Sugar Land, convict leasing, and the future of TX prison closures

At Texas Monthly, Michael Hardy has the story of a campaign by a former TDCJ prison guard named Reginald Moore to get the city of Sugar Land to acknowledge the history of slavery, convict leasing, and plantation culture on which the area's economy was founded. There's a bunch of good stuff here. For example, the Jester Unit(s) sit:

on land that was part of the 97,400-acre tract granted by the Mexican government to Stephen F. Austin in 1823 for his services as impresario. Like most of the Anglo settlers he brought to what was then northern Mexico, Austin was a Southerner, and he saw Texas as fertile ground for creating the kind of cotton plantations that were flourishing across the South. In his recent book Seeds of Empire, University of North Texas historian Andrew Torget writes that “the rapid movement of U.S. expatriates into northern Mexico was—more than anything—a continuation of the endless search by Americans during those years for the best cotton lands along North America’s rich Gulf Coast.” Integral to cotton farming was slavery, which Austin encouraged by granting settlers 80 acres of extra land for each slave they brought with them.

This is important, little-discussed history about the political economy of the Texas prison system in the 19th and 20th centuries (for more, Robert Perkinson did a decent job with it in Texas Tough). Again, from Hardy:

Then came the Civil War. The South’s defeat and the abolition of slavery plunged the Texas economy into a depression. Deprived of their labor force, most of the sugar plantations on the Lower Brazos went bankrupt. One of the few that survived was the Williams plantation, which was purchased after the war by Edward H. Cunningham and Littleberry A. Ellis, business partners and Confederate veterans. 

Cunningham and Ellis survived the abolition of slavery by finding a new source of cheap labor: the Texas prison system. Although they weren’t the first growers to use convict labor, they were the biggest: in 1878 they signed a contract with the state to lease Texas’s entire prison population. This was perfectly legal, since the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery, made one very consequential exception: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” (Italics added.) 

In the years before the Civil War, Texas’s state prisons had held around two hundred inmates, all kept at a single facility, in Huntsville. After abolition, the prison population exploded, disproportionately with black men. Unable to house and feed all the new prisoners, the state began renting them out to private companies, who were grateful for the supply of cheap labor. ...

The working conditions in Cunningham and Ellis’s sugar fields were as bad or worse than they had been on the slave plantations. Mosquito-borne epidemics, frequent beatings, and a lack of medical care resulted in a 3 percent annual mortality rate. The plantation soon became notorious across the state as the “Hellhole on the Brazos.” ...

Between 1906 and 1908 the plantation and its sugar-processing operations were bought up by Isaac H. Kempner, of Galveston, and William T. Eldridge, of Eagle Lake, who formally incorporated as the Imperial Sugar Company. Although Eldridge had used convict labor on another farm, Kempner was opposed to the practice and began planning to transition to free labor. To attract a new labor force, the two men established a company town, Sugar Land, with worker housing, stores, and a modern hospital. 

Texas’s experiment with convict leasing was coming to an end anyway. In 1910, following a series of newspaper investigations of the Texas prison system, the Legislature formally ended the practice; by 1914 all prisoners were back under the exclusive control of the state. From then on, the only entity that would benefit from the coerced labor of prisoners would be the Texas Department of Corrections. 

To be fair, this history hasn't been entirely forgotten, even if Hardy's protagonist finds himself fighting a lonely battle in Sugar Land, where city officials are clearly in denial, promoting some weird, Chamber of Commerce line that pretends that Texas history began post-Jim Crow. Indeed, that history was one of the reasons reformers targeted the Central Unit as the first one for closure. As Grits wrote when the facility shuttered:

For my part, the Central Unit's economic role in the prison system's ag business was one of the reasons I favored it as a prime target for closure. Not only was Central's historic role symbolic, breaking it up would end some of the last remaining physical vestiges of the old convict leasing system, replaced to a lesser and far-less brutal extent in the modern era by in-house agricultural operations on the agency's vast real estate holdings.

Similarly, Grits has argued that the Jester Unit and several others clustered together near Richmond, in Fort Bend County, should be the next state facilities targeted for closure. They're surrounded by million-dollar homes, suburban schools, and not one but two country clubs. So the historic and systemic concerns raised in this article combine with NIMBYism and the irresistible logic of property values to make those facilities prime targets for closure if TDCJ's population continues to decline. 

