This is a good sign,
via the Statesman's Mike Ward:
State prison officials, their initial budget-cutting plans rejected by legislative leaders, have shuffled the deck and come up with a new proposal to cut more administrative jobs and close two prisons earlier than planned as a way to save $50 million.
The revised plan, provided to Senate and House leaders yesterday, would lay off an additional 400 administrative workers at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and move up the planned closure of the 1,000-bed Central Unit near Sugar Land to sometime before Aug. 31.
In addition, 500 beds at the 2,100-bed Mineral Wells Unit — a private contract prison for convicts who are soon to be paroled — would be closed by August.
TDCJ still plans to eliminate some treatment capacity and Project RIO, the job assistance/reentry program, as part of its 2.5% cuts, which must be implemented in the current fiscal year. And there's an extent to which Mineral Wells and the Central Unit were the easy first calls regarding prison closures. Future decisions will get tougher. Still, it's a hopeful sign to see legislators pressing the agency to close prisons to preserve treatment programming:
Added Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, a member of a Senate working group on corrections spending: “We sent them on a mission to come up with $50 million in cuts that wouldn’t adversely impact parole and probation and (treatment) programs … and they did a good job.”
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15 comments:
Nostalgia makes me hate to see the old Central Unit go. Growing up in Harris County my first awareness of TDC as a child was driving through Sugarland watching the inmates chopping cotton while shotgun-toting guards watched. Our next door neighbor had been a guard--resting his shotgun down on the toe of his boot, he shot his toe off. Quit guarding and took up fishing after that.
In that high dollar area now, it certainly has outlived its usefulness.
Sounds like your neighbor took up fishing a little late.
Charles in Tulia
"resting his shotgun down on the toe of his boot, he shot his toe off."
A TDC guard hit something with his gun? I'm imPRESSED !!! (saccasm iis one of my better virtues). I wonder if later, he caught himself with a fishing hook??
If the mandate was to make cuts "without adversly impacting parole, probation and (treatment) programs" then how is a proposal that includes cutting Project Rio seen as "doing a good job?"
I doubt the Lege knew this, but as a "veteran" of the system, I can tell you that most of project RIO is a joke. Of the three times they were supposed to get my birth certificate and S.S. card for me upon my release, they succeeded only once, and only managed to get my SS card. The people employed by the state/department of C.J. for project RIO are only a Deli thin cut above the kind of trash they employ as guards. Wages have a lot to do with it, but I honestly think that program is/was a waste of money as I never saw it really help anyone. It was as ineffective as their Correctional Managed Care is at properly diagnosing illnesses. I'm trying not to be bitter, and I'm really not, I'm just telling you what I've seen/experienced firsthand.
I have tried to help several ex-cons use the Project Rio program over the last 10 years. Worthless!! Poor attitude of workers, do not really offer anything of value, no job referrals ever came from Rio. This is truly a good program to cut, since it provides NO service whatsoever.
Oh wait, I forgot the one time Project Rio had an offering. They sent a guy to a "contraction skills" training. This training literally consisted of a demonstration of how to use a tape measure! That was it. Nothing else. And, of course, they had NO job referrals and referred him to the Workforce Commission.
Rats! That was supposed to be "construction skills" in that post before.
Anonymous @02:03:00 again, I've since picked a name. Anyway, Another thing about Project RIO. Many Parole officers DEMAND that their "clients", (I've always hated that term), go and register with project RIO, even if they are already employed. I had an officer in 2006 who threatened me with revocation if I didn't go there and sign up. I was working about 50 hours a week at the time. Sign up why? For what purpose other than giving me yet another worthless hoop to jump through. While many offenders on parole won't do the right thing under any circumstance, I was doing the right thing and felt pretty good about it. It was my P.O.'s constant nagging and threatening, coupled with her extreme lack of education and intelligence that made it much easier for me to make the decision to abscond. My offenses were all non-violent, drug related, and are misdemeanors in roughly 50% of the country that I deem to be more enlightened. As for the program at the Hamilton Unit, I've no experience with the others, it doesn't help anyone and programs of that nature had only a 6% success rate when I was there. IMHO, SAFP type programs don't do any good at actually helping substance abusers stop their self-destructive behaviors unless/until they themselves are ready to change. Current programs within the system are, in my opinion, a complete waste of money. If it weren't for these budget crunches and shortfalls, there would NEVER be any changes to this system that is the pride of this godforsaken state's bumper stickers. Believe you me, I won't "Mess with Texas" ever again, but not because of anything I learned in any program I was forced into by the state, parole board or TDCJ. As for project RIO... Good Riddance.
