Our federal criminal justice system is in drastic need of change.

Incarceration has skyrocketed over the past five years, costing our country $80 billion dollars every year ($30,000 to incarcerate just one prisoner). Prisons are badly overcrowded, re-entry to society after lengthy sentences is extremely difficult and recidivism is high. Instead of rehabilitating prisoners, these extremely long sentences are often building master criminals.

The good news is that our normally combative political parties have come to some consensus on this problem. Sen. Flake and Sen. McCain have co-sponsored a very important bi-partisan bill now in the United States Senate: S2123, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015.

This bill would reduce mandatory minimum sentences for certain non-violent offenses, restore judicial discretion in sentencing, reduce recidivism and reduce the size of the prison population which, as noted, is growing at an extreme rate and causing a burgeoning corrections budget.

The need for this bill, as a first step in reforming our criminal justice system, is not only because of the economic cost, but also the extremely devastating effects that the current long sentences have on the prisoner’s entire family.

The children and spouse experience embarrassment, a loss of self-esteem, lack of concentration with a resulting deleterious effect on education and work, and decreased supervision of the children since the remaining parent must often work additional jobs to keep the family intact. All of this makes it more likely that the cycle of criminal conduct will be repeated in the next generation.

I would like to ask everyone to please email or call Sen. Flake and Sen. McCain and thank them for their support of this bill and request that they use all their efforts to encourage the fast-tracking and immediate passage of S2123.