tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post115038550167719907..comments2024-03-25T20:06:39.794-05:00Comments on Grits for Breakfast: House Corrections Committee Chairman Jerry Madden promotes solutions for Texas' overincarceration crisisGritsforbreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152152869466958902noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-1150461393887896442006-06-16T07:36:00.000-05:002006-06-16T07:36:00.000-05:00:-) Got me. That's actually right. Maybe LBB's inm...:-) Got me. That's actually right. Maybe LBB's inmate projections are okay and the phony budget estimates are my real beef (most fiscal notes for sentence increases are zero, no matter how many new inmates would be incarcerated - the note on HB 151 was a true rarity). <BR/><BR/>On private prisons, let's review. 2,250 beds would cost $36 million per year to rent at $16,000 per year, with per bed costs rising slightly over time. So in six years you'd have spent the equivalent of building a new prison unit. But if you'd built a new unit, then per-prisoner costs decline in the future - if you're renting space as your policy, not just as a stopgap until populations can be reduced through probation reforms, etc., you're paying out than annual amount ad infinitum. Best,Gritsforbreakfasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10152152869466958902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-1150411417419196432006-06-15T17:43:00.000-05:002006-06-15T17:43:00.000-05:00It seems from your links like it's not LBB's inmat...It seems from your links like it's not LBB's inmate population projections you dispute so much as the budget costs they assign to those inmates, am I right? They said HB 151 would add 700 new prisoners, for example, they just didn't give it a fiscal note big enough to pay for 700 new beds. That seems like a long-ago routinized political favor for the bill author, but it doesn't necessarily indict LBB's prison population projections.<BR/><BR/>Also if a new prison would cost $250 million, why not just lease private prison space? It'd be a lot cheaper in the short run. That's a lot of scratch!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com