Seeds Of A New Centrism?

Via Kuff, I was fascinated to read about attorney and Quinlan school board member John Cornuaud who is switching parties, from Republican to Democrat, to run for District 2 in the Texas House. Hadn't heard of anybody doing that in a while, huh? Given the heavily GOP bent of the Northeast Texas district covering Van Zandt, Hunt and Rains counties -- 70-30 in '04, Kuff reports -- that seems like a potential suicide run, but Cornuaud said the decision was based on his concern over two issues: education and meth.

A recent study showed it costs about $7,100 to educate a student each year, he said, juxtaposing the figure against the $16,000 per person, per year that it costs to incarcerate a non-violent criminal.

"I think our priorities are screwed up," he said of Republican leadership.

Kuff's right, that's an incredibly powerful and potentially contagious meme. Not only does the public seem to blame the GOP leadership for the school finance debacle, but Governor Perry's veto of legislation to strengthen Texas' probation system boosted incarceration costs and worsened Texas' overincarceration crisis.

Does that put the seat at risk? Unlikely, unless Cornuaud's a helluva candidate. But as Kuff put it, "the process he went through to arrive as a Democratic candidate is exactly the sort of thing the Dems will need to happen with voters if they're going to climb back out of the hole. It's the same process that created a lot of the current crop of Republicans, just in reverse." That's the real, long-term risk for Republicans -- when local public officials start switching parties it could signal a tipping point in public sentiment. While a lot of Republicans did stake out sensible views -- Carter Casteel comes to mind on education, Jerry Madden and Ray Allen on promoting treatment and stronger probation for drug offenders -- Cornuaud's opponent Dan Flynn wasn't one of them.

I found a somewhat more extensive statement in the Rains County Leader outlining the candidate's views on incarcerating low-level drug offenders:

"We also need to focus on the increasing drug problem in our community that is destroying lives and tearing apart families. According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, for each person incarcerated in the state of Texas, we pay $44.01 per day, or $16,063 per year (not including prison costs). Most of these persons are non-violent offenders. On the other hand, for our children's education in Texas we only spend an average of about $6,500 a year per student. We need to create viable alternatives to spending $16,063 per year, per person, for non-violent offenders.

"We need to focus on establishing solutions that accomplish our goals of punishing the illegal activity, while reducing the astronomical cost of incarceration, and work on actually deterring future criminal behavior in the process. Work programs, community service, lower cost minimum security facilities, halfway houses, increased fines as a form of punishment, and effective community supervision are some possibilities that need to be explored. Illegal drug use is draining our society of needed resources, and it is destroying families. The money saved can be used to educate our children on how drugs affect families, reduce our property taxes, provide effective and competent police protection, and put money back into our community, while actually reducing drug activity in our district."

He's not alone in the Piney Woods looking for real solutions to meth instead of easy "tough on crime" rhetoric. I'd like to think Cornuaud's reasoning could be a bellwether signalling a breach in the public's willingness to accept simplistic answers to difficult problems like drug abuse, crime, and the impact on families. At the end of the day, I wouldn't think most centrist Texans would prioritize incarcerating non-violent drug offenders over paying for public schools. Too often, voters just haven't been given another option.

Are Texas courts one big plea mill?

The Texas Office of Court Administration has produced its 2005 annual statistical report (pdf) on the Texas court system. Among the highlights, it turns out all these Jack McCoy wannabees in the prosecutors' offices aren't performing many jury enthralling orations -- less than one percent of Texas criminal cases are finally decided at trial. The rest are plea bargained. (p. 33).

Drug offenses made up 33% of all Texas state criminal prosecutions in 2005 the report said (p. 34).

Also, here's a good flow chart (pdf) from the report explaining the confusing Texas court system's structure -- with separate highest courts for criminal and civil cases, but combined jurisdictions for appellate, district and county courts.

See also this report by the same agency (pdf) on the 2005 activities of Texas judicial support agencies, boards and commissions. More on this later.

Former assistant: Denton DA's office traded lenient sentences for cash and prizes

More allegations that the Denton County District Attorney's office traded lenient sentences in exchange for uncontested asset forfeiture cases against drug dealers, this time by a former assistant, Paul Johnson, who just announced his opposition to incumbent Bruce Isaacks in the upcoming GOP primary. ("Johnson plans to take on Isaacks in DA primary," Denton Record Chronicle, Dec. 4)

Johnson said that when he worked at the district attorney’s office, no one was supposed to get probation for delivery of a controlled substance. But there were instances in which drug dealers gave up boats, cars and more to the state, and then received probation, he said. Another former prosecutor has said publicly that such deals were struck with a half-dozen defendants over two years.

“In essence, you just bought leniency,” Johnson said. “The mere fact that they have cars, jewelry, et cetera, will not get them a probation offer.”

But Isaacks said that such deals do not happen.

“I can assure you that your chances of going to prison for narcotics delivery are a hell of a lot higher here than it is anywhere else in the state,” Isaacks said.

Isaacks said police from Dallas County arrange drug buys in Lewisville because they know drug dealers will go to prison if prosecuted in Denton County.

Johnson's charges that Isaack's office exchanged leniency for asset forfeiture opportunities echo those by the Dallas Morning News in 2003, which reported that another of Isaacks' assistants exchanged leniency in drug sentences in order to finance the county's matching fund obligations under the federal Byrne grant program for the now-defunct North Central Texas Drug Task Force. After that, Issacks and Sheriff Weldon Lucas pulled their support for the task force. Ironically, though, Johnson blames Isaacks for that, too:

Johnson also accused Isaacks of failing to fill a prosecutor’s position on the North Central Texas Drug Task Force, allowing grants to lapse.

Isaacks said he purposely didn’t fill the position because he felt the task force “had lost its focus.

“I decided I did not want an employee assigned to that,” Isaacks said. “During that period of time, there was a lot of consolidation going on. The state decided they wanted fewer task forces, because there were problems with them. We just didn’t need those sorts of issues here.”

Yup, in my book prosecutors exchanging lenient sentences for cash to make their budgets amounts to a loss of focus. But regular readers know I think getting rid of the task forces was the right decision, anyway, and if they hadn't done it the money still might have gone away. Yesterday I mentioned that the Governor right now is shifting big chunks of that same federal Byrne grant money away from such task forces toward border security.

