Blogs to check out

The blogosphere expands and changes so rapidly that when I quit websurfing for a few weeks I feel out of touch. Lots of good stuff out there, and more every day. People interested in the criminal justice topics discussed on Grits might also want to check out these sites I've been meaning to plug:

• Wretched of the Earth (a public defender in Dallas, back from hiatus)

• Underdog Blog

• Defending Those People

• Judging Crimes

Plus, congrats to the Wandering Scribe on her book deal. She started blogging while homeless living in her car in the U.K., and has developed a big enough online following to attract a publisher. What a great blogging story.

Why would an innocent person confess?

In an extremely rare pro-defense ruling, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals today overturned a murder conviction from Austin's infamous yogurt shop murders, declaring parts of a co-defendant's statements had been improperly read to jurors at trial without cross examination (See "Appeals court overturns yogurt shop conviction," Austin Statesman, May 24). Three judges dissented, saying the defendant's own videotaped confession was enough to convict. Though defendant Robert Springsteen claimed his confession was coerced, Judge Sharon Keller wrote that the defense offered no credible motive for why a defendant would falsely confess.

The dissenting CCA judges might ask Springsteen's co-defendant, Michael Scott, why someone might falsely confess: His statement was obtained after an Austin police officer held a gun to his head during the interrogation (See the photo.)

Perhaps Judge Keller and the dissenting CCA judges should start reading Professor Alan Hirsch's blog, The Truth About False Confessions. There are a lot of reasons people falsely confess.

UPDATE: Here is the opinion and the dissent. More from the Stand Down Project.

El Paso City Council: Don't militarize the border

President Bush didn't necessarily consult with border communities before announcing new plans to restrict immigration, but if he had he might have rethought his approach. The El Paso City Council passed a resolution (pdf) yesterday opposing President Bush's plan to "militarize the border" with up to 10,000 national guard troops. Citing the case of killed goatherd Esequiel Hernandez, the city council said President Bush's proposal "threatens the safety and well being of the residents of our border communities." (See "City Council opposes militarizing border," El Paso Times, May 24)

In the same pdf file, find letters from Congressmen Sylvestre Reyes and Solomon Ortiz to the President and the Pentagon raising concerns about the President's authority to deploy troops in this way within US borders and the terms of engagement.

Thanks to Will for the heads up.

Local papers do Lord's work analyzing excessive force

Every local newspaper should be tracking information about local excessive force complaints, IMO, because nobody else does it. A Corpus Christi Caller Times report ("Tracking the use of force," May 22) found that nearly 1/5 of "deaths in custody" statewide occurred prior to or during arrest. More than a fifth of deaths in custody occurred in Houston.

The Caller Times found the statewide database of deaths in custody maintained by the Texas Attorney General is rife with data entry errors and contains little useful information. Writers Nancy Martinez and Sarah Viren found that few complaints by citizens of excessive forces are sustained at Corpus Christi PD, where the "internal affairs department sustained, or found sufficient evidence, in 27 of the 976 complaints." I was quoted at the end of the article on that subject:

Scott Henson, director of ACLU's Police Accountability project based in Austin, said to his knowledge, no organization in the state keeps track of excessive force complaints.

"The big problem is we have a small amount of officers who are responsible for the majority of complaints. The other officers turn a blind eye and support the blue wall of silence that support that kind of behavior," Henson said.

"Local newspapers do it. There's no one else. I don't have the staff to do it. We do an annual report on racial profiling data at traffic stops."

That's at least been my experience - local newspapers and disgruntled family members of brutality victims are the only folks you ever see pursuing this critical information. I've been down that road, and even for an experienced researcher the lack of uniform reporting makes data a jumble. It's a shame the state doesn't do a better job of tracking such information.

Say 'Howdy'

To the Drug Law Blog, which began posting in April.

Hasta mañana

On days when you don't see blog posts on Grits, I'm usually working on some importunate writing task for work - at the moment, a major deadline in June. Today is one of those days. Hasta mañana.

Blogger speaking at Austin ACS luncheon

Former public defender and blogger David Feige will speak today at a lunch event hosted by the American Constitution Society in Austin. Here are the details - it's $15 bucks per head, $7.50 for students. CLE credit provided. Feige is promoting his new book, Indefensible: One Lawyer's Journey into the Inferno of American Justice.

Welcome to town, David.

TX Senate Hispanic Caucus: Governor should rein in Operation Linebacker

The Texas Senate Hispanic Caucus criticized implementation of Governor Rick Perry's "Operation Linebacker" program on the border last week, saying some sheriffs, especially in El Paso, are using the money in ways that overstep the legal authority of local law enforcement.

Writing as chairman of the caucus, Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa sent Governor Perry a letter dated May 19, 2006 declaring his concern the program was paying for "recent immigration raids conducted by Sheriff Leo Samaniego in El Paso County." He also lamented "confirmed reports that the sheriff is setting up roadblocks and asking vehicle occupants for driver's licenses, car insurance information and social security cards." (Regular Grits readers may recall me complaining about some of these practices a few weeks ago, see "Is Operation Linebacker making El Paso less safe?")

I can't find a link to Hinojosa's letter online yet, but I was faxed a copy by the Senator's aide. (UPDATE 5-23: Here's Hinojosa's press release, and coverage from AP and the El Paso Times.)

