Thursday, April 26, 2007

Will Budget Conferees Build New State Prisons?

Will Texas build three new medium-security prisons? The Senate said "yes" and proposed taking the money from blind children. The House said "no," relying on expanding treatment capacity and approving new alternatives to incarceration. (The Senate also approved new treatment money, but wants to build prisons, too.)

Now ten conference committee members - five each from the House and Senate - will decide whether Texas invests in new prisons or in treatment alternatives. Here's the list of conferees:
  • House: Chisum, Gattis, Turner, Guillen, and Kolkhorst
  • Senate: Ogden, Zaffirini, Whitmire, Duncan, and Williams
On the House side, Appropriations Chair Warren Chisum has made clear that chamber doesn't support new prison building when Texas can't afford to staff and safely operate the ones we have now. Reps Turner and Kolkhorst are both extremely knowledgable on Corrections topics and have been key backers of the Whitmire-Madden plan to create new alternatives to incarceration. Guillen's history offers less guidance as to how he might vote on prisons, but I'd hope he'd follow Rep. Turner's lead.

Some I've talked to assume Rep. Gattis, a former Williamson County prosecutor, will automatically back more prisons because his old boss is DA John Bradley, who's leading the DA lobby effort to reject drug treatment and stronger probation and build more lockups. But Gattis is a smart fellow, and his own man. It wouldn't surprise me if he backed the Madden-Whitmire proposal once he's looked at the facts.

If the House conferees stand firm, then Senators Zaffirini (D-Laredo) and Duncan (R-Lubbock) appear to be the key swing votes on prison building. Sen. Williams is an ardent backer of prison building, while Steve Ogden has said he believes they should be built as a "contingency." Whitmire was strong-armed into agreeing to new prisons and has repeatedly said he prefers the approach he crafted with House Corrections Chairman Jerry Madden, which is basically the House proposal.

If those positions hold, then the Senate's final stance on new prison building comes down to whether Duncan and Zaffirini support issuing a quarter-billion dollars in bonds and committing to more than $100 million in new annual debt and operating costs. In the end, I bet both of them can think of lots of things on which they'd rather spend the money. At least, I certainly hope so. Even corrections officers oppose new prison building.

The truth is, we don't need new prisons nearly as badly as we need better policies. As Grits calculated previously:
Lt. Governor David Dewhurst says we need more prisons because of "population growth." But from 1978 until 2004, the Texas prison population increased 573% (from 22,439 to 151,059), while the state's total population increased just 67% (from 13.5 million to 22.5 million).
So between 1978 and 2004, Texas prison growth outstripped population growth by a factor of 8.5 to one! And yet, crime declined less here than it did in states with much lower incarceration rates. With Texas' population booming, it's impossible to sustain a growth rate in incarceration 8 times higher, especially since Texas can't staff the prisons we have now.

Something's got to give.

6 comments:

  1. Grits, not that you don't try to be fair and balanced, it is nice to see some of the positive things that TYC has done.

    Often it is only the negative that is brought to light. It is easy for persons who are looking from the outside in to assume that TYC does more harm than good. Many of TYC's success stories rarely get attention because they leave the agency and grow up to be ordinary law abiding citizens.

    There are good staff in the agency who do make a positive and long lasting impact on youth and they should be celebrated.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Help me find the good stories and I'm happy to help promote them. I thought the art was cool. :) best,

    ReplyDelete
  3. I heard a rumor that Zaffirini's husband is a lobbyist for Geo Group. If true, that might affect her position.

    ReplyDelete
  4. On Zaffirini's husband and the GEO Group, he doesn't appear to lobby for them in Texas. I looked up GEO's lobbyists (see here), and it turns out they're both friends of mine:

    Geo Care Inc.
    One Park Place 621 N.W. 53rd Street Suite 700 Boca Raton, FL 33487

    Gilmore, Scott E. (00056410)
    502 West 13th Street Austin, TX 78701
    Type of Compensation: Prospective
    Amount: $50,000 - $99,999.99
    Client - Start: 01/03/2007 Term Date: 12/31/2007

    Heckler, Jeffrey E. (00040150)
    502 W. 13th Austin, TX 78701
    Type of Compensation: Prospective
    Amount: $50,000 - $99,999.99
    Client - Start: 02/27/2007 Term Date: 12/31/2007

