Ward: Sunset may shift parolee supervision back to parole board

Mike Ward at the Statesman has more coverage of the recent TDCJ Sunset hearing, though IMO he overstates the chance that the parole board's authority will be substantially expanded. The story opens:

Annual prison releases dwarf those suggested by legislative budget cutters

A commenter on yesterday's Grits post reacting to bills that would release targeted, low-risk prisoners early, saving hundreds of millions of dollars, announced in grave tones (in part), "They have been removed from society and now they will soon be back with us and among us." I suppose I can understand that fearful reaction, since it or something like it is so common, but it represents an utterly ahistorical and uninformed view.

Tuff-on-crime persona aside, Texas already releases a LOT of prisoners every year. Counting both state jails and the institutional division, Texas released around 71,000 inmates from the Department of Criminal Justice during the last full fiscal year without any of these proposals. That means last year we released enough prisoners roughly to fill the city of Baytown! The parole board is full of Perry appointees, so don't blame Grits, "liberals," etc.. We now release more people from Texas prisons and state jails every year than were incarcerated en toto in 1990 when Governor Ann Richards was elected.

Such numbers reduce anxiety at the rather modest suggestions now being discussed by the Legislature. Indeed, it's for precisely that reason we can say proposed "early release" bills likely won't cause some renewed crime spree: These tens of thousands of annual prisoner releases over the last decade coincided with a period of dramatically declining statewide crime rates, particularly for violent crimes. Looking at the big picture, it's easy to see why: We have overcriminalized, sending too many low-risk offenders routinely to prison, which is why a) our recidivism rates are so low and b) we now must release more low-risk offenders to make room for more dangerous ones we plan to keep long-term. Indeed, from Grits' perspective most of the suggestions in play at the Lege this year seem rather modest compared to what's needed.

That's why IMO it's a fallacy to claim any pending legislation aimed at reducing unnecessary incarceration amounts to some new, radical policy, when it's far less ambitious than the less-publicized number of prisoner releases in Texas every year. Indeed, one of the great untold stories of Texas' criminal justice system is the large number of annual prisoner releases in the Perry era and the corresponding low recidivism rates and overall drop in crime that accompanied them, confounding these type of sky-is-falling predictions from the tuff-on-crime crowd.

Ed note: An earlier version of this post was corrected to delete a mistaken statistical comparison identified by an astute commenter. (Thanks for the open-sourced fact checking!)

2,383 and counting ... how many new felonies from the 82nd Texas Legislature?

Regular readers will recall that the 81st Legislature created 59 new felonies in 2009, according to the Parole Board's biennial "Offense Severity List," bringing the total number of separate felonious acts identified in Texas criminal law to 2,383. This comment string from an Atlantic Monthly blog reminded me of that fact and made me wonder, how many new felonies do you think Texas will create in 2011? Leave your guesses in the comments. Also let me know what if any new oyster-related felonies might be created. Currently Texas is at 11, and counting.

2,383 is already a large number of felonies. (I've quipped before that "When God sat down to author His list of forbidden acts ... He could only come up with ten.") You'd think at some point the Lege would run out of things to criminalize, but not a chance. Filed bills in both the House and Senate so far show there of lots of not-yet criminalized activities that legislators think should join the list and penalties they think should increase. If past is prologue, many will become law, mainly because the Legislative Budget Board will say in the fiscal notes that incarcerating more people won't cost extra money. It's not true, but it's a useful fiction that lets legislators look "tuff" without having to pony up money to pay for it. During a budget crunch would be an excellent time to change that practice, but don't bet on it: I'd be surprised if the Texas Legislature failed to top 2,400 total felonies next year, possibly surging substantially higher. There was already a longstanding bipartisan consensus for creating dozens of new felonies every session, and the infusion of new Republicans likely won't change that.

My initial guess at an Over/Under is 55 new felonies, and I'll go out on a limb and say there will be one new oyster-related crime created (possibly a sex crime). Tell me in the comments if you think they'll come in over or under 55 (as counted by the Board of Pardons and Paroles after the session is complete), and why.

State won't exempt public safety agencies in next round of budget cuts

State leaders on Friday ordered Texas government agencies to identify another round of possible budget cuts, and this time public safety agencies won't be exempt. Reports the Austin Statesman's Mike Ward:

According to Friday's directive, the only exceptions listed in the letter are for school funding, for debt service on bonds, to "maintain benefits and eligibility in Medicaid" programs, the Children's Health Insurance Program and foster care programs , to maintain health and human services eligibility staffing and to keep the state pension and benefits programs properly funded.

That list does not include public safety and prison budgets that earlier got a partial exemption from the 5 percent cuts.

This was easy to see coming: If the state must actually cut $15-18 billion, there's no way cutting corrections costs can be taken off the table, with apologies to Sen. John Whitmire who advocates otherwise.

I actually believe it's possible to cut TDCJ's budget substantially - probably by more than 10% in the near term - if the 82nd Legislature enacts policy changes that reduce the prison population and allow closure of several of Texas' more expensive prison units. However, the cuts suggested by TDCJ when the state leadership previously asked for them are unrealistic and highly politicized, cutting things that would harm public safety and generally make no sense. I agree fully with Sen. Whitmire that those cuts should be rejected. But here's how I think the Texas Lege could substantially cut costs at TDCJ:

• Finish the 2007 probation reforms
• Ratchet down drug penalties one level
  
• Ramp up diversion and community supervision funding
• Close older, more expensive units and allow several private contracts to lapse

Instead, TDCJ has suggested slashing diversion funding, cutting health care to levels that would bring down federal litigation, reducing the number of guards without reducing the number of inmates, and has refusedto consider prison closures even though operating the agency's 112 units takes up 80+% of its budget.

IMO that's just a political tactic, telling the Legislature that if they want cuts, TDCJ administrators will try to make sure it's all the recent programming approved in the last two sessions that gets the axe first while prisons remain sacrosanct. That's the position TDCJ successfully took in 2003 and the result raised costs instead of lowered them; it'd be a shame if the Legislature took the same sucker bet again.

Retired warden: Texas' prison crowding crisis self inflicted

Texas doesn't need more prisons, says former Holliday Unit warden Richard Watkins in Saturday's Houston Chronicle. He wrote:

Ultimately, prison expansion fails to make us safer and perpetuates a cycle of criminality that can be broken with a different approach to punishment. More than half of TDCJ prison admissions annually are revoked parolees and probationers. Serving time in prison prevents individuals from becoming independent, contributing members of society, and prisons do not offer programs that rehabilitate individuals so they can succeed in the job market and provide for their families upon release.

Read the rest.