Lawmakers want to reinstate the Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council, an agency line-item vetoed in 2003 by Governor Perry that generated statistical analysis available nowhere else on Texas' criminal justice system.
I hope he lets them; it should never have been abolished. Quotes from the Governor's office in the newspaper seemed awfully noncommittal. ("Plan to revive Criminal Justice Policy Council," Austin Statesman, June 7)
Led by the estimable Dr. Tony Fabelo, the 24 staff people at CJPC always knew much more than prison operators at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice about who was in Texas prisons, how they got there, why they left, what were the trends, etc.. (See this Texas Observer interview with Fabelo, and this recent item he wrote for the Texas Prosecutor.) The CJPC's decades of collective experience was replaced by four people at the Legislative Budget Board, an agency which for decades has told the Texas Legislature it could incarcerate as many people as it wanted and it would never affect the budget.
I'm sure they couldn't get Fabelo back - once burned twice shy. He's parlayed his experience working for the state into a healthy consulting business. But somebody needs to be playing that role. Texas' byzantine criminal justice system supervises one in twenty adults statewide and is too complex to operate without solid data. Lawmakers right now are basically flying blind.
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6 comments:
Do your damn homework. The new team at the LBB has MUCH more experience with Texas criminal justice than Fabelo ever had, and Fabelo's information sucked, that's why his little data whore ass was axed. Also, the LBB's new criminal justice team has just released a report (public on Monday)that gives the Leg. all the information they need. You don't have any idea what you are talking about, and if you have any balls you will leave this comment up and look into what I'm saying.
Hint- If the CJPC's data was so good, why did they always refuse to publish the methodology for their collection and analysis of data. Fabelo pulled numbers out of his ass to match the political needs of those in power. Go ahead, find ONE number that Fabelo ever put out that can be validated. I dare you.
I doubt the LBB team would claim to have more experience than Fabelo, since they don't.
What'd he get right? Fabelo predicted Texas' prison overincarceration crisis, and in response Governor Perry axed his agency in an act of killing the messenger. Fabelo said Texas had to spend more money to either build new units or fix the probation system, and Perry wanted to cut budgets and taxes instead. Fabelo was right. Perry was wrong.
On why they didn't "publish" their methodology - a) I think that's wrong, and b) you have to understand what they're working with. The raw data about Texas prisoners from TDCJ is garbage and what comes from the courts and police is frequently incomplete and innaccurate. You can't use the topline data that's available to make hard estimates in many cases - it has to be substantially re-coded and/or adjusted in a variety of ways to be valid. I think it's true Fabelo and his crew made educated guesses to gloss over some of those data shortcomings, but there is often no other way. If you don't do that, you can't get a number. I've disagreed with Fabelo's methodology before - sometimes face to face - but he certainly had one.
That said, I've never seen an LBB fiscal note on prison costs that was accurate - all of them claim dozens, hundreds, even thousands more people could be incarcerated essentially for free. I'll take Fabelo's estimates over that schtick any day.
Geez. A little bitter perhaps? Your post lacks supporting evidence. Let's examine this analytically. What is your methodology for your claim that four LBB staff have more experience than all of the folks who have been at CJPC and stayed with CJPC? I'd love to see you prove this.
It's pretty presumptuous to state that the LBB's new report "gives the Leg. all the information they need". True, LBB is doing the basic population information for probation, parole, prison, etc., but the research and creation of the data by the CJPC with these agencies doesn't deserve such harsh words.
I would be interested in your evidence that Fabelo "refused to publish his methodology for their collection and analysis of data." Anyone with knowledge of Texas' justice agencies and their information systems, and anyone who would bother to actually ask the staff or Fabelo, would be able to figure it out.
Finally, if Fabelo was "pulling numbers out of his ass to match the political needs of those in power", I doubt that he would have gotten line item vetoed. Have you ever thought that maybe he wouldn't change the numbers to match political desires???
Please watch your language when you post. I hope you don't use this attitude when working with the Lege. Your demise would soon follow.
Geez. A little bitter perhaps? Your post lacks supporting evidence. Let's examine this analytically. What is your methodology for your claim that four LBB staff have more experience than all of the folks who have been at CJPC and stayed with CJPC? I'd love to see you prove this.
It's pretty presumptuous to state that the LBB's new report "gives the Leg. all the information they need". True, LBB is doing the basic population information for probation, parole, prison, etc., but the research and creation of the data by the CJPC with these agencies doesn't deserve such harsh words.
I would be interested in your evidence that Fabelo "refused to publish his methodology for their collection and analysis of data." Anyone with knowledge of Texas' justice agencies and their information systems, and anyone who would bother to actually ask the staff or Fabelo, would be able to figure it out.
Finally, if Fabelo was "pulling numbers out of his ass to match the political needs of those in power", I doubt that he would have gotten line item vetoed. Have you ever thought that maybe he wouldn't change the numbers to match political desires???
Please watch your language when you post. I hope you don't use this attitude when working with the Lege. Your demise would soon follow.
"Please watch your language when you post. I hope you don't use this attitude when working with the Lege."
I certainly agree, and hope you realize you're responding to an anonymous commenter, not to the blog's author. (Actually I'm 98% sure it's the ex-drug task force officer who's made himself Grits' resident troll.) I do some stuff at the Lege, but the odds of any random anonymous commenter doing so seems slim. Best,
My! Such anger and vulgarity! The greatest vulgarity, however is the failure of “anonymous” to mention that a methodology seems to be included on the CJPC reports. The charges against CJPC lack substance and the personal attacks on Fabelo indicate a lack of professionalism and a disregard for constructive dialogue.
James Ira Connolly
The Woodlands, TX
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