#cut50  is a national bipartisan effort to reduce America’s incarcerated population by 50 percent over the next 10 years. More than two million people are behind bars in the United States, which is close to 1 out of every 100 Americans, at a cost of $80 billion every year. Reliance on overly long sentences and tough on crime policies is both morally indefensible and economically unjustifiable. The statistical reality:

More than 70 million people living with some type of criminal record.
23 million bear the label “convicted felon”
5 million children have at least one incarcerated parent
2.2 million people in prisons and jails
$80 billion per year spent on prisons

The idea behind #cut50 is to foster connections between the expertise of criminal justice reform organizations and the media – and other influencers:

“By humanizing the narrative and pursuing transformative legislation, #cut50 is uniting the political machine of Washington DC, the financial reach of Wall Street, the innovation of Silicon Valley, and the cultural dominance of Hollywood to roll back the incarceration industry.”