El Senador didn't object to all uses of Operation Linebacker funds. "A good example of an appropriate use of opeation Linebacker funds is the plan developed by the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Department," he wrote. "Instead of targeting workers, the department used the funds to creat a specialized Criminal Illegal Immigration Unit that responds to violent criminal activity." I really think he's on the right track here.The Hidalgo County program sounds exactly like the kind of smart, targeted expenditure that could actually improve public safety and reduce criminality. Paying overtime for deputies to drive up and down the river in SUVs is a feel-good proposal that solves nothing.

Hinojosa, himself a criminal defense attorney in Hidalgo County, said Sheriff Samaniego has no authority to conduct roadblocks or immigration raids.

Though the Border Security Plan for Texas includes funds for local officers' overtime and hiring of additional local law enforcement personnel, it does not give the officers new arrest powers. Under Article 14.01 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, a Texas peace officer may only make a warrantless arrest for a criminal offense if the criminal offense is committed in his or her presence or within his or her view.Texas law does not authorize a peace officer to engage in activities designed to uncover illegal immigration, such as immigration raids or roadblocks.

Hinojosa quoted an El Paso Sheriff's deputy saying arrests were made without probable cause because "you could tell they were undocumented immigrants." Hinojosa rightly noted that

the El Paso County Sheriff's remarks imply that Mexican ancestry or "looking Mexican" is sufficient to identify and detain undocumented immigrants. however,, in United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, the United States Supreme Court established a number of factors to consider before any federal immigration officer or employee may search or detain a person due to speculation over that person's immigration status. The Supreme Court ruled that Mexican ancestry alone was not enough to justify a search or detainment.

Finally, Hinojosa noted that "Sheriff Samaniego's 'raid and roadbock' approach to immigrants undercuts the ability of law enforcement to ensure the public's safety because it discourages both legal and illegal immgrants from seeking help from the police. The sheriff's activities increase the likelihood that frightened residents will refuse to cooperate with law enforcement.

El Senador closed by calling on Governor Perry to develop a "clear policy ... regarding the appropriate use of funds under Operation Linebacker." That would have been a good thing to do before handing out the money.

Kudos to Hinojosa and the Senate Hispanic Caucus for holding the Governor and the sheriffs accountable for how this money is spent.

See these related Grits posts:

• Is Operation Linebacker making El Paso less safe?
• Drug task force money goes to border security
• Border corruption runs amok: New cash for border cops should go to internal affairs
• The coming immigration detention boom
• US policies worsen out of control border
• US border enforcement: From horseback to high tech
• Hutchison immigration plan harms public safety
• Immigrants need to trust law enforcement
• Report: States' role in immigration enforcement
  

Texas parole system fraught with fraud

Kudos to the Austin Statesman's Mike Ward for today's terrific front-page investigative feaure on fraud in the Texas parole system. Some inmates are getting bilked, with families paying for representation by people who may be hucksters and frauds. The state doesn't collect enough documentation to control the situation, Ward finds, with the only regulation a single, unenforced reporting requirement. Here's a taste, but go read the whole thing for yourself ("Parole system shrouds frauds," May 21):

The enigmatic process that determines which Texas prison inmates should be set free on parole has long been prone to eruptions of scandal and corruption.

Shrouded in secrecy and buffeted by politics, the system is largely ignored by the public until it boils over and brings down a governor or spawns criminal charges.

The volcano appears to be rumbling again.

A Dallas ex-con has been sent back to prison amid allegations that he bilked inmates and their families with false promises to help prisoners win parole. In recent weeks, state investigators have expanded their probe to include two other firms suspected of using the secretive nature of the parole process to cheat clients.

As the investigations blossom, an Austin American-Statesman analysis shows that state parole officials appear to have little control over the network of attorneys — and hucksters — who ply the secret byways of the parole process trying to affect which murderers, rapists, drug dealers or embezzlers get out of jail early.

State supervision of this little-known multimillion-dollar industry rests largely on a single requirement — that attorneys hired to help inmates gain parole file regular reports showing whom they are being paid to represent. ...

An American-Statesman review of all disclosure filings in the past year shows that dozens of attorneys ignore the mandate, including many being paid by the state to represent convicts in some hearings. ...

"It's a mess," said William Habern, a veteran Huntsville parole attorney who has been complying with the law for 30 years. "If they enforced this law, there is no telling how many people they might find, how many lawyers are doing parole work and not registering, how many who aren't lawyers are doing parole work illegally and how many are charging exorbitant fees for little or nothing.

The parole system is way too opaque and Ward's story shows there's hardly any way the public can look inside the black box to see how it really works. Reforms that enhanced transparency and made the process easier and less uneven in its application seem like the right first steps - maybe even a public defender office to represent indigent parolees and a lot more public documentation about how decisions are made.

Gary Cohen, a longtime Austin parole attorney, agrees. Cohen, who discloses fees on affidavits and last year provided no fee detail on his annual report, says the fee disclosure rule is "outdated and redundant" and does little to enlighten the public.

"If the original intent of this law was to keep paroles from being sold . . . it serves no useful purpose now," said Cohen, echoing sentiments of other lawyers. "No place in state law are attorneys required to disclose specific fees like this, and even if you know what someone charges, you still can't make any judgment about whether qualified or reasonable services were provided. . . . In light of recent events, that should be the goal."

Give 'em a piece of your mind about TDCJ

The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition has posted an online survey to gather opinions regarding The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (which is up for "sunset review" this year) and various proposed reforms. Take the survey. They're compiling responses and suggestions to contribute to the once-every-12-year sunset process.

