Charleston County cut jail time, saved tax dollars without compromising safety

America’s systems of justice are bloated, backlogged and in desperate need of reimagination. In a given year, tens of thousands of people are trapped in the criminal legal system, wasting public resources, destabilizing lives and jeopardizing community safety. Historically, most efforts to fix the system focus on large prison populations and serious felonies. And yet the majority of the cases clogging the system are low-level, nonviolent offenses, prosecuted at the local level. In Charleston County, the elected chief prosecutor decided to do something about it.

Read the full op-ed here.