After a $458 million budget hike last session, TDCJ has been ordered to cut $264 million from its budget for the 2018-19 biennium. That will require reducing incarceration levels and closing facilities. Recent history shows that cuts to core services like prisoner food and healthcare have limited real-world value. We've cut those costs to the bone, and then some. If the Lege wants prisons to cost less, they must choose to operate fewer of them, and change the law to incarcerate fewer people.

Grits isn't sure the groundwork has been sufficiently laid to close these Fort Bend facilities yet: They could become more vulnerable in 2019 and 2021 if inmate populations continue to decline. And in the near term, the state would save more money in the next budget cycle by declining to renew several private prison contracts which expire in August 2017. But over the next five years or so, the fate of those units around Richmond will likely come into play, and this history will inevitably become part of that dialogue. Perhaps then, these forgotten stories Mr. Moore is unearthing will end up playing a more prominent role in debates over the area's future than the blindered town fathers in Sugar Land can presently contemplate.

Grievance: DA's failure to notify defendants in Salvador mess kept inmate wrongly incarcerated for two years

A state bar grievance has been filed against Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey over his failure to notify defendants eligible for release from prison that evidence in their cases had been tainted by the Jonathan Salvador scandal, reported Leah Binkowitz at the Houston Chronicle (Oct. 26). Now, defendant Jacob Estrada, whose conviction was overturned earlier this year, "claims prosecutors in Fort Bend County delayed notifying criminal defense lawyers of the tainted evidence, as required by law." Wrote Binkowitz:

When the Court of Criminal Appeals finally overturned his conviction in June and ordered his release, Estrada, 29, filed grievances with the State Bar Association against Fort Bend District Attorney John Healey and his chief narcotics prosecutor, Mark Hanna.

In them, he claims Healey's office, by dragging its feet, kept him in prison, knowing the evidence against him was not only tainted but actually had been destroyed, meaning prosecutors had no basis for ever retrying him.

Now, Estrada's grievances have become an issue just weeks before an election in which Healey will have a Democratic challenger for the first time in 20 years.

Healey, a Republican, would not comment on Estrada's case or on his decision to delay notification that the underlying evidence in his conviction had been undermined.

"I believe that our response was fair, it was realistic, and I think at the end of the day, it will be viewed as an acceptable response," Healey said.

Healey said that there were no instructions for how he should proceed once he was informed that he had more than 100 drug cases involving evidence handled by the discredited Department of Public Safety chemist Jonathan Salvador, who was fired in 2012.

It must be said that Healey's claim there were no instructions for how to handle the Salvador case is patently false. The Texas District and County Attorneys Association issued detailed guidance regarding notification, appointment of counsel for habeas writs, etc., early on. Here it is, from April 2012. Healey claims later in the story there were no "rules" for how to handle the Salvador case, which is slightly more accurate (if a bit of a weasel word, under the circumstances), but he absolutely received "instructions" regarding his obligations as a prosecutor in these cases. He just chose to ignore them.

MORE: Grits should have mentioned that, in addition to TDCAA's notice, the Forensic Science Commission issued a lengthy report (pdf, see Exhibit G) on the Jonathan Salvador episode that included recommendations for notifying defendants (and even form letters for prosecutors to use) which were sent to all 36 affected DA's offices. And the Court of Criminal Appeals' Criminal Justice Integrity Unit issued a "white paper" with the FSC on the topic of notification in cases of widespread forensic errors. That makes Healey's claim that he'd never received guidance regarding how to respond even more unbelievable. Really, it's just a lie, and a incredible one at that.

My personal belief is that the state bar will do nothing about this, but that says more about the ineffectiveness of their regulation of prosecutors than it does whether Healey intentionally delayed notifying defendants whose cases merited relief. It's quite clear that's exactly what happened.

How much do you wanna bet there are other counties among the 36 which also failed to notify defendants? Fort Bend almost certainly isn't the only one.

RELATED: Fort Bend DA failed to notify defense of alleged misconduct by DPS lab worker.