RELATED: Here's TDCJ's 158-page self-evaluation (pdf) prepared for the Sunset panel.

Border deployment for National Guard a useless political gesture

I'm saddened and a little surprised by President Bush's ill-considered decision to place National Guard troops on the border. I seems SO cynical: As a security measure it's an excellent political gesture, but there's no pragmatic justification for the plan. Twice as many troops wouldn't be enough to halt immigration, and the nation can't afford to militarize the border indefinitely - after all, the Pentagon still needs soldiers to occupy Iraq. (My guess: troops on the border re-deploy right after the November elections.) Congress is already diverting money from Iraq to the southern border, now I guess we'll be diverting troops, too.

The scheme brings with it a truckload of practical problems: Soldiers aren't trained for the delicate task of parsing immigration status in the field or conducting searches under auspices of the Fourth Amendment.

Not to mention we've tried this before, though it seems like the Texans around Bush have awfully short memories. While Bush was Texas Governor, the U.S. deployed military troops to the Texas-Mexico border to fight the War on Drugs and the adventure ended disastrously. Don't believe me? Ask the family of Esequiel Hernandez, the teenage shepherd pictured above who was killed by a marine in 1997 near Redford on the Texas-Mexico border.

If it's true that history repeats itself - the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce - then we can look forward to an ugly, chaotic summer. Many of these troops are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and probably hoped they'd go home to see their families. Instead they'll spend the next few months soaking in the 100+ degree desert sun laden with miltiary gear. That should give a huge boost to troop morale, don't you think?

Will the National Guard employ the same rules of engagement on the border as troops were trained to abide by in Iraq and Afghanistan? If not, will they be re-trained? You've got to feel sorry for the Guard troops caught in the middle. Trained to fight in a real war, they're being deployed instead on a pointless highly, politicized exercise that's doomed to fail before it begins. Troops apparently won't be patrolling or making arrests but will play a "support" role. I don't know what that would even mean - that it's mostly for show, I guess. A big waste of time and money that achieves no public policy goal but symbolically placates the President's base.

The Senate, too, appears to be adopting a more xenophobic stance in light of the President's address - even including the ridiculous idea of building a wall. Note to the US government engineering geniuses who must design this boondoggle: The border between Texas and Mexico is a river basin! Land will quickly erode underneath any wall you build after the first gullywasher. After a couple of years, nature would open up gaps with little human assistance. You could build with chain link, but folks would quickly and frequently cut it. Iron bars would be expensive, could be hacksawed, and would be hard to repair. Plus if contractors can't hire illegal immigrant labor, I doubt they can find enough workers to build or maintain it anyway! The whole idea's just dumber than dumb - an empty political gesture disguised as a public policy decision.

This is why I hope Texas NEVER switches to annual legislative sessions. Nothing good seems to happen when politicians make public policy in even numbered election years.

Suzan Lori Parks, or why I have fiction-writer envy

Last night a friend and I went to hear one of my favorite writers, playwright turned novelist Suzan Lori Parks, speak at the Paramount Theater in Austin. I've loved her work for years but didn't know till reading this Austin Chronicle interview that she grew up in Odessa; she announced last night she still identifies herself as a Texan - who'da thunk? I guess we'll claim her. :-)

Parks is one of those playwrights, and they are truly few, whose works I enjoy reading even more than seeing them staged. It's not that her plays aren't great vehicles for dramatic stagecraft. (They don't hand those Pulitzer Prizes for drama out to just anybody.) She's just such a brilliant writer, I always enjoy lingering over the layered metaphors and lyrically loaded language for longer than the theater setting allows. I can't wait to read her new novel. Whenever I've seen one of her plays, I go home eager to lay my hands on the text and more or less devour it afterward.

Anyway, while answering questions after her talk, Parks made a comment that cut to the core of some of my own struggles as a writer, especially focused as I am on nonfiction (all my own efforts at fiction writing were both private and mediocre). One must distinguish between "facts," "history" and "truth," she declared, and the former two frequently obscure instead of illuminate the latter. When they conflict, she said, she felt obligated as an artist and a person to cling to truth.

That's a difficult hurdle for me - a lot easier said than done. I spend a lot of time searching through "facts" and "history" looking for "truth," and am often troubled that "truth," in the end, does seem to be something separate and apart from facts and history, from the issues of interest, analysis, and argument that so frequently consume this blog. As ancient Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu wrote (trans. by Thomas Cleary), "Suppose I have a debate with you, and you beat me, I don't beat you - does that mean you are actually right and I am actually wrong? If I beat you and you don't beat me, does that mean I am actually right and you are actually wrong? Are both right? Are both wrong?"

Maybe fiction writers face a less onerous task on that score. Maybe it's easier to seek truth when facts and history don't so aggressively obstruct one's view.

UPDATE: For other accounts of last night's event see the Austinist, Spark blog, and local playwright Adrienne Dawes.

Tyler voters: Jail bonds a "no-no"

Here's something you don't see every day: Voters rejecting new jail construction in my hometown in East Texas ("Both Smith County jail bonds fail," Tyler Morning Telegraph, May 13). Voters thought two jail-building proposals on the ballot totaling $158 million were too grandiose and expensive, plus a new satellite site was opposed by neighbors based, apparently, on largely NIMBY grounds.

