This must be a call to action. How many more people will leave prisons more dangerous, more disabled, more wounded, less prepared? And who will tell our citizens we release them this way every day by the thousands — after spending billions to house them and doing almost nothing to keep our communities safe? This is the issue of homeland security! This is also, in the words of a true American hero, John Gardner, for us as leaders, a golden opportunity masked as an insurmountable obstacle! This is truly an issue, a need, a policy, that is not Republican or Democrat; Conservative or Liberal; blue state or red state. It can bring us together rather than polarize us. There is common ground; it is a common cause; and if anything I have seen in the past two years is accurate, there is a broad consensus that can be framed as a realistic action plan to restore fiscal and public safety sanity to our corrections world — a world that dominates budgets; that may be the largest provider of mental health services in any state, and soon the largest nursing home facility; that is a key arena in our struggle for civil rights for all — since the overwhelming number of victims are poor, of color, powerless; and which has some of the best role models available who have demonstrated that it can be done!

It will not happen overnight but surely we can find words, symbols and slogans to mobilize us and set the tone at the top and the culture that might eclipse or replace "Willie Horton" and "introduce them to the joys of breaking rocks"! The question and the challenge is —Are we leaders who can seize this moment?? If not us, who? If not now, when?

Excerpted from a written statement submitted to the Commission