Million in the next 2 years!), does-nothing-to-curb-the continued expansion of Californias prison growth, PLAN!! Perhaps he felt with time running out, the Judges would have no other course of action but to ‘relent’ and go along with his scheme. Prior to proposing his most recent 'fix', Brown had requested, and been denied, that the Judges measure be blocked entirely.

Already almost half of the nearly 10,000 inmates required to reduce the population have been released over the past year and a half, and in this time I haven’t seen headlines of horror stories of escalating crime in the state because of it (discounting of course the latest FBI report on the nations crime statistics, citing a rise in crime of 2% in California between 2011 and 2012 after decades of those numbers falling. Being one of the proverbial foxes in the henhouse does this surprise anyone? Of course they will make the numbers suit their own agenda.) Besides, just how much can releasing nonviolent, nonserious, low level, first time offenders (as specified by the judges panel) affect the dymnamics of the decade by decade reduction in the state's (and nations) crime statistics?

We Californians were delighted to be informed this year about how the State is no longer mired in debt, how “somehow” we have managed to crawl out of our $60 Billion dollars of debt, to amass a $1.2 - $.4 billion surplus (the spread in that number depends on who you listen to). Though this came as astonishing and welcome news, one should question how ‘we’ managed to do this. I mean the debt took years and years to get to those all time lows, yet in a matter of 3 years we were free and clear, no, BETTER than that, we had this huge surplus! Well, reports will tell you all is not as it seems. Analyst Meredith Whitney reports “They (California) raised taxes and did it retroactively… a lot of people booked 2013 gains into 2012 because of tax incentives… and they’re cramming down state expenses onto local communities without providing local communities the resources to pay for them… They are not paying into their pension funds adequately… and they’re still cutting from education…. It’s so much worse than the rosy picture that the headlines suggest.”

Though he has pledged ‘fiscal restraint’ in re the new surplus, what is most worrisome is the Governors quick support of jumping on the prison expansion bandwagon – or should I say ‘gravytrain’. Sure, Brown’s plan would immediately make the State compliant with the panels order. What such a plan does NOT do is replenish/grow the State coffers (all while it profits private industry) as it continues to spend taxpayer funds (as in the estimated $700 million for the first two years alone we read about), and, more importantly, it will NOT make our communities any safer, contrary to what the ‘industry’ will tell you. At some point in time all these prisoners get released, the longer we hold low level, nonviolent offenders apart and separate in prison cells, the less able they are to keep and find support and jobs once released, consequently turning to crime in desperation to feed/house themselves and/or their families. Our prisons are solely bent on punishment under our current system, not rehabilitation where they can learn skills, further their education, learn to become productive, contributing members of our society. Currently they spend their endlessly boring, mind numbing days in front of televisions or running the track. Simply being warehoused and putting in their ‘time’. Add to that the fact there is no forgiveness in this system. A federal prisoner is a ‘felon’ for his lifetime, barring entry to most all the opportunities most of us take for granted. Our recidivism rate of 75% makes that painfully clear. Our prisons, and the system that sustains them, is fitted with a revolving door, where profitabily is guaranteed by the return of the previously encarcerated and still ever growing numbers through prisonization of the lowest level, nonviolent of offenders.

More noteworthy, seemingly in contrast to what the Governor would like to see, is the action taken last year in instituting a prison " Realignment Program", aimed at changing the way California manages low-level felons convicted of ‘nonserious, non-violent, non-sexual’ offenses from the onset. The Public Policy Institute of California has reported that one year into the program there were 24,000 fewer offenders in the state’s institutional prisons in July 2012 than there were in September 2011 (a month before realignment began)”. Now this is a common sense policy that clearly is working. Not a short term, quick fix to the State's problem. “Proponents of realignment believe that counties can do a better job than the state in managing low-level felons , i.e., the counties can achieve higher levels of offender rehabilitation, correspondingly lower levels of recidivism, and less (or at least not more) crime and all for a lower cost than accomplished by the state”.

For now, in this latest saga of California’s Prison Problem, thank you Judges, for denying the Governors bid for expansion of versus reduction of, Californias prisons.