Fort Bend DA failed to notify defense of alleged misconduct by DPS lab worker

Kudos to the Houston Chronicle's Lisa Falkenberg for the first MSM coverage ("Area prosecutors interpret duties to justice differently," March 18) since the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals began tossing out convictions based on the allegedly fraudulent performance of Jonathan Salvador, who was fired from the DPS crime lab in Houston last year after it was discovered he faked results in identifying Alprazolam tablets. Her report compares the response by Galveston County District Attorney Jack Roady, who promptly notified defendants and agreed to habeas writs dismissing cases where Salvador's evidence was key, and Fort Bend County DA John Healey who has yet to notify any defendants except for a few, informal conversations with defense counsel around the courthouse.

in Fort Bend County, no letters were sent, no panel appointed. In terms of the cases already tried, District Attorney John Healey told me last week that lawyers in a few were notified verbally, but that he had planned to wait until retesting from DPS before sending a broad alert to those convicted and their lawyers.

As a result, many sitting on probation or in prison based upon what could well be falsified evidence are unaware of that fact. 

Wrote Falkenberg, "If you need another example of the varying ways in which prosecutors in this state interpret their duty to do justice, here it is." She quoted the Fort Bend DA justifying his stance:

Healey found the recent appeals court ruling "illuminating and instructive" but disagrees with the court that the relative few errors identified in Salvador's cases have "the potential to taint his other work."

That said, Healey says he now feels compelled to send notices to those who may be affected

Damn nice of him, isn't it, to comply with his Brady obligation even if he disagrees with the Court of Criminal Appeals? What hubris! Don Bankston, the former First Assistant DA in Fort Bend County, speculated that Healey was "trying to save their cases" by delaying notification.

The next Court of Criminal Appeals "hand down list" will come out tomorrow. Based on their prior rulings, expect more of Salvador's cases to be on the roster of approved habeas corpus writs.

See prior, related Grits posts:

• The Weakest Link: TDCAA agrees nearly 5,000 cases 'may be jeopardized' by DPS lab worker misconduct
• Thousands of drug cases may be overturned because DPS lab worker allegedly faked results
• DPS crime lab SNAFU may overturn thousands of years worth of drug sentences
• Convictions overturned based on DPS lab worker misconduct, hundreds more likely to be challenged
• Bad apple at DPS crime lab could spoil barrel of convictions
• DPS analyst who faked results worked on 4,944 drug cases
• Drug analyst at DPS crime lab issued erroneous reports

Woman still incarcerated based on Keith Pikett dog-scent testimony

At the Texas Tribune, reprinted in the New York Times, Brandi Grissom has an update on the strange saga of Megan Winfrey and clan, who were accused of murder based on one of Fort Bend Sheriff Deputy Keith Pikett's dog scent lineups. Regular readers may recall Grits' expressing approval when the Court of Criminal Appeals overturned her father Richard Winfrey's conviction based on what Jeff Blackburn called the "junkiest" of junk science. But his daughter, convicted on the same evidence, remains incarcerated. As Grissom described it:

Mr. Winfrey and his daughter, Megan, and his son, Richard Jr., were charged with murdering Murray Burr, a janitor at Coldspring High School in Coldspring, during a robbery in 2004. Richard Winfrey Sr. and Ms. Winfrey were convicted. 

The charges against the Winfreys were based primarily on evidence gathered during a dog-scent lineup conducted by a self-trained police deputy whose work in the Winfrey case — and others — was found unreliable by experts. They said the deputy had cued the dogs to “alert” for the suspects during the scent lineups. 

Richard Winfrey Jr. was acquitted by a jury in 13 minutes, after his lawyers had presented evidence that the dog-scent lineup was a sham. 

In April, Ms. Winfrey’s lawyers told the criminal appeals court that the dog-scent evidence used to secure her conviction and life sentence was “bad science masquerading as science.” In her father’s case, the same court found that the dog-scent evidence alone was not sufficient for his conviction. They issued an acquittal in 2010, and he was released. 

But Ms. Winfrey remains in the Murray prison unit for women in Gatesville.

The Trib article also brings news of civil proceedings by the Winfreys against Keith Pikett: "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit recently agreed to allow Richard Winfrey Jr. to proceed in a lawsuit against the dog handler and two other officers involved in the murder investigation."

