Charles Koch: We Support Obama's Criminal Justice Reforms

Oil tycoon Charles Koch on Tuesday said that he is calling for criminal justice reform and changes to the nation's drug and criminal justice laws, as he believes the government uses "too much force" to control its population.

"We need force to defend the country, protect people's personal property and [against] other bad acts," Koch told MSNBC "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. "But since we have in this country 5 percent of the world's population, but 25 percent of the world's prison population, to me it's clear we're using too much force."

Part of the reason for the high prison populations, said Koch, are the nation's drug laws.

"I've been at this for almost 50 years, and we need to change these drug laws," he said in the wide-ranging interview. "I may not be as radical as I used to be. As you get older, you tend not to be. But we need to start by decriminalizing more of it, because somebody goes to jail and they get out and no one will hire them, and so what do they do? The only way they survive is to go back to crime. So we've got to change that if we want to break this cycle of poverty and dependency."

Mark Holden, senior counsel for Koch Industries, later told the program that it "really shouldn't be that controversial" that Charles and David Koch support President Barack Obama in his push for criminal justice reform.

"It needs to be a bipartisan effort because we know we got into this mess in the criminal justice system in a bipartisan way," Holden told the show. "The reforms in the Senate reform bill are reforms that have worked in dozens of states, including red states, Georgia, Texas, and the reality is in those states they've reduced incarceration, reduced spending and they've reduced crime and it's helped people rebuild their lives and have a second chance, which is so important in our society."

Koch also railed about the nation's educational system, saying it does not provide the disadvantaged with the values and skills that are needed for success.

And his father, who pushed the importance of work on both Koch and his brother David, gave him the tools for success.

"I had to do every dirty job," he said, referencing Mike Rowe, the television "Dirty Jobs" host who pushes the importance of hard work. "People don't realize what you learn by work. You learn discipline. You learn, gosh, this is hard, I want to be more efficient at it. You learn to improve, you learn to work with other people, you learn how to benefit. We've got to do this dirty job, let's help each other and so on."

Koch also spoke about his new book, "Good Profit: How Creating Value for Others Built One of the World's Most Successful Companies."

"This is a profit that comes from contributing to society, from helping other people improve their lives," he said in the interview. "And for a business, this means producing products and services that your customers value more than the alternatives, while more efficiently using resources and being among the safest and environmentally protective producer."

He also said he hopes to get the attention of business people, to inform them they can be successful "by focusing on creating real value for your customers in society rather than thinking, 'God, they're a pesky lot, these customers.'"

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