Texas #debtorsprison legislation overachieving, even boosted revenue

Texas "debtors prison" legislation last year drew plenty of critics among municipal judges and county officials focused on revenue maximization. Now we know that those criticisms were misplaced and the new law is working even better than anticipated.

At the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee on Thursday, Office of Court Administration Director David Slayton testified for the first time on the results of "debtors prison" legislation passed by the Texas Legislature in 2017. (You can watch his testimony on the bill here beginning at the 1:29:20 mark.)

When the bill was in play last year, county officials and municipal court judges predicted massive drops in revenue, prompting Rep. Andrew Murr to attach an extra fee counties can charge to indigent defendants sentenced to community service, aiming to offset presumed revenue drops.

As it turned out, that was unnecessary. At the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee meeting Thursday, Slayton told the committee the bill had significantly overachieved, including in ways that directly contradict the predictions of revenue-focused critics:

• The number of warrants for failure to appear is declining.
• The number of warrants for failure to pay is also declining.
• The number of cases resolved through jail credit is declining.
• The number of cases resolved through community service is increasing.
• The number of defendants getting on payment plans has increased.
• Collections per case have increased: By 6.7 percent at the local level and 7.3 percent at the state level.

To me, that's a remarkable result! The bill is achieving all of its goals and then some. Meanwhile, every sky-is-falling prediction by critics turned out to be wrong. (MORE [9/10]: Here's a link to the handout with the graphs being described above. See a summary of new provisions affecting collection of fines and fees and another specifically summarizing changes affecting jailable offenses.)

Regular readers may recall that the House sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Terry Canales, attributed the bill to a series of blog posts published on this humble opusculum, so I'm particularly glad to learn it's working out well.

Slayton also mentioned that the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the Brennan Center are doing a joint report on the costs to collect Class C misdemeanor debt that he expects will come out before the 86th legislative session. Grits can't wait!