    According to the state lobby lists, GEO is not employing any other representation at the Lege this year. Let's not spread any false rumors! Do you have a source on that allegation? Hopefully it's just a bad rumor - Geo has no interest in building new STATE prisons, I'd think.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Good Morning,
    As I am listening to the horrible stories of the VA Tech Shooting I could help but
    be concerned with what is happening in today's world. I also wonder if we as Citizens have helped create this problem.
    We have so much injustice on all sides of any given situation in Today's World. We create so much stress and tension and we expect so much from our Children that
    we create situations such as the one at VA Tech.
    Over 72 percent of the people in Prisons have mental or emotional problems. This creates a drug or some type of an addictive personality. If anything, the schools and the colleges need to have more help available for
    the people with Emotional problems. Jealousy and loneless are only a few of the many
    emotional problems in today's world that people accept as normal. No emotional problem that
    creates a situation in your life that is harmful to you or anyone else should be over looked. If left unchecked sooner or later a larger problem will be created.
    All we do is continue to make the laws more harsh and put people out of sight in prisons or we put them to death. This just shows those with problems that we fight violence with violence, doesn't it? If we did not have so many prisons, prison personal to pay, upkeep and maintaince,etc. we could help those with problems and perhaps stop the problems that we helped create. We have hungry Children, homeless children, no medical insurance, homeless people everywhere and perhaps more in the future with the housing problem. We have Seniors and low income people with no medical help and numerous problems. However,
    we come up with a few laws to help a few and the rest continue to go without hope. How many people must die or suffer because we refuse to see life as it really is and
    make some changes. Perhaps the answer lies in the Home and Family. We need to
    listen more, condemn less and be available for those that we Love. Stop expecting the Politicans to raise your family and we will have less of "Big Brother" and more
    Brotherly Love.
    Cho Seung-Hui was not a criminal before yesterday. He was a student with a problem. Now he also has a label and many people died. Instead of trying to figure out what is going wrong in
    today's Society, once again we are trying to put the blame on people. Fire this one,what went wrong, etc. We are to quick to want to label people and to look down
    on other's so that we can say, "Thank God I am better than they are".
    For God's sake stop the madness that makes for good TV ratings and realize that so many today have mental or emotional problems and we are creating this madness
    by our actions.
    We send people to prison to change their emotional problems and help them to be a productive member of Society. People still believe this myth today. HELLO!!! It's not working.
    Why did everyone turn their back on Cho Seung Hui and not realize that he had a problem? Someone had to have noticed his pain.
    What have we done to our World? What have we done to Society in General?Cho Seung Hui was also some Mother's Child. Today many Mother's and Father's
    and Siblings will hurt and they will never be the same again. We must ask ourselves "What have we done"? What could we have done differenlty? Instead we are looking
    to blame someone and this will ease the quilt, or will it? We must stop the name calling
    and the labels that we put on everyone today. In the news we hear names like "dirt bag,
    the "N" word, Some even love to use the labels for those in prison to rub their faces in their situation. We for years have abused other's with our thoughts, minds and our actions.
    I am Southern born and I remain in the South today. However, I feel as if we use this" Better than you attitude" too much. We must remember "except for the Grace of GOD"we or our family members could be in the same situation at any given time. We are all just one mistake away from Jail or Prison or a Hospital Good Morning,
    As I am listening to the horrible stories of the VA Tech Shooting I cannot help but
    be concerned with what is happening in today's world. I also wonder if we as Citizens
    have helped create this problem.
    We have so much injustice on all sides of any given situation in Today's World. We
    create so much stress and tension and we expect so much from our Children that
    we create situations such as the one at VA Tech.
    Over 72 percent of the people in Prisons have mental or emotional problems.
    This creates a drug or some type of an addictive personality.
    If anything, the schools and the colleges need to have more help available for
    the people with Emotional problems. Jealousy and loneless are only a few of the many
    emotional problems in today's world that people accept as normal. No emotional problem that
    creates a situation in your life that is harmful to you or anyone else should be over
    looked. If left unchecked sooner or later a larger problem will be created.
    All we do is continue to make the laws more harsh and put people out of sight in
    prisons or we put them to death. This just shows those with problems that we
    fight violence with violence, doesn't it?
    If we did not have so many prisons, prison personal to pay, upkeep and maintaince,
    etc. we could help those with problems and perhaps stop the problems that we helped
    create. We have hungry Children, homeless children, no medical insurance, homeless people everywhere and perhaps more in the future with the housing problem. We have Seniors and low
    income people with no medical help and numerous problems. However,
    we come up with a few laws to help a few and the rest continue to go without hope.
    How many people must die or suffer because we refuse to see life as it really is and
    make some changes. Perhaps the answer lies in the Home and Family. We need to
    listen more, condemn less and be available for those that we Love. Stop expecting
    the Politicans to raise your family and we will have less of "Big Brother" and more
    Brotherly Love.
    Cho Seung-Hui was not a criminal before yesterday. He was a student. Now he also has a label and many people died yesterday. Instead of trying to figure out what is going wrong in
    today's Society, once again we are trying to put the blame on people. Fire this one,
    what went wrong, etc. We are to quick to want to label people and to look down
    on other's so that we can say, "Thank God I am better than they are".
    For God's sake stop the madness that makes for good TV ratings and realize that
    so many today have mental or emotional problems and we are creating this madness
    by our actions.
    We send people to prison to change their emotional problems and help them to
    be a productive member of Society. People still believe this joke today.
    Please read the following article from Texas and perhaps you will understand why
    some people give up and decide it is best to end it all or to just stay in Prison, etc.
    The only problem being the fact that if a person has nothing to lose, they will take
    more with them when they leave this earth. Why did everyone turn their back on
    Cho Seung Hui and not realize that he had a problem? Someone had to have
    noticed his pain.
    What have we done to our World? What have we done to Society in General?
    Cho Seung Hui was also some Mother's Child. Today many Mother's and Father's
    and Siblings will hurt and they will never be the same again. We must ask ourselves
    What have we done? What could we have done differenlty? Instead we are looking
    to blame someone and this will ease the quilt, or will it? We must stop the name calling
    and the labels that we put on everyone today. In the news we hear names like "dirt bag,
    the "N" word, Some even love to use the labels for those in prison to rub their faces
    in their situation. We for years have abused other's with our thoughts, minds and our
    actions.
    I am Southern born and I remain in the South today. However, I feel as if we use this
    " Better than you attitude" too much. We must remember "except for the Grace of GOD"
    we or our family members could be in the same situation at any given time. We are all
    just one mistake away from Jail or Prison or a Hospital or being homeless, etc.
    We must stop the pain of Abuse in America today.
    or being homeless, etc.
    We must stop the pain of Abuse in America today.
    Mollie Johnson

    ReplyDelete