This is the Kito Daily Podcast for Friday, September 15th, 2017.

I'm Caleb Brown. State governments are far ahead of the feds when it comes to

reconciling the desire to take

crime seriously while also asserting basic fiscal responsibility.

Sal nuzzo, Vice President of Policy at Florida's James Madison Institute, talked with me about how states can have

both savings and a coherent criminal justice system.

Why has criminal justice reform ceased to be a federal issue?

It's not that criminal justice reform has ceased to be a federal issue? It's not that criminal justice reform is

ceased to be a federal issue. It is that the majority of the headway being made on

reforming policies has been done at the state level and it's where the most

impact is being met. And unfortunately right now the current administration is not as palatable to

reform of policies at the federal level and so states are continuing to pick up the slack.

So how does one on one side be a Republican who cares about fiscal responsibility at the state level,

and then support or not actively oppose a president and an attorney general

who actually want to move in the opposite direction with respect to crime and punishment?

Well I think the first part of that is as a Republican or conservative we care about both public safety and fiscal

responsibility. And what states have done over the last 10 to 12 years has

proven that reforming the policies in place at the state

levels accomplishes both. So what we're finding is that you can reform policies by way of how you treat folks when they're

coming into contact with the criminal justice system as well as when they're coming out.

And you can positively impact both public safety

and save lots of money at the state level.

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