Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has faced a difficult six years in office. One thing he has done well, however, is change the way the state operates its criminal justice system.

There is no doubt Malloy’s legacy will largely be tied to his ability during the next two years, likely his last two years in office, to work with the legislature in restoring some semblance of fiscal stability and providing a foundation for more marked economic growth.

However, that should not diminish the fact that on the matter of how the state goes about crime and punishment, the Democratic governor has already succeeded in making Connecticut a national leader, assuring his administration will leave an imprint.

It is now well recognized on both ends of the political spectrum that the United States imprisons too many people. The U.S. has about 2.2 million people imprisoned, the highest prison population in the world. Our nation also has the highest recorded prison rate in the world at about 724 people per100,000 (a few totalitarian countries, such as North Korea, cannot be verified).

There are more jails and prisons than colleges and about 2.7 million children in the U.S. have a parent behind bars.

Much of the growth in prison populations is tied to the tough-on-crime policies, including mandatory sentencing, which surfaced in the 1980s. They are now viewed as bad public policy. Liberal may focus on the unfairness — blacks make up 40 percent of the prison population but only 13 percent of the general population — and on the heavy social toll. Republicans are more apt to point to the fiscal issues — incarceration costs taxpayers almost $70 billion annually and state spending on corrections has grown about 300 percent in the past 20 years.

Whatever the political perspective, the consensus is growing that things need to change. Malloy recognized this in gaining bipartisan support in 2015 in getting his Second Chance Society bill approved.

Since then, the number of people imprisoned in Connecticut for drug possession has dropped by 39 percent. The bill reduced the penalty for possession of drugs from a felony with a seven-year maximum sentence to a misdemeanor with a one-year maximum. This followed the decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana. The emphasis has turned to treatment.

On the day the Second Chance bill became effective, Oct. 1, 2015, there were 510 people imprisoned for drug possession. That number has dropped by more than 200, according to the Malloy administration.

It will take longer to evaluate the success of programs intended to reduce recidivism, also part of the Second Chance legislation. But they make sense. Malloy has found a strong advocate and implementer in Department of Correction Commissioner Scott Semple.

At the Cybulski Community Reintegration Center at the Willard-Cybulski Correctional Institution in Enfield, Semple has overseen the implementation of a program meant to ready inmates for release back into society. The program includes counseling and classes intended to help prisoners, near the completion of their sentences, to prepare for finding jobs, housing, and in dealing with the many decisions they will face when no one is any longer telling them what to do.

Within the program is a special unit for military veterans.

Connecticut has had a willing federal partner in support of such efforts, and still may under the new administration. President-elect Trump’s recent nominee for attorney general, U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has supported his home state’s drug courts, intended to steer first offenders into treatment programs, not prisons, and efforts to address sentencing laws that lead to racial disparities, points acknowledged by Malloy.

And while TV news and some campaign rhetoric might lead people to believe crime is rampant; in fact it is in decline. Connecticut’s crime rate is at its lowest level since 1967. The state’s 8.5 percent drop in violent crime in 2015 over the previous year was the second largest and the largest for any state with 1 million or more people.

The bottom line is that Connecticut, led by its governor, is demonstrating more humane, sensible sentencing policies can co-exist with lower crime rates.

The Day editorial board meets regularly with political, business and community leaders and convenes weekly to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Tim Dwyer, Editorial Page Editor Paul Choiniere, Managing Editor Izaskun E. Larrañeta, staff writer Erica Moser and retired deputy managing editor Lisa McGinley. However, only the publisher and editorial page editor are responsible for developing the editorial opinions. The board operates independently from the Day newsroom.