You fail to realize that TDCJ hires people no one else will touch period.
I'vegotnouse....
I have heard versions of your story many times. A guy works his butt off to get a job, then the PO shows up in such intrusive ways that the poor ex-con gets fired. And then they want to penalize him for being out of work! I have low respect for most of the PO's I've met.
It is really good that Texas is starting to downsize their prison/indigent slave labor population except for one thing,,,our county jails are full of convicted felons waiting on a bed in prison to open up. So full that convicted and sentenced felons are walking our streets ,,waiting on a bed to open up in county jail so they can wait for a bed in prison.
Closing prisons will only back flow
into our county jail systems and
put more convicted/sentenced felons on our streets,,,waiting.
All we need to agree on is that the last person in Texas,not working for TDCJ,be sure to turn the lights out before going to prison.
With our present technology of proximity ankle bracelets and other
ways of restricting freedom it is hard to believe our legislators still want everyone locked up.
Maybe we should try electing younger representatives and legislators that understand technology better.
Anon @ 12:37:00 am 2/11
I do indeed understand that the people hired by TDCJ are "untouchable", so to speak. I always heard the old tale, that when you go to get unemployment in texas, they tell you to try and get a job at walmart. When they won't hire you because you can't pass the drug test or have absolutely no social skills at all, you go back to the unemployment office and they tell you, "Go apply at TDCJ, they'll hire anyone." The guards there have told me that the drug testing, as of 2008, was "next to never". I can't tell you how many times I've seen officers at work, undoubtedly and irrefutably high on any number of drugs. When it's 28 degrees outside, around 50 degrees inside, and they are sweating profusely, running around the dorm shaking down almost everyone randomly during sleeping hours, talking to themselves like a schizophrenic, and we're supposed to believe they are serving the taxpayers interest. Not to mention the guards who think it is there direct duty, "I'm just doing my job", to make your life a living hell for the 8-12 hours they are at work. They say that's part of your punishment. I say the punishment is being locked away from my family, forced labor, and the shittiest food and medical care you can find in any country outside of the third world. There are a few good guards, about 7-8% is an extremely generous estimate. We certainly aren't going to pay them more or tighten the hiring policies, so what can be done? We can't get rid of them, TDCJ is already understaffed. I'm curious, are the ranking officers, Sgt. and above, drug tested more frequently? They only seem to come to work reeking of booze. Although I do remember a Sgt. who had on display at all times, an extra long pinkie fingernail, a sure sign of Cocaine use or dealing. I also heard rumors, from many guards, of a guard who was arrested outside of work for simple Marijuana possession. She was suspended for 2-3 weeks, then she was back. While I personally think marijuana should be at least decriminalized, the current criminal statutes DO exist, so if the rumors were true, is it up to the unit warden, or is it a statewide policy that allows officers convicted of misdemeanor drug offenses away from work, to keep their jobs with only a slap on the wrist? It seems that the only way that we can get rid of some of the dregs of the system, since we can't and won't increase compensation to hire better guards, is to drastically reduce the size of the system and enact much more stringent drug testing policies and educational requirements or subject officers to the "Educational Assessment" or "EA" testing that is given to inmates, oops, I mean offenders. That will never, EVER, happen. Not in my lifetime, and I'm in my early 30's. My first time in the system, there was no instantly attainable proof that I had a HS diploma, since I graduated out of state. I got a 12.9 on my EA test, the highest possible score on the most difficult test. They told me that I was put on the waiting list for GED classes until my diploma could be verified. WTF? I feel that it all boils down to this: If anything makes sense to do in this system as a whole, they are fundamentally opposed to doing it. Until that paradigm or unspoken mantra, if you will, of the system is altered, there is little or no hope for any real change. Perhaps younger legislators are just what we need, but that won't happen either in a state that has elected Rick Perry three times, and counting. He'll be governor till his physical capacity equals that of his current mental capacity... DEAD.
I will tell you right now anonymous, there are some good COS out there, ive been working for over 26 yrs for them, the only downfall is that COS now cant even get a retirement when they reach 20 yrs, unless you only want about 500 take home, thats why there arent good ones out there, im not a shitty person and i dont appreciate that at all. I am a firm but fair officer and do hope that offenders get out and do good, you have to look at the economy now days, and when i first started TDC , it was very hard to get hired.
I will tell you right now anonymous, 26 years ago there was the requirement that a person had to be in good standing with their local KKK chapter to work at TDC. What with Ruiz and affirmative action that requirement has been somewhat lifted. You still have to be dumber than dirt but now the courts have forced TDCJ to accept black racist as well as white ones.
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