This vote indicates to me that conservative voters in Deep East Texas can be convinced to prioritize their anti-tax agenda even when it affects sacred cows like criminal justice. With luck, the referendum could open the door for more effective, less expensive reforms.

The jail in Tyler faces what appears to a be more severe overincarceration problem than any Texas county except Harris. As of April 1, the jail was full with 722 inmates (pdf, 55% were awaiting trial) while Smith rented 267 jail beds in other counties, more than any other according to a monthly state report (pdf).

I promise voters in the Rose City weren't acting on some liberal, anti-incarceration impulse by any stretch. I doubt you could find two liberals to rub together in that town if you searched all day. Instead, it's virulent anti-tax, nearly anti-government conservatives who dominate local politics - the kind of people who, like Grover Norquist, long for government so small you could drown it in a bathtub.

Among the most ideologically pure, that small-government belief system runs head on into Texas' current criminal justice policies, which have given us full local jails, full state prisons, a new boom in taxpayer-financed public and private detention facilities, and a ubiquitous slew of local jail building proposals. A brochure promotoing the jail bonds (pdf) put out by Smith County estimated that the number of jailed inmates would increase by 2025 to more than 2,100, requiring a nearly 200% increase in total beds to house them.

It's easy for a small-government conservative to look at that proposal and rightly wonder, "Where does it end?" The expansion curve for incarceration in the jail is so steep right now - i.e., the rate at which people are being incarcerated is increasing so rapidly - that bonds for this jail expansion wouldn't be paid off before more jail building was required! To a fiscal conservative, that makes no sense.

The Tyler Telegraph filed an open records request (pdf) and discovered that many in the jail committed low-level drug offenses ("Drug offenses top problem in Smith County Jail," May 9). On the average day, says Tyler attorney Randy Gilbert, "we have as many people in jail sitting out sentences for non-violent misdemeanors as we have prisoners farmed out to other counties ... Can we look at ways to reduce that?"

Now they may have to. Judge Cynthia Kent, who opposed the bonds, told the Telegraph she and other judges were working on their own plan to reduce jail overcrowding. That's encouraging. Many solutions for jail overcrowding don't require new jail building and are well within judges' control. She and her cohorts could do a lot on their own to reduce the number of rented jail beds if they try. Here are just a few suggestions that could be implemented without reducing public safety:

• According to the sheriff, "some people arrested on misdemeanors simply decide they cannot afford to bond out of jail so they remain jailed for the offense," reported the local paper. Smith County should create a pre-trial screening system to identify more low-level offenders who should be eligible to receive personal bonds, and judges should start granting them.
  
• Smith County judges should establish a system of "progressive sanctions" to better supervise probationers and reduce revocations, especially for misdemeanants who must serve time in the county jail if revoked. State money is even available to support this idea.
  
• Related: Judges should use "early release" provisions in state probation law to provide incentives for good behavior by probationers and to reduce both caseloads and revocations.
• Many people languish in jail because their court-appointed attorney did not aggressively try to get them out. The Smith County commissioners court should create a public defenders office to pursue defendants' freedom more vigorously through the pretrial process and move cases along more quickly. (This solution is being pushed now by Court of Criminal Appeals Chief Justice Sharon Keller, who is seldom accused of being soft on crime.)

Tyler's growing at an amazing rate right now and maybe they'll need a new jail before long. Even better, though, would be to rethink criminal justice priorities in a way that maximizes public safety at a minimal cost. I'm glad some local heavyweights like Judge Kent put the kabosh on the "Build it and they will come" model the Sheriff and commissioners court settled on. They need a coherent plan for managing jail populations, not a knee-jerk reaction.

For more see Grits' best practices to reduce county jail overcrowding, and Smith County's web resources on the jail proposals.

Americans think re-entry programs reduce recidivism

Maybe I just don't accept good news well, but I'm not sure how I feel about this Zogby poll. On the one hand, I'm comforted by the fact that Zogby found Americans are abandoning a "punishment only" approach to crime to focus more on redemption, rehabilitation and funding for re-entry programs.

On the other hand, I've started to notice that statistics overstating the dangers of crime are routinely touted even by those sympathetic to reform. In this case, pollsters told respondents 60% of felons leaving prison are likely to return there, while in Texas, for example, the three-year recidivism rate is just 28.3%.

Still, the overall sense of the survey confirms that the public's expectations regarding criminal justice policy are shifting. By these measures it appears the pendulum is swinging back from the most extreme "tough on crime" approaches toward more pragmatic, preventive ones. Here's an excerpt from Zogby's summary:

Three out of four Americans expressed either fear or concern about the 700,000 prisoners who are leaving U.S. prisons each year, and the fact that 60% of them are likely to commit crimes that send them back to prison, Zogby International’s national survey showed. The poll explored what people think ought to be done about the situation.

The survey, sponsored by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, a leading criminal justice research organization, reveals that by almost an 9 to 1 margin (87% to 11%), the U.S. voting public is in favor of rehabilitative services for prisoners as opposed to a punishment only system. Of those polled, 70% favored these services both during incarceration and after release from prison.

Likely voters appear to recognize that our current correctional system does not help the problem of crime, the survey indicates. By strong majorities, Americans said they feel that a lack of life skills, the experience of being in prison, and the many obstacles faced upon reentry are major factors in the crimes that prisoners commit following their release.

