Youth prison closures offer policy, budget model for TDCJ cuts

Proposals to cut the budget by closing adult prisons have been met with caution by state leaders, with state Sen. John Whitmire insisting that Texas should immunize TDCJ's budget from any reduction. Texas should only consider prison closures, he has said, if inmate numbers organically decline.

That's not the approach the Lege took at the Texas Youth Commission, though, which radically downsized in a relatively short period of time while juvenile crime declined at record rates. (We're not alone, either: AP this week reported "States closing youth prisons as arrests plunge.") Legislators should view that transition as a model for what's possible at adult prisons in the face of a massive budget shortfall.

The many recent changes at the Texas Youth Commission - facility closures, reductions in staff and inmate numbers, revamping treatment curricula - were borne of a political crisis, to be sure, and the transition was a tumultuous time of disarray for employees at the agency. But it's hard to argue with the results. Not only was Texas' youth prison inmate population cut in half, policy changes by the Lege including beefed up community supervision resources at the local level altered local decisions about which kids to send to TYC. The agency has a web page charting TYC population trends, and I thought this graphic on referrals offered a telling depiction:

New commitments in FY 2009 came in at less than half the number 10 years ago. That's an astonishing result considering juvenile crime rates are also down. What's more, average length of stay has declined:

Importantly, rather than wait for new policies enacted in 2007 to take effect, in the case of juvenile prisons Texas slashed capacity by more than half, simultaneous to changing corrections policies.

That's the model for how legislators should approach cuts at TDCJ: Don't just slash line items from the budget willy-nilly as the agency has suggested, but change state corrections policies to reduce the number of people entering prison and the resources available for meaningful community supervision, which even at beefed up levels operates at a fraction of the cost of incarceration. It's definitely possible from a practical perspective; the question is whether the budget crisis turns out to be severe enough to force such tough decisions.