JERRY BROWN'S "SOLUTION"

After reading in the news today about Governor Jerry Browns proposed solution to the overcrowding of the State prison populations, I felt inclined to weigh in. To begin with, we get conflicting reports regarding whether crime is going up or down these days. It varies state to state, of course, but there are national statistics for the US overall. For years now we’ve been hearing and reading how our nations crime rates have been trending downward in greater and greater numbers, even as our prison populations continued to grow exponentially. I wont quote figures or charts here, they are available to anyone who wants to look. And more and more, especially in the last few years, we are seeing prison advocacy groups gaining traction, perhaps because we are reaching a ‘tipping point’ where so many americans have either gone to prison, or have or know of families or friends who have been, or currently are, encarcerated … who have been touched, affected in some way by the nightmare of this hellish system. For in the USA, the ‘land of the free’, one in 100 adult americans is serving time in our nations jails and prisons. Its an appalling statistic.

Interestingly enough, in 2011 when a Federal Judge ordered California to reduce its prison population due to overcrowding and inhumane treatment of offenders (California prisons 'cruel and unusual,' U.S. high court rules) we started to see reports from the FBI and Law Enforcement about how our crime rates are suddenly increasing (!!), in particular in California! I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe these reports are being manufactured, er, collected, and reported on to support the agendas of the very institutions that stand to gain monetarily from the continued growth/expansion of our state and federal prisons. Of course they don’t want to see our prisons closing!! They don't want less prisoners, they want, need, MORE. Cha ching. Do you have ANY idea how much money is made and by who, in this prison industrial complex??? Again, I wont expand on that in this post, the information is out there for all to see and discover. Rather than complain about being overly taxed, all you taxpayers do your homework! Its BILLIONS of our tax dollars that are funding this massive system. WE fund it, THEY profit from it. Who are THEY? THEY are everyone associated in some way by the prison industrial complex…law enforcement, prison employees (the prison guard union is extremely powerful), retail businesses that sell products to prisons, our legislators and law makers who are in the pockets of the industries that profit, it goes on and on, don’t kid yourself that this is all about ‘justice’, solely about keeping society ‘safe’. Don’t be naïve and so quick to believe everything you read, every scary headline about how your communities are now less safe as more and more prisoners are released from their sentences early. IF there IS more crime, IF violent offenders ARE being released, then look to the motives of the prison boards that are selecting such inmates to release and what their ultimate goal in doing so is.

Just my thoughts on Governor Jerry Browns epiphany on this Tuesday morning in sunny California.

"Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws." ~Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations

7 WEEKS

As I was emailing Corey this morning I realized his release day is 7 weeks as of today. The thought as it passed through my brain actually made my heart stop a beat, seriously! That we are finally looking at the proverbial ‘door’, is still hard to wrap my mind around. One ajusts to many things, most things, as we all did in our way, to this prison journey. That doesn’t mean it was ever easy, ever felt ‘normal’….it has been none of those things, and my heart still breaks at the years my son has lost to this encarceration-crazed nation. But I won’t dwell on that, because I am too happy to just be 7 weeks to release, 7 weeks and my son will be back in the ‘real’ world.

As I emailed him this morning I also reflected on how Corey and I email each other so often … a few times a day, just keeping tabs on how our days are playing out. It’s a lifeline of sorts, just keeping the windows of our worlds open to each other. Not that his days aren’t full, he has good friends, a job that he must go to for a few hours every day, he reads voraciously, and he must attend ‘after care’ sessions in Re the RDAP program he graduated from. But we do email more now than we ever have. Until just the past few months it was generally once a day, but now its more like 3 times. Morning, afternoon and just before bed I’ll shoot him another one off so he has one to read with his coffee first thing in the morning, after he makes it over to the trailor that houses the computers. Unlike me, who can get up, grab my coffee and just sit down on the couch or my desk and log on, inmates at Lompoc must leave their housing unit and cross the yard to the trailor I just mentioned, in order to log on. Don't get me wrong, we are all most grateful for the service, and he'd happily walk a mile or more to use it if he had to! It, like most all things in prison, is just not as convenient as we have things on the outs. The inmates are only allowed to use the computers for email, internet is not an option, and at that are limited to a 30 minute session. He's learned to type fast to get the emails off to those he keeps in touch with! He can leave after his 30 are up however, and return a few hours later for another session, etc. The email is provided by a independent contractor called Corrlinks. Anyone wishing to email someone in prison where Corrlinks is available to the Prison (some prisons use other contractors, other systems, such as JPay, which Taft utilized) must apply or be sent an invitation by the inmate, and then be approved by the prison facility. All emails are of course read/screened prior to delivery to the inmate as are his, prior to being sent out to others. Generally after I send off an email to Corey it will take 2 to 3 hrs before he receives it. Ditto for when he emails me.

