Two editorials urging new directions for incarceration nation

Today's New York Times and Columbus Dispatch both had editorial praising new state efforts to alter sentencing policy and prison practices.  This Times piece, headlined "Expensive Prisons," starts this way:

In the last decade, crime rates and the prison population have declined significantly in New York State.  Yet prison costs have soared.  As part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s search for ways to cut spending, his new budget proposes two sensible steps toward the long overdue goal of closing down unnecessary prisons.

This Dispatch piece, headlined "Smarter Justice; Lawmakers tackle reform of Ohio's costly, inefficient criminal-justice system," starts this way:

Ohio's prisons are bursting at capacity with low-level offenders, draining dollars that could be better used to provide services for law-abiding citizens, so a bipartisan reform plan introduced last Tuesday in the Senate is a welcome start.