By an overwhelming majority (82%), people feel that the lack of job training and job opportunities were significant barriers to those released prisoners who wanted to avoid committing subsequent crimes. Similar large majorities saw the lack of housing, medical and mental health services, drug treatment, family support and mentoring as additional barriers and thought that all of these services should be available to returning prisoners. Most of the respondents felt that these reentry services needed to be introduced to prisoners long before they are released.

The public appears far ahead of the politicians on this one, except maybe Karl Rove and President Bush (who notably touted re-entry programs for prisoners in a State of the Union address). Neither party, though, has been able to capitalize on political support for these reforms. Too many Democrats fear being labeled soft on crime, while not enough Republicans picked up the President's mantle after that SoU address to really have an impact.

This poll shows there's political hay to made being smart instead of "tuff" on crime if politicians can muster the courage to take up the cause. The public can plainly see what we're doing now isn't working.

Via Effective Solutions for Texas

Live in Austin? Vote today to open city government, police misconduct records

Today (Saturday) is election day for Austin's municipal races. Here's a list of polling places. I wanted to briefly offer my own endorsements, making clear they represent only Scott Henson's picks, not any of the groups with whom I work.

More important for the future of the city than any of the candidates are a raft of charter amendments, including Proposition One which I've defended at length on this blog and at Open Government Austin. Bottom line: I'm supporting all of them.

On Prop One, the Open Government Online amendment, if nothing else think how fun it will be for local bloggers when most city government information is online, including city councilmembers appointments and phone logs. I'm telling you, that will fundamentally change the culture in which city government operates, and for the better. In addition, the amendment would open key records about police misconduct that are available at most other police agencies but not the Austin PD.

But the other amendments are important, too. I support raising the campaign contribution limits (hell, I support getting rid of them). I don't like term limits so extending them is okay by me. I want to restrict development and roadbuilding in the Barton Springs watershed. I think it's fine to allow health benefits for unmarried partners of city employees regardless of sexual orientation. All that's good stuff. There's not one proposal that does anything bad. To me, Prop One, though - the Open Government Online charter amendment - is the most important for the general public by far. It truly has the potential to permanently democratize politics in ways no one now can imagine.

As for the council races, I've learned in local politics it's unproductive to choose the lesser of evils, so I can't advise voting for any of them and don't think it matters THAT much who gets it. (In a dream world, I'd like to see underfunded longshot Kedron Touvell, who was great on the issues, take out the arrogant bully Brewster McCracken.) But elections don't change a bad process, and history shows what really matters is holding council's feet to the fire once they're in there (which is why we need the new public tools in Prop One).

In the Mayor's race, though, Danny Thomas clearly is a better choice than incumbent Will Wynn. I've disagreed plenty with Thomas, a former Austin police officer and current Place 6 city councilman, but you can appeal to him based on what's right and wrong, while the Mayor can't be appealed to on any level but raw, tiresome power games. I fear Thomas can't overcome the money disadvantage, but I'm voting for him.

UPDATE: We lost. It was ahead of it's time, I suppose (or perhaps just the victim of scurrilous lies by the opposition) but the open government online amendment failed at the ballot box. I mean, how often in a campaign does a judge say negative campaign attacks are "misleading"? In the end it didn't matter. Surprisingly, with strict message discipline, outright fabrications work well as a campaign tactic in the short run, expecially if, as in this case, the folks who buy ink by the barrel are on their side.

That's the other weird element of this election: This campaign forced the local Austin print media, the Austin American Statesman and the Austin Chronicle, to choose sides: Are they insiders and power brokers, in which case they benefit from secrecy? Or are they journalists who benefit from public information? News flash: They're insiders. They'd rather be gatekeepers for the news than let everybody see information themselves online. After all, then why would we read them?

Texas' high imprisonment rate a stain on the national character

Doc Berman at the inestimable Sentencing Law and Policy blog brings news via Andrew Sullivan of a new report charting world incarceration rates: Unsurprisingly, the Land of the Free leads the pack. The United States incarcerates a far greater percentage of our population than any other country, reports the Sixth Annual World Prison Population List (pdf), imprisoning 714 adult residents per 100,000 nationwide, while 3/5 of nations incarcerated less than 150 per 100,000.

All I can say is, "714"? Pshaw!

Welcome to Texas, baby. Last I saw we rock out here at 1,035 per 100,000. Nothing says "we love freedom" like locking up one out of every hundred adults. Andrew Sullivan picked up on that, too: "Texas, by the way, has an imprisonment rate of well over 1,000," he wrote on his blog. "There's no country on the planet - no dictatorship on earth - as comfortable with locking people up as the state of Texas."

He's got a point. Including those on probation and parole, the Justice Policy Institute calculated that one in 20 Texans at any one time are under control of the criminal justice system! Take that, Belarus! And what'd we get for it? According to JPI, "Despite adding more than 100,000 prisoners this decade [1990 to 2000], Texas' crime rate has declined more slowly than other large states."

Of course, my friends in Louisiana would hasten to add that the Bayou State has since surpassed Texas in the ignominious category of who imprisons the highest percentage of its citizens, especially after of bunch of their people left the state last year, reducing the denominator further in the prisoner-to-population calculation. Mississippi is always right up there at the top of the pack, too. While obviously a lot of factors are at play, it's funny how it's the three states in the Fifth Circuit leading the incarceration brigade. But whatever the cause, the fact remains the southern gulf states are driving the incarceration train in America, which means we're driving the incarceration train for the whole world.