For the first 6 yrs of his encarceration the prison at Taft did not offer any email service. Every day I would write Corey at least one letter, and walk it down to the local post office. It was important to me when mail was called every day Corey would receive something...magazines, a book, letters, pictures, printouts of interesting articles from the web, catalogs even …. anything to keep his mind occupied, to detract if even for just a short while, the boredom and everyday-sameness of his prison existence. Even with daily emails I still make time to mail him something several times a week, again, because it adds something positive to his day. For anyone with a loved one in prison I cannot stress enough how getting something in the mail can brighten an inmates day. A card or letter, just a simple postcard, you cannot imagine how this brightens their day. Knowing someone, somewhere, has thought of them, letting them know they are not forgotten. Because all too often the imprisoned become the forgotten ones, as the years pass and their life as they knew it fades into the distance, and along with it friends and family who must move forward with their own lives. Corey, and Rod and I, are so very grateful for those few friends and family who have remained in his life all these years, you have no idea how blessed we have felt from your simple acts of kindness.

Well today in his email Corey stated he finds himself walking the track more, his usual once a day has turned into 2 and 3 times a day, just basking in the knowledge of his impending release, daydreaming about all the things we wants to do, will soon be able to do, once back home …being back in the city, exploring all the new developments and businesses, being able to stop and order food in a restaurant, walk into a movie theatre, cook in his own kitchen, watch whatever program he wants on his own tv, go to bed when he’s tired, not when the lights go out, and wake up when he’s rested, not when the guard turns on the bright glaring lights, and not surrounded by 150 men crowded into the housing unit he shares with them. Corey’s not allowed himself to daydream all these years, when thoughts of home would come he’d push them from his mind, it was too difficult to handle at times, the yearning that would come, the impatience to have this imprisonment end.

7 weeks and when I turn out my light tonite, 7 weeks minus one day :).

DEBTORS PRISONS IN AMERICAN...No way. WAY!!

I wasn't particularly surprised to learn a while back that we actually imprison people for not paying their debts, yes, “Debtors Prison” is alive and well in modern day America. No matter the debt small or large. Never mind that imprisoning someone for a debt that person can not pay is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, I’ve learned that fully one third of our States are doing this, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Ohio, Maryland AND Washington State are among them.

Now I’m not talking about the act of deliberately bouncing a check, we all know that accounts for fraud and is a jailable offense. On the other hand, for example, if you have, through no fault of your own, incurred a large medical bill you cannot pay, or a credit card bill that your interest rates were radically maximized due to one or two late payments and has become a monster debt you simply can not pay, maybe, just maybe because you lost your job, your home, joined the ranks of the roughly 13 million unemployed in America, perhaps became ‘just’ another ‘casualty’ of the financial crises created by banksters and Wall Street, it seems INconceivable you could/should be arrested and jailed until the debt is paid in full.

Today I was reading an article in WDN about the ACLU fighting the State of Ohio currently for its acts of imprisoning people for not paying debts. In fact, a study they did in 2010 revealed the use of debtors prison practices in five states, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia and Washington that led to a comprehensive study by the ACLU of Ohio, released just this month, on the widespread practice of jailing people for debt. In their study and observations in courtrooms the ACLU of Ohio says it “found “no evidence that any of these people were given hearings to determine whether or not they were financially able to pay their fines, as required by the law” and that “courts in towns across Ohio are simply ignoring the requirements and jailing people who can’t pay their debts.”

The imprisonment of those unable to pay their debts seems on the surface to be based on punitive measures rather than efforts to have the debts paid, as was observed by the UCLA’s study…“The study finds people are going to jail for debts so small, it sometimes costs more than their debts to jail them.”. It apparently costs about $400 for an arrest warrant, and $50 - $60 a day to jail someone. And apparently how it works is each day in jail ‘forgives’ a certain amount of your debt. BUT wait, as I read and considered this I realized perhaps there IS more to this, having lived and learned more about our prison system that I ever cared to know these past almost 10 years, the method to this madness might be in keeping with capitalizing on our countrys misguided, overzealous policies of mass encarceration. Follow the $$. Taxpayer money funds our prisons/jails. For every inmate Facility’s receive Govt funding, so the practice is indeed profit driven, not so much to ‘right a wrong’, nor to even collect on the debt, but to make money off the bodies warehoused for their ‘crime’ of insolvency. Maybe I’ve just become too cynical over the past almost 10 years on this journey with my son, that I doubt, question, am prone to thoughts of 'conspiracies' more than ever, that this type of practice no longer comes as a surprise. The surprise comes in the fact few seem aware of, or care about, such practices anymore.