Notably, there has never been a comprehensive vetting of the cases Deputy Pikett worked with his dogs the way, for example, old arson cases involving junk science are being vetted in the wake of the Forensic Science Commission's report on the Todd Willingham case. Are there others before the Winfreys who went to prison framed by Pikett's dogs? In how many cases were Pikett's dog-scent lineup the primary inculpatory evidence against a defendant? Nobody knows, but Texas appellate courts had been allowing his testimony for years until Megan's father's case finally put a stop to it.

Grits fails to understand why the Court of Criminal Appeals has taken so long to decide Megan Winfrey's case, where prosecutors told the jury the dog-scent lineup was "as good as DNA," but I wish they'd hop to it. Their landmark ruling in her father's related case is now more than two years old, and if for some reason they're going to flip flop and say the same evidence is sufficient to keep the daughter in prison, the least they can do is publicly explain why. Otherwise, it's time for Megan to go home and for the broader debate to begin about how to assess possible false convictions from the same junk science used in prior cases.

See earlier coverage of the case from the Tribune and the Austin Statesman.

See also prior, related Grits posts:

• 'As good as DNA'? Court of Criminal Appeals consider dog-scent lineups
• Woman still jailed on dog-scent evidence granted high court hearing
• Appellate court upholds exclusion of dog-scent lineup evidence 
• Time to ban junk science from the courtroom
• Dog scent lineups discredited at Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
• Texas needs process to vet cases based on forensic hokum
• Deputy famous for dog-scent lineups to retire
• More detail on scent-lineup case headed to Texas CCA
• Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will hear arguments on dog scent evidence
• More litigation, disapprobation for dog-scent lineups
• 'Scent lineup' evidence may be used in Anthony Graves capital case
• CNN profiles cop wrongly accused by dog scent lineup
• A 'scent lineup'? Rover in the witness box
• DNA exoneration indicts Rover in the witness box
• 'Scent lineups stink to critics'
• 3 false convictions relied on dog-based scent lineups in Florida
• Scent lineups by dogs don't pass the smell test
• Texas Innocence Project vetting dog scent lineup cases
• Evidence mounts against dog handler, scent lineups
• Texas Innocence Project report discredits dog 'scent lineups'

Sale of Imperial Sugar, Central Unit closure denote end of an era

Picture via 'Leadbelly: Life, Legend, Legacy'

Imperial Sugar is selling out to an international conglomerate the year after the Texas Legislature chose to close the Central Unit (formerly the Imperial unit) which was an early center of convict leasing that made Imperial a lucrative enterprise a century ago, with labor costs not much higher than a slave owner's. Grits finds it ironic that both institutions should dissolve so close to one another, as though their fates were somehow entwined.

In the book Texas Tough (pp. 205-206), historian Robert Perkinson said the Imperial unit's expansion and renaming as the Central Unit came in the face of calls for reform out of New York and "signaled that Texas's penal system would develop on its own terms, rooted in the Texas slavery belt and devoted, above all, to plantation production."

It was at the Imperial/Central unit that Texas Governor Pat Neff supposedly promised Leadbelly, the great murderer-minstrel (pictured), his pardon, famously delivered on the final day of his administration. Now the plantations are gone, the Central Unit has closed, and Imperial Sugar in all likelihood will no longer exist as a brand. For southeast Texas, the sale of Imperial Sugar in some ways provides a capstone for a confluence of events that, taken together, amount to the end of an era. Indeed, one hopes history may some day identify it as a signal point, a prelude to a new era.of deincarceration and even more prison closures. Perhaps it's crazy to imagine, but stranger things have happened, many of  them right there in Sugar Land.

Texas needs process to vet convictions based on forensic hokum

It's time to put in place a process for reviewing convictions when key forensic testimony that helped send people to prison turns out to be a bunch of hokum. The FBI's response to cases involving bullet-lead analysis, while too leisurely by far, provides a starting point if Texas can decide who's going to carry the ball. According to AP ("FBI reviews cases where flawed evidence used," Jan. 18):

Nearly five years after the FBI abandoned its so-called comparative bullet lead analysis, the FBI has yet to complete its review of nearly 2,500 cases where law enforcement used such evidence to investigate a case.