This is a 20th century phenomenon I think the US founding fathers would have abhorred. Two major categories of modern "crime," immigration and drug prohibition, weren't even against the law the nation's first 130 years or so. (Immigration was first restricted in 1918, drug prohibition rose up in the '20s). Today, immigration cases make up the largest portion of federal prosecutors' workload, followed by prosecuting the drug war. In the states, drug prosecutions still lead the way. Those aren't the only sources, though of what's been referred to on the right as "overcriminalization." In Texas, nearly 2,000 separate acts have been declared felonies by the Legislature - when God laid down the law in Exodus, by contrast, He could only come up with ten.

These numbers are an embarrassment, a stain on the national character. How can a republic founded to establish freedom from tyranny lock up more of its people than any other? Somewhere along the way, we must have lost our path.

Revisiting the blame game for overincarceration at the Harris County Jail

While I was out Kuff further covered the response in Houston to state demands to lease new beds because of overcrowding at the Harris County Jail, tackling the question, "Who is to blame?" Kuff lays fault with Sheriff Tommy Thomas, and in a way he's right since the Sheriff along with the commissioners court have failed to hire enough guards to open all available units. Harris County right now has enough unused jail beds to house prisoners, if they only hired enough guards to staff the facilities.

But it's also correct, as I've argued before, that the District Attorney and local judges are to blame - indeed, there's plenty of blame to go around, if that's what you're looking to do. Regular readers know I prefer to focus on solutions, but Kuff said he didn't quite understand the role of the judiciary in this mess so I'll bet others are confused, too. Let's be clear.

In 2003, Texas passed HB 2668 requiring judges to sentence defendants to probation and drug treatment instead of incarceration in a so-called "state jail" facility for the lowest level drug possession offense - e.g., less than a sugar packet full of powder. The goal was to shift up to 4,000 non-violent offenders per year out of prison and onto probation, saving tens of millions of dollars and helping avoid the state's own overcrowding crisis. So far so good.

But in Harris County, which prosecutes about half of all such offenders statewide, judges found a loophole and prosecutors routinely and aggressively push for it. State law allows judges to order county jail time as a condition of felony probation. Usually county jails are used as punishment for misdemeanors and for defendants awaiting trial.

So even though they "probate" drug users' sentences which diverts them from state prisons, judges instead are sentencing those probationers to the county jail where Harris County taxpayers pick up the tab. They don't have to do that - hardly anybody else does, and that's what makes the Harris County overincarceration crisis a self-inflicted wound. They'd more than make up the 500 people they're being told to lease space for if they just stopped sentencing probationers unnecessarily to jail time.

So both claims are right. Either solution would have resolved the current crisis - hiring more guards or judges abiding by legislative intent regarding when to jail low-level drug users. But if you think, as I do, that we're incarcerating too many nonviolent offenders already, then sentencing drug users to probation makes more sense then endlessly opening more jail beds.

Report on Houston Crime Lab Published

The full 108-page report from independent investigator Michael Bromwich is here, raising further questions about the fallibility of scientific analyses at the lab. A highlight:

Thus far, our investigation has identified a total of 43 DNA cases and 50 serology cases analyzed by the Crime Lab that we have determined to have major issues, which we have defined to mean problems that raise significant doubt as to the reliability of the work performed, the validity of the analytical results, or the correctness of the analysts’ conclusions. Many of the problems we have observed in the serology cases infected the Crime Lab’s DNA profiling operations.

As I've argued before, in modern forensic science it frequently seems like accuracy is optional. To make matters worse, politicians aren't looking at the real solutions, just more money for more of the same. The best fix for faulty state crime labs is to pay for indigent defendants to hire independent experts. It doesn't sound that radical: Using the adversarial system's checks and balances to protect defendants from being falsely convicted. But because it would be expensive, it's far outside the terms of debate as far as what the Governor and the Legislature are considering.

To me that's no excuse. If lawmakers choose to preside over a state where one in twenty Texans is in prison, on probation or on parole, they must pay what it takes to procedurally ensure fairness for each of them.

For more information, see previous reports and other information involving the investigation at this official website.

ACLU in a Utah state of mind

Back from Park City, UT where I was attending and presenting (on the subject of confidential informants) at the ACLU national staff conference. Utah is gorgeous, but 3.2 beer sucks - can you believe they actually make a 3.2 Guiness?! That's wrong on SO many levels.

I've worked with ACLU in Texas since about 2000, as a part-time staffer since 2003, but in many cases this was my first-ever chance to put faces to names at ACLU national and in other states. I met quite a few Grits readers there, too! Thanks to everybody who thought to mention it - I was flattered, to say the least, at the positive comments I got on the blog. Of course, that's a pretty sympathetic crowd.

ACLU is involved in so much amazing, important work it really boggles the mind, and little of it fits into the usual stereotypes: National legal director Steve Shapiro, discussing what's happening at the US Supreme Court this term, mentioned a case in which ACLU filed an amicus brief on behalf of a pro-life plaintiff suing to overturn federal campaign finance restrictions - you tell me, is that a liberal or conservative thing to do? (The question at hand is whether Congress can restrict non-profits from running issue advertising within 60 days before an election.)

The focus was a lot more on criminal justice and anti-discrimination work than all the "culture war" stuff you see hyped. Though there were strong contingents there working on issues like gay rights and abortion, Shapiro estimated that 2/3 of ACLU national's legal docket in some fashion involved racial-justice related topics. Our work in Texas and at the Drug Law Reform Project in Santa Cruz on snitches was highlighted in a couple of panels and at a special networking session, advertised by the depicted poster. DLRP director Graham Boyd declared his view that in a few years, public perception about confidential informants will change in much the same way as the topic of racial profiling at traffic stops did over the last decade with the campaign against DWB, or "Driving While Black." I think that's right, that this is the kind of wedge issue that can help change the way people think about criminal justice topics.

