Rep. Scott Hochberg proposed an excellent idea at yesterday's House Corrections Committee as committee members were grilling witnesses trying to get to the bottom of data surrounding which counties sent how many offenders to state jail facilities and the related recidivism rates.
Office of Court Administration chief Carl Reynolds had suggested that the state needed a "systematic, ongoing" way to analyze criminal justice data along the lines of Dr. Tony Fabelo's now-defunct Criminal Justice Policy Council.
Hochberg said that every session there are "a whole raft of questions" being asked by the Lege and outside organizations but there's never any simple way to get at the answers. He suggested building "a repository of data that people could access to be researched without every request having to go" to each individual agency - some sort of "public data warehouse" of de-identified public data. "It's a drain on the agencies every time you have to go to them and go through a data request," said the Houston rep.
Hochberg said providing data to people outside the system helps solve the problem that you don't "find the things you don't know you're looking for" unless "you have that data out there and people are pawing through it." In particular, he said the same model has been successfull regarding data about public schools, resulting in helpful and insightful analyses by group's like Texas Appleseed, he said, who crunched the data in different ways and helped identify problems and solutions. Hochberg suggested the committee's interim report include recommendations regarding access to information.
From a blogger's perspective I love Hochberg's idea. In fact, if they're going to do it, I'd suggest the committee get assistance from researchers like Dr. Fabelo, UT-Austin's criminal justice data guru Bill Spelman or the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Marc Levin to identify what data and formats would be especially useful and probative.
There are many organizations and interests who participate in public policy debates on these subjects. Put information out there that's useful and I'll guarantee it would get used. For my part, if they create such a thing I'll certainly pledge to "paw through" the data.
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5 comments:
I watched and listened to the House Hearing Thursday the 21st and to me Mark Levin and Allan Place stated the facts. The punishment doled out by our courts is not consistent with the incident and the terms of punishment do need to be looked at. Everyone is to blame, especially the Judges and District Attorneys who simply want to win and don't take into consideration what they are actually doing to the lives of families and the person who is indicted with a crime. If there was no one hurt and then this should be taken into the facts and used. There are accidents that happen and why punish everyone who has an accident and is truly sorry for the mistake. That is right; mistake.
The Criminal Justice System in Texas and probably more states is out of control and needs to be completely sanitized and started again. This time, use some common sense and try helping people with problems instead of just punishing them, this tends to take away what self confidence some have and those who don't does further damage to.
The entire criminal sentence process in Texas is full of inconsistencies.
The crime you're accused of and the punishment is all tied to the county you are in. With 210 Counties, the result is a lot of variation that defeats the goals of punishment as a deterrant.
It is all about what the DA or Judge had for lunch and how much heartburn pain he has when you show up.
Information from a database would be a great start toward cleaning this mess up.
Perhaps a model to look at for inspiration would be helpful.
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8/23/2008 10:46:00 AM I agree. There alot of lower courts and trial judges that hold personal vendettas and punish according to their "feel" or "assumption" and it lands alot of innocent people in jail and prisons. Absolutely I Mark Levin and Allan Place stated the facts. The punishment doled out by our courts is not consistent with the incident and the terms of punishment and need to be looked at. Judges and District Attorneys are not whole nor innocent in this processes. I am certain with that checks and balance at the lower level...it would free up the appeals and higher courts and hold accountability to a higher standard and just maybe us tax payers won't be paying for innocent people to be incarcerated or juveniles to be raped in a system.
The Criminal Justice System in Texas and probably more states is out of control. That is why that one governor reversed those on death row to life in prison. He said "the sytem is broke". I am glad he enough gumption to say it and try to do what he could. This time, use some common sense and stop trying to be the hunter and executioner, but being a coward state or a coward DA and hide evidence or hide behind "the people". If anyone was truly listening to "the people" I am certain TYC and TDCJ would not be in the hot mess they are in. Yes, lets try helping people with problems instead of just punishing them, and just maybe give a chance to those convicted of felons versus automatically re-condemning them would be novel.
the DA's will revoke on tecnical violations so as not to have a full blown trial on the new arrest. It then appears that the probationers were revoked on "TECHNICAL VIOLATIONS" instead of breaking new laws. What's worse is that in these cases Probation Departments are PENALIZED in funding! Go figure......
Bexar County, TX
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