Highlights from TDCJ chief's testimony at House Corrections

The House Corrections Committee began its hearing this morning with testimony from Brad Livingston, E.D. of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Here are a few highlights:

The largest recent contract approved at the board level is telephone contract, said Livingston. Roughly 120,000 offenders will have access to around 4,000 phones which will use biometric identifiers and personal identification numbers to restrict inmates to making approved calls. It will take 7.5 months to install the phones. The rates are "quite low compared to what you'd see in county jails."

Two employees from the phone contractors explained there will be registration process to screen who inmates can call and a voice identification system will ensure the prisoner whose ID number is used is really the one speaking on the phone. Offenders can only make calls to people on an offender's visitation list.

Increased number of residential beds for probationers by 800, 3/4 of which are already in place. They also are receiving good feedback from judges to the extra $10 million per year authorized by the Lege for outpatient drug treatment, said Livingston. Funding was approved to add 1,000 beds to the In-Prison Therapeutic Community program, which he said have all been in place "for several months now." About 600 out of 1,500 new SAFP beds the Lege authorized are also online.

The new funding for an in-prison DWI treatment program has been a subject of debate with the Board of Pardons and Parole regarding who's eligible for the program. Livingston said those differences had been "worked out" but did not elaborate and quickly brushed past the issue, making me think there's still some behind the scenes contentiousness he preferred not to discuss.

Residential aftercare, said Livingston, has been an ongoing challenge because vendors haven't shown up to bid on contracts for so-called "Transitional Treatment Centers." The "vendor community" has not pursued these contracts. The current RFP, the latest of several, is "open ended" waiting for anyone who's willing to step up and provide the services. (See prior Grits coverage.)

Rep. Terri Hodge said there are hundreds of prisoners right now who've completed their IPTC or SAFP treatment requirements but have been refused parole because the TTC beds simply don't exist. She asked Livingston if offenders will just "sit there in prison" because contractors won't provide aftercare beds.

Livingston said alternatives he's considering could require "changing some mindsets" about what aftercare should look like. I have no idea what that means! To me, if private vendors don't exist to provide the services that leaves only two options: For the state to directly provide the services or to substitute more rigorous community supervision and treatment requirements for parolees. He later referenced the possibility of partnering with local CSCD's to provide intensive supervision and case management in lieu of expanding TTC beds. That approach might also assist with Rep. McReynolds concern that aftercare approaches are mostly aimed at urban needs and not so easily tailored to rural settings.

Livingston also briefed the committee on TDCJ's recent legislative appropriations request, taking the opportunity to pitch a proposed 20% pay hike aimed at remediating the agency's ongoing staffing crisis. Statewide turnover for guards is 24%, said Livingston, but before the hiring bonuses turnover in the first 12 months was 42%. Turnover for parole officers, he said, is about 20% per year.

Thanks to recruitment bonuses approved this spring, he said, for the first time in anyone's memory TDCJ's staffing actually improved over the summer instead of worsened. (Typically more staff leave in the summer months when the lack of air conditioning combines with low pay to make other opportunities look a lot more appealing.)

Madden raised a potential looming issue: When TDCJ raises pay for guards, won't COs at private prisons with with which the state currently contracts, so what happens when they become understaffed? Livingston said improving rates for contractors to factor in increased pay would be "challenging" and basically said, if not in so many words, it would be the contractors' problem to manage.

Relating to re-entry, a topic to be discussed later in the hearing, Livingston said the current budget proposes increases for outpatient substance abuse treatment which he says is the item most frequently requested in conversations with judges. He also encouraged the Lege to increase funding more mental health services.

Regarding state jails, Livingston said they were aimed primarily at property and low-level drug offenders and are not eligible for parole or good time. There are 20 state jail facilities (out of 106 TDCJ units). Thanks to additional funding last year, he said, 1,200 treatment slots have been added within existing state jails and are now online. He and Rep. Hodge also had a discussion about why the Department of Public Safety won't accept TDCJ ID cards to get a driver's license. (Perhaps a new DPS director will take a different position on that topic.)

With that, Livingston concluded his testimony. On, the committee goes, to discuss state jails.

Federal prisoners to get limited email access by 2011

Earlier this month, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice decided to join the other 49 US states in allowing most prison inmates regular access to telephones in the face of rampant cell phone smuggling by TDCJ guards. But the federal system is doing even more to reduce contraband flow and connect inmates with their families and approved contacts in the outside world, reported USA Today (Aug. 16): "By the spring of 2011, all 114 U.S. prisons are expected to have e-mail available for inmates."

The program, started several years ago, has reduced the amount of old-fashioned paper mail that can sometimes hide drugs and other contraband. Just as important, officials say, e-mail helps prisoners connect regularly with their families and build skills they can use when they return to the community.

For [inmate Melvin] Garcia, that means learning the computer.

"LET'S JUST SAY THAT MY PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT DIDN'T REQUIRE IT :o)," he joked in a recent e-mail.

The system inmates use isn't like programs used in most offices and homes. Inmates aren't given Internet access, and all messages are sent in plain text, with no attachments allowed. Potential contacts get an e-mail saying a federal prisoner wants to add them to their contact list and must click a link to receive e-mail, similar to accepting a collect call from a lockup.

Once approved, prisoners can only send messages to those contacts — they can't just type in any address and hit send. And contacts can change their mind at any time and take their name off the prisoner's list. ...

The Federal Bureau of Prisons says the system pays for itself with some of the proceeds from prison commissaries. Inmates also pay 5 cents per minute while composing or reading e-mails.

Security, of course, is a concern. That's why the messages can be screened for keywords that suggest an inmate may be involved in a crime, or read by a corrections officer, just like paper letters. That can create some lag time between when messages are sent and received.

Without analyzing the program specifically, it would be impossible to tell whether inmates could abuse their e-mail privileges, said Bruce Schneier of the security firm BT Counterpane. Coded messages could be sent over e-mail, but that could happen just as easily over the phone, he said.

House Corrections to discuss technology, reentry and state jails

The Texas House Corrections Committee will meet this morning at 9 a.m. in the capitol to take up three interim charges that should generate a fascinating discussion:

The House Committee on Corrections will hear invited and public testimony on the following interim charges:

1. Explore the use of technology practices that improve efficiency, safety, and coordination of criminal justice activities on the state, local, and county levels.

2. Consider new strategies for meeting prisoner reentry challenges in Texas, including the evaluation of programs with documented success. This review should include the availability of housing and occupational barriers.

3. Provide a comprehensive analysis and study of the Texas state jail system, including original intent for use, sentencing guidelines, and effectiveness. Develop suggestions for changes and improvements in the state jail system.