But Johnson's obviously pulling out all the stops, knowing he has to go negative, hard, to beat an incumbent in a primary. Look for more such lurid details to emerge as the mudslinging gets underway in earnest in this hotly contested race. It's one of several important DA's races next year. To the south, Dallas County DA Bill Hill recently stepped down, leaving an open seat in an emerging Democratic county, and in Huntsville, an opponent has emerged for Walker County DA David Weeks. UPDATE: The Lubbock DA also has a challenger.

RELATED: Reacting to this post, Catonya tells about her own unhappy encounter with Texas' asset forfeiture laws.

Drug task force money goes to border security

Texas continues to shift federal drug war funding toward other law enforcement priorities, especially along the Mexican border.

Governor Rick Perry's Criminal Justice Division announced today it would divert $6 million from Texas drug task forces funded by the federal Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program to pay for the Guv's new border security plan, dubbed Operation Linebacker. Most of the funds will pay for a temporary increase in sheriff-department personnel in border counties and extra overtime for deputies.

The move comes at a time when the federal government is slashing the Byrne grant budget. This year the Legislature required Byrne drug task forces in Texas to comply with Department of Public Safety rules or give up their asset forfeiture funds, and many have chosen to close down rather than comply.

The money will be evenly distributed among border counties, which doesn't make much sense to me. It sounds more like throwing money at the problem (or the loudest complainers about the problem) instead of actually funding a coherent plan.

On a related note, I thought this idea was funny, but I'd hate for satirists to unwittingly give Texas politicians any more big ideas. :-)

Mexican border wars: "The only leaders who can contain the violence are the ones who are in jail"

Today's New York Times offers the best who's-who explanation I've seen of the violence in Nuevo Laredo between competing Mexican drug cartels ("Rival drug gangs turn streets of Nuevo Laredo into war zone," Dec. 4).

The main players are the "Gulf Cartel," which for years controlled most of the drug traffic along the Texas-Mexico border, and the "Sinaloa Cartel" which launched a campaign to seize control of their rival's distribution routes after several of the Gulf Cartel's leaders were captured by authorities in 2003. According to the Times, the Sinaloa Cartel bribed Mexican officials to get the federales to do their dirty work:

Mr. [Edgar] Valdéz [Villareal] and another lieutenant, Arturo Beltrán Leyva, went to Mexico City in March 2003 with a $1.5-million bribe for Domíngo Gonzalez Díaz, a commander in the Federal Investigations Agency, Mexico's F.B.I., Mexican authorities said. In exchange for the money, the authorities said, Mr. Gonzalez sent a close confidant to command federal forces here, with instructions to provide protection to the Sinaloa Cartel and to help it fight its rivals.

They underestimated the resilience of the Gulf Cartel, though, which allegedly controls much of local law enforcement on the border. The Gulf Cartel has also fielded a team of US-trained Mexican special forces deserters known as Los Zetas to up the ante, and the violence. Reported the Times,

[Osiel] Cárdenas, the leader of the Gulf Cartel, managed to keep control of his gang from inside Mexico's main maximum-security prison, La Palma. The Nuevo Laredo police department served almost entirely at his pleasure, federal law authorities said, helping not only protect the Gulf Cartel, but also kidnapping and killing suspected rivals. And a group of special forces officers, known as Los Zetas, who had deserted from the military and served as Mr. Cárdenas's personal security detail when he was out of prison, were deployed to protect the Gulf Cartel's turf - especially Nuevo Laredo.

So, in essence, the two main cartels have enlisted federal and local police as stalking horses against their rivals. Indeed, it's hard to know who to fear more, the cops or the drug gangs. Mexican law enforcement officials sound almost nostalgic for the days when the Gulf Cartel ran the whole show, given the brutality of the Sinaloa group and the open warfare now occurring between the cartels. Reported the Times,

The prize is the lucrative land drug routes that carry more than 77 percent of all the cocaine and about 70 percent of all the methamphetamines sold in the United States.

The more experienced drug kingpins, Mexican prosecutors said, were more willing to reach peace among themselves, to respect one another's territories and to stay out of sight in order not to cause trouble for local authorities.

New operatives like Mr. [Edgar] Valdéz [Villareal], however, fight for all or nothing, Mr. Vasconcelos said. And they seem willing to keep up their fight, no matter what the cost.

"Why are we in this situation?" Mr. Vasconcelos said. "Because the only leaders who can contain the violence are the ones who are in jail."

"The structures they used to maintain - of corruption and obstruction of justice - when we took those away, they were forced to use violence," he said. "It's a beast."

With so many local and federal cops working in the interest of the cartel factions, and even elite special forces troops fighting for the drug lords instead of the government, it's hard to envision a solution to this mess that involves stopping the flow of illegal drugs. So long as the United States indulges in its astronomical level of demand for narcotics, somebody will figure out how to supply them. A more likely way to end the violence would probably be a behind-the-scenes political agreement between the cartels and the government , greased with bribe money, that decides WHO will get to smuggle drugs and where. Given the alternatives, I don't know that that would be worse than the status quo.

You can almost hear Porfirio Diaz sighing, "Poor Mexico. So far from God, so close to the United States."

Research needed to tell if fewer arrests increase crime

Would arresting fewer low-level offenders increase crime? In the wake of Hurricane Rita, researchers have a chance to empirically measure that notion -- I'd love to see somebody in academia take up the project.

Rita's aftermath affords an almost unique chance to research the impact of reducing low-level arrests on crime rates. The Beaumont Enterprise reports that the Orange County jail failed inspection and still cannot re-open ("Orange County jail fails inspection, "Dec. 2). "Since the jail has been closed, law enforcement officers have had few spots to house criminals so arrests are way down," the paper reported. Grits earlier noted that officials in Gregg and Chambers Counties are in the same boat, making fewer arrests, especially of non-violent offenders, because of jail overcrowding.

So, during the period when those jurisdictions have reduced arrests, did the number of crimes reported increase, decrease, or stay about the same? I don't know the answer to that, though I haven't heard of any new crime wave reported in those areas. Local officials don't seem to think crime has worsened as a result: “In no way are the lives and safety of the citizens of Chambers County being put at risk,” [Chambers Sheriff Joe] LaRive said. “We’re still doing our job — we’re still protecting the public.”

To tell if that's really true, researchers would have to examine local records about the number of crimes reported before and after the hurricane for counties that reduced arrests. I'll bet he's right, though -- I've long suspected that a lot of low-level arrests, especially for non-violent offenses, aren't really improving public safety. With a little research it'd be possible to find out for sure.

Austinites: Support Garage Sale for Justice

Austinites who want to support the excellent work of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition should stop by their "Garage Sale for Justice."