"Just because the power is out doesn't mean we unplug the constitution." ~Law and Order, "Darkness"

A shift in the wind?

At times like this I wonder is it just me, as a member of “the choir”, that has noticed a shift in the wind as relates to our sentencing practices? By that I mean as a mother with a son in prison, serving a 12 ½ year prison sentence for a first time, non violent marijuana offense, I have my computer set so as to receive a host of news alerts as relates to the drug war and sentencing reform, so when I read about AG Eric Holders latest proposals regarding our draconian war on drugs and the overly long and punitive sentencing measures that go hand in hand, I thought out loud “at last!!” That finally we had reached the 'tipping point', the point where the current status quo affected so, so many that change was inevitable. But then I have to remind myself its just us, the prison ‘choir’, the ones who live in this 'alter'world, separate and apart from the real world, if not as inmates, as loved ones and families of the inmates, who have probably even paid ANY attention to the Atty Generals latest headline making remarks.

Today Holder spoke before the ABA (American Bar Association), where he announced that he would direct federal prosecutors to avoid charging low-level, nonviolent drug offenders with crimes that trigger mandatory prison sentences. As only Congress can change the current laws Holders comments will hopefully encourage Congress to move towards sentencing reform measures. Holder went on to repeat the same conclusions re the failure of our current policies that the Pew Study arrived at, that FAMM (Families Against Minimum Mandatory Sentences) and dozens of other drug and justice advocacy groups have been screaming for the past decade and more. And so it seems we stand on the dawn of a new day in how justice is meted out for many nonviolent, low level offenses. Now that Corey is all but finished serving his lengthy, overly harsh sentence, I can’t miss the irony.

“According to Holder, the Department of Justice has too often pursued tough charges against minor-league drug offenders in a draconian war on drugs. Judges are then forced to follow harsh federal guidelines that put the guilty behind bars for years. Currently, 47 percent of the nation’s 219,000 prisoners were convicted of drug crimes, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons. Holder said his new national policy requires that offenders who are nonviolent and not affiliated with street gangs be charged with offenses “better suited to their individual conduct” or turned over to their states for prosecution.”

One comment Holder made does concern me however, he announced that the Justice Department is giving U.S. attorneys throughout the country a greater amount of prosecutorial discretion going forward. As if they haven’t already had this for the past 30 plus years? For decades now the prosecutors have had total discretion, they have been accuser, jailor, judge and jury. When I read that one comment, set amidst all the other statements I’ve long hoped to hear from our Justice Dept, I saw everything else get wiped off the page. But perhaps I have become too cynical, I have learned all to well not to expect anything in this system, to do that guarantees disappointment. Time, like always, will tell. It will be interesting a year from now to revisit this page, this news, and see where we are at re sentencing reform, if anything has changed.

"This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice." ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

OUR STAY AT THE FAIRFIELD - LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING

A mad dash to Spokane in pursuit of our new dream home saw us lodged at the Fairfield Inn Express there for two days.
Rod and I had been assembling another List of favorites, houses we hoped to see in the city this trip, having met with disappointment three weeks ago when we had made the journey. It happened that Rod had two Safety meetups coming up so we scheduled them around a quick trip Spokane, stopping at Half Moon Bay just out of San Francisco for an overnighter, before proceeding north to Washington, and the other at Lodi, which we hit on our return trip.

We weren’t especially looking forward to another go-round of viewings, having worn ourselves out that last trip, taking in a dozen or so homes two days in a row before climbing back in the rig and driving thru the 3 States to get back home in time for Rod to go back to work on the monday. And this trip was going to be even more time constrained. About the time we got to The Dalles in northern Oregon, where we HAD intended to overnight it, after leaving Half Moon Bay around 11 am that morning and it being only 10 pm, we looked at each other and decided on the spur of the moment to just keep driving! We were in good spirits, had energy having both gotten good nites sleeps the nite before in a lovely room where we could hear, if not see, the ocean waves rolling up the beach. We’d dined on wonderful seafood at Sams Chowder House right on the beach, just down the street, sipping micro brews, relaxing as we watched the tide go out. Heaven!

