(HARVARD LAW REVIEW BLOG) State Senator Eric P. Lesser, March 13, 2018 — Criminal justice reform has the attention of the country, but it is at the state and local level where reform will be implemented.

Much of the conversation about criminal justice reform has revolved around high-profile incidents in major U.S. cities like Cleveland and New York City — and on what the federal Department of Justice can do in response. But state and local officials are responsible for 90 percent of the prison population.

Most observers agree that our federal and state prisons have a mass incarceration problem: too many people are locked up for minor offenses and too large a proportion of those behind bars are people of color, both of which point to inherent biases in our criminal justice system.

Many local factors influence who goes to prison and why, from the number of public defenders available to serve the accused to the number of clinic beds available for drug addicts who need treatment instead of jail time.

These are some of the reasons why I continue to advocate for increased funding for local legal aid and measures to combat our opioid epidemic as a State Senator.

States are the traditional “laboratories of democracy,” the places where new ideas and approaches can be experimented with despite political paralysis in Washington. State governments have considerable latitude to direct their own policymaking and, if successful, provide models for national policies.