You can watch the hearing once it begins at this link. See also an earlier Grits post on the committee's interim charges and links to materials from the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition which will be presented to the committee as part of its reentry discussion.

'Round the blogs

While I take care of other business today, let me refer readers to these Texas blogs which all have up interesting and worthy recent posts:

• The Dallas News Crime Blog was recently upgraded to include regular contributions from beat reporters and will be belatedly added to Grits regular links list. Give it a read.
  

• Mark Bennett and the blogger at Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center each have posts about lawyers on both sides of the bar saving lives outside the line of duty.

• Bob Libal at Texas Prison Bidness reports that private prison contractor Corrections Corporation of America is betting on increased immigration detention no matter who wins the election, counting on continued gridlock to prevent comprehensive reform.
  

Should the US lower the drinking age?

Were you 21 (or of legal age) when you took your first sip of alcohol?

Not me. Back when I began drinking, the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) was still 19. Lawmakers raised it to 21 the year following my 19th birthday, so I could legally drink for a few months, then it became illegal again.

That's the official story, anyway. The truth is, I began drinking at age 16 and the law failed to affect my behavior one way or another. Illegal IDs were common in high school - I had one for a while - or else somebody's older brother would buy a keg from the next county over (Tyler and Smith County were and are "dry") and the kids would get drunk out in a dimly lit cow pasture or at somebody's rural lakehouse. While I'm not proud of it, I recognize that my personal history is hardly unique.

To be sure, such experience from my own callow youth inclines me to sympathize with the call by university presidents this week to lower the MLDA. My high school class was a virtual case study in the law's ineffectiveness. We were yo-yo'ed back and forth between drinking's legality and illegality, yet I knew no one who changed their behavior on that basis. There were no shortage of serious drinkers in my high school class, and for those who didn't drink it was a personal (often a religious) choice, not a fearful submission to state power.

To my mind, encouraging more widespread respect for law and the justice system - and discouraging an oppositional culture that disdains government authority - is the best argument behind lowering the drinking age. It's simply fiction that kids with a car and a driver's license can't get access to alcohol (though it's not as easy as buying illegal drugs, which don't have to come from a licensed distributor). Inevitably, from the perspective of youth themselves, there's a hypocrisy behind the actions of a government that says an 18 year old can vote and join the army but cannot legally drink alcohol. They're held accountable as adults when they screw up, but they're not treated as adults in the most common social settings.

For some, highway safety is the only relevant factor. A survey of studies in 2003 from the Centers for Disease Control estimated:

that changes in the MLDA result in changes of roughly 10% to 16% in alcohol-related crash outcomes for the targeted age groups, decreasing when the MLDA is raised, and increasing when it is lowered.

But experts dispute the role of the MLDA in that decrease compared to broader cultural changes. Road deaths due to youth drinking in Canada, for example, declined at similar rates to America even though they didn't raise their drinking age to 21. The group Choose Responsibly argues that:

This downward trend in drunken driving across the industrialized world suggests that something other than a change in the drinking age was at work. Thanks to successful public education efforts, attitudes toward drinking and driving changed over time. The “designated driver,” a term unknown in 1984, indicates such an attitudinal shift.

One also notices that cigarette smoking has declined over the same period, which argues that public health campaigns focused on education instead of criminalization - both for alcohol and cigarettes - have significantly impacted behavior. I don't doubt that cultural changes like the introduction of the "designated driver" reduced drunk driving. From my own experience, I doubt raising the MLDA did so nearly as much.

In general, I think we have too many laws and use criminal sanctions to attack what are essentially social problems, which is what's happened with the MLDA. The United States has a more widespread culture of addiction, including but not limited to alcoholism and binge drinking, than most other modern nations, which is why America makes up 5% of the world population and about 50% of global demand for illegal drugs. Setting the drinking age at 21 drives that culture underground during teens' formative years instead of intervening to change it. At least that was my experience.

The corruption from overcrimnalization of social problems affects everyone, not just those who violate the law. Even kids I knew in high school who didn't drink would never have ratted out those who did. The lesson taught by these statutes informs youth that some laws needn't be taken seriously, that it's okay to conceal "crimes" by others from authorities, and most importantly, that one's interaction with the law should begin by second guessing it based on your own values, only complying if you agree with its premise. Whether that's a meritorious view is debatable, but it's undebatably not in the government's interest to promote its widespread adoption.

Defying one law makes it easier for youth to justify defying another, perhaps with more serious consequences. I'm sure if I hadn't needed it to buy alcohol, I'd have never considered getting a fake ID in my teens. But because of underage drinkers, there exists an underground fake ID industry in every state with a massive customer base. That makes us all less safe because, as 9/11 showed, fake IDs can be used for a lot more devious purposes than buying a six pack.

In Grits' sidebar I've added a couple of poll questions for readers: Were you of legal age when you first took a drink, and should the drinking age be lowered? Be sure to register your opinion there in addition to, as always, the comment section below.

Mental health spending, TYC 'regionalization' highlight juvie corrections budgets for 2010-11

Let's point out a few highlights in recently issued agency proposals for state juvie corrections budgets that will surely frame legislative discussions in 2009. (For readers who may be interested in this level of detail, see the Texas Youth Commission's legislative appropriation request [LAR] for 2010-2011, and this LAR for the Juvenile Probation Commission.)

Right off the bat, in TYC's exceptional items (pdf) the agency proposes reducing staff size by 172 positions compared to the current budget, most of which can likely be accomplished through attrition. TYC also proposed pay raises for JCOs in its LAR, but not of sufficient magnitude to match what's been proposed in the adult system which currently has identical pay scales.

I was also glad to see the agency intends to continue requesting more funds for mental health services. According to the base budget request (pdf), after receiving a more than 200% increase in mental health services in 2009, from $1,143,556 to $3,513,862, TYC has requested another 20% bump to $4,536,707.

Indeed, IMO it would behoove the state to expand mental health spending across the board much earlier in the process. According to the Juvenile Probation Commission's LAR (p. 6 of the pdf), "According to TJPC data, approximately 26.5% of youth under supervision (19,567 youth) have a diagnosable mental health disorder These juveniles recidivate at a rate almost 50% higher than juveniles that are not mentally ill."

Juvenile probation budgets for mental health services are much smaller, though probation serves perhaps 97+% of juvenile offenders, not TYC. TJPC asked for a modest "increase of $6.5 million (over two years) to conduct mental health assessments, provide mental health services to youth referred to juvenile probation departments or placed in secure facilities." I'm glad to see it, but for my money even that figure should be increased - TYC's mental health services need and deserve the funding boost they've requested, but a truly coherent public policy would invest more heavily in juvie probation departments on the front end to keep kids out of a youth prisons in the first place. The same could be said for so-called alternative disciplinary systems in schools.

