Texas prisons full by March!

The Houston Chronicle reports that Texas prisons will be full by March, requiring the state to reduce the population or contract for new beds.

Governor Perry abolished the agency that used to make such projections, and the new one charged with that task, the Legislative Budget Board, got it wrong, predicting prisons wouldn't reach capacity until October.

The article seems to push the idea of building a new prison as the only option, and speculated that Governor Perry may call for building more facilities in his January 26 State of the State speech. But that's financially unrealistic, and bad public policy. Grits has covered the topic extensively, see

• Harris County driving incarceration train
• Senate Committee: Drug courts work
• Texas Legislature does 'enhancements'
• 'We could pay for a lot of children's health insurance'
• 99 is not enough?
• Bad Solutions: List of bills increasing prison and jail time
• Prison budget smoke and mirrors

The website Solutions for Texas is entirely devoted to providing information on this subject.