In an ongoing effort to clear Grits' browswer tabs, here are a few items which merit readers' attention but may not make it into independent posts:
CCA 'patently unreasonable' in court costs opinion, says appellate justice
Texas First Court of Appeals Justice Terry Jennings issued a strongly worded 22-page concurrence declaring that Jani Maselli Wood was right about court fees, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was "patently unreasonable," and the high court should revisit the issue, reported Texas Lawyer. See related Grits coverage of fee litigation by Wood, herself a candidate for CCA judge in the 2014 GOP primary. She was quoted agreeing with the opinion, declaring, "They had to change decades of law to make me lose … The
courts should not be revenue centers or tax collectors for the state."
Water outage ends at two TDCJ units
Nearly 2,000 prisoners and 400 staff at two Texas women's prison units, Hobby and Marlin, were without running water from Thanksgiving until Dec. 9, according to news reports. At the Hobby unit, for a while 1,400 people shared 27 portable toilets; 732 people shared 16 portables at the Marlin unit.
New juvie diversion programs starting up
Texas counties will soon begin diverting more juvenile defendants "from problem-plagued remote, state-run lockups into less
costly community-based treatment and rehabilitation programs" closer to home which
"produce better outcomes," reported Mike Ward at the Houston Chronicle. The plan amounts to "giving counties additional money to take care of youths in
community-based treatment and rehabilitation programs instead of sending
them to state lockups." Texas has already cut its youth prison population from more than 5,000 to around 1,000 now. But the reductions will be less than were initially advertised: "The state's five juvenile lockups hold just over 1,000 youths, down from
more than 5,000 in state custody just seven years ago. The new plan
would mean that at least 30 more youths would stay in local programs
this year and 150 more next year." At one point, estimates were that hundreds more youth may be diverted, nearly depopulating Texas youth prisons entirely. That's not quite what's happening.
Why Argue? Stop arresting for minor pot possession
Dallas Police Chief David Brown says giving tickets for marijuana possession is "hard to argue with," but frets that people busted for pot might not be as easily coerced into becoming informants, and made some inexplicable noise about Timothy McVeigh. If that's all he's got, he really shouldn't argue. The full Dallas City Council will soon consider the issue. In 2015, how is this not a no-brainer?
Explaining Texas' prison boom and slicing the incarceration pie
Grits doesn't pay enough attention to the Prison Policy Initiative, which always produces useful, interesting work. Check out this post explaining the '90s Texas prison boom and another attempting to delineate the entire "incarceration pie" - i.e., a pie chart showing all forms of incarceration in the U.S. and their relative proportions. Notably, the thesis that more restrictive parole decisions caused the dramatic 5-year boost incarceration rates also works in the other direction. Slightly boosted parole rates primarily explain why Texas' prison population lowered enough in recent years to close three prison units.
Wishful thinking won't solve Dallas pension follies
What happens if pension obligations for Dallas police officers can't be covered by their failing investments?, wonders the Dallas Observer. The money shortfall begins 15 years from now but he budget-hole is so big, they must plan for a solution now.
Accreditation won't solve forensic follies
PBS Frontline had a good story in terms of articulating the scope of the national, indeed global crisis facing many traditional fields of forensic science. But it perhaps oversells the extent to which accreditation will solve the problem. It hasn't in Texas, though along with the Forensic Science Commission it's helped make the problems more transparent.
Summary: 2015 TX juvie and crimjust legislation
See a summary
published in November of Texas legislative action on juvenile and
criminal justice reform from the UT-Austin Institute for Urban Policy
Research and Analysis.
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5 comments:
Almost 69% of the juveniles committed to TJJD last year had been previously placed in these so called community based rehab/treatment programs. These programs are 6 to eight months in duration and do not meet the needs of most of the kids sent there. They are not "community based" for counties that do not have them in their community.
This is not a good plan.
The reason 30 youth are to be diverted the first year and 150 the next is because that's the plan in the enacted Senate Bill 1630
Sandy Dawn DeLillo, Masters Thesis, UNT 2008, page 38...
The first research question asked whether the crime laboratory directors surveyed thought that Texas House Bill 2703 was effective in preventing erroneous or perjured testimony. A qualitative analysis of the answers given by respondents revealed that the majority of the laboratory directors felt that mandated accreditation was a very effective tool in preventing such behavior. These laboratory directors also felt that mandated accreditation would keep unqualified and uneducated people out of courtrooms and laboratories as well as aid those working in the field to maintain their objectivity. One director in particular, however, made an interesting point to the contrary. This director stated that, “Mandated accreditation does prevent others from making erroneous or perjured testimony, but this is due to policy. Problems with mandated accreditation come up when laboratories do not follow the policy” (Note: Names of specific laboratory directors will not be mentioned in an effort to maintain anonymity of respondents). One other laboratory director made the statement that “While mandated accreditation is a good idea, it may not completely fix the problem of erroneous testimony.” This same director continued to make the point that “Accreditation is just following policy, it does not tell you if the procedure that is being used is a good one or not. Just because this procedure has been in place for decades does not mean that it is still an effective procedure.”[or if the procedure was ever affective.]
"Accreditation (2007) can be an expensive (if not lucrative) process with costs starting at $500 for laboratories with less than ten personnel, $1000 for laboratories with between 10 and 25 personnel, and $2000 for laboratories with more than 25 personnel (ASCLD/LAB, 2007). This represents only the initial fee. There is also a pre-assessment fee of $1000, an annual fee of $500 and a surveillance fee of $1000. Further there is a flat fee of $800 if the laboratory would like an ASCLD/LAB representative to attend an accreditation ceremony."
https://books.google.com/books?id=J8jdWSTHnVoC&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false
Follow the money...
Texas will be hard pressed to fulfill SB 1630 demands for reductions in commitments considering overall referrals across the state are on a rise especially here in the big city. What will explode if the reduction quota is not met? What will happen if in 2017 an extra, more dangerous age group gets mixed with the current younger group?? Better not close down any more old TYC facilities, Texas will need them again soon.
From...
Sandy Dawn DeLillo, Masters Thesis, UNT 2008, page 38...
The first research question asked whether the crime laboratory directors surveyed thought that Texas House Bill 2703 was effective in preventing erroneous or perjured testimony. A qualitative analysis of the answers given by respondents revealed that the majority of the laboratory directors felt that mandated accreditation was a very effective tool in preventing such behavior. These laboratory directors also felt that mandated accreditation would keep unqualified and uneducated people out of courtrooms and laboratories as well as aid those working in the field to maintain their objectivity. One director in particular, however, made an interesting point to the contrary. This director stated that, “Mandated accreditation does prevent others from making erroneous or perjured testimony, but this is due to policy. Problems with mandated accreditation come up when laboratories do not follow the policy” (Note: Names of specific laboratory directors will not be mentioned in an effort to maintain anonymity of respondents). One other laboratory director made the statement that “While mandated accreditation is a good idea, it may not completely fix the problem of erroneous testimony.” This same director continued to make the point that “Accreditation is just following policy, it does not tell you if the procedure that is being used is a good one or not. Just because this procedure has been in place for decades does not mean that it is still an effective procedure.”
https://books.google.com/books?id=J8jdWSTHnVoC&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false
Accreditation is just policy, not science. It's not even enforceable.
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