The biggest decision over the Youth Commission's next biennial budget will inevitably be what the Lege decides to do with the conservator's "regionalization plan." See the various options laid out here. The conservator and TYC administration favor Option 2, described as follows:

Construct 8 non-secure 24-bed Community Transitional Centers at $1.7 million per site:

• Houston area (3 sites)
• Dallas area (1 site)
• Amarillo area (1 site)
• San Antonio area (1 site)
• Austin area (1 site)
• Tyler area(1 site)

Acquire and renovate a secure 48-bed facility in Kerr County at an estimated cost of $6 million.

Acquire and renovate a 48-bed facility in Terry County at an estimated cost of $4-6 million.

Inevitably this strategy will mean downsizing or shutting down some existing TYC facilities, but the use of smaller halfway house style units and the shift to smaller settings closer to the students families in and of itself is a good idea.

In addition to that proposed new capacity, TYC just approved a 2-year contract with a Florida based company, Youth Services International (YSI), for just over $17 million to lease 132 beds in Colorado County at an old TYC unit at Eagle Lake 65 miles from Houston. The recently re-opened unit was shut down after its own bout with sex abuse scandals several years ago after Colorado County DA "Ken Sparks got a 2005 conviction against a female worker for improper sexual conduct with an inmate at a contract boot camp in Eagle Lake. He said the woman, who performed oral sex on the youth, received a sentence of three years of deferred adjudication, meaning she served no prison time," the Houston Chronicle reported last year. The same company that received the contract to run Eagle Lake, YSI, operated the boot camp at the time.

The regionalization plan has already become a source of contentious debate. In order to implement anything besides option one, TYC would need permission from the Legislature to go outside the scope of its bond authority, which authorized only construction of one 150 bed unit in Harris County, not several new, smaller units. Of the four options proposed, I agree with the conservator number two makes the most sense. But because so much funding is involved, the choice is a political decision, not one the conservator can make on the way out the door and expect it to stick.

Those interested in these agency budgets should look through their LARs for yourself and let us know in the comments if you find any interesting tidbits.

Ombudsman: Public schools failed many TYC youth

TYC independent ombudsman Will Harrell yesterday presented a copy of his office's recent report on education services (pdf) at the Youth Commission to an interim hearing of the Texas Senate Education Committtee. (See prior Grits coverage.) In his written testimony, Harrell said TYC's education difficulties originated in the public schools:

The Texas Youth Commission bears a great burden that can be traced back to failures of local school districts. But that is a challenge that the TYC must meet for the sake of public safety.

In broad terms, the OIO has the following major concerns about education in TYC:

• Inadequate intake, assessment and accountability.
• Inconsistent general education programs across TYC facilities.
• Disruption of education by punitive culture and policy which is compounded by race and special educational need.
• Inadequate special education services.

These issues, which are fully discussed in the attached report, are critical for two important but distinct reasons. First, as we point out in the attached report, educational attainment is one of the most effective means for reducing recidivism among delinquent youth. However, the population of students at the TYC does not represent the population of the typical Texas public school. The TYC is charged with providing education and special education services to a population of students comprised of approximately 40% special education students, and a majority of youth who are substantially behind their peers in all academic areas. The population of students at the TYC is not typical of an ordinary Texas public school, and the TYC requires a substantially different level of support than a typical public school district. Despite the fact that many of the youth committed to the TYC arrive with poor academic histories, the TYC education program can improve the basic academic skills of these youth and significantly improve their chances of successful reentry into their schools and / or communities. Providing these youth with essential skills in reading and mathematics, opportunities to obtain a diploma or GED, and vocational skills is critical for helping these youth to become responsible, civic-minded taxpaying citizens. Not only do these outcomes result in improved outcomes for delinquent youth, they also improve public safety.

Second, the youth at the TYC are coming from Texas public school systems, and most should be returning to these schools after release. However, many of the TYC youth have not been adequately supported by their public schools. Most do not have sufficient reading skills to access the high school curriculum, and many do not even have the requisite skills to read or complete a basic job application. Additionally, many of these youth have been repeatedly suspended or expelled, or have officially or unofficially dropped out of school. Furthermore, most delinquent youth both nationally and in Texas come from impoverished communities with schools that lack the financial and professional support necessary to adequately educate these youth. If the State is going to successfully rehabilitate these youth, the Texas leadership must identify and implement innovative and responsive public education programs to support these vulnerable schools and ultimately reduce the numbers of youth involved in the juvenile justice system.

Last week, Grits identified what I think would be a huge step toward discouraging schools from dumping kids with learning disabilities and behavioral problems into the juvenile justice system - charging schools the full cost of educating kids they send to so-called alternative schools for discipline. But as Harrell says, a lot more than that bureaucratic fix is needed. In addition to more resources for special ed programming, substantial investments to identify and teach kids with dyslexia would reduce crime, as would extra focus on ensuring the academic success for children of incarcerated parents. Spending extra resources to help kids succeed on the front end aimed at these special populations makes a lot more sense than waiting to incarcerate them on the back end, which costs far more and from which society derives far fewer benefits.

SEE ALSO: An interview with Harrell from KHOU and these documents related to TYC education services:

• Review of Education Programs for Students in Texas Youth Commission State Schools
• Ombudsman's Statement Regarding the Education Review (pdf)
• Review of Education Programs for Students in Texas Youth Commission State Schools (pdf)
• Conservator Richard Nedelkoff's Response Letter (pdf)

Why wouldn’t innocence 'presumed' by criminal courts be 'actual'?

I'm going to be posting some over at the Innocence Project of Texas' blog (regular readers know I began working for them as a policy consultant a couple of months ago), and wanted to point Grits readers to an item I wrote there about a case of first impression pending at the Austin Court of Appeals regarding whether cases overturned on direct appeal qualify for compensation under Texas' wrongful convictions statutes, see "Splitting hairs on innocence compensaton claims: If unconvicted defendants are presumed innocent, why isn’t that innocence 'actual'?"

The Austin appellate court declared only habeas appeals qualify for compensation, reversing a district court ruling that a defendant whose conviction was overturned on appeal because of insufficiency of evidence could pursue compensation under Chapter 103 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. (Here’s the opinion by a three judge panel (pdf); the defense has requested an en banc hearing of the full Third Court.)

