Yeah I understand, do you think the last paragraph in my first comment misses that point?

My point is that we have people already in prison for past violent crimes, many of them, so even a policy change that has a big future impact still isn't going to quickly reduce the prison population by 2/3.

I didn't read your comment closely enough. Sorry. I agree that there won't be a quick reduction but at least the influx of new prisoners would be reduced and neighborhoods wouldn't get destroyed anymore.