Which prisons, state jails might Texas close next?

Texas famously closed three prison units in recent years. Could we close more?

After the Legislature raised property-theft thresholds to $2,500 last session, Grits expects downward prison-population trend lines to descend even further. And with legislators seriously discussing possible reductions in sentences for low-level drug possession, the possibility arises that Texas could close even more prison units in 2017, particularly so-called "state jails" (which in essence house people convicted of fourth-degree felonies, known in Texas penal-code parlance as "state jail felonies").

To begin thinking about this question, Grits asked TDCJ's public information officer Jason Clark for a list of private prison contracts up next year, since those are the easiest units to close (because the state can simply not renew the contract and doesn't have to worry about closeout costs on the real estate). Two of the three units Texas closed so far have been private facilities.

There are four state jails whose contracts expire Aug. 31, 2017 which conceivably could be targeted for closure if current incarceration rates continue to decline. All four are operated by Corrections Corporation of America:

• Bartlett State Jail (1,049 beds)
• Bradshaw State Jail (1,980 beds)
• Lindsey State Jail (1,031 beds)
• Willacy State Jail (1,069 beds)

The other private units with contracts up next year don't amount to much, capacity-wise, so future prison closures beyond the state-jail system likely should extend to state-run units.

As Grits has discussed at some length in the past, there are many criteria on which legislators might prioritize which units to close. Private facilities stand out for ease-of-closure. But there are units around the state which can barely remain staffed because of worker shortages, which have not eased as rapidly as one might expect given the recent oil-price bust. Other units have trouble providing sufficient clean water to inmates and staff (prison units are notorious water hogs). And some older units built a century ago or more have exorbitant cost-per-prisoner ratios, creating a natural closure-target list of the most expensive ones, if such things were based on a pure cost-benefit analysis.

Finally, there are units which meet none of those criteria but which lie on real estate that would be worth much more to local developers and the tax rolls if the property were redeveloped to reflect it highest, best use. Two of the three units closed already resided in those sorts of desirable development corridors. The Dawson state jail in Dallas stood in the way of the city's Trinity River Redevelopment, while the Central Unit near Sugarland sat between a business park and the regional airport, with the local chamber of commerce supporting its closure. As more once-rural units buck up against suburban sprawl and find themselves neighbors with commercial developments, country clubs, and expensive homes, another short list emerges based on a set of interests which lie beyond the prison walls and even state government.

In an era when the United States has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of its prisoners, with Texas incarcerating more people by far than any other state, Grits doesn't care much which prisons the state closes, or why. I just want them to close more. We can debate later how much deincarceration is too much. Right now, we're a long way from that particular fork in the road.

101 House members endorse bill criminalizing warrantless drone photography

Check out the list of joint and co-authors on HB 912 by sophomore Rep. Lance Gooden  of Terrell restricting surveillance by unmanned drones - four joint authors and 96 co-authors last week joined Gooden to support legislation making it a crime to use or authorize someone to use "an unmanned vehicle or aircraft to capture an image without the express consent of the person who owns or lawfully occupies the real property captured in the image." Extraordinary! That's even more people - and a much more bipartisan list - than have signed onto Rep. David Simpson's TSA anti-groping legislation (HB 80), virtually guaranteeing passage if the drone bill makes it to the House floor. Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire has reportedly agreed to sponsor it in the Senate.

The new offense would be a Class C misdemeanor for possessing such photos and a Class B misdemeanor for displaying or distributing them. There are exceptions carving out drone photos taken under the authority of a search warrant, by police in pursuits, for purposes of fire suppression, for drone use within 25 miles of the border, for drone photography without magnification, and for photos taken of people on public property.

While I'm generally not a fan of creating new crimes, Grits is broadly sympathetic to the impetus behind the legislation. Humorously, when I recently told my father about legislation by Rep. Bryan Hughes and Sen. Juan Hinojosa to require a warrant for GPS tracking of your cell phone by law enforcement, he joked that the day was coming when the state may use GPS to locate individuals then send armed drones after them to "rain death from the sky." For now, such concerns may be more applicable in Afghanistan or Pakistan than here, but the joke emphasizes that we're only just beginning to understand how all these newfangled 21st century technologies of control may work together in the future to violate rights in ways that are inconceivable today.

What remains unclear (to me, anyway) is how old court precedents related to photography and the First Amendment may apply to legislation like HB 912. After all, 101 state House members may be trumped by five US Supreme Court Justices, and traditionally courts have held that photographs of private property - even taken with magnification - are allowable if the photographer has a legal right to be in the spot where they snapped the picture. And based on those precedents, it's hard to see the distinction between photos taken by unmanned aircraft vs. a helicopter hovering over one's house with a photographer hanging out the side. For that matter, I'm not sure how the bill would distinguish between drone photography and satellite photos like those used by Google Earth.