At issue: "why shouldn’t the innocence that’s 'presumed' by criminal law be considered 'actual' innocence? Isn’t that a distinction without a difference?" See the full post.

BLOGVERSATION: Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice takes up the question.

House Corrections, TCJC focused on re-entry this week

On Thursday Aug. 21, the Texas House Corrections Committee will meet to gather information regarding three of their interim charges, one of which focuses on facilitating re-entry for ex-prisoners. The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition sent out an email to supporters today containing links to some of the re-entry related materials they'll be presenting to the committee. Wrote executive director Ana Yañez Correa:

On Thursday, August 21, 2008, TCJC will present the findings of an extensive survey of re-entry professionals, titled Practitioners' Perceptions of Prisoner Re-Entry Challenges , at a House Corrections Committee hearing. This hearing will take place at the Capitol in room E2.016 at 9:00 A.M, and it will will address the following interim charges: (1) the use of technology practices that improve efficiency, safety, and coordination of criminal justice activities on the state, local, and county levels; (2) strategies for meeting prisoner re-entry challenges in Texas, including the evaluation of programs with documented success, and the availability of housing and occupational barriers; and (3) an analysis of the Texas state jail system, including original intent for use, sentencing guidelines, and effectiveness, as well as suggestions for changes and improvements in the state jail system.

We will be providing invited testimony on Interim Charge 2. For a preview of what we will be presenting, download the following documents:

• Practitioners' Perceptions of Prisoner Re-Entry Challenges (126 pgs)
• Executive Summary (16 pgs)
• TCJC Testimony (13 pgs)

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all who offered feedback to us in regards to prisoner re-entry challenges, which provided the basis of our report. We hope that our findings will assist policy-makers in their efforts to stop the cycle of offending by reducing barriers to re-entry and investing in programs and services that promote success for individuals and families.

To learn more about our re-entry program, please log on to www.criminaljusticecoalition.org/tools_for_re_entry.

"It's a dog, it's OK. You can get another one"

Sometimes a few casual words accidentally reveal remarkably callous attitudes in the justice system that participants would never admit to in public.

The classic example may be Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Sharon Keller refusing a last-minute appeal by a condemned appellant with the spurious bureaucratic excuse, "We close at 5." (Even Keller's fellow CCA members criticized her unilateral action in the press).

The national media has latched onto another Texas case where the casual utterances of a law enforcement officer revealed a remarkable lack of empathy for those he's policing. After pulling over a driver speeding to the emergency vet with his dying dog, a San Marcos officer detained the vehicle for 15 minutes on the side of the road, allowing the animal to expire.

The money quote from the officer: "It's a dog, it's OK. You can get another one. Relax." Replied the driver, "It's not just a dog; it's my family." Reported ABC News:

Though Stephens' supervisors found him not guilty of misconduct, they did agree he handled the situation poorly.

"His world was collapsing. And what the officer says to him, basically, is, 'I don't care,'" said San Marcos police department chief Howard Williams.

While I don't think the officer should be terminated over the incident - after all, the driver was allegedly going 100 mph when pulled over - neither do I think he demonstrated much empathy or ability to exercise discretion in an emergency situation.

The dog lover in me would like to see the officer submitted to this authority for retribution, but realistically a better outcome would be retraining or even re-assignment to animal control for a few months. By correctly identifying the officer's error - i.e, reacting to the driver's personal crisis with the message, "I don't care" - then in the same breath declaring the officer did not commit "misconduct," the Chief's statements imply that his department tolerates such attitudes or at least refuses to formally discourage them, which is an unfortunate message to deliver to the public via the national press.

BLOGVERSATION: For a sense of the public reaction, see related posts and comments from Urban Grounds, PetitUSA Blog, the Raw Story, the Dallas News MetroBlog, and Ravings of a Semi-Insane Madwoman. Also, when I last checked there were 1,207 comments reacting to the story on ABC News' website.

UPDATE: TalkLeft adds this pearl of wisdom, though I'm not sure I'd endorse the advice:

Moral of the story: if your dog (or other family member) needs immediate medical attention, don't stop for the police. No jury will convict you of eluding under those circumstances, and your family member is more likely to survive if you don't stop.

TCLEOSE needs more power to investigate police corruption

The Sunset Commission and the Texas Legislature should take to heart two recommendations from the agency staff report (pdf) the Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Education (TCLEOSE) to improve police accountability and oversight statewide.

First, TCLEOSE asked for its investigators' authority to be expanded (p. 84):

Peace officers of TCLEOSE are empowered to investigate and enforce violations of the Occupations Code 1701, but no other provisions of the Penal Code, which includes such violations as official misconduct, and impersonating a peace officer. ...

Limiting TCLEOSE investigators to violations of 1701 means that, when TCLEOSE investigators discover penal code violations, violations of the Private Security Act 1702, or any other violations of the law other than violation of 1701, TCLEOSE investigators must solicit and obtain timely cooperation from a fully empowered peace officer. Many peace officers find these requests from TCLEOSE troublesome because they have their own priorities and demands, and some do not like the idea of investigating fellow officers. Regardless of the reasons, TCLEOSE investigations and investigators are left with the task of convincing other officers of the importance of investigating their own profession.

It's surely absurd that investigators at the state peace officers' licensing agency cannot look into criminal allegations themselves but must rely on "convincing other officers of the importance of investigating their own profession." Indeed, it's precisely because local cops "do not like the idea of investigating fellow officers," which after all is a pretty common phenomenon, that TCLEOSE investigators should be empowered more broadly.

Similarly, I was encouraged by TCLEOSE's suggestion that the Legislature should create an "integrity unit" to investigate police misconduct in Texas (p. 87):

Because the State of Texas licenses peace officers and jailers, many Texans are of the impression that the state investigates complaints of integrity and alleged wrongdoing. When they look at the state government, they often call, write, or e-mail TCLEOSE with their allegations. If it is an allegation for which we have jurisdiction, i.e., for potential violations of the OC Section 1701, then we investigate, determine the validity, and provide feedback to the complainant. If we do not have jurisdiction, we refer the matter to other agencies such as a local district attorney, a sheriff’s department, a local police department, the DPS rangers, etc. Unfortunately, we find that many of the complainants have already spoken to local authorities and were dissatisfied or found themselves ignored. Perhaps Texas should have an “umbrella” integrity unit at the state level to investigate allegations of police corruption.

