Gestures are easy, reform is hard.

Going back to the 1980s and the escalation of the war on drugs, how many times did we sit in a city or county courtroom as prosecutors called the names of defendants accused of having marijuana in their pockets?

And how many times did we wonder why the state – through local police and prosecutors – bothered to bring these cases to Maryland District Court? They were victimless crimes. Most of the defendants, having been arrested and sent to a detention center, pleaded guilty. In my observations, most of the Baltimore judges gave lenient sentences.

It seemed like a waste of time and expense, having little to do with public safety.

And, of course, the defendants came out of the courtrooms with criminal records – or yet another misdemeanor added to the records they already had. And what was the consequence?

Forever and a day, criminal convictions of any kind barred people from getting decent jobs and renting decent apartments. The problem persisted for years after prison, too. Business owners refused to hire people with criminal records, leaving many of them exasperated and frustrated in their efforts to go straight after prison.

Once upon a time, even a marijuana misdemeanor could be an obstacle to employment, though to what extent in Maryland in more recent years, I am not sure. I’ll tell you why.

I had an intensive period of contact with hundreds of adults with criminal records for about five years, starting in June 2005. The war on drugs was still a thing, though law enforcement’s main focus was on heroin and cocaine, not so much marijuana.

I reported frequently on the futile struggles of ex-offenders, mostly from the Baltimore area, in trying to find jobs after prison. The problem was related to what at the time was a high recidivism rate in Maryland – that is, the percentage of inmates who returned to the Division of Corrections within three years of their release from prison. It ranged at one point from 50% to 60%.

As you might imagine, the men who had the most trouble had the worst records – attempted murder, assault, armed robbery, theft and distribution of heroin and cocaine.

Getting arrested with weed caused problems for people trying to find work and housing. But, at least among the many ex-offenders I communicated with over the last two decades, not as much. They had more serious criminal records that scared off prospective employers and landlords.

Considering how attitudes and policies have changed in the years since then – fewer arrests for marijuana possession, the legalization of it for medical and now recreational use – I can’t imagine that a history with cannabis hurts job hunters as much these days.

I note this in light of the Gov. Wes Moore’s grand move – his pardons for thousands of Marylanders who were convicted of a marijuana possession misdemeanor. It’s good that the governor is clearing the books, and no doubt some will benefit directly from his action. And while it looks made for national headlines, Moore’s executive order erases some of the damages from the war on drugs and symbolizes the progressive thinking that has come, slowly and finally, to criminal justice, at least in this blue state.

Partly as a result of actions by the General Assembly, prison populations have fallen along with the recidivism rate.

“Since the 2018 implementation of the Justice Reinvestment Act, the lessening of penalties for some theft and drug possession offenses diverted inmates away from state incarceration,” says a report from the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. “From fiscal year 2015 to fiscal year 2022, the percentage of inmates serving sentences for these crimes within DOC custody dropped by 75% (theft) and 75% (drug offenses) respectively.”

The result of that, for the public, is a focus on inmates who committed more serious, often violent crimes.

While some of those inmates will be in prison for decades, if not life, the majority will be released at some point, and most, at least at first, will return to the communities where they started.

So, even with the progress that has been made, there’s a lot more work to be done, here and everywhere, if we want better results from the billions we pay for police, prosecutors and prisons.

The nation’s incarcerated population stands at 1.2 million, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In Maryland, we have about 15,000 inmates in prison and, at any given time, another 12,000 state residents in local jails, according to the non-profit Prison Policy Initiative.

To make reform complete, the governor should push for an overhaul of our correctional system and a restart with a fully holistic focus – that is, ensuring that inmates leave prison in better shape than when they arrived.

All prisons should be restructured to be intensely therapeutic. Hire more social workers, psychologists, life coaches and vocational specialists to change lives behind the walls.

Gestures are easy, reform is hard.

Reform means changing the way we do things, putting corrections in corrections. The governor can pardon people who got caught with marijuana; he can also turn our prisons into places that, while satisfying the demand for punishment, provide a solid second chance for men and women who got off to a bad start in life.