At the same time, there are only so many manned helicopters police or news organizations can deploy at any given time, so there's a real limit on how much surveillance anyone can afford to conduct. In a future already visible from here, the number of unmanned drones that could be deployed may be essentially limitless and surveillance could be as easy as turning on your computer. Much like the GPS tracking bill, HB 912 bucks against the trend toward making surveillance ever cheaper and easier. Instead of drones, surveillance without a warrant would still require actual human beings (outside of the above-listed exceptions).

Past court precedents emphasized the First Amendment rights of the photographer over the privacy rights of those being photographed. Because freedom of the press is explicitly protected in the Constitution while privacy rights are at most implied, courts have tended to err on the side of the picture takers. But really, photography was invented decades after the First Amendment was written and the Constitution's framers could not have anticipated how it would be applied, just as judges interpreting the rights of paparazzi or police photographers in the past could not have anticipated the use of unmanned drones. How to balance those competing rights is a question which will be revisited over and over in the coming years. Whether or not this bill passes, it likely represents the beginning of a debate and not its denouement.

Central Unit not 100% closed: Targeting prison closures based on economic, budget benefits

The Austin Statesman's Mike Ward reported Friday evening ("Over a year after closure, state prison still runs some operations," Jan. 18) that, despite de-funding in the last budget, TDCJ's Central Unit in Sugar Land is not yet fully closed, though the prisoners there were moved to other units. The reasons won't surprise anyone familiar with the Central Unit's history - it was formerly the Imperial Unit, built to provide leased convict labor to the Imperial Sugar Company and one of the facilities at the heart of the agency's agricultural operations in the region, which are extensive.

Prison officials say moving out the convicts was the easy part, especially with excess capacity in other prisons. But it’s taken more time to shut down the other operations at the Central Unit, which served as a regional warehousing and distribution point for a variety of goods to keep running the more than two dozen other prisons in the area. Plus, officials said, the lockup farmed various crops on several hundred acres.

With the previous residents gone, convicts and guards had to be brought in from another prison about a mile away to continue those operations. ...

“It’s taken us a while to move those operations,” said Brad Livingston, executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. “Both were significant projects.”

A new warehouse is being built at the Terrell Unit, down the road to the south, and new agriculture facilities will be added at the Pack Unit near Navasota — at an additional cost of nearly $7.6 million.

The final closure date for prison operations at the Central Unit site? Probably in July, officials said, after the new warehouse and the ag operations are complete.

When prison operations finally cease, the site is to be turned over to the General Land Office to be sold. “We’re still waiting,” said Land Office spokesman Jim Suydam.

While I'd prefer the facility had closed more quickly so the budget savings could be more easily argued, it sounds like the delay won't affect plans to move forward with closing more prison units. "[L]egislative leaders and prison officials agree that additional closures are likely," Ward reported.

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. Grits isn't surprised it has taken longer than expected to untangle a century's worth of economic ties wrapped up in the Central Unit's operations, but I'm glad it's happening.

In general, criminal-justice economics requires a long view. Prisons take a long time to build and once built cannot be easily de-commissioned. The effects of raising or reducing already-long sentences may not show up in state budgets, in practice, until a decade out, but the failure to make that calculus has been the main reason why Texas prison budgets and populations ballooned. It took Texas four decades to get in the fix we're in and the ship of state turns slowly.

Notably, the two units Sen. Whitmire has suggested for closure - the Dawson State Jail in Dallas and the Mineral Wells pre-parole unit - are both operated by a private prison company, Corrections Corporation of America, and arguably simply ending a contract requires less wind-down time than closing one of the state's oldest units whose facilities were an integral part of their regional ag operations. (Grits should mention that these are the two units this blog predicted were most likely next on the chopping block back in August 2011.)

A big reason the Central Unit was considered "easy" to close was that the local chamber of commerce crowd wanted the land there opened up for development. A similar dynamic is the main reason why the Dawson State Jail is on the list. It stands on a site where the city of Dallas would like private developers to construct what's been dubbed the "Trinity River Project."

Looking strictly at property in a similar position vis a vis real estate development interests, Ward noted back in 2011 that the state might consider more prison closures in Fort Bend County: "a new high school and homes have popped up near the Jester I Unit. A new intermediate school and strip-center have opened just across from the Jester III and IV prisons. Custom homes, some valued at about $1 million, back up to the Vance Unit. Prison cotton fields and livestock sheds now sit alongside for-sale signs along Texas 99 that bisects the former prison farms."

OTOH, Huntsville ISD has found its property tax revenue choked off because of vast tax-exempt TDCJ holdings in Walker County. An economic argument could be made for targeted closures and property sell-offs there. Or, the Legislature could consider closing one or more of the rural units having the most trouble maintaining adequate staffing. If legislators decided to consider prison closures beyond Dawson State Jail and the Mineral Wells unit, those might be some of the logical options ripe for consideration, one would think.