I think both these suggestions are good ideas. In an era when revelations about police corruption related to drug crime and Mexican cartels have become a weekly occurrence in Texas, it's time for the state to address the problem of police corruption more directly. Not only would doing so reduce crime overall, if Texas doesn't take this steer by the horns IMO it will be impossible to ever seriously threaten the operation of multinational drug cartels. I recently saw a new law review article making the same point about corruption while arguing for prosecution of so-called police "testilying," arguing that:

the collateral benefits of such increased policing of the police far outweigh the drawbacks. In fact, increased policing of the police would not only have the collateral consequence of reducing crime across the board. It would also benefit the police themselves by leading to safer and better policing.

Let's hope the the Legislature accepts these two TCLEOSE recommendations and beefs up the agency's authority to investigate police corruption in 2009. One imagines the police unions will fight the idea (as they have in the past), but it's really in their interest to clean up the profession - the vast majority of good officers out there don't benefit from protecting bad cops.

For all the hype, few actual abuse cases coming out of the Great Eldorado Polygamist Roundup

At the height of the Great Eldorado Polygamist Roundup, the state claimed 466 kids were abuse victims and dozens of fundamentalist Mormon men were suspected of sexual abuse charges. When the rubber met the road, though we've only seen "four removal requests and last month's indictment of six FLDS members on sexual abuse-related charges," reports the San Angelo Standard Times, while 66 child custody cases have been dropped. Of the six men indicted, one was a doctor accused of failing to report alleged abuse, and one was FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs who was already incarcerated in Arizona. There are still no complaining victims in any of these cases.

The hard truth about the Great Eldorado Polygamist Roundup is that despite all the tough, hang-em high rhetoric and demagoguing by state and local officials, the massive police action probably made it harder, not easier to identify or prevent abuse within the group. It caused Eldorado polygamists to circle the wagons to protect their innocent brethren, and made kids more fearful of the state than of their religious leaders, which means they'll be less likely to speak out when bad things happen.

Part of the problem with the state of Texas' approach to the raid was that officials took the wrong example as their model. They thought they were dealing with another David Koresh like in Waco, but really the better comparison was the Short Creek Raid in 1953 on the Utah-Arizona border. The Arizona Republic on Saturday offered an excellent analysis comparing the Texas raid with its historical antecedent out west, reaching these conclusions:

It's hard to see your way in polygamist country, and the most dangerous pathway through this, says Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, is the one that came before.

Arizona and Utah officials have carefully worked to carve exit routes from Colorado City for those who want to leave. They established the Safety Net Committee to help domestic-violence victims, and on the road into Colorado City, a large billboard now advertises a "safe talk" hotline.

But "if they fear us more than they do their abusers, they're never going to seek help," Shurtleff says. "It's this fear of government they've been taught from the cradle - 'See what happened in '53? If you seek help, they'll come and take everybody.' We keep telling them, 'No, no, no. If someone needs help, we'll handle that one case. There won't be a raid.'

"And now the polygamists are saying, 'See, we told you, we told you it would happen again,' " Shurtleff says.

There's another force at work here, too, a kind of unlikely glory that comes each time the police knock on the polygamists' doors.

Nothing makes a religion like a martyr. The Bible leans on the stories of those who put faith first, who sacrificed their freedom and their families, who laid down their lives for the Lord. Through all their persecution, the polygamists talk of nothing but strength.

"The outside pressure from the government only reinforces their convictions," says [FLDS researcher Ken] Driggs, "reinforces the belief that 'We are God's chosen people, and we are going to be persecuted for living God's laws.' "

In the polygamists' darkest hours, they say, the light shines more brightly on the pathway to God.

In other words Texas blew it, however this handful of prosecutions turns out. Just like in the aftermath to the Short Creek debacle, if there are actual abused kids among the FLDS, Texas ' actions made it more difficult, not easier, for them to get help - and not just in Texas but in other locales.

BLOGVERSATION: Read a different take at Ron's Insanity.

Dallas County scrounging for 'loose change' on jail costs but ignores potential savings from jailing fewer people

The Dallas News in a column titled 'Hits and Misses' (Aug. 16) labeled as a miss this suggestion from Dallas County for making ends meet on the backs of jail inmates:

It sounded appealing, this idea to charge Dallas County jail inmates $25 a day, room and board, on misdemeanor offenses. The problem is, state law provides no consequence for failing to pay – except, we presume, more jail time. When we first heard about this a few months ago, we asked around. The consensus was that it would cost more to hire the people required to collect a jail fee – and chase down deadbeats – than the fee would generate (i.e., a net loss). We applaud the county for looking under every seat cushion for loose change, but this is one idea that should stay buried.

Dallas County already has $200 million in outstanding fines it hasn't collected, so I can't imagine how anyone thinks they can squeeze jail costs out of folks cycling in and out of the jail. Not to mention probation and other fees and costs already put a substantial financial burden on ex-offenders that's a significant barrier to successfully completing community supervision; this would just add to the problem instead of relieve it, worsening public safety for the sake of the short-term bottom line.

If Dallas County commissioners are really that desperate, there are plenty of ways they can reduce jail costs without resorting to strategies that worsen crime and recidivism. For example, at a symposium in San Antonio in February focused on jail overcrowding (see Grits coverage), Marc Levin of the Texas Public Policy Foundation:

suggested that county commissioners could "designate misdemeanors that are non-jailable in that county, which also eliminates indigent defense costs." (See his power point presentation.) No county has taken advantage of that authority, yet, but it's a good idea.

He's referring to the B misdemeanors for which the Legislature last year gave police officers discretion to issue citations instead of arrest in HB 2391. But that's not the only category of arrests which the county could designate as non-jailable.

Class C misdemeanors may make up a bigger or at least significant share of discretionary jail use. I was surprised to learn recently that the majority of discretionary arrests by the Austin Police Department were actually for Class C misdemeanors which carry a punishment only of a fine, not jail time. As I wrote on Grits in reaction to a recent analysis of APD arrest practices by the newly formed group Austin Public Safety Solutions:

... 37% of Austin PD arrests are eligible to receive citations instead, according to the report. That's a big number - nearly 16,000 trips to the jail each year. While giving officers discretion wouldn't mean all those trips were abated, if half of them received citations that would make a significant difference - a reduction of around 22 trips to the jail per day with all the expense and extra time that implies.

Of those nearly 16,000 optional arrests, said the report (pdf), 9,902 were for for Class C misdemeanors. The US Supreme Court declared in 2001 in Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, a Texas case, that arrests for fine-only offenses were not per se unconstitutional, but nor were they required. In Austin last year, 9,902 people were arrested and taken to jail for offenses so small-time that a judge could not legally sentence them to incarceration, even if they receive the maximum sentence possible. I don't know if those numbers are similar in other cities, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Given that reality, and since officers have discretion to issue citations instead, if the commissioners court named many of these offenses "non-jailable," as Levin suggests, it would have a big impact. Add to those Class Cs the categories of offenses where HB 2391 gave officers new discretion, and all of a sudden that adds up to big-league cost savings considering how much of the county budget is devoted to the jail.