So far, the agency has found 187 cases where so-called comparative bullet lead analysis evidence was not only used in the investigation, but came into play at trial where FBI experts provided testimony. It has notified prosecutors in those cases where testimony from its experts "exceeds the limits of the science and cannot be supported by the FBI," one agency letter says.

At least three convictions — that of a Colorado man who served 12 years in prison for a double slaying, a Florida man who served 10 years after being convicted of killing his wife, and an Oregon man convicted of a triple slaying — have recently been overturned.

All three men are now free.

Comparative bullet lead analysis was based on the theory that lead bullets pick up trace elements such as copper, antimony, arsenic, bismuth and silver during manufacturing. When the soft metal is shaped into bullets and packaged, bullets in the same box would contain similar amounts of the trace elements, the theory went.

FBI lab technicians compared bullet fragments from a crime scene with bullets possessed by suspects. If the trace elements closely matched, prosecutors — backed by FBI testimony — would argue the suspects' guilt.

Defense attorneys say the analysis appeared to be a miracle of science: It required a small nuclear reactor, once housed at an FBI lab at the Hoover Building in Washington, D.C., and relied on the expertise of only a handful of qualified FBI agents.

FBI experts wowed jurors by explaining how gamma rays, energy released from bombarding a bullet with neutrons, could be measured to make a match.

"Sure, you have this whiz-bang, whipper-dipper machine that looks at all the elements of the universe, but it doesn't mean anything," said attorney Dave Wymore, a former director of the Colorado public defenders office who fought successfully to exclude such evidence in a triple-murder case and won an acquittal in 1999.

The FBI began the tests in the mid-1960s. It quit in 2005, after the National Research Council of the National Academy of Science concluded that while its methods of measuring trace elements were sound, its conclusions were flawed. Millions of other bullets could contain trace elements in identical quantities, the council said. That rendered the FBI's box-by-box conclusions meaningless.

This type of review should be triggered whenever older, flawed forensics are discredited by modern science, though obviously it needs to occur with much greater alacrity than is happening at the FBI. It would also behoove the feds to send notice to defendants, as well as prosecutors, and to provide notice in cases that resulted in a plea bargain. In the face of damning but false forensic evidence, an innocent person may take a plea to avoid the steep "trial penalty," which is to say the much higher sentence defendants receive if they take their cases to trial. We know from the stories of DNA exonerees that it's not unheard of for an innocent man to plead guilty under those circumstances.

There's an immediate need for Texas to figure out how to vet old cases with faulty forensics. For example, Fort Bend County Sheriff's Deputy Keith Pikett announced he's retiring this month soon after the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed to hear a case evaluating the validity of his work with bloodhounds performing "scent lineups" for prosecutors all over the state, including for the Attorney General's office. Recent DNA exonerations of men accused by Pikett's dogs - including a police officer falsely accused of murder - combined with national dog experts' criticisms of his methods and the deputy's exaggeration of credentials in trial testimony, have made Deputy Pikett a statewide poster boy for the kind of shoddy, less-than-reputable forensics that Texas' weakened standards for forensic evidence have come to routinely allow.

Looking forward, let's assume for the sake of argument that the Court of Criminal Appeals concludes later this year that Pikett's methods don't pass muster. Nobody knows how they will decide, of course, and the CCA's track record leans toward admitting such evidence. But my sense is the Court took the case to overturn precedents allowing Pikett's testimony, based in part on apparently perjured testimony about his credentials, especially since he's the only person in the state who performed this procedure.

If Deputy Pikett's work with dogs is declared invalid by the court, somebody needs to step up and take responsibility for vetting those old cases and notifying prosecutors (or better yet, both parties) in cases where Pikett performed lineups.

Deputy Pikett boasts that his dogs have performed scent lineups in some 2,000+ cases over the last 20 years. Vetting them is not an insurmountable task if somebody like the Attorney General decided to staff the project. I'm willing to bet this cop cleared by DNA wasn't the first person Pikett's dogs falsely accused, and it wouldn't surprise me if there are a significant percentage of false or questionable convictions in cases where Pikett testified or his "evidence" was used to pressure a plea bargain.