Just as past Legislatures that approved Texas' prison expansions, authoring an array of new felonies and "enhancements," didn't have to budget the real, long-term costs of their policies at the time they enacted them, the economic benefits of de-incarceration won't be immediate, but in the long-term will be far more significant than just tinkering around the edges of the corrections budget.

Tax-exempt prison property squeezing Huntsville ISD

There's an interesting article in the Huntsville Item ("HISD looks at ways to reduce expenses," April 2) with a reference to the impact of TDCJ's ownership of vast swaths of property in Walker County on the local school district's tax base:

Because a large portion of land in Walker County is owned by the state through the Texas Department of Criminal Justice or Sam Houston State University, Huntsville schools have a hard time raising tax dollars from the community because of the low amount of property tax available.

“In districts adjacent to federal facilities, like Fort Hood, they can get federal impact aid,” Johnson said. “They recognize that their ability to raise tax dollars locally is limited because a lot of the land is tax exempt. I'm going to suggest that the state consider state impact aid for Huntsville because of the state-owned facilities in this district.”

Johnson said the ability of Huntsville to raise money is limited compared with areas where the land is not tax exempt.

“That's just the situation here,” he said. “What we do know is there's nothing on the horizon saying there's a lot of new money being sent out to schools.”

Grits seriously doubts the state will replicate "federal impact aid" to subsidize local property taxes anytime soon, but what it could, and should do is change narrowly targeted policies to reduce incarceration levels, close more prison units and sell off land near existing developments, shifting more real property back onto the tax rolls.

Wanna buy a prison? Private prison market bursting leaves town desperate for buyers

One named after a former Texas Speaker of the House, no less? At 11 a.m. today you get your chance. Reports AP:

A prison that a Texas High Plains town hoped would provide a bonanza but instead went broke is going on the auction block.

Littlefield is putting the Bill Clayton Detention Center up for auction Thursday with a $5 million minimum opening bid. Tulsa, Okla.-based Williams & Williams Worldwide Real Estate Auction is handling the bidding. Its throwing in the furniture, linen, computers, kitchen supplies and other equipment contained in the 30-acre complex 36 miles northwest of Lubbock.

Littlefield built the 373-bed, medium-security prison with proceeds from an $11 million bond issue and signed The GEO Group to run it. The hope was for states experiencing prison overcrowding to pay to house its inmates there.

Instead, escapes, corruption and living conditions prompted states to withdraw their inmates, leaving an empty prison.

In a story behind their paywall, the Dallas News reported that there were at least six interested buyers, including private prison firms and "other municipalities needing more space for inmates." (We may safely assume Lubbock isn't among them, since they've got a near-empty jail competing with the Littlefield facility.) Go here to bid or watch the auction online.

I'm not sure I've ever heard of an actual auction for a jail or prison unit, but this is the inevitable, last-ditch outcome for counties that speculatively built extra jail capacity (or in this case a prison unit on spec), but couldn't lease out the beds once construction was complete. As Grits has reported in the past, a similar fiscal drama is playing out with the "Doomsday Deal" in McLennan County and a long list of empty, speculative jails in Texas, so unless there's a new source of prisoners out there - private prison firms are banking on immigration detention - this may not be the last Texas jail or prison unit we see auctioned off like some defaulted property on the steps of the county courthouse.

RELATED: From the American Independent, "Texas town pins hope on prison auction Thursday, years after private operator left."

MORE: The prison went for $6 million to an as-yet undisclosed bidder. The town still owed $9 million on the prison, so locals will have to eat the difference.

New laws TDCJ is planning for that you may not have heard of

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has posted this summary (pdf) of legislation affecting the agency on its website, and Grits wanted to point out several highlights that haven't received a great deal of attention:

TDCJ-OIG gets pen registers for contraband investigations
Though underreported compared to more pricey approaches, probably the most efficacious piece of legislation passed this session related to reducing contraband was "HB 2354 by Madden - allows TDCJ's Office of Inspector General to possess and use a pen register during criminal investigations regarding escapes and prohibited substances and items in a correctional facility." (Added per commenter request.) Pen registers, or what back in the days of phone lines used to be called "trap and trace" devices, let TDCJ-OIG investigators access without a warrant a list of every phone number calling to and from a particular line if it's part of an escape or contraband investigation. They only get the list of numbers, they can't listen in on that authority to the content of the calls.

Reducing inmate numbers, a little
Very few bills on the list will reduce TDCJ's inmate population, but two notable exceptions are:

• HB 2649 by Allen - allows a judge to award diligent participation credit for participation in a work, treatment, educational or vocational program to a defendant convicted of a state jail felony, in an amount not to exceed 20% of the original state jail felony sentence.
• HB 2734 by Madden - requires as a condition of parole that an illegal alien released to the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement leave the United States and not return by unlawful mean.