Necessity is the mother of invention, so when counties are strapped they tend to embrace creative solutions on jails that they wouldn't otherwise consider - some good, some bad. Dallas County shouldn't solve its budget crisis by nickel and diming every department or piling onto the backs of the poorest among us, but by revamping outdated and wasteful uses of the jail. Though the paper says they're "looking under every seat cushion for loose change," by ignoring these options they're doing so while looking past the big stack of money in the middle of the room.

Forensic Science Commission will investigate science behind Cameron Willingham's capital arson conviction

The Texas Forensic Science Commission met in Houston today and voted to take on their first independent investigation involving an alleged wrongful conviction stemming from flawed forensic science - the case of Cameron Willingham, executed for an arson crime in which the arson investigators on the case later admitted they'd relied on flawed science for their conclusions. Reported AP:

A state panel has voted to investigate whether a man executed for setting a fire that killed his three daughters actually started the blaze.

The Texas Forensic Science Commission on Friday agreed to review investigators' conclusions that Cameron Todd Willingham set a fire at his family's home in Corsicana two days before Christmas in 1991. He was executed in 2004.

The commission's decision came after the Innocence Project, a legal group that specializes in overturning wrongful convictions, requested the case be reviewed. Trial evidence suggested an accelerant was used to start the deadly blaze. But the Innocence Project says experts in a report it commissioned concluded the fire was not intentionally set.

This is the first investigation to be conducted by the commission, created in 2005 to look into allegations of forensic misconduct.

For more background on the Cameron Willingham case, see this excellent Chicago Tribune feature analyzing forensic errors and this independent peer review (pdf) of the science in Willingham's case.

More than 800 people are in Texas prisons over arson charges, and dozens if not hundreds of older arson convictions were based on forensic science that's no longer considered valid. Thus the Forensic Science Commissions review of the Willingham case has two-fold importance. Their investigation could lead to proving for the first time that Texas has definitely executed an innocent person - a matter of great dispute among death penalty abolitionists and proponents - and going forward their findings could lead to re-evaluating many other cases where shoddy forensic science led to false convictions in arson cases.

MORE: Read a reaction to the FSC's decision and a prior post on the case in a DailyKos diary from the son of one of the investigators who participated in the above-mentioned peer review. At Talk Left, see also the discussion in the comments between defenders of the original conviction and the Kos diarist. See also coverage from the Houston Chronicle.

See prior related Grits posts:

• College to develop screening processes for vetting old arson cases for bad forensic science
  
• Many arson convictions based on invalid science
• Arson convictions may be next venue for innocence claims

TBCJ finally approves expanded prisoner phone access

AP brings word that the Texas Board of Criminal Justice yesterday finally passed new rules, discussed earlier on Grits here, allowing most TDCJ inmates more liberal access to telephones in prison. Now the contractor just has to install phone infrastructure in Texas' 106 prisons, no small task but one which should be completed within the year. TDCJ originally had hoped the phone installation would be complete by next month, but those deadline have long ago passed. Said AP:

The Texas Board of Criminal Justice has voted to allow prison inmates to use telephones on a prepaid and collect-call basis.

The action Thursday ends the nation's last ban on regular phone use by state prisoners.

Embarq, a Kansas-based communications company, was awarded a seven-year contract to put the phone service into place.

About 120,000 Texas inmates will each be allowed to purchase up to 120 minutes of phone time a month. The privilege will not be extended to an estimated 36,000 inmates with disciplinary problems or gang affiliations, or those on death row.

Currently, most state prisoners are allowed only one five-minute collect call every 90 days.

The new system will allow calls of up to 15 minutes.

Texas is the last U.S. state not to give prisoners regular phone access.

State officials have long feared that "allowing the inmates to have access to telephones could allow them to continue their criminal enterprises outside the prison walls," said Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

"There also was a concern that they also would be able to contact their victims. But technology has advanced to a point where those concerns are really no longer valid."

Embarq's proposal includes technology that will allow prison officials to monitor and record calls, except those between inmates and their attorneys.

Calls will be limited to friends and family on the prisoner's approved list of visitors. Calls to victims or their families will be prohibited.

Inmates or their families can prepay for telephone calls at rates of 23 cents for in-state calls and 39 cents for out-of-state calls. Collect calls will be 26 cents and 43 cents, respectively.

International and cell phone calls will not be allowed.

A spokesman for Embarq said the system will be phased in at more than 100 prisons over the next year.

The Texas Legislature approved phone service for prisons last year, with proponents calling the easily granted and retracted privilege "a marvelous tool for discipline." Fees from prisoners and families will pay for the system and generate additional revenue streams for the state:

The company, which handles prison phone contracts in five other states, will keep 60 percent of the Texas revenues generated, with the remainder to be divided between the state's general fund and the Crime Victims Compensation Fund.

This is good news that TDCJ is finally moving forward. Texas may be the last state in the union to offer phone access to well-behaved prisoners, but for my money, better late than never.

Smith County voters ask commissioners, "What part of 'no' don't you understand?"

In East Texas, the "What part of 'No' don't you understand?" Committee formed this week to oppose Smith County jail bonds for the third year in a row. Tyler attorney Jeff Weinstein is the PAC treasurer and another lawyer, Ken Good, produced much of the research on the group's new website. Here's the announcement of the committee's launch.

The voters of Smith County have voted against three separate bond proposals to build a new jail. In 2006, the voters defeated two proposals. In 2007, the voters defeated another proposal. For some reason the Commissioners Court has yet to get the message. The voters of Smith County do not want to build a jail. They have said no to a remote jail. They have said no to a downtown jail that was not integrated with the rest of the county’s facilities and they have said no to a downtown jail that was integrated.

At every turn the Commissioners Court has proven that it is deaf to the wishes of the public. The Commissioners Court has been focused on its own personal agenda and not what the public wanted. This was prominently on display when the Commissioners Court decided to give itself a 40% raise over three years after the first bond election failed. As the public uproar against the raises rose louder and louder, the Commissioners Court dug in their heels and refused to listen. This is the moment we no longer trusted this group of commissioners. ...

This committee was born out of a complete frustration with this Commissioners Court. It appears that they do not trust the public and we know that we do not trust this commissioners court. It is time for us to take back our County Government. It is time to clean house. It is time to elect people who will listen to the voters and not develop secret plans behind our backs. We say enough is enough. We say “What part of NO don’t you understand?” The Commissioners Court has had its say in this election. It is now time for the citizens to respond.

