Currently, 17-year-olds in Texas who are convicted of a crime are automatically placed in the adult justice system. Texas is one of only seven states to do this, even though 95% of 17 year-olds are arrested for nonviolent offenses. Hearing this, do you favor or oppose starting 17-year-olds in the juvenile justice system while giving a judge the discretion to move them to an adult system on a case-by-case basis?On drug penalties, wrote Baselice, "Large majorities of respondents from the all voter (82%) and Republican primary voter (75%) samples favor making possession of a small amount of drugs among nonviolent people a misdemeanor instead of a felony."
See the complete polling memo for more details.
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10 comments:
The way a pollster poses a question can skew the results by a huge margin. Several of these questions were very poorly worded. I wonder if the results on a couple of questions would have changed if they were worded a little differently. . .
When a person on felony probation for domestic assault against his wife decides never to show up for even one meeting with his probation officer and is found three years later in a county 300 miles away, should the court be allowed to revoke that person’s probation, even though he did not commit a new offense?
When a person on felony probation for burglarizing five houses (owing $17,000 in restitution to victims), has been using illegal drugs and is sent to supportive outpatient treatment, intensive outpatient treatment, drug court, short term residential treatment, long term residential treatment, and relapse treatment, costing the State of Texas over $40,000 for those attempts to get the person into recovery, but that person continues to test positive for illegal drugs and after four years has not paid a dime for restitution, should the court be allowed to revoke that person’s probation, even though he/she did not commit a new offense?
@12:19, the poll questions are about policy. You want to poll about the details one person's case. Very few probationers' profile match your description.
The polling question on technical violations was stated, "When people on probation commit a technical violation, such as missing a meeting with their probation officer,
they may be sent back to prison, even if they did not commit a new crime." The question was very poorly worded and makes it sound like people actually get revoked for "missing a meeting with their probation officer." This is just one step shy of a political push poll.
By the way, in your many years of looking at revocations, how many thousands of probationers have you seen that have been revoked for missing one meeting with their probation officer? Maybe it was just hundreds? Dozens? Any at all?
I have, in fact, seen probation revoked for missing a meeting. A friend spent a year in prison because she missed a meeting she didn't know about because her phone died over a weekend she was moving.
Typical TPPF and "right on crime" horse shit. Just a bunch of pro-criminal liberals.
@gravyrug: I call BS on that. Your friend likely had other violations as well.
@1:37: the other problem with that wording is it says "they may be sent back to prison," but probationers have not been to prison for their sentence (with the exception of those on shock), so that skews the polling response as well.
"probationers have not been to prison for their sentence"
That's just not true, 8:35, revoked probationers - mostly for technical violations - are a huge source of TDCJ intake. See details here.
@7:57, if TPPF is "pro-criminal," then they are "pro-criminal conservatives." Just because you disagree with someone doesn't make them a "liberal." You're the one proposing Big Government solutions.
Grits, I was referring to the comment of probationers being "returned to prison." Obviously, probation is a pre-prison sentence. If I learned anything from my undergrad statistics and research methods classes, wording is critical in polls if you actually want to get the results you say you're looking for.
@8:36......
Incorrect on probationers having never spent time in prison.
I have seen many folks within the CJ reform group I work with get prison for one charge, then probation for any other, lesser crimes the DA heaps on them. These dual sentences can be "stacked", meaning he/she serves the prison term, then goes on probation once out of prison for the other charges. The sentence is also "in lieu" of prison. So, should the probationer be revoked, if the county and/or judge chooses, the probationer can be sent back for the ENTIRE prison sentence.
Yes, true. Your "street time" will count for zero/zilch/nada. Probation in lieu of incarceration is 10 years? You screw up at year nine, and you go to prison for the entire 10 years.
I've seen it happen. More than once.
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