House Corrections bills would shuffle agencies authority

As of today there are 44 calendar days left in the 80th Texas Legislature, so this is likely the final week that bills can receive a first hearing and still have a chance to pass. There may be a handful of exceptions - legislative priorities of the leadership, for example - but for the most part if bills haven't been heard in committee yet after this week, they simply won't have time to make it all the way through the process. After this week, most of the important committee action will occur on house bills in the Senate and senate bills in the House.

But for now, House committees may fruitfully still hear House bills. I'm behind in this week's committee previews, but let's run though the highlights, for starters, of tommorrow's Texas House Corrections Committee agenda.

Revamping TYC, Creating Inspector General
Probably the most hot-button issue on the list is Chairman Madden's HB 2807, which would revamp TYC's inmate population by disallowing judges to sentence misdemeanants there and maxing out youths length of stay at age 19. I discussed the bill in more detail earlier when it was posted on last week's agenda but wasn't heard because of delays on the House floor.

In related TYC news, the committee will hear Rep. Turner's HB 3639, which creates an office of Inspector General over for both TYC and TDCJ that will "review departmental policy and procedures, conduct audits of investigatory practices and other audits, and conduct investigations of the Departments." Investigations could be initated at the request of the agencies, a member of the Legislature, or on the Inspector General's own volition.

Don't backtrack on probation funding reforms
Rep. Homer has proposed HB 3526 which I think should be vetted quite closely and probably just killed outright. Here's the deal: In 2005, the Legislature approved extra funds for probation departments that created special sanctions systems for probationers using research based best practices. Departments that didn't want to implement progressive sanctions systems couldn't apply for the money. Rep. Homer's bill would allow those funds to be used for "expansion of an existing program that is operated by a department, not otherwise described by this section, and designed to reduce recidivism among individuals that participate in the program."

But the point of the new funds was to get departments to change how they're doing business, not to reinforce old habits. The language about programs aimed at reducing recidivism sounds good, but the truth is most such programs don't work well without the research-based progressive sanctions methodologies that TDCJ's probation grants promote. I'm sure the counties would like to get paid for what they're already doing, but the Lege should stick with the system they created last year and give it a chance to work.

Strengthening TDCJ employee grievance process
Rep. Alonzo's HB 2673 should be a welcome bill for TDJC employees. It requires the TDCJ board to establish a "Professional Standards and Labor Oversight Committee," and mandates specific reforms to the employee grievance process that would ensure timely action and a process for appeal and forbid retaliation against those who complain.

Her name is RIO and she dances on the sand
Rep. Turner's HB 3637 would transfer control of Project RIO, which stands for Re-Integration of Offenders - the main employment program for ex offenders in the state. I definitely approve of giving control to TDCJ, and have argued before that parole officers should have the same authority to grant employer credits for hiring ex-offenders whereas the Workforce Commission contracts that duty to a private company that gets a finders fee.

Researching communicable disease prevention in prisons and jails
I'm happy to see Rep. Coleman's HB 2526 make it onto this week's Corrections list. That bill would establish a research center at a Texas medical school that will "focus its efforts at preventing and reducing communicable diseases in inmate populations at correctional facilities and in those populations that are most likely to come in contact with inmates in a correctional environment." That's a key, understudied area of research and I'd be glad to see a Texas university take leadership on the subject. As I write this, AIDS is the number one killer in Texas prisons, and both TDCJ and local jails have major problems with staph infections and other preventable diseases. It'd be a great mitzvah for an academic center to develop research-based approaches to solving these problems.

UPDATE: See coverage of the hearing here and here.