Prisons in America are too crowded, too harsh, too isolated, and provide too little treatment and education. But mostly they are too big. With 2.4 million Americans living behind bars (and with 5 million more on probation or parole), the most important step we can take to reform the country’s out-of-control criminal justice system is to shrink it. Sentencing reform and alternatives to incarceration are vital steps, but improving the quality of legal representation at trial—and, more importantly, before trial—could play an even larger role. That’s why Eric Holder’s announcement that the Department of Justice is ramping up a new program to improve the quality of indigent legal defense is so important. Some 80 percent of criminal defendants can’t afford to pay for their own attorney. Give those defendants a fighting chance, and we could end up with a truly adversarial legal system that will produce not just inmates but justice. From NPR: Justice Dept. To Launch Indigent Defense Program : NPR.