The Fort Bend Sheriff could perform this task--it was his employee engaging in junk science--but the Sheriff has consistently defended Pikett's work. That's why it makes more sense to set up the review process in an office independent of the original investigation.

So far Attorney General Greg Abbott has also balked at undertaking this responsibility, even in cases where his own prosecutors used Pikett's dog-scent evidence. Maybe that will change depending on the Court of Criminal Appeals' ruling (or perhaps after the November election).

Old arson cases based on unscientific, since-discredited folklore in my opinion deserve the same kind of comprehensive review. Again, we're talking about a finite, identifiable number of cases. It would be a large job but not an insurmountable one. Researchers in other jurisdictions are already developing a screening process to vet old arson cases, so nobody would have to reinvent the wheel. The Todd Willingham case got the debate over faulty arson forensics sidetracked into a death penalty dispute, but the truth is a lot of people have been convicted because an arson "expert" told a jury things were true about fire that science has since discredited.

This isn't going to be the last time this comes up. How should we respond when we discover innocent people were potentially sent to prison based on flawed forensics? With the exception of Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins, so far the answer among Texas state law-enforcement leaders has mostly been to look at one another in embarrassed silence, hoping somebody else will step up first so they won't look soft on crime. But it's not "soft" to believe that innocent people shouldn't go to prison, or stay there, based on discredited forensics. And it only makes sense to develop systems to handle that eventuality instead of relying on underfunded nonprofits and law students to perform the task ad hoc.

If the AG continues to sit on the sidelines, the Legislature next session should consider assigning the task - with clear mandates and sufficient resources - to the Forensic Science Commission, which surely merits a dramatic overhaul, anyway, after the recent Todd Willingham fiasco. The agency should be empowered (and required - no malingering, JB!) to perform this type of review-and-notice function whenever courts or the Commission determine that modern science has rebutted older, discredited forensic methods.

Just like when DNA evidence first began exonerating defendants in ways Texas laws had never countenanced, we're at at a moment in history when there's an obvious need for a way to move forward but no existing process. Somehow, some way, the state needs to create one. Executive branch leaders could and arguably should take the lead on their own volition, but if they don't the Legislature should mandate their action, just like they had to require courts to allow postconviction DNA testing when prosecutors refused.

Deputy famous for dog scent lineups will retire

Excellent news! Fort Bend Sheriff's Deputy Keith Pikett - who has earned national disapprobation over his use of dog scent lineup - announced today he will retire, reports AP:

A Texas sheriff's deputy facing lawsuits over claims that his bloodhounds match lingering scents on crime scene evidence to suspects is retiring.

Fort Bend County Sheriff's Deputy Keith Pikett will retire at the end of January. Sheriff Milton Wright said Wednesday that Pikett told him last week he is ready to "hang it up."

Pikett is the defendant in at least three lawsuits from men who say they were wrongly jailed after dogs sniffed them out. Authorities eventually dropped charges in the cases. Pikett maintains his dogs are accurate in sniffing out bad guys.

Wright says the 63-year-old deputy was not forced to retire. He will be retained as a reserve deputy and continue to work for the sheriff's department in a reduced role.

Now the Attorney General or somebody needs to go back through the 2,000+ cases in which Pikett testified and determine how many convictions were based primarily on his dogs' testimony. I have little doubt that innocent people have been accused and convicted in Texas courts as a result of this flawed and untested technique.

See prior, related Grits posts:

• More detail on scent-lineup case headed to Texas CCA
• Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will hear arguments on dog scent evidence
• More litigation, disapprobation for dog-scent lineups
• 'Scent lineup' evidence may be used in Anthony Graves capital case
  
• CNN profiles cop wrongly accused by dog scent lineup
  
• A 'scent lineup'? Rover in the witness box
• DNA exoneration indicts Rover in the witness box
• 'Scent lineups stink to critics'
• 3 false convictions relied on dog-based scent lineups in Florida
• Scent lineups by dogs don't pass the smell test
• Texas Innocence Project vetting dog scent lineup cases
• Evidence mounts against dog handler, scent lineups
• Texas Innocence Project report discredits dog 'scent lineups'
• More innocent people accused by dog 'scent lineups,' but FBI now using technique

Sugarland's Central Unit near top of possible prison closure list

Having been discussing the idea lately of closing prisons in Texas, the question quickly turns to "Which one(s)?"