Another really important criminal justice situation highlighted was the "school to prison pipeline," i.e., the relationship between heightened use of draconian school discpline tactics, increased dropout rates, and who winds up in prison. That's a big focus of ACLU's national racial justice project. It's a huge subject: You hear a lot about racial disparities in prison, but education level is perhaps an even stronger determining factor than race in who winds up incarcerated.

Since I'd never been to one of these shindigs, though, this was mainly about networking and meeting folks for me and I was thrilled to spend time with some amazing folks. Everywhere you turned you met somebody slugging it out on some cutting edge issue. Overall it was a surprisingly young, diverse crowd filled with cool, groovy people, all doing exciting, important stuff.

After 9/11, IMO, ACLU overnight became the most important advocacy group in the country. On national security there's really no one else positioned to confront the key issues facing the country like torture, wiretapping and unfettered executive power. That's what you hear about ACLU in the news, that I suppose and the "War on Christmas." But I was excited to confirm firsthand through the amazing folks I spent time with this week that in every corner of the country the group's about a lot more than that. It made me proud to be a part of it.

Snitch links on the way out the door

I'm leaving town this morning to attend the ACLU national staff conference in Park City, Utah, where I'll get a chance to talk about confidential informant practices, aka, "snitching," as part of a panel on police reform (regular readers know I'm a half-time employee at ACLU of Texas). I'm taking the laptop, but blogging may be light while I'm gone. Here are a few new snitching-related links I ran across while reviewing for the event:

• Marketing Betrayal: I'd missed this NPR item from January on the Stop Snitching movement. While decrying witness intimidation, correspondent Siddartha Mitter also blames a "justice system that's hooked on imprisonment and incrimination when communities need safety, investment and healing." He quotes Loyola law professor Alexandra Natapoff, a Grits favorite thinker on the subject, calling the informant system "a government-sponsored market in betrayal and liability." That's a great line and a powerful concept. Where are all those law and economics cats in academia when you need them?
• Rat Hall of Fame: The Illinois Police and Sheriff's News has this odd tribute page on its website to informants who helped bring down the Italian mob.
• "That's how it goes when friends turn to foes." This rap video depicts protagonists murdering a snitch who participated in a robbery but later turned in his partners.
• Riches for 'illegal' snitches? Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Dimitri Vassilaros proposes turning illegal immigrants into snitches against their employers to solve the immigration problem. With fat rewards for informants (he suggests $50K plus citizenship for the whole family), businesses would quickly stop employing ineligible workers for fear of being ratted out. That could be right, but if so many people think amnesty is rewarding illegality, what would the same folks say about THAT idea?
  

See also these prior Grits posts about snitching:

• Rethinking Judas
• Hip Hop, Snitches and Witnesses
• Most US workers don't snitch
• Don't snitch, Jack
• Is Grits Pro-Snitch?
• Who's a Rat?
• When you know the whole informant thing has gotten out of hand
• Here a snitch, there a snitch
• Snitch reforms in other states cited
• Requiring corroboration for eyewitness testimony might have saved Ruben Cantu
• What can happen when you snitch?
• Snitching undermines justice institutions
• A Snitch in Time
• Failed 2005 Texas snitch reform
• Snitch rules protect apparently mendacious DEA agent
• Snitching keeps escort services in business
• A prison guard's aversion to snitches
• DEA snitch data lost
• FBI violates snitch rules
• Wichita Falls snitch makes false accusation
• University cops promote web snitching
  
• Self-serving snitch at center of John Dillinger capture

Austin's worst corner best for BBQ

An indepth Austin Statesman article about street crime focuses on a corner about 8-10 blocks from my house in East Austin ("Austin's worst corner," May 7).

That may well be Austin's worst corner judging only by the long-tolerated open air drug markets, but it's a great place for a carnivore, especially if you're in the mood for some smoked brisket or maybe some yardbird. I've been eating at Sams BBQ, described in the story, for nearly 20 years. It's a family operation run by really good folks - they used to advertise in a student magazine I co-edited back in college.

Harris Sheriff appeals overincarceration ruling

Kuff has the word on Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas' appeal of the ruling by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards that he relocate 500 prisoners to leased beds, wondering aloud why Thomas didn't confront the problem before now. He points to a Houston Chronicle story ("Sheriff appealing order, won't transfer inmates," 5-6) where officials have already begun pointing fingers:

[Sheriff] Thomas also accused Harris County judges and the District Attorney's Office of circumventing state law by allowing nonviolent offenders to negotiate plea agreements enabling them to serve sentences in the county jail rather than in state facilities.

"It just defeats the whole purpose of the state-jail felony," Thomas said.

Blame game or not, he's right about this one. I wrote here about the controversy Thomas is talking about - the Harris County DA and district judges are using a loophole to incarcerate hundreds of offenders who should be eligibile for probation and drug treatment. The Houston Chronicle explained the problem last summer:

The Legislature adopted a law in 2003 requiring that, in any state jail felony for possession of a small amount of drugs, the judge should suspend the jail time and place the offender in a community supervision and drug treatment program.

