Connecticut began the year with its lowest prison population in 18 years and the welcome likelihood that the trend will continue. This is due both to a reduction in crime and a more enlightened policy on incarceration in the state and the nation.

Then there was the news that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy intends to propose that Connecticut become part of what is known as a "second chance society," dedicated to finding jobs for ex-offenders and further reducing recidivism rates that are already falling.

This state and many others have come a long way from the "tough on crime" response to the dramatic increase in criminal behavior associated with the sale and use of illegal drugs in the last decades of the 20th century. It was a response that led to imprisonment for many convicted of low-level and nonviolent crimes and the imposition of mandatory sentences that replaced judicial discretion and often resulted in injustice.

There is no question that the spike in violent crime here and across the nation that prompted the explosion of prison populations was real, with much of it caused by the greater use of crack cocaine. But an overreaction, ranging from imprisonment for using even small amounts of marijuana to those extreme three-strikes laws, filled the prisons to overflowing.

The crackdown, as reform tends to do, came a bit late. Violent crime had peaked, according to numerous studies reported in mid-January by The New York Times, by the time President Clinton signed the most far-reaching crime bill in American history. The 1994 law offered billions of dollars to the states to hire more police, build more prisons and fill them with violent and nonviolent criminals.

These studies indicate most of the credit for the crime reduction goes not to the tough-on-crime laws, but to what experts call a revolution in urban policing, in which officers began to concentrate on high-crime areas.

Some also credit such factors as curtailing open-air drug selling and even the aging of the population, low inflation and the decline in early childhood lead exposure.

Whatever the multiple reasons, it is undeniable that even before the increased imprisonment of nonviolent criminals, mandatory sentences and other tough-on-crime reforms began to show results, the crime epidemic had begun to wind down. Since then, murders, robberies and assaults have been cut in half.

New York City had 2,245 homicides in 1990 and 328 in 2014; Washington dropped from 474 murders in 1990 to 104 last year and even Chicago, with its highly publicized gang related shootings, had 388 homicides last year, down from a peak of 928 in 1994.

There were 86 murders in Connecticut in 2013, the lowest number since the 86 murders in the state in 1969, nearly a half century ago. All crimes in Connecticut decreased 23.7 percent between 2009 and 2013, the last year available for such statistics.

Connecticut has already made some modest reforms in recent years, notably the Risk Reduction Earned Credit program that allows prison inmates to earn their way out of prison early by taking part in education and training programs and anger management.

Those convicted of murder, home invasions and sexual assault are not eligible, but 21,000 prisoners who have participated since the law's enactment have been released early.

The program came under fire after Frankie Resto, two months after his release from prison in April 2012, shot and killed 70-year-old Ibrahim Ghazal during a convenience store robbery in Meriden. Mr. Resto, however, had served 90 percent of his earlier sentence and benefited little from the program.

All the evidence, especially a continued decrease in crime, points to the program's success and tossing out the program because of one incident, albeit a terrible one, would be a mistake.

The state also repealed a law that had treated 16- and 17-year-old criminals as adults, taking 16-year-olds out of the adult system in 2010 and 17-year-olds in 2012. The legislature has decriminalized the use of small amounts of marijuana and there is some likelihood that further decriminalization of the drug may not be far in the future.

It all adds up to a growing realization that it makes not only societal sense, but also fiscal sense, to reduce the prison population by focusing the use of long-term imprisonment on violent offenders.

We applaud Gov. Malloy for indicating his intent to devote more time and capital to further reforming criminal justice in Connecticut.