LINCOLN - The prison reform movement that has helped send U.S. inmate numbers plummeting was born in deep-red Texas, offering a new criminal justice vision that appealed to both Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives.

In the new “justice reinvestment” model, prisons aren’t simply warehouses where inmates are kept as long as possible before being released to offend again. Instead, they are places of rehabilitation and redemption that can help make communities safer while saving money, too.

Nebraska, home to the nation's fastest-growing and most-overcrowded prison system, failed to pass a justice reinvestment proposal in the last month of the Legislative session amid bitterness and distrust.

Gov. Pete Ricketts initially welcomed the initiative and was an active participant in it, but ultimately referred to the proposed reductions in criminal penalties as "soft on crime."

Nearly every Democrat voted to advance Legislative Bill 920 while only a third of Republicans did. Ricketts' comments in a recent interview reflected the Republican Legislators' sentiment, saying he found the entire justice reinvestment model "flawed from the get-go," and "backwards."

State Sen. Steve Lathrop, the Democratic lawmaker from Omaha who partnered with Ricketts to bring justice reinvestment into Nebraska, said it’s the governor’s thinking that’s flawed.

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