However, according to the ACLU study, judges in Harris County have exploited a provision in the law that allows them to send those felons to county jail rather than state jail.

"Using this loophole, a court can avoid the Legislature's intent to move low-level drug possessors into treatment rather than incarceration, and put the entire burden for such a dodge on the county," states the report. "Only one county is choosing to lock away a large number of state jail felons in county jail, rather than place them in a community supervision program: Harris County."

"It's become more and more clear that it's actually the judges' sentencing practices that are causing overcrowding," said the ACLU's Ann del Llano.

I've written before there are many sources of overincarceration pressure facing the Harris County jail, including arrestees' reduced access to personal bonds and guard shortages. But this one fix - sentencing first-time, low-level drug possession offenders to probation and treatment instead of jail time - would free up more than enough space to satisfy the Jail Commission.

See also:

• State to Harris: Pay the piper for overincarceration
• Guard fears retaliation for revealing Harris County inmates still sleep on floors
• What they're reading at the Harris County probation department

More prisons, new contraband problems

The State of Texas can't afford to house the prisoners we've got, much less hire enough guards to police prisons for contraband, but private companies are building more prison units rapidly, hoping to cash in on the immigration detetion boom I wrote about earlier. These two Texas prison-industry trends - expanding immigration detention and the latest fad in contraband smuggling - received some recent media attention:

South Texas Hold 'Em
The Texas Observer published an article by Forrest Wilder (5/5) detailing the private prison industry's plans to capitalize on the immigration detention boom I wrote about earlier. Wilder describes a future marked by staggering private prison growth, nearly all of it aimed at housing immigrants and much of it in South Texas:

Nationwide, the number of ICE detainees went from 7,444 in 1994 to about 23,000 now; during the same period, the Marshals Service’s population more than doubled to an estimated 63,000. Just in the last two years, Congress has authorized 40,000 new ICE beds over the next five years and given the Marshals Service funding for another 4,000 to 5,000. And the President’s proposed 2007 budget calls for a $452 million increase in ICE funding, including money for another 6,700 beds. One of the companies to benefit from the government’s building—and privatizing—binge is KBR, a Halliburton Co. subsidiary, which in January was awarded a contract worth up to $385 million to build temporary immigrant detention facilities for the Homeland Security Department in case of an “emergency influx of immigrants,” according to a KBR press release. The top companies running South Texas detention centers are the Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), GEO Group Inc., and Emerald Correctional Management.

[Activist Bob] Libal says a “perfect storm” explains the growth in the detention industry. “First, you have this kind of anti-immigrant sentiment coming out of Washington at the federal level; second, you have increased zealotry from the U.S. Attorney’s office to prosecute people criminally for extremely minor immigration crimes; and third, you have these private prison companies that are cashing in on the immigration incarceration boom.”

Cell phones hotter commodity than drugs in prison
Last year inspectors in Texas prisons seized 135 phones, this year they've seized 90 through April alone, reported AP, mostly from two units:

Investigators say prisoners are willing to pay between $350 and $600 to have a phone smuggled into prison. And they often involve a corrections officer in such schemes. ...

The Texas prison cell phone problem is highly concentrated in two prisons the Darrington Unit and Connally Unit in Karnes County, where prosecutors say gang membership is high.

The Darrington Unit, in particular, is considered a "hotbed of corruption" by investigators and prosecutors, Mr. Hall said.

"It's very close to Houston, and you have a large inmate population there from Houston," Mr. Hall said. "They have contacts in Houston."

Better make room: Without stronger probation, Texas needs 14,000+ new prison beds by 2010

Texas must immediately build thousands of new prison beds or else change its probation policies, so says Tony Fabelo writing in a front-page article (pdf) in The Texas Prosecutor (newsletter of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association). The former Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council chief said Texas will need 13,700 beds by 2008, according to CJPC's last estimate, and 14,490 by 2010 according to the Legislative Budget Board.

Today Texas prisons are full to the brim. Texas' failed probation system is a huge cost driver, Fabelo reports: "25,639 probation revocations in 2005 cost the state an estimated $1.124 billion in incarceration costs."

I was glad to see him complimenting Travis County's probation operation. He described their approach in some detail as an example of a department strengthening community supervision, revamping the bureaucracy with an eye both toward reducing unncessary incarceration and improving outcomes for offenders.

See Grits' past discussion of Travis' probation reforms here, here, here, and here. See also Fabelo's comments on probation in this Texas Observer interview.

Thanks to Shannon for the heads up.

State to Harris County: Pay the piper for overincarceration

At yesterday's hearing, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards ordered Harris County to relocate 500 prisoners to contract housing - at going rates that'll cost about $30,000 per day ("State tells packed jails to transfer 500 inmates," May 5, Houston Chronicle).

Renting space in other counties for five hundred inmates would immediately leapfrog Harris County to the top of the list of counties with the most prisoners housed in contract beds. Until now, Smith County headed the list statewide with 257 inmates in rented beds (as of April 1), 176 from Lubbock, 116 from Parker, 101 from Fort Bend. Here's the full list (pdf).

Five-hundred beds sounds like a lot, but we're talking about a 9,000 person jail. Harris County judges could reduce the jail population that much if they quit sentencing probationers unnecessarily to county jail time.

See past Grits posts on the causes of overincarceration at the Harris County jail, and suggested, non-jail building solutions to overcrowding.

Guard fears retaliation for revealing Harris County inmates still sleep on floors

When the Texas