When: Saturday, December 3rd, 7:00am-3:00pm
Where: 1912 East 7th Street

Snitching reforms from other states cited

The Miami Herald has the story of a jailhouse snitch who recanted after falsely accusing a Florida defendant of confessing to strangling the victim ("Jailhouse Informers: A risky bet," Nov. 24). (Regular readers know Grits has long been interested in confidential informant policies, since false snitch testimony ranks among the leading causes of wrongful convictions and other questionable police practices.) The Herald outlined several reforms proposed in other states to improve the informant system. The paper reported:

In response to problems with the use of jailhouse informants, some lawmakers and courts have increased restrictions on their use by prosecutors:

• Illinois: In any capital case in which prosecutors are using a jailhouse snitch, a judge must conduct a pretrial conference to determine if the informant is reliable.

• California: Whenever prosecutors have a snitch testify, a judge instructs jurors "the informant should be viewed with caution and close scrutiny" and to consider how much the testimony may have been influenced by favors or leniency from prosecutors.

• Courts in a handful of other states, including Oklahoma, Montana, Mississippi and Louisiana, have adopted similar jury instructions. Courts in Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, California and Illinois have determined that credibility of a witness - even an informant - is up to the jury to decide.

• The American Bar Association's ruling body in February recommended that prosecutors carefully limit snitch testimony "ensuring that no prosecution should occur based solely upon uncorroborated jailhouse informant testimony."

Corroboration, new warnings in jury instructions and heightened judicial review all would be important reforms to the snitch process, which could also be improved by granting informants a right to counsel before they agree to cooperate with police officers or prosecutors, and by notifying defense attorneys of snitch arrangements before trial. While some folks want to "stop snitching," a far more useful and realistic goal would be to reform the practice to mitigate the worst abuses. Obviously many other states are ahead of Texas in that regard.

Texas has had our share of lying snitches, too. In addition to citing proposed reforms, the Herald listed these other recent high profile cases involving mendacious informants:

1989: Leslie Vernon White, a longtime jailhouse informant in Los Angeles, admitted lying in a dozen cases. A grand jury later found widespread problems with the use of snitches and complicity by police and prosecutors.

2001: Prosecutors in Colorado, Florida, South Carolina and Missouri dropped 26 drug cases because an informant who received $2 million in payments over 12 years lied under oath dozens of times.

2004: A state court in California threw out the murder conviction of Thomas Goldstein because of an unreliable jailhouse snitch, 24 years after he testified.

2005: A California man serving a murder sentence was granted a new trial when the jailhouse informant who testified against him was found by a judge to lack credibility.

UPDATE: And they just keep coming. Via Drug War Rant, the Los Angeles Times had another story this week about a confidential informant making wrongful accusations on behalf of the DEA ("Snagging a rogue snitch," Dec. 2).

Say 'no' to police searches

Flex Your Rights encourages people to say 'no' to so-called "consent searches" by police ...

Click on the icons for advice on how to refuse police searches.

Bumming around the blogosphere

Light posting today and in the near term while I catch up on work, but I wanted to refer readers to other great sources around the blogosphere I've been reading lately:

State Rep. Carter Casteel has been named the blogosphere's Texan of the Year, Pink Dome reports. I didn't have time to participate in this process, but I'm glad PD and the rest took up the banner: I often disagree with Casteel on policy stuff but I respect her independence -- she's a good choice.

I've enjoyed Larry James' Urban Daily a lot recently, so for now I've bumped him up to Grits' Daily Checks list. Larry works on poverty issues as CEO of Central Dallas Ministries. He's a solutions-oriented guy, the kind of religious thinker who earnestly wants to help others and seek justice. Good stuff.

I'm glad to see Freedom is Slavery posting regularly after Scott's extended hiatus. Along with the UK's Spy Blog, FIS is a good way to track what's up in the new surveillance society. Of course, Bruce Schneier's blog still provides the blogospheric gold standard on high-tech security matters. Where else would you find tips on how to crack safes using thermal imaging, or on methods for hacking government wiretappers?

Lots of great drug war blogging recently. Pete at Drug War Rant continues to produce high quality fare just about daily -- I especially liked his recent item about encountering a faux drug roadblock at a rest stop, to which Radley Balko added great background. The Dare Generation Diary so far promises to be a great new blogging source on the drug war, today bringing the news of a lawsuit Students for Sensible Drug Policy and ACLU are filing that challenges the law banning financial aid to people with drug convictions. Thehim's Drug War Roundup at Blog Reload keeps getting better and better. And as always, Libby at Last One Speaks provides a great one-stop shopping source on the drug war, plus she's developing a case of Austin-envy.

Folks who care about criminal justice matters should read Doc Berman at Sentencing Law & Policy all the time -- today he reports on a New Jersey commission that will propose new drug sentencing reforms, plus he's a first-rate source of capital punishment news and views.

I've also been reading the good folks at Concurring Opinions more often, recently, and particularly enjoyed this piece on The Ontology of Blogging.

I wonder what the blog 1,000 executions will do after tomorrow? That's when the 1,000th is likely to occur. I don't really like the focus on what Doc Berman called the "magic of round numbers." The 1,000th execution is no better or worse than the 654th or the 1,087th. The real question, to me, is do you trust the state to always get it right?

I neglected a couple of weeks ago to point to some fine posts by OSAPian, a parole officer blogging at Patriotic Rants, who criticized California prison rules that undermine drug treatment programs and take offenders out of programs because they're succeeding! OSAPian's a staunch conservative, but never think criminal justice professionals don't know exactly how the system is screwed up.

Back in Texas, Rep. Aaron Pena's A Capitol Blog improves every week -- I think the good rep has hit a writing groove, because many of his posts have been first rate. Pena even made his re-election announcement on his blog!

Check out these folks and other bloggers linked at the right while I try to churn through the stack awaiting me on my desk to clear the way for more Grits' posts, soon.

And I'll bet they don't have access to the tunnels, either

The number of people living in downtown Houston increased by 200% during the 1990s, but only if you include jail inmates. Via Houston Strategies comes the news that 81% of those living in downtown Houston are incarcerated in the overflowing county jail. Notes blogger Tory Gattis, "at least you can say we have high-density residential downtown - although I don't think the guards encourage a very pedestrian-friendly environment."

Watch DEA Watch

A commenter points me to this discussion forum called DEA Watch, declaring that it's for use by DEA agents. If that's really who is commenting (posts are anonymous, but judging from the content, it sounds entirely possible), they're mad as hell and don't like George Bush very much. Or Mexicans. My personal favorite:

Isn't it curious that our pres not only didn't have the "little Mexican" AG at his side today for his illegal immigrant speech, he never once mentioned Gonzo's name.

