Political correctness won't cut Texas' prison population

A pair of researchers from UT's Institute of Urban Policy Research and Analysis suggested in a Fort Worth Star-Telegram op ed last week that "Reinforcing a national narrative that celebrates the success of the Texas model [of probation and parole reform] spreads harmful misinformation about the ability of fiscal austerity designs to substantively reduce incarceration and racial disproportionality."

Regular readers know Grits is sympathetic to criticisms that de-incarceration proponents overstate the import of the 2007 reforms dubbed "the Texas model" (see here, e.g.). Those changes happened eight years ago and, until the state raised thresholds for property theft this spring to adjust for inflation, there hadn't been another significant bill to stem incarceration since then. Like an aging high-school jock reliving former glory, there are only so many times folks want to hear about how great you were back in the day. Boasts about the "Texas model" exude a whiff of that sort of dated self aggrandizement and deserve rebuttal.

But it's also wrong to say those reforms failed because the state did not "reduc[e] the number of people Texas incarcerates" or that the reforms were solely rooted in "fiscal austerity." That lacks historical context.

For starters, those reforms included more than $200 million per biennium in new money for treatment and diversion programming, which hardly bespeaks fiscal austerity. That's a significant investment which the Legislature has sustained, if not added to, in subsequent sessions.

And to criticize the reforms for not reducing incarceration ignores the situation faced by Texas state leaders at the time. Dating from the period when Ann Richards and a Democratic controlled Legislature nearly tripled the size of the prison system, Texas' prison population had been on an uninterrupted upward trajectory and was predicted to add 17,000 more prisoners to its bloated rolls between 2007 and 2012. Instead, the prison population declined slightly overall since then, creating the opportunity to close three prisons for the first time in the state's history.

That's no small thing, in this writer's view, even if there's far more to be done.

Grits considers it wrong and counterproductive to downplay the importance of halting prison population growth or reducing incarceration rates. The real, more substantive criticism to me is that, afterward, our politicians rested on their laurels and joined the national speakers' circuit to pat themselves on the back instead of doubling down and finishing the job over the subsequent eight years.

I was also non-plussed to read the suggestion that reform efforts are "best led by the experts — those who have experienced incarceration themselves, together with their families." Really? Who are these inmates and inmate-family groups who will devise de-incarceration policies that our Republican legislature will enact? This is a politically correct throwaway line, not a serious comment. While there are a handful of former inmates who are capable of participating in the process at the conservative Texas Legislature and understand what will move Republican lawmakers, most struggle just to find employment, meet parole requirements, and keep their heads above water. Insisting that only ex-inmates are qualified to lead reform efforts sets the project up to fail.

Worse, that stance allows more mainstream constituencies to abdicate responsibility. Folks in the free world - mostly Democrats,  as a matter of historical fact - created the laws and policies which spawned mass incarceration in Texas, and those of us in the free world must take responsibility for reversing it. This can't just be something that's mainly the problem of incarcerated people and their families. We need conservative leaders, progressive leaders, and community activists; we need law enforcement leaders, thoughtful prosecutors, lawyers, and policy wonks; we need lots and lots of enthusiastic people with good ideas from all walks of life. Mass incarceration is not just a prisoners' problem.

Grits also isn't a fan of the authors' "call for racial impact statements for all criminal justice policies, practices and proposals." With certain notable exceptions like the drug war and police interactions at traffic stops, I don't find it constructive nor useful to view most criminal justice policy through a racial frame. Do I consider the justice system color-blind? Of course not. But neither do I see every prisoner as a victim of the system and I'm sympathetic to folks in minority communities who are disproportionately victims of crime and deserve protection.

According to Politifact, for example, "young black men, ages 14 to 24, suffer disproportionately from murder. While the numbers have been falling since the mid-1990s, in 2008 about 16 percent of homicide victims were young and black. As a group, they represented just 1 percent of the population." And since overwhelmingly most of those murders are committed by other young black men, in truth some disproportionality in prison populations is entirely reasonable, even if it's not politically correct to say so. (Grits sympathizes more with a racial disproportionality critique if one cabins discussion to the drug war, where differences in incarceration rates are far less defensible.)

I suppose I'm arguing for a dose of realism when it comes to de-incarceration, mainly because I want it to actually happen instead of just talking about it. There are systemic stakeholders - cops, prosecutors, judges, probation departments, the prison system, and of course the politicians in charge of it all - who can be ignored in an op ed but not in the legislative/policy arena.

This column, however well-intended, charts a path for reform which leads down a dead-end.

Texas' 2007 reforms were important but should be viewed as a first step, not a final result.  Much more remains to be done and there appear to be legislators in both parties who intend to try, as evidenced by juvie de-incarceration and the successful effort to adjust property thresholds for inflation.  So while I agree with many of the authors' aims in this column, greater strategic and tactical acumen will be necessary to accomplish those goals.