They've even created a blog as part of the site, with an RSS feed and everything!

The last Smith County jail bonds went down by a 68-32 margin. This time they're asking for less money for a smaller project, so that might help proponents a little, but factors mitigating in favor of the opposition are more compelling - particularly the likelihood of a high turnout in a presidential election and the school district putting $125K in bonds on the same ballot.

I'd earlier predicted Smith County is headed for a jail bond rejection hat trick, and nothing I've seen since has convinced me voters will buy into this jail after they've rejected three versions before it. Grits' prediction: Somewhere between 60% and 2/3 of Smith County voters will reject the jail bonds. Again. And then commissioners will put it on the ballot again next year.

NPR Profiles Dallas DIVERT Court

Dallas County's DIVERT Court - one of the oldest drug courts in Texas led by Judge John Creuzot- was the subject of a flattering feature on NPR this morning by Wade Goodwyn that's well worth a listen. Goodwyn described the case of a young woman who failed a drug test while on probation, reporting that in response:

This is where the differences between the philosophy of DIVERT Court and the rest of the Texas criminal justice system become particularly apparent. Instead of kicking Stephens out of the program and sending her off to prison, Creuzot sent her to 45 days of intensive inpatient drug treatment.

Stephens says that changed her life.

Understanding just how close she was to a life of oblivion, Stephens dropped her know-it-all attitude and got serious about recovery. She's been sober ever since, with the drug tests to prove it.

Creuzot says what's different about DIVERT Court is the intense judicial oversight.

"A person who relapses on drugs needs further treatment. Our responses are research-driven," he says.

The statistics back him up. Two studies by Southern Methodist University show that DIVERT Court cuts the recidivism rate by 68 percent over the regular Texas criminal justice courts. For every dollar spent on the court, $9 are saved in future criminal justice costs.

Creuzot says the next step is to expand these courts to include perpetrators of property crimes and to raise the possession limits. Currently, if you're busted with two grams of cocaine, for example, that's too much to qualify. Creuzot would like to see DIVERT expanded beyond first-time offenders.

Creuzot operates his court on the principle that "repetition is the next door neighbor of repentance," and it's hard to argue with results he's produced. Indeed, the DIVERT Court's success and that of other "problem solving courts" has made them cause celebres among quite a few fiscally conservative Republicans looking to stem growing prison and jail costs, reports Goodwyn:

The courts have been so successful that even the tough-on-crime, Republican-dominated Texas Legislature approves.

Rep. Jerry Madden (R-Plano), chairman of the corrections committee, says that instead of worrying about the expanding outflow from prison, he wants to choke off the inflow with DIVERT-type courts.

"We have 157,000 people in the prisons of Texas — that's a lot," he says.

The expanding prison population is a financial red stain spreading across the state's books like the Andromeda Strain, he says. Each new maximum security prison costs Texas taxpayers $300 million to build and $40 million a year to operate.

State officials estimate that unless changes are made, Texas will need 17,000 more prison beds just four years from now. Releasing prisoners on parole is politically untenable — which makes "diversion" an increasingly appealing way to avoid what's looking like a $2 billion invoice.

See Also: Judge Creuzot's website, an evaluation of DIVERT Court recidivism results (pdf), and the cost-benefit analysis by SMU professors (pdf) that found the $9 savings for every dollar spent.

DOJ: Research shows trying juveniles as adults increases recidivism

A couple of readers pointed me to this week to a New York Times editorial making "The Case for Juvenile Courts" (Aug. 13), which argued against state laws allowing juveniles to be tried as adults for serious crime:

This country made a terrible mistake when it began routinely trying youthful offenders as adults. This get-tough approach was supposed to deter crime. But a growing number of government-financed studies have shown that minors prosecuted as adults commit more crimes — and are more likely to become career criminals — than ones processed through juvenile courts.

The editorial takes as a starting point this recent publication from USDOJ, "Juvenile Transfer Laws: An effective deterrent to delinquency?" (pdf), which provides a good summary of the research surrounding whether transferring youth to adult correctional systems reduces recidivism. According to DOJ (p. 6):

In sum, to date, six large-scale studies have been conducted on the specific deterrent effects of transfer. These studies used large sample sizes (between 494 and 5,476 participants), different methodologies (natural experiment across two juris-dictions, matched groups within the same jurisdictions, or statistical controls), multiple measures of recidivism, and were conducted in five jurisdictions (Florida, New Jersey, New York, Minnesota, Pennsylvania) having different types of transfer laws (automatic, prosecutorial, or judicial).

The strong consistency in results across the studies is all the more compelling given that they used different samples and methodologies, thereby providing a degree of convergent validity for the findings. All of the studies found higher recidivism rates among offenders who had been transferred to criminal court, compared with those who were retained in the juvenile system. This held true even for offenders who only received a sentence of probation from the criminal court.

Thus, the extant research provides sound evidence that transferring juvenile offenders to the criminal court does not engender community protection by reducing recidivism. On the contrary, transfer substantially increases recidivism.

Prison privatization ginning up local controversies

It's surprising how many acrimonious local debates are going on right now in Texas over jail and prison privatization. Yesterday I mentioned that McLennan County is lurching toward building a private local jail in Waco in the face of strident opposition, and now I find news of a group in Nacogdoches gearing up to oppose a private prison there that's also backed by local leadership. To judge by a report from the Longview News Journal ("Nacogdoches group plans to step up prison protests," Aug. 13), some folks there are pretty unhappy with the project:

Burton Byrum, a retired business manager for a computer company, drew applause from the crowd when he urged the group to supplement their "passive" protests — such as bumper stickers and signs — with more active demonstrations.

"We've got to affect NEDCO, and the only thing they understand is dollars and cents," he said.

Byrum proposed that COPS members remove their savings from Nacogdoches banks and transfer all their money to banks in Lufkin, such as Angelina Savings, Capital One, Huntington State Bank and Texas State Bank.

The group is also targeting the city and county commissioners, and COPS is going to request a discussion item on the agendas of city and county commissions. Some group members also proposed a boycott of all businesses owned by commissioners.

That's quite a grassroots protest! Their group name, I thought, was pretty clever. It's COPS, which stands for Citizens Opposed to the Prison Site. While the purely NIMBY aspects of the opposition I think are unfortunate, a great deal of the debate in Nacogdoches has centered around whether private prisons benefit or retard the economy and what it may do to the local culture.

Meanwhile in Corpus Christi, the commissioners court is struggling to disengage from their own past experiment as incarceration entrepreneurs. Nueces County two years ago lost a longstanding federal contract to house prisoners locally because the federal marshals said jail conditions had deteriorated beyond their minimum standards.

The loss of their sole customer created a revenue hole in the county budget, and shows how making local government dependent on private prison revenue can easily backfire. One day the money's there, the next day it's not. (Expect the same thing to happen with immigration detention if comprehensive reform is ever passed.)

Now the Nueces jail has passed inspection, but a majority of commissioners don't want make the same mistake of paying to build extra jail space just to re-enter the contract, reports the Corpus Christi Caller Times ("County may not seek to house federal prisoners," Aug. 14):

"Would it make more sense to make room by coordinating with our district judges and whoever puts people in jail, for them to quit putting people there, to make space," [Commissioner] Ortiz said. "If there is room for them, whoever puts them in jail will put them in jail just because there is room for them."

Sheriff Jim Kaelin said late Wednesday that there is no quick way to move state and local inmates out of the jail so that he can move federal prisoners in.

"I don't believe I can house additional inmates without that pod," Kaelin said. "We have done the math. I am at capacity now. I am already working with the courts now, to get as many people as possible out."

Many of the misdemeanor cases already have been moved out of the jail, Neal said. The current population is mostly felony-related, with roughly 750 felons in the county jail Wednesday.

"They are the ones you can't just move out," Neal said.

While Ortiz said the police and judges putting people in jail should slow down, Cazalas said he does not support bringing federal prisoners back because he is unwilling to redo the pod or "kick 50 people back out on the street" who are currently in jail, to accommodate the federal prisoners.

"Long term with the growth in the population here as well, some future court is going to have to contend with the size of our current capacity," he said. "Do we want to put ourselves in the position of focusing on the revenue piece?"

For the record, the Caller Times story overstated the number of felons in the Nueces County Jail. The actual number was 576 felons as of July 1 (pdf), and of those 101 were state jail felons, which are low-level drug and property crimes, not really "the ones you can't just move out." The majority of felony defendants in the jail (332) as of July 1 were awaiting trial, as were 107 misdemeanor defendants.

So if judges in Nueces County or local police agencies wanted to do so (it's not really in the commissioners court's hands), they could take Mr. Ortiz up on his offer to reduce the number of jail inmates to free up room for the federal contract. But the majority on the court is right that such an arrangement should be viewed as an extra, only worth entering into when capacity exists - it would be unwise to make entrepreneurial investments just to get such a small-time contract.

The Caller Times story is full of grave talk about cutting "meat" in the county budget if this revenue stream goes away, but we're talking about a small tax hike at most to make up the difference, plus simply touting the contract total ignores how much Nueces would have to spend to house and guard the prisoners. After all, earlier this year the same reporter was congratulating the Sheriff for reducing staffing costs at the jail, but those costs go back up if they expand to house federal prisoners.

Too often Texas counties have viewed jail privatization as a source of "free money," as in Corpus, without paying attention to related monetary and opportunity costs as well as unintended consequences. In that regard, it's good to see such projects receiving more local scrutiny.

Texas prison guards may get 20% pay hike - TDCJ requests 10.5% overall budget increase

Texas prison guards would get a 20% pay hike if TDCJ officials have their way, reports the Austin American Statesman ("Big raises sought for prison workers," Aug. 14):

Brad Livingston, the prison system's executive director, said the proposal would raise starting pay for correctional officers from $26,016 to $30,179 and the maximum salaries from $34,624 to $42,242. Livingston said the increase would cover staff from correctional officers through wardens.

For parole officers, starting pay would increase from $32,277 to $37,441, and the maximum salary would go from $36,363 to $43,636.

Saying the proposal "will fundamentally address the officer career ladder for the long haul," Livingston said the goal is to continue to reduce the agency's critically high vacancy rate and "reward our employees for their dedication to providing public safety."

Texas prisons have been short of guards for several years, so short that officials within the past year have had to close parts of some prisons. Without proper staffing, convicts have to be kept confined to their cells more than they should be, programs have to be suspended, and conditions inside prisons generally become more undesirable — for guards and convicts.

The shortage of correctional officers reached a crisis point 11 months ago, when the agency had 3,978 vacancies. Livingston said that through July, the shortage had been reduced to 3,040, thanks to a beefed-up recruitment program and incentive pay.

Board Chairman Oliver Bell predicted that the pay increase will help reduce the vacancy rate even more. It will help "retain our current staff, recruit new officers and overall would send a positive message to our employees that we value their dedication to protecting the safety of the citizens of Texas."

Although legislative leaders greeted the proposal warmly, they said it will have to be considered with all the other demands that will face state budget writers come January.

The grand total for proposed raises - $453 million and change. And that's not the only proposed increase stemming from Texas' jam-packed, understaffed prison system:

In addition to the raises, the agency's $6.6 billion, two-year legislative appropriation request also includes an additional $181.1 million for convict health care, $30 million to buy additional video surveillance and contraband screening gear and metal detectors to beef up security, $22 million to make a former Veterans Affairs hospital in Marlin usable for convict health care and more than $10 million to expand treatment programs.

The proposal includes no money for new prisons.

That amounts to nearly $700 million in new expenditures for the prison system, or a growth rate of 10.5% over the last budget. What's more, that assumes a de minimus expansion for treatment programs, but more will be needed to reverse long-term incarceration trends that made the prisons so full in the first place.

It's hard to tell whether even this large a pay hike will resolve TDCJ's 3,000 guard shortfall. Most prison units are in rural areas where the labor market remains limited, and no amount of pay changes the fact that Texas prisons are un-air conditioned in the summer and a distasteful work environment year round. But we already know Texas can't adequately staff prisons at current pay rates, so Livingston deserves kudos for proposing a radical solution.

One factor not mentioned in the press coverage: Last year the Legislature linked Youth Commission employees pay to guards at TDCJ to stop the drain of staff from that agency, so if TDCJers get this raise there will probably be an added expense from bringing TYC up to par.

There will be those who chafe at spending so much on prisoner health care, one suspects, at a time when a quarter or more Texans don't have health insurance. But considering the size of Texas' prison system, we'll probably still be underspending after the increase. If one day the feds step in and force the state to fully live up to its constitutional obligations on inmate healthcare, those costs could balloon very quickly like they have in California.

Texas has long enjoyed an artificially low overall cost per inmate compared to other states and these proposed increases are just beginning to address those historic deficiencies. It's not so much that base costs have increased, but Texas must also pay the piper for obligations the Legislature shortchanged for many years.

The other options, of course, for those who dislike the expense, would be to criminalize less stuff and incarcerate fewer people.