The Anti-'Enhancement'
Since this blog rails against the biennial passage of dozens of new crimes and (Orwellian-named) "enhancements" of old ones, I should give full credit for passage of a rare bill moving the chains in the other direction.

HB 3384 by Madden - removes the provision allowing a previous conviction for a state jail felony offense to be used for enhancement purposes (in most cases). Punishment for a state jail felony offense may be enhanced to a third degree felony if it is shown at trial that the defendant has been twice previously convicted of a state jail felony.

The Governor signed this legislation, according to the capitol website, reiterating last week's politics-make-strange-bedfellows theme where Grits and Rick Perry inexplicably ended up on the same side of various, sometimes high-profile issues. This topic has received less attention, of course, than the Governor's recent concern over groping by TSA employees in the airport. 

Summons instead of arrest for technical revocations of long-term parolees
County sheriffs will welcome this legislation if the Parole Division will embrace this change from arrests to summons, reducing the number of so-called "blue warrants" issued for administrative violations to long-term parolees:

HB 2735 by Madden - requires the Parole Division to issue a summons for a hearing before a parole panel, rather than an arrest warrant, to a parolee charged with an administrative violation of parole more than three years after having been placed on supervision. The parolee must not be serving a sentence for, nor previously been convicted of, an offense that would require sex offender registration and must not be on intensive or super-intensive supervision parole, be an absconder, or have been determined to be a threat to public safety.

Plugging probation into state planning; combining CSCDs?
Another underreported piece of legislation will generate a lot more comparative information about what services probation departments provide to their charges, and what they cost:

HB 3691 by Gallego - requires the TBCJ to adopt rules regarding contracts between community supervision and corrections departments (CSCDs) and between judicial districts and CSCDs in another judicial district. The bill also adds the CSCD director as a member of the community justice council and requires CJAD to prepare a report containing a summary of the programs and services included in each community justice plan (CJP), which would be submitted to the LBB along with the agency's legislative appropriations report.

The bill also, according to this description, envisions potentially combining some smaller probation departments in the future: "If CJAD (TDCJ) determines that a CSCD's or regional partnership of CSCD's report could create a savings to the state, CJAD may award a one-time lump sum equal to 35% of the savings and may also provide incentive payments for certain achievements over a biennium." The process by which TDCJ-CJAD "determines" this will be interesting to watch

Property transfers
A couple of real estate deals to watch during the interim: We already knew that the state would close the Central Unit in Sugar Land and sell the acreage around it, which is surrounded by an airport, a business park, and a new minor-league baseball stadium. This list confirms that "HB 2004 by Bonnen - requires the Texas Board of Criminal Justice (TBCJ) to sell approximately 2200 acres at the Ramsey unit in Brazoria County." So it'll be interesting to see in whose hands that property ends up. Further, "HB 2518 by Kolkhorst – requires the Texas Board of Criminal Justice to transfer to the board of regents of the Texas A&M University System 2.536 acres of property for the use of the Texas Forest Service. The property is currently leased from TDCJ by the Texas Forest Service."

Proposed TDCJ property sales

The Texas House voted yesterday for HB 2969 to sell property around the Central Unit in Sugar Land and 896 acres attached to the Estelle Unit in Huntsville. It also authorizes the sale of up to three, unspecified TYC facilities. The Estelle property is presently used "for cattle grazing, timber production, and recreational hunting."

In a report (pdf) last fall, the General Land Office also suggested selling off 16.4 acres in Mineral Wells, but that apparently didn't make it onto the list, probably because of deed restrictions on the property and the need to clean up soil and groundwater contamination and hazardous materials in the buildings. TDCJ owns 122,374 acres worth $2.4 billion at market value, according to the GLO. The Comptroller says there are more than 11,000 acres of "underused" TDCJ lands.

Grits had hoped the state would close the Dawson State Jail in Dallas - which the City of Dallas wants to use for its proposed Trinity River development - and selling off that property as well, but the Department of Criminal Justice has successfully fought off additional prison closures.

The Central Unit and TYC units would only be sold if the final budget eliminates their operating funds. All the properties would have to be sold by Sept. 1, 2013.

'What does it take to reform a reformatory?'

I noticed a few stories related to juvenile justice and the Texas Youth Commission that may interest Grits readers:

From the Beaumont Enterprise:

• What does it take to reform a reformatory?
• How offenders graduate from TYC
• Scenes from a juvenile detention center

From the Texas Tribune:

• Youth advocates worry cuts will put more in prison

From the Dallas News:

• TYC Director: The agency today is not the agency of 2007

Also, a piece of property bequeathed to the state for use by orphans may soon be transferred from TYC to the Department of Family Protective Services under legislation by Rep. Will Hartnett, though it's a matter of some controversy, since some locals would prefer the property go to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.