Any reform is good reform. But.

Politicians are finally talking about prison reform. So yay for that. But what are they talking about?

Beto O’Rouke, Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker have focused on ways to reduce our 2.3 million prison population by reforming drug laws and drug sentencing. Great. But it’s a myth that millions of people are behind bars for low-level, nonviolent drug offenses and that finding other ways of dealing with these offenses would solve our incarceration crisis. Eighty percent of those in prison are not there for low-level, nonviolent drug offenses. They are behind bars for committing violent crimes.

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders want to eliminate private prisons. Yes, good idea. But that accounts for only 8.4 percent of the incarcerated population.

President Trump’s much heralded First Step Act reform bill resulted in the early release of 3,000 federal prisoners (with already impressive good behavior records). Good. But that’s .001 percent of the prison population. And, in case you didn’t know, 90 percent of U.S. prisoners are in state prisons not federal penitentiaries.

Any reform is good reform.

But this all feels like that cliché: rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

What we desperately need to do is rethink our entire notions of “punishment.” Yes, we  need to hold people accountable for doing harm. But is our current system of incarceration the way to do this? We sentence people to very long prison terms (far longer than other western countries). The conditions in which they live are harsh, toxic, unhealthy, rob them of any decision-making power and teach them to trust no one.

If this system of punishment worked, that might be one thing. But within three years of release, about two-thirds (67.8 percent) of released prisoners are rearrested. Within five years of release, about three-quarters (76.6 percent) of released prisoners are rearrested.

Real prison reform needs to deal with not just the proven, well documented failure of our current system but with our own attitudes towards those who do harm, sometimes very serious harm. We need to ask ourselves tough questions: Are people who do bad things “redeemable”? Can they change? How should they be made accountable? How much punishment is enough? Given that 95 percent of those we put behind bars return (at least for a time) to their communities, how can we create a system that helps them become good citizens? Think on it.