Perhaps the frontrunner for possible closure would have to be the Central State Farm in Sugarland, a minimum security facility which abuts the Houston metro area's fourth largest airport and a local business park on prime real estate. It's one of the oldest units in the TDCJ system, built in 1909 (its main building was actually dubbed an historical site), and one of the more costly. Unlike more modern facilities, the Central Unit still houses some of its staff on site, so staffing costs include maintaining a total of 113 housing units, including 48 duplexes, 42 officer’s quarters, 14 single family units and 9 mobile home spaces.

The Texas Legislature during the Sunset process in 2007 told TDCJ to perform a feasibility study (pdf) to analyze the possibility of closing the unit. It was published in January 2009, but it wasn't till yesterday that I took the time to read the 45-page document.

It's funny how quickly the winds of change can rapidly alter public policy discussions. At the time it was written, the feasibility study looked at only three options: Closing the prison and opening another in the same county, closing the prison and leasing beds, or closing the prison and building a new facility elsewhere in the state. In light of what's likely to be a brutal budget crunch in 2011, today we could add a fourth option: Just close the prison.

The Central Unit sits in a suburban growth corridor near Sugarland's airport and abuts a corporate business park. According to the study, "Without acquiring the [Central Unit] site for light industrial use, the City’s ability to attract economic development projects will be negatively impacted." The General Land Office concluded years ago that the prison should be considered an "interim use" for the property because its "highest and best use" would be commercial.

Here are the cost-benefit basics of closing the facility, according to TDCJ:

• Based on a 2006 appraisal, the estimated sale of the land would bring 10.2 million.
• Savings from avoiding scheduled maintenance: $4.5 million.
• State saves $7 million per biennium in operating costs.
• State saves $10 million per biennium in reduced overtime at other units, even if all employees keep their jobs.
• State receives $4.6 million in annual taxes if the land were sold to private developers.
• One-time expense: Relocation of auxiliary operations would cost $11.6 million.

So putting it all together:

• One-time benefit from sale of land and deferred maintenance: $14.7 million
• One-time cost from relocating auxiliary units: $11.2 million
• Biennial benefit from reduced expenses, increased taxes: $26.2 million per biennium

The weak spot in that estimate, in the short term, is the increased tax revenue, which wouldn't reach $4.6 million until the property is developed out. That wouldn't be for 10-15 years, according to estimators. But even excluding new tax revenues from the property, biennial savings would be $17 million, perhaps more to the extent that the greatest cost, staffing, is reduced.

I'm not advocating layoffs here, btw, just describing the economics of prison closure; I suspect most employees could be absorbed into nearby units. Still, that's the savings estimate assuming no one is laid off! If some Central Unit employees did not take jobs at other units, however regrettable that might be for them personally, the cost savings to the state would be even greater.

According to the feasibility study, roughly 80% of the overall cost for running the Central Unit goes toward staffing ("the 2007 Central Unit operational cost was $15.3 million to include $12.1 million in salaries, benefits and other personnel costs"). Closing it down should help ease staffing shortages elsewhere - another major cost to the system because overtime costs half again as much as regular pay. With guard shortages chronic, staffing 112 prisons with lots of overtime has become a heavy burden on Texas taxpayers.

According to the Pew Center on the States, Texas has a larger percentage of state employees working in corrections (16.9%) than any other state and still has serious staff shortages at many units resulting in high overtime and even more cost to taxpayers. Adequately staffing prisons reduces overtime, which as seen in this example, contributes substantial, immediate savings.

As the world's most prolific incarcerator, Texas has many more modern facilities with capacity to absorb the 878 inmates from the Central Unit. For that matter, the Lege could and should build on its recent diversion successes to reduce incarceration levels further. If taxpayers were corporate investors, they would expect a better cost benefit analysis. Why not begin to close Texas' oldest, most outdated prisons, particularly when locals would benefit from a "higher and better use" of the property and the state is looking to trim the budget?

Photo via Google Earth.