Plummeting probation numbers leave fewer Texans under corrections control than nationally

Grits recently calculated the ten-year change in rates for the proportion of adults under control of the correctional system in Texas from 2008 to 2018, defined as everyone in prison, in jail, on probation and on parole, comparing that total to the total adult population. Texas' rate of people under government-control was one-in-22 adults in '08, compared to one-in-41 in 2018.

Let's revisit the question after the Washington Post publishing a similar analysis using national data for the period 2006-2016. According to them "In 2016, 1 in 38 adults were under one of these forms of “correctional supervision”; 10 years earlier, the figure was 1 out of every 31."

By these lights, Texans overall are supervised in 2018 at slightly lower rates than the 2016 national average. That surprised me.

How could that be? Texas' prison population remains the largest in the country. And parole numbers grew slightly over this period (Texas releases nearly 70,000 inmates per year).

That means the big reductions have come on the probation rolls, and to a much lesser extent, at county jails. By the numbers:

In 2008, the total probation population in Texas, felony and misdemeanor, stood at 429,689, according to TDCJ's annual statistical report.  Earlier this year, a TDCJ legislative handout put the number at 232,278, representing an astonishing 46 percent reduction!

Jail numbers also declined, though far less dramatically. On March 1, 2008, the statewide jail population was 69,397. On March 1st of this year it was 64,537. So just a seven percent reduction, which was entirely offset by an increase in the number of parolees being supervised.

Notably, most of the change in probation numbers is relatively recent. After a step down in the total cohort of probationers following reform measures passed in 2007, their numbers remained relatively high: In 2016, according to TDCJ, the total number of felony and misdemeanor probationers was 374,980. So that's a 38 percent drop in the last two years!

Grits cannot explain the plummeting numbers from 2016 to 2018 - certainly I can't think of any change in state policy which would justify it - but the fact of it helps clarify many political dynamics surrounding decarceration reforms.

In recent years, the most vocal opponents of sentencing reform in Texas have been probation directors, who fear that shifting non-violent offenses from a felony to a misdemeanor will reduce their funding. That's because they receive more money for supervising felons than misdemeanants, and felony probation generally lasts longer.

But Grits had underestimated the extent to which probation departments were feeling the squeeze. They survive on probationer fees and a per-probationer stipend from the state. So reducing numbers means reducing revenue. If their probationer numbers really dropped 38 percent in two years, then so did their budgets. No wonder they're in a panic about their money!

This news doesn't justify probation directors' regressive stances, but it explains some of the self interest behind them. And perhaps it will help state leaders put probation directors' advocacy for tough drug penalties in context as more a plea for budget relief than for public safety.

MORE:

Theft reductions explain much of probation decline

On Twitter, Doug Smith from the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition offered this explanation for the reduction:

It's a decline in misdemeanor placements. Felony placements are up slightly 2016-2018. Over past 10 years, felony placements ↓ 8% and misdemeanors ↓ 25%. Index crime rate ↓ 29% over same period, so felony placements should be lower, but possession cases up 30%+.

Digging a little deeper, much of the decline in misdemeanor probation appears to stem from reductions in theft cases, a trend made more pronounced when the Legislature in 2015 adjusted property-theft thresholds to account for inflation. According to the Office of Court Administration's Annual Statistical Report for FY 2017, "The number of new misdemeanor theft cases filed [in FY '17] fell 28 percent from the previous year and was the lowest number filed in at least 30 years."

An accompanying chart (p. 27 of the pdf) showed misdemeanor theft charges maxxed out in Texas in 2004 at >120,000, but came in at less than a third of that (38,377) last year. By contrast, "The number of new misdemeanor drug cases filed [ed. note: almost all marijuana possession cases] increased 1 percent from the previous year, reaching a new peak in filings in this category."

In the five years ending in 2017, misdemeanor theft filings overall declined by 41 percent. This trend was led by a 76 percent reduction in "theft by check" charges. The theft-by-check part of that trend is technologically driven, but the decline in theft charges exceeds the amount which can be explained by that reduction. Texas has a larger population that's simply accused of stealing at much lower rates than in years past.

Notably, this has been a period when many types of petty criminal cases in Texas have dropped like a stone. The number of traffic and parking tickets issued, for example, maxxed out in 2006 at 12.1 million, declining more than 50 percent to 5.5 million last year. Non-traffic citations declined from 2.1 million to 1.1 million over the same stretch (p. 31 of the pdf).

Nobody has been able to fully explain that traffic-ticket drop, which occurred across agencies and jurisdictions, seemingly without any coordinated effort.

But other types of cases have fallen, too. The number of new juvenile cases of all types maxxed out in 2008 at just more than 53,000 and has fallen to 29,153 last year (p. 33 of the pdf). Led by a reduction in truancy-related cases following legislative reforms, all non-traffic categories of Class C tickets given to juveniles declined radically over the last five years.

So, as Doug described, Texas has just gone through an era when crime declined quite a lot, and the number of case filings - except for drug cases, which accounted for 32 percent of felony charges in 2017 and 21 percent of misdemeanors (p. 26 of the pdf) - has mostly gone down with it.

Grits' conclusion from these data: The failed War on Drugs is propping up mass incarceration in Texas. That's why Texas probation directors oppose right-sizing penalties for low-level drug possession. That's the only growth-area in their business.