The Playbook: Under budget pressure, TDCJ prophesies doom, ignores solutions

Nota bene, Robert T. Garrett and other journalists covering the state budget process: When the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) claims, as they did in this Sept. 1 Dallas News story and their legislative appropriation request (see a summary here and the full LAR here), that reducing their budget would result in massive layoffs and increased costs from overtime, there is an unstated "unless" which precedes their litany. Unless the Legislature reduces the number of prisoners incarcerated to relieve pressure on the system, the bad things they outline could happen. But if the Lege acts to reduce incarceration levels and adjusts prison spending accordingly, everything would work out fine.

As has been their wont during past budget crises (Brian Collier is following Brad Livingston's 2010 playbook to a "T"), TDCJ's appropriations request declined to inform the Legislature of policy changes which would be needed to sustainably cut costs in the long term. Instead, assuming current incarceration policies as a given, they prophesy terrible outcomes from budget cuts without recommending the best, easiest fix to prevent them.

Texas already has seen prison populations decline significantly, in part due to declining crime and more recently thanks to increased property-theft thresholds, which particularly are lowering the number of people incarcerated in state jails on theft offenses. If Texas ratcheted down drug penalties by one offense category, perhaps shifting a few other over-penalized offenses downward along with it, the state could save enough to close several more prisons, perhaps starting with seven private prisons and state jails whose contracts expire August 31, 2017.*

In 2011, during the last budget crunch, the Lege made cuts to healthcare, maintenance, and other line items at TDCJ which turned out to be phantoms. Taxpayers had to pony up for them later in supplemental appropriations or future budgets. The savings weren't real, sustainable, nor at a fundamental level, prudent.

Now, legislators once again face the prospect of budget cuts at TDCJ and recent experience should make the path clear: Incarcerate fewer people if you want to cut TDCJ's budget. Lower the prison-and-state-jail population by 10,000, for example, and all of a sudden saving an additional $200 million doesn't seem so far-fetched. Heck, it'd probably be more, since for every dollar spent on TDCJ Texas spends another 30+ cents in other areas of the budget.

In reality, Collier and TDCJ's budget folks understand that reduced incarceration and prison closure is a more rational approach than "reductions in convict health care, meals, as well as prison and parole operations," as Collier suggested to the Houston Chronicle. Those discussions are occurring behind the scenes. "Yes, there are discussions going on about closing more units. I've been in on them," state Sen. John Whitmire declared in that same Chron story. "The state has a number of old, inefficient and remote units that we should consider merging or closing to spend taxpayer dollars more efficiently."

Bottom line: People who demand budget cuts at TDCJ but won't contemplate reduced incarceration levels aren't really serious about governing. And incarceration can be reduced with little harm to public safety, as the state's experience in the juvenile realm proved. In fact, reducing inmate numbers would improve safety inside Texas prisons. While Garrett gave voice to layoff fears, ironically the union representing TDCJ correctional officers supports prison closures because of understaffing and high turnover. (And certainly they're not going to complain if the state lets private contracts expire.) Even if closures came at public units, attrition would cover them fairly quickly and, if the closures targeted chronically understaffed units, it would actually solve some problems for TDCJ.

The agency running Texas' prisons isn't going to suggest reducing its empire, even if that's a fundamental part of the debate surrounding budget requests in a time of austerity. So journalists covering the issue, like legislative decision makers, must seek out alternative information sources or risk conveying a myopic and slanted portrayal of TDCJ's budget situation. TDCJ officials won't tell you what needs to be done to cut their budget safely, but that doesn't mean it isn't obvious what the real story is.

* Private prisons and state jails with TDCJ contracts up Aug. 31, 2017 are the Bartlett State Jail, Bradshaw State Jail, Lindsey State Jail, Willacy State Jail, Bridgeport Correctional Center, Kyle Correctional Center, and the Bridgeport pre-Parole Transfer Facility. Between them, those seven units hold 6,300+ inmates. There are also two intermediate sanctions facilities with contracts up next year, but those reduce incarceration at TDCJ and shouldn't be targeted for budget cuts.