So onwards and upwards or so they say! We arrived in Spokane at 2 am, and secured a room at the Fairfield Inn for two nites. Exhausted and wanting soley to just crawl into a nice cool bed and lose ourselves to sleep for the next 6 or so hours, I pulled back the covers on my QS bed (we had a room with 2) to discover several long black hairs throughout the bed! GASP!!! The sheets were wrinkled and clearly, clearly the maid had NOT changed the bedding. Rod checked the other bed and it ‘appeared’ to be fine so we slept in that one, just being too darned tired to see about a room change at that late hour. Well the uncleanliness didn’t end there. The next morning when I pulled open the drapes on our top floor room, which by the way had wonderful wide windows, wall to wall, to my further dismay I could see food scraps (rice!!), lint and dirt on the carpets. They also had not been vacuumed or cleaned. Entering the bathroom I was met with more long black hairs on the bathroom floor. This room had been totally missed by the maid for some reason. I guess it happens (??). But at $120 a nite we DID expect better, we’ve stayed in Motel 6’s for $50 a nite that,though small and basic, have always, always (!) been clean. A clean bed is really all I need and expect.

We mentioned the bed issue to the desk clerk as we headed out to meet with our Realtor, and she argued ‘oh no, we ALWAYS change our sheets, we ALWAYS clean the rooms”… she offered a small $10 discount which I don’t believe we even got in the end, but all I asked her was “Please see the room is cleaned and our beds changed for tonite”.

I wish I could say that was the end of it, that there were no more issues. There were. We returned to our room around 9 that nite after a full day to discover the AC was not working. It was off when we came in the room and when I turned it on (it was 96 degrees outside all day, and hot and stuffy in the room), the machine made a humming noise, then a clank, sputter, sput (!) and went off! Tried two or three times and only hot air would come out of it. Rod called the desk and was told the maintenance man was off duty, but that they had one more room on our floor we could move to if we wanted…but that it was a Smoking Room. We got the key and walked down the hall to check it out, sometimes Smoking Rooms aren’t too bad??? This one was…it literally reeked of smoke. So we threw our arms in the air, laughed, and determined to make the best of it, returned to our original room. Thankfully the rooms windows DID open and around midnite it had cooled down to a do-able 80 degrees. We both slept well.

There was no point in complaining to the desk clerk as we checked out, it was not the same one from the night before, or the night before that even. At least we had a roof over our heads, a warm one mind you, but were safe and secure in our beds, having seen many of the less fortunate sleeping on and wandering the streets each nite we were there. A sign of the times I suppose, this difficult recession and those hardest hit by it. Also, perhaps the fact we HAD found the house we hoped to find the first day in town, AND our offer accepted that same day (!!) that allowed for our more generous and open minded attitude about the hotel accommodations, it seemed unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

"Don't get your knickers in a knot. Nothing is solved and it just makes you walk funny." ~Kathryn Carpenter

With Holder in the Lead, Sentencing Reform Gains Momentum
NPR August 7, 2013

I read the following article today online. It all sounds good and well and fine, but can this do-nothing Congress even make strides in Sentencing Reform? Will Holder follow through? I can only hope, as year after year after year we've watched any efforts aimed at Sentencing reform get stuck in committee and die a slow death. Any changes now or in the next year or so will not help Corey in any way, he'll already be out, but perhaps what "Wroblewski wrote about authorities wanting to overhaul the system to make sentencing simpler, to spend more money on programs for people returning to life outside of prison" will actually happen this time around. The Second Chance Act, that Congress passed a few years ago was supposed to designate funding for more such programs but we've seen nothing of the sort actually put in place. The recidivism rate in this country is 75%, there are few jobs and more and more unemployed competing for them, many of those being better educated, and having work 'histories', and NO felony records. Far too many inmates simply don't have 'work histories', or there are large gaps in them, like my son will have, a 10 year gap (!) that any employer will question or be concerned about. This instantly puts Corey and others like him at the bottom of any future employer's applicants list to be interviewed. BUT it is what it is, and I can only hope and pray my sons wonderful, optomistic, eager, and willing attitude, as well as his intelligence and the two Associate Degrees he managed to earn while in prison DO help overshadow that gap in work history.

