TDCJ budget cut discussions ignore savings from possible prison closures

The Texas House Appropriations Committee yesterday gave Department of Criminal Justice director Brad Livingston a pass on whether prison closures should be part of his agency's budget cutting strategies.

He walked the committee through his list of suggested budget cuts (pdf), but legislators allowed these very politicized proposals to frame the terms of debate. To hear Livingston tell it, legislators face a choice between two options: a) doing nothing or b) slashing treatment and diversion programming that has kept Texas' prison population down. (See the video here. Livingston's testimony begins about the 1:40:00 mark.)

Livingston told the committee TDCJ had proposed cuts to "every single function of the agency," but that's not actually true: The one option he didn't suggest - the enormous elephant in the room that nobody mentioned - is cutting into the 80% of TDCJ's budget which goes toward operating 112 prison units, some of them more than 100 years old and highly inefficient. But TDCJ proposed NO prison unit closures as a means to cut the budget, and nobody asked him about the topic yesterday.

TDCJ did suggest (but recommended against) closing 817 private beds, but so far, TDCJ spokesperson Michelle Lyons told me recently, they've not identified which unit's numbers would be reduced. Bottom line, though: Prisons are mainly what TDCJ spends its money on, and prospects for budget cuts are marginal if all suggestions ignore 80% of their budget!

Since TDCJ won't broach the issue, proposing only disingenuous, untenable cuts that they know legislators can't accept, it'll be up to the Legislature to set the agency's priorities for them. If budget writers can summon the wisdom and political courage, the best route would be to boost funding for community supervision and strengthen probation instead of cutting it, as Livingston's 5% proposal would do.

The smartest way to cut Texas' corrections budget is sending more defendants through diversion programs and closing a targeted handful of our most expensive, unsecure, or understaffed prison units.

See related Grits posts:

• Private prison contract renewals may cost Texas additional millions
  
• Which prison units should Texas close? Private contracts, security concerns may factor in
  
• Dallas, Sugarland locals to TDCJ: Move, please
  
• TDCJ proposes 5% budget cuts
  
• An 'unrepentant, hard-right conservative' was 'forced to agree' with prison diversion 'based on the facts'
  
• Correa: Preserve diversion funding, cut prisons to reduce TDCJ's budget
  
• Sugarland's Central Unit near top of possible closure list
  
• Texas' criminal justice challenge in 2010: Find solutions to coming budget crunch
  
• Might 2011 budget crunch bring TX prison closures?
• As 2011 budget crisis looms, should most expensive prison units be closed?
• Data on TDCJ unit age and cost
• As 2011 budget crisis looms, should most expensive prison units be closed?
  
• States slashing spending costs, closing units
• Some states actually shutting down prison units
• Emptying prisons makes Wired magazine's 'Smart List'
• California's partisan prison meltdown: Why Texas didn't go there
• Good news for once: Texas among national leaders at reducing incarceration rate
• Pew: One in 22 adult Texans under control of criminal justice system