We have 1) a president who's family is half-Mexican (one of which is a documented, habitual drug abuser [*] just like her uncle), 2) the worse illegal immigrant problem in our history since The Alamo, and 3) a Mexican-American AG who has done nothing to correct the problem... duuuuuh!

The Bush commentary actually goes downhill from there. Other commenters discuss DEA internal politics or disputes with the FBI ("feebs") and other agencies. I particularly appreciated this moment of candor:

Someone wrote: "After you finally got paid... it was a big check from DEA..." Duuuuuh, yeah! It's all about money!

Isn't money the single thing that drives drug dealers? Isn't money and more money the one thing that drives the cartels?

And doesn't the very fact that we eat drug dealers for breakfast, lunch and dinner make us just like them? Get real!!!

Why do cats have the nocturnal habits of the creatures it eats... as well as reptilian iris's yet front-facing predatorial eyes? Answer: because cats eat rodents, birds and creepy-crawly lizards and the like. Darwin 101: Things are what they eat.

We eat drug dealers so we are like drug dealers. Drug dealers crave money so we crave promotions that pay us more money. We're not unlike our prey. The only difference between us and the drug dealer is that we lie, cheat, steal and betray for what we call an "honest" paycheck. We will lie to anyone, including our spouses and family, and betray our closest DEA associate if it means we get something more than we've got.

Money is our King. Money is our God. Everything DEA stands and operates for is about taking money... cash... away from people who have it... just ask our VP who gets no-bid contracts in the billions for his former company.

Give money away??? You have GOT to be kidding!!!

A little on the scary side, but check it out. UPDATE: The commenter who provided the link, a former DEA Agent, chimed in with the following explanation regarding DEA Watch:

Grits,

As a former DEA Agent, I would like to comment a little about DEA Watch and DEA.

DEA Watch contains useful information but it's not always reliable or credible; alot like DEA.

DEA Watch exists, in part, because internally DEA is a mess or as one Agent put it; "a trainwreck".

That should concern everyone because more money is spent on drug enforcement nationwide than any other crime.

There are over 5,000 DEA Agents or about 100 per state. Each state has large numbers of state personnel dedicated to drug crimes and then there's the local effort in each state.

Then there's the DEA Task Forces, MET Teams, RET Teams, HIDTA, and OCDETF.

If that's not enough, throw in the drug enforcement efforts of ICE, FBI, and the other 20 or so federal law enforcement agencies and folks, drug enforcement dominates the enforcement landscape in every state.

Yet drug purities, drug availabilities and drug overdoses continue to rise.

Most competent DEA Agents that I know understand the important global, not local, role DEA plays in dealing with the drug problem.

They know how to make a national impact on purity and availability but the flagship of DEA is not their global and national role.

It's supporting State and Local Task Forces and programs that broaden and increase their dependibility on state and local efforts.

DEA is an agency that's now statistically driven and the drivers, not the mission, control DEA.

Most DEA Agents know DEA is seriously broken and DEA Watch is a place for them to anonymously vent.

The "Untouchable Narco-State" reaches the Texas border

In this morning's brief roundup, the "Untouchable Narco-State" reaches the Texas border, while in East Texas, prosecutors and law enforcement hype meth as "worse than crack." Collectively, these stories give you the sense that for all the drug war hype, in the big picture law enforcement is fiddling while Rome burns. Their solutions seem so small for a dilemma so vast ...

Texas Observer on the Drug War in Latin America.
See their fine cover story on "The Untouchable Narco-State" and the DEA's near-futile efforts to combat drug trafficking in Guatemala.

Latin American Drug War Reaches Texas.
Now that it's more difficult for addicts in Texas to make meth at home, the McAllen Monitor reports on the rise of meth smugglers crossing the Mexican border, while according to the Dallas News, border-area law enforcement says that

Rifles and handguns have been replaced by rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs, and high-caliber machine guns.

"Now the bad guys have more sophisticated training and better equipment," [Val Verde County] Sheriff [D'Wayne] Jernigan said. "They're better armed and willing to shoot."

Same Old Song and Dance from Walker County Drug Warriors.
Meanwhile, in Walker County (Huntsville), District Attorney David Weeks contributed greatly to the shrill tone of a hype-filled four part series on meth in the Huntsville Item (see parts one, two, three and four), portions of which seemingly could have been written by the spin doctors at the national Office of National Drug Control Policy. “You know, I thought that crack was the worst plague that we had ever seen, but I think meth is worse,” Weeks said. “From what I've seen, it's more addictive, it's more destructive, it's more violent. It's just about the worst thing you can come across.” Weeks was one of the DAs who opposed stronger probation and pushed Texas' disastrous pseudoephedrine restrictions (law enforcement officials say that after just three months they fear the new law will cause "more addiction, more overdoses, and more violence"). So he's in typical form here -- full of dire predictions but offering only bad solutions.

Meanwhile, local Sheriff Clint McRae, a former narcotics task force officer, told the paper meth is “more addictive than any other narcotic I have dealt with.” It's worth mentioning that a presentation I heard at a recent drug policy conference by Dr. Carl Hart, a clinical neuroscientist at Columbia University who studies the effects of meth on human workplace behaviors, contradicted such dire, 'worse than crack' claims -- bottom line, Hart said the qualities and intensity of the addiction, from a medical researcher's perspective, didn't differ that much from cocaine. Many of the side effects like meth mouth, it turns out, likely stem from the prohibition on safer chemicals for use by home manufacturers, but don't show up with the pharmaceutical meth he uses for tests. That makes sense. After all, US fighter pilots popping meth tablets to fly jets are taking the same drug, chemically speaking, as the meth-heads, but they aren't having their teeth fall out.

Go Here For More On The Drug War.
Blog Reload's Drug War Roundup links to a number of interesting items I don't have time to write about, including a bizarre incident in which US Border Patrol agents in Hudspeth County were outgunned by military-clad drug traffickers in a firefight over a dumptruck load full of pot.

Requiring corroboration for eyewitness testimony might have saved Ruben Cantu

What can be done to stop the government from convicting and even executing the wrong people? Blogger Clayton Cramer suggested a great reform proposal in the wake of last week's report by the Houston Chronicle that Texas likely executed Ruben Cantu in 1993 for a crime he didn't commit. Writes Cramer:

At one time, a number of states required two eyewitnesses to a murder before the state could impose the death penalty. Why?