Here is NPR's article, written by Carrie Johnson:

Sit down with the attorney general to ask him about his priorities, , and he'll talk about voting rights and national security. But if you listen a bit longer, Eric Holder gets to this: "I think there are too many people in jail for too long, and for not necessarily good reasons."

This is the nation's top law enforcement officer calling for a sea change in the criminal justice system. And he's not alone.

Over the past few weeks, lawmakers have introduced bipartisan measures that would give judges more power to shorten prison sentences for nonviolent criminals and even get rid of some mandatory minimum terms altogether.

"The war on drugs is now 30, 40 years old," Holder said. "There have been a lot of unintended consequences. There's been a decimation of certain communities, in particular communities of color."

That's one reason why the Justice Department has had a group of lawyers working behind the scenes for months on proposals the attorney general could present as early as next week in a speech to the American Bar Association in San Francisco.

Some of the items are changes Holder can make on his own, such as directing U.S. attorneys not to prosecute certain kinds of low-level drug crimes, or spending money to send more defendants into treatment instead of prison. Almost half of the 219,000 people currently in federal prison are serving time on drug charges.

"Well, we can certainly change our enforcement priorities, and so we have some control in that way," Holder said. "How we deploy our agents, what we tell our prosecutors to charge, but I think this would be best done if the executive branch and the legislative branch work together to look at this whole issue and come up with changes that are acceptable to both."

Late last week, two senators — Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin and Utah Republican Mike Lee — moved in that direction. Their bill, called the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2013, would give judges more discretion to sentence nonviolent criminals below the so-called mandatory minimums. It would also lower mandatory minimums for several drug crimes to lower costs and cut down on crowding in a prison system that's estimated to be operating at 40 percent over capacity.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, says he'll hold a hearing on mandatory minimums next month.

"They all sound like a great stop-crime idea when they were passed," Leahy said on the C-SPAN Newsmakers program Sunday. "Most of them sound better on paper than in practice."

His partner in that effort is Republican Rand Paul, a Tea Party favorite from Kentucky. They've introduced their own legislation, the Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013, to give judges more power to impose lower sentences — and not just in drug crimes.

"Doing away with mandatory minimums, giving more discretion to judges, that shouldn't be Republican or Democrat," Leahy added. "It just makes good sense."

The idea has already taken off in nearly two dozen states including Arkansas, Kentucky and Texas, where it won support from prominent conservatives including Grover Norquist, part of a coalition known as Right on Crime.

"It's easier to say, 'Let's spend a few dollars a day managing you at your home where you can spend time with your family, where you can work, instead of hundreds of dollars a day, keeping you in a cell,' " Norquist said in a video on the group's website.

And the Justice Department explicitly pointed to state reform efforts in a letter to the U.S. Sentencing Commission in July. The old system, wrote official Jonathan Wroblewski, is being replaced with the idea that budgets are "finite," prison is a power that should be "exercised sparingly and only as necessary," and that "reducing reoffending and promoting effective reentry are core goals."

Wroblewski wrote that authorities want to overhaul the system to make sentencing simpler, to spend more money on programs for people returning to life outside of prison, to target drug traffickers with severe penalties, and to offer alternatives or shorter sentences to nonviolent offenders. The Justice Department also wants to give those nonviolent offenders already serving prison time a way out early, for good behavior.

Ohio State University law professor Douglas Berman has been following the criminal justice system for years. With violent crime near record lows, and federal prisons eating up a quarter of the Justice Department's 2014 budget, Berman says now may be time for change.

"There's the opportunity for action, not only on [Capitol Hill] but maybe in the Obama administration particularly, when we're a little bit away from the midterm elections and a long time away from the next presidential election cycle," Berman says.

It would be the first major sentencing reform since the crack epidemic of the 1980s, he says.

"It's not just a story of new politicians in Washington having a new willingness to speak about these issues, because of lower crime rates and the budget crisis, but I think also the discovery that across the political spectrum across the country, states have been successful in modifying ... sentencing laws to go from what's often talked about as being tough to being smarter on crime," Berman adds.

Some prosecutors, even some inside the Justice Department, may have a hard time making that pivot, as they debate how lengthy prison terms may have helped lower the crime rate.

But Berman says it's worth asking these questions: "Are we using the prison system too broadly, too widely? Are we getting a poor return on our investment with criminal justice dollars when we're constantly growing the federal prison population and especially in a time of sequester that comes with cuts to prosecutors, cuts to police forces, cuts to defender services?"