Prison reform in particular seems to be one of those things folks educated on the prison system (or even just close to it) are in favor of, but folks who don't

Prison reform in particular seems to be one of those things folks educated on the prison system (or even just close to it) are in favor of, but folks who don't interact with it at all believe for whatever reason that it's fine and any attempts to make it better is immediately equivalent to making things "easier" on prisoners which sets up a knee-jerk negative reaction. The leadership was probably afraid that even a bipartisan effort would be vehemently opposed by a vocal minority as soft on crime, anti-LE, or something else.