Because America was a Bible-believing nation at the time of the Revolution, and reformed many of its criminal statutes in that era to conform to the Bible. Numbers 35:30 says:

Anyone who kills a person is to be put to death as a murderer only on the testimony of witnesses. But no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.

Even though I disapprove of the death penalty, using the Bible's standard on this would certainly have prevented the execution of Ruben Cantu for a crime that he apparently did not commit.

Liberals, unfortunately, would never tolerate writing a law with Biblical input today.

That's a terrific idea, and I think Cramer might be surprised at what liberals can tolerate. The reason a two-witness rule would have difficulty being enacted isn't because "liberals" oppose it, but because prosecutors and police unions would throw the loudest hissy fit you've ever heard. Trust me on this one -- I know from experience.

After the scandals arose surrounding the Tulia drug stings, the ACLU, NAACP, and LULAC teamed up with ministers and victims families from the group Tulia Friends of Justice to help pass a bill requiring corroboration for undercover testimony in drug cases. (The original bill would have required corroboration for any undercover testimony, but the final, passed legislation required it only for confidential informants or "snitches," not police officers.) Still, it has had a big impact.

The biblical requirement for corroboration was very much a part of the debate surrounding the Tulia legislation, a message carried door to door at the Texas Legislature in 2001 by Reverends Charles Kiker and Alan Bean from Tulia Friends of Justice. (I've still got a copy of the flyer they distributed with a headline reading, "The Bible and the ACLU Agree: Require Corroboration for Drug Sting Testimony.")

In fact, as Rev. Kiker would be quick to point out, the corroboration requirement in Mosaic law is more extensive than what Cramer cites. In Deuteronomy 19:15 we're told that all accusations of crime must be corroborated: "One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses." Jesus (Matthew 18:16) and the Apostle Paul (2 Corinthians 13: 1 and 1 Timothy 5:19) both affirmed this tradition for New Testament believers.

That 2001 legislation was crafted to resolve particular problems with mendacious undercover operations that became apparent in the infamous Tulia and Hearne imbroglios. (Most folks have heard of Tulia, but if you don't know much about what happened in Hearne I'd encourage you to watch this video.) But folks have been thinking about what constitutes justice for thousands of years. Nobody in their right mind, and certainly nobody at the ACLU of Texas who I work with, would flinch because some modern conception of justice coincided with Judaism, Christianity, Islam, or for that matter Buddhism or the Tao Te Ching.

I helped negotiate language for that bill on behalf of ACLU of Texas, and I can assure Mr. Cramer I didn't complain about the Reverends' religious rhetoric, nor was I particularly concerned that a basis existed for our proposal in Mosaic law. Sitting in the gallery, I chuckled at the irony when conservative legislators quoted the Bible on the floor of the Texas House to support a bill first proposed by the ACLU, but that's politics -- everyone's political stances are informed by their values, and where those values are based on religious beliefs, I'd never begrudge someone from bringing them into the public square. Obviously, every idea deserves vetting and "God said so" isn't a good enough reason to pass a law. But in this case those ancient values of fairness and justice translate extraordinarily well into the modern setting. As Rev. Kiker told legislators, requiring corroboration

puts a protective hedge around the ninth commandment, ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.’ As long as people bear false witness against their neighbors, this Biblical law will not be outdated.

Corroboration for eyewitness testimony would be an appropriate, initial reform in the wake of Ruben Cantu's wrongful killing by the state of Texas -- but it's needed not just in murder cases but for all eyewitness testimony, which is notoriously unreliable. Cantu and the Tulia cases are the tip of the iceberg -- across the country prosecutors routinely secure convictions based on uncorroborated testimony for all kinds of cases.

I don't know if Cramer's suggestion (or Moses', I suppose, depending on how you look at it) is "liberal" or "conservative," but who cares? It would be a great first step toward preventing more wrongful convictions and executions in the future.

Cross-posted at the ACLU of Texas' Liberty Blog. See also: The Ruben Cantu Tragedy: The Real Killer Is Still Out There.

Ex-offenders' optimism crushed by reality of state indifference

Could Texas reduce crime if the state spent more resources on programs preparing prison inmates to re-enter the free world and on support services once they're out?

That's the implication of a new survey conducted by the Urban Institute among felons leaving the Texas prison system who planned to return to Houston, the Houston Chronicle's Peggy O'Hare reported this morning ("Felons' view of freedom often rosier than reality," Nov. 26). Despite relatively high recidivism rates, the survey found that 84% of exiting inmates thought it would be "easy" to stay out of trouble and keep from returning to prison, meaning that many who hope and expect to succeed on the outside later run into barriers that prevent that goal. So what factors would cause so many people who say they want to change their lives to commit new crimes? Reported O'Hare:

Many find that prospective employers are reluctant to give people with felony records a chance to prove themselves, and finding rental properties that will allow felons to sign a lease can be even tougher. Also, experts say, family members long separated from them by steel bars may not be willing to reconnect.

But one Urban Institute researcher said the inmates' optimism is simply human nature.

"I really do believe they have every hope and every intent of making it this time," said Nancy La Vigne, one of the study's authors. "The disconnect comes after release, when they have no support system."

Researchers found 71 percent of those surveyed expected to support themselves easily, although only 15 percent had jobs waiting for them. Most acknowledged they would need help with education, job training, money, transportation and health care.

The study also found that 79 percent expected it to be easy to renew family relationships. As many as 63 percent expected to live with their families and 54 percent said they would rely on loved ones for financial support.

That's an incredible amount of optimism and positive, hopeful potential offenders appear to possess when they leave the penitentiary. It's too bad reality doesn't more closely reflect their expectations. If 71% think they'll support themselves, but only 15% have jobs waiting, then about 56% are in for a big disappointment -- so many employers refuse to hire ex-prisoners, they'll be lucky to draw any paycheck at all in the free world, much less one that lets them support themselves and their families (about half of all Texas inmates have minor-age children).

These stats highlight a disconnect in public policy that I've never understood -- more than 90% of Texas corrections resources are spent on prison buildings, guards, and other incarceration expenses, but without in-prison preparation, plus job placement and housing assistance when they get out, many felons become recidivists purely out of desperation at a lack of other options. That makes us all less safe.

Almost everyone who enters prison eventually comes out, and then what happens? Take the example of a 20-year old burglar who robs houses to get money for drugs. If in prison that person receives no drug treatment, education, or job training, then upon release, because of the "felon" label, cannot get a job or a place to live, what can anyone expect but for the offender to go back to robbing houses? No job, no home, the addiction that drove the original offense still extant -- what other option does that person have, really? We've created a situaton where criminality becomes the only available career path instead of just a youthful bad decision.

