This is not journalism: Recapping Grits coverage of Texas criminal justice committees' interim reports

The Texas Legislature has adjourned until Monday. With the politicians gone and the freeze momentarily lifted, Austin almost seems to be breathing a collective sigh of relief. Or maybe it's dread. In any event, it's a welcome and unexpected pause in capitol action.

On such a day, perhaps it's a nice opportunity to review the major issues on criminal justice that face the Legislature when it returns on Monday. So with apologies to Kimberly Reeves for the headline, I wanted to recap Grits' recent analyses of interim reports from Texas standing legislative committees on criminal justice issues facing the 80th Texas Legislature:

TDCJ Sunset Advisory Commission Report

• Evaluating Texas Corrections: Links to TDCJ Sunset Commission coverage

Senate Criminal Justice Committee

• Understaffing at youth lockups caused skyrocketing abuse rates
• Number of mentally ill inmates, parolees rising
• Senate committee weighs prison alternatives
• Somebody please get Sen. Estes a copy of the Texas Constitution
• Whitmire: Texas may turn two juvie facilities into adult prisons
• 80th Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee membership

House Corrections Committee

• House Corrections Committee looks to private prisons to expand capacity
• House Corrections: Community based treatment more effective for sex offenders

See also Grits' coverage of an instructive House Corrections Committee interim hearing in March:

• House Corrections Highlights
• Juvenile justice bashed and defended
• Advocates: Texas needs stronger probation
• More Texans on probation than any other state
• Criminal Justice Gets Preview of Legislature's return

House Criminal Jurisprudence Commitee

• Lawyers, Guns and Money: The House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee interim report

House Law Enforcement Committee

• What happened to children seized under Texas' new meth law?
• Real ID Act a real boondoggle for states

Senate Transportation and Homeland Security

• Homeland security committee bases border proposals on bogus crime stats
• Senate committees disagree on border security effectiveness

House Judiciary Committee

• Do Journalists Need a Shield Law? Do Reporters S#*t in the woods?

SEE ALSO:

• Retrospective: Top ten Texas criminal justice stories of 2006
• Fantastic Fiscal Flip Flop bad news for prison builders
• A real public safety agenda for Texas
  
• Texas criminal justice legislation to watch
• House Research Organization studies on red light cameras, sex offenders, and immigration
• Are conservatives undergoing a "jailhouse conversion" on criminal justice

Just a reminder: If you missed any of this earlier coverage you can recieve an email each morning with the previous days' Grits posts (you can unsubscribe at any time). Just enter your email here and hit the button:

Subscribe to Grits for Breakfast:

Powered by FeedBlitz

Thanks for reading. :)