The ever-growing federal justice system is broken. Archaic policies from the 80s and 90s encourage corruption, waste taxpayer money, ruin the lives of nonviolent criminals, and ultimately contribute to the very problems they address.

On Wednesday, May 18 FreedomWorks Director of Communications Jason Pye traveled to Columbus, Ohio to be part of a panel for the Fair Sentencing and Fair Chances National Tour by the Coalition for Public Safety. The panel was co-hosted by the Buckeye Institute and focused on a bipartisan push for justice reform.

Known for its beautiful landscape, unforgiving weather conditions, and stunningly beautiful Aurora Borealis lights display, America’s last frontier continues to venture through paths unfrequented.

Much of justice reform focuses on the prison system in America. Statistics and studies usually include extensive amounts of information pertaining to prison demographics, numbers, solutions, etc. However, detailed information regarding the state of the American jail system and the rate of incarceration in local jails has been lacking.

For as long as publishers have needed to sell papers and television networks have needed to attract viewers, the promotion of sensational, overblown claims about how terrible everything is has overwhelmed the simple truth that, in fact, things are getting better all the time. This year, the press has been particularly eager to prey on people's fears by highlighting isolated instances of violent crime and claiming that this indicates a trend towards a more lawless society. Of course, as it turns out, this is sheer nonsense. A new analysis of 2015 crime data finds that rates have actually declined by about 5.5 percent since last year, with the murder rate remaining, from a statistical standpoint, flat.

On Thursday, the Coalition for Public Safety hosted a briefing, “The Need for Criminal Justice Reform: How Did We Get Here?,” with coordination with the congressional House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Caucus, co-chaired by Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Raul Labrador (R-ID), and Cedric Richmond (D-LA). This briefing highlighted the major policy decisions that have led to a dramatic increase in the federal prison population and serious problems in federal sentencing policies.

At the recent Pew Charitable Trusts event, Innovative Solutions to State Challenges: Utah’s Criminal Justice Reform, key players in Utah’s criminal justice reform efforts shared insights on the continuing work for significant reform while highlighting noteworthy changes implemented within the state’s criminal justice system.

While Republicans have led the charge on bipartisan justice and judicial reform in the congress and on the campaign trail, the 2016 candidates for the Democratic Party's nomination have seemed to have been silent on the matter publicly. Here is a breakdown of the current Democrat candidates and their stance on justice reform, based off the FreedomWorks issue set, going into the upcoming DNC primary debates.

FreedomWorks has written previously about how occupational licensure laws hurt the economy, small businesses, and people without the means to get a government issued license. However, occupational licensure is also a justice reform issue.