Incarceration has boomed to the point that one in eleven Texans is now a felon (after all, Texas has declared nearly 2,000 distinct acts "felonies"). That means there are an awful lot of people out there in precisely that circumstance.

If we really cared about public safety instead of just vengeance and retribution, programs to help offenders find jobs and places to live would be as important a part of the corrections system as prison walls and bars. That's because the goal of the system would be for the offenders not to commit new crimes when they get out -- to reduce the overall amount of crime. When you look at the incentives the current system provides -- bans on many jobs, allowing housing discrimination, re-arrest instead of treatment for drug abuse, restrictions on voting and participation in public life -- you'd honestly think Texas wants ex-offenders to fail and commit more crimes.

New Austin charter amendment campaign would open police records

Let the sun shine in! A new proposed revision to Austin's city charter might finally shed light on that city's flawed police disciplinary system. Only a small number of police officers ever engage in serious misconduct, but keeping that misconduct secret contributes greatly to an aura of distrust between Austin police and much of the community.

At noon, I participated in a press conference hosted by the Save Our Springs Alliance (representing the ACLU of Texas Police Accountability Project) announcing the launch of a petition drive to open records at the City of Austin -- of particular interest to Grits readers, the charter revisions would open up more records at the Austin Police Department about allegations of officer misconduct. The proposed change is essentially similar to that proposed by the Sunshine Project for Police Accountability in 1998, and unanimously recommended by the Austin charter review commission in 2002. Here's the summary of the provision on police records put out by the campaign in their section by section analysis (Word doc):

Under the Texas civil service code, which covers records about misconduct for Austin police officers, two personnel files are described. Cities "must,” maintain a file where public records about discipline are kept, and "may" keep a second file where they can store records that become closed (Local Government Code 143.089 a-g). All civil service cities (about 70) including Austin use the two-file system to close as many files as possible, while the disciplinary files of the other 2,400+ Texas law enforcement agencies are governed by the more generous Texas Public Information Act (Government Code 552.108). By maintaining only the mandatory file under this amendment, APD records will be open to the same extent they are presently open down the street at the Travis County Sheriff's Department and in most other cities.

So the new amendment doesn't propose any radical new revelation of police records -- it would only open records about allegations of police misconduct to the same extent as they're presently public at police departments in Dallas, El Paso, and "down the street at the Travis County Sheriff's Department." It's an elegant and much-needed fix -- a decisive exercise of local control to open critical records to the public.

The proposed charter amendment would also make negotiating meetings public between the City of Austin and the police officer's union over their "meet and confer" contract. A new law that took effect September 1 covering most other Texas cities made their labor negotiations public, so this provision just brings Austin into compliance with established practice throughout the rest of Texas.

There are a lot of other great open government provisions in the amendment that I'm sure will be discussed at length in the coming days. And signature gatherers are promoting a second amendment forcing the city to maximally restrict new development in environmentally sensitive areas.

If you live in Austin, look for signature gatherers over the holiday season and into next spring -- the campaign is shooting to put the charter amendment before the voters on the May 2006 ballot. Or contact the SOS Alliance to help gather signatures -- if you're serious about it, they're paying folks $.75 per valid signature gathered.

Ruben Cantu Tragedy: The real killer is still out there

Texas' execution of Ruben Cantu for a crime he didn't commit demonstrates a profound disrespect for life by the criminal justice system -- for Cantu's, for the murder victim's, and for the safety of the rest of us who pay police and prosecutors' salaries. (The Houston Chronicle's Lise Olson reported this week that all the witnesses against Cantu have recanted, and most people involved in the case now believe he didn't do it.)

For Cantu, who was 17 when the crime was committed for which he was executed, the disrespect for life is obvious -- the government took the easy way out instead of doing their job. Police decided who they wanted to die for the crime before their so-called "investigation" even started, then railroaded a witness into accusing Cantu after he'd told them twice Cantu wasn't the guy. They never interviewed witnesses who could have provided Cantu with an alibi or even identified the real killer. The District Attorney failed to look for corroboration for the single eyewitness, ramrodding the conviction through despite the fact that false eyewitness testimony is the leading cause of wrongful convictions in the country. Nobody blinked. Nobody cared. They just wanted the conviction.

Nearly as grave is the disrespect shown to the murder victim and his family, who suffer a second indignation when the government casts aside accuracy in a rush to secure a conviction. Crime victims and their loved ones receive no benefit or satisfaction when the person punished played no part in the affair. Can you imagine how it must feel to find out so many years later not only that the killer wasn't punished, but someone was executed who wasn't responsible for your pain? It's unimaginable.

Finally, the case shows disrespect for public safety and for justice: After all, the real killer is still out there, unpunished for this heinous crime. You've got to wonder about prosecutors' priorities. San Antonio District Attorney Susan Reed sounded defensive and reticent to think about the implications:

"I found the articles very troubling," she said Monday. "I've always said it is not our goal that an innocent person will be punished."

However, "She is skeptical about recanted testimony," and expressed no concern that someone who committed capital murder might still be on the loose. She said she'd wait to consider it after her own office could investigate, but who knows how long that will take? The original crime happened nearly 20 years ago.

How can the public have faith in a criminal justice system that would allow this to happen? Who can believe that a system delivers true outcomes when it lets a single, uncorroborated eyewitness send a man to the executioner's table? (Or to prison for decades, as in the Tulia cases.) The shame from Ruben Cantu's unjustified death will haunt and reverberate through the Texas criminal justice system for years, and deservedly so. From all appearances, it's a tragedy of the highest order.

UPDATE: See additional blog coverage from Instapundit, Prawfsblawg, TalkLeft, Clayton Cramer, Doc Berman, and The People's Republic of Seabrook.

Cross-posted at the ACLU of Texas' Liberty Blog.

Blogging Abolitionists

Say 'Howdy' to the new Texas Abolition Blog by T.J. Geiger from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, joining several other new abolitionist blogs that have cropped up in the last few weeks. (And don't forget Stand Down Texas, which is a great one-stop shopping source for Texas-related death penalty news.)

Earlier I wrote about a talk I gave at the conference of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty calling for more anti-death penalty bloggers to develop new, more effective, winning messages. (David Eliot wrote this response.) It's good to see Texas well-represented in the mix.

In other abolitionist news,

• The indefatiguable Doc Berman has been focusing on the economic costs of capital punishment, and Justice-to-be Alito's death penalty views.
• I thought this was an interesting piece from Mother Jones about American Catholics who oppose the death penalty as part of promoting a "culture of life."
• If you didn't see it, check out the outstanding Birmingham News series, "Choosing Life in a Death Penalty State." The newspaper's in-depth analysis came on the heels of an ACLU of Alabama public policy report released in October, "Broken Justice: The Death Penalty in Alabama."

Mistakes acknowledged, and one avoided

An innocent man may have been executed, an Austin cop was fired after killing a minority youth, and San Antonio voters rejected tough on crime rhetoric last week at the ballot box.

Did Texas execute an innocent man? Years after his death at the hands of the state of Texas, Ruben Cantu's accusers have recanted. The special ed student from a tough neighborhood in San Antonio was seventeen with no prior convictions when he was accused of capital murder. He claimed to the end he was "framed." Now it appears he was right. Read the fantastic investigative piece by the Houston Chronicle's Lise Olson, via Doc Berman. UPDATE: Here's part two, published Monday.

Austin PD fires Rocha's killer. Austin police chief Stan Knee fired Officer Julie Schroeder, who shot and killed an unarmed youth named Daniel Rocha earlier this year. Knee called the death "avoidable." The decision came after the Austin Statesman revealed the usually secret recommendations of Austin's civilian review panel (which asked that Schroeder be fired). The Statesman's coverage of the Rocha case has been especially strong; they deserve a lot of credit for forcing city officials to closely examine the issue.

San Antonio voters say 'no' to more crime spending. While I was out of town, SA voters overwhelmingly rejected a new "crime prevention and control district" -- essentially a new taxing district authorized to levy a sales tax to hire more cops. I hear lots of politicians say voters demand they be "tough on crime." More and more, though, I notice that when voters are told that choice has a price tag -- in this case, a new sales tax -- they often decide they aren't interested.

Federal grants for drug task forces cut again

When a federally funded drug task force perpetrated the infamous Tulia drug stings in 1999, nobody could have predicted that six years later Texas' task forces would be fading into the sunset, or that President Bush would mercilessly slash their budgets, but that's just what's happened.

The federal "Byrne Justice Assistance Grant" that pays for local Tulia-style drug task forces all over the country will be cut by one-third in 2006 -- from $606 million to $402 million -- if, as expected, President Bush signs into law a Justice Department budget finally approved by the Senate this week. (See the Helena, MT Independent Record, "Senate vote could mean cuts to drug task forces," Nov. 19.)

Earlier this year the House of Representatives approved slightly deeper cuts. President Bush had proposed elimnating the fund, and a lot of conservative interests back him on that. But Democrats successfully preserved the pork barrel program first established to bolster their tough-on-crime credentials in 1988 while Michael Dukakis was running for President. Even so, the total fund now stands at half its 2004 levels.

What does this mean for state and local governments whose drug task force funds have been cut again? In short, that it's time to consider spending federal grant money on other things besides salaries for a few cops to pursue outdated tactics. It's time for Byrne-grant funded drug task forces to close up shop -- their era is done, or it should be.

Local officials need to understand the same money can also pay for a lot of other good stuff: to establish drug courts, purchase equipment, supplement treatment services, try juvenile justice innovations, create new programs aimed at special populations like the elderly or the homeless, in Texas they could strengthen probation programs that would draw down more state funds -- in short, lots of good stuff that local agencies need.

Only short-sighted leaders would continue spending Byrne money on drug task forces in the current environment because they're financially unsustainable. If President Bush successfully kills the Byrne grant fund in the next few years (he pushed for eliminating it in each of his first five Presidential budgets), the drug task forces will just dry up and go away. But money spent now on equipment, training and other projects -- especially innovative approaches like drug courts and cheaper alternatives to incarceration -- could build new infrastructure for the long term.

These budget cuts offer states a chance to get smarter about how they spend Byrne grant funds instead of backing failed programs year after year mainly out of habit, or possibly fear. I hope they will.

Counties unwise to become incarceration entrepeneurs

Most corrections officials view Texas' surfeit of prisoners as a looming crisis, but a few Texas counties see a chance for profiteering.

In Grits' recent column outlining 'best practices' to reduce county jail overcrowding, I mentioned how foolishly shortshighted it is for counties to view themselves as "incarceration entrepeneurs," building jails speculatively to house prisoners from other counties, or state and federal overflow. A great example of that arises in Harrison County in Northeast Texas ("Harrison County board okays $6.2 million jail extension," Longview News-Journal, Nov. 19), which plans to issue $1 million more debt than the commissioners court anticipated to build dozens more new jail beds than it needs, in hope they can turn a profit. Their vendors conviced them demand exists to keep the bonds afloat:

The state jail system is at 99.6 percent capacity, and county jails are 88.7 percent full while 90 percent full is considered capacity, [architect Donald] Olson said, adding that state officials are paying $45 to $50 per day to county jails who accept their prisoners.

The federal government, he said, is paying even more.

You'd think they'd have learned more from the jail overcrowding woes in neighboring Gregg County (Longview), where law enforcement officers have had to stop making low-level arrests because their jail is full of contract prisoners.

Once again, the seeds of tomorrow's crises lie in today's bad decisions. Turning incarceration from a lamentable government responsibility into an entrepeneurial income stream required to pay bond debt creates incentives to incarcerate ever more people, when in fact likely many fewer could be arrested without harming public safety.

Pseudoephedrine restrictions raise fears of 'more addiction, more overdoses, and more violence'

Following Oklahoma's lead (and let's face it, can that ever be a good idea?) Texas earlier this year required pseudoephedrine products (mostly over-the-counter cold medicine) to be kept behind store counters and to require cold-sufferers to sign a logbook documenting their purchase. The idea was to reduce the number of bath-tub-gin-style "meth labs," mostly low-level users making meth for their own private consumption ("Traditional meth busts decrease, meth ice busts spike," KFDX TV, Nov. 16):

Local officers say since a Texas law went into effect restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine, the number of Meth labs found in Texoma has dropped. Instead of working at least one lab a week, they are working one every few weeks, which is a welcomed change since labs are highly toxic.

Instead, though, now a more potent, cheaper Mexican version of meth is flooding Texas' market, causing law enforcement to issue the same, tired, dire predictions we heard just months ago about home meth labs:

[O]fficer John Spragins with the North Texas Drug Task Force says officers are just beginning to confront a new problem.

Meth Ice is a purer form of Methamphetamine and it is popping up weekly. One bust last week netted $88,000 worth of Ice. Spragins says with more people on Ice, he fears we will see more addiction, more overdoses, and more violence.

Well, that's an excellent result, isn't it, for a three month old law? More addiction, more overdoses, and more violence! Surely it's now evident that trying to stamp out supply without managing demand cannot solve America's drug problems. State Sen. Craig Estes and his cohorts who passed this ill-conceived law were chasing their own tails. This substitution problem in Northeast Texas and Oklahoma is just a microcosm of the bigger dilemma -- addicted people can always find a way to get high. (At the DPA conference I heard a physician from Mexico City tell how street kids who can't afford pot sniff cheap glue that's far worse for them.)

Drug treatment is the best way to reduce meth addiction, and where Texas counties have put money into the strategy, it's working. More supply-side solutions focusing on punitive approaches aren't really helping anything.

Odds and ends ... stuff I missed

While I've been catching up on sleep, reading email, and procrastinating returning a week's worth of phone calls, I wanted to mention several items I noticed recently that merit Grits readers attention:

R.I.P. David Ruiz (1942 - 2005). David Ruiz -- whose litigation in the 1970s against Texas' prison system "transformed our prison from a backwards Southern plantation-style system into a modern penal system," according to former district judge Scott McCown -- died this weekend in a prison hospital in Galveston. ("Inmate who fought for prison reform dies," Houston Chronicle, Nov. 14) His courage and brilliant amateur lawyering dramatically improved prison conditions for hundreds of thousands of incarcerated Texans. May he rest in peace.

With or without task forces, drug use continues. The drug task force in Kerrville is shutting down, with agencies making plans to finance their own local drug units in its stead. ("Drug task force may lose its funding," Kerrville Times, Nov. 15) It sounds, though, like the unit wasn't doing much good. “'Cocaine and marijuana we’ll always have,' [the task force commander] said. 'We’ll always have a problem with heroin (because of long-term addicts.)'" If that's the case, then, one wonders what benefit resulted from the task force's lock-em-up approach in the first place? I'll bet crime doesn't increase one iota as a result of the agency's demise -- as in Chambers County, a lot of folks being arrested probably aren't a threat to public safety.

Anatomy of a false conviction. A Texas Ranger's false testimony helped send two legal immigrants to prison. Their convictions are being contested by attorneys hired by the Mexican consulate. ("Texas Ranger admits giving incorrect testimony at trial," Houston Chronicle, Nov. 15) Descriptions of the suspects given by the victim as she was dying were misstated in the Ranger's reports, and he failed to notify prosecutors of possibly exculpatory evidence.

Reporting prison rape. Michelle Deitch thinks Texas shouldn't be criticized for reporting prison rape more often than other states, because most states just aren't collecting the information. ("On prison rape, Texas tries to report it right," Austin Statesman, Nov. 9)

A middle ground approach on the drug war. I mentioned two panels on criminal justice topics I attended at the Texas Book Festival, but here's a report from another one on drug violence and the Texas-Mexico border. ("To snuff the weed, kill the root," SA Express News, Nov. 13) Author Don Henry Ford, Jr. suggests a middle ground approach falling somewhere between "legalization" and our current failed strategies.

Driving over the speed limit is illegal, but we don't throw an offender in jail unless he endangers the lives of others. Fines and loss of driver's licenses and other privileges are used to force people to comply or face constant harassment. This is the approach we should take with people using drugs. Face these sanctions or enroll in treatment programs.

For those who continue to sell hard drugs, prison will remain a necessary evil. However, the excessive sentences now required are not effective. Prisons serve as training grounds; criminals enter as novices and are released as seasoned professionals.

I suggest shorter but tougher sentences spent in isolation cells for first-time drug offenders and any others deemed salvageable.

Maquiladora prisons? Mexico is contemplating them. ("Cross border prison industries, inc.," El Paso Newspaper Tree, Nov. 14)

Alabama confronts prison overcrowding. Alabama's Governor Riley says the state must implement recommendations from his prison crowding task force or face a fiscal crisis: "'It is not a radical approach. It's one that's been followed around the country. Alabama is in a minority in not having moved further forward in community corrections,' said Birmingham lawyer Bill Clark, a task force member." ("Riley sets his focus on prison reforms," Birmingham News, Nov. 12.)

The task force found that drug use was so pervasive in prisons, it's the wrong place for inmates who want to stop using.

"Instead of just putting them in this environment where their drug habit gets worse, their criminal record gets worse, they should be treated in a different environment," [a drug rehabilitation counselor on the panel] said.

Alabama's legislative session begins in January, when the task force's suggestions will be considered as formal legislation. (See also "Groups say prison not addicts' place," Montgomery Advertiser, Nov. 15) They like grits in Alabama, don't they? ;-)

Fewer arrests don't harm public safety in Chambers County, officials say

In Chambers County in southeast Texas, officials still haven't re-opened the local county jail two months after it was shut down because of Hurricane Rita. ("Chambers County Jail Still Shut Down," Baytown Sun, Nov. 13) Officials said "the department has been forced to back off arrests without an operational jail, but stressed that any serious offender is still placed under arrest and sent to [rented beds in] Angelina County." Arrests have declined to 2-3 per day, down from 9-10 when the jail was open. Indeed, the experience indicates perhaps more arrests were being made before than necessary: “In no way are the lives and safety of the citizens of Chambers County being put at risk,” [Sheriff Joe] LaRive said. “We’re still doing our job — we’re still protecting the public.”

From that one may conclude that, in about 60-70 percent of arrests in Chambers County under normal circumstances, incarcerating the arrestees "in no way" made the public safer, in the opinion of the local sheriff. So, one wonders, why do it?

Back from CA

Finished the grueling drive back late last night from the Drug Policy Alliance conference in Long Beach (~1,450 miles). I'm not sure I'll have time to write much about the event, but the new DARE Generation Diary has a writeup -- that's the new blog from Students for Sensible Drug Policy, some of whom I got to meet in California -- and here's more from D'Alliance.

What are grits?

I don't know where Skelly came up with this little icon, but I think it's HILARIOUS:

Until next week

Off to attend the Drug Policy Alliance's conference on the west coast, where I'm scheduled to speak at a workshop on the subject of combating Byrne-grant funded drug task forces. (See Grits' Texas drug task force coverage.) Until then, catch up reading past Grits offerings below, or check out the fine bloggers listed in the right hand column. If all goes as planned I'll be back in the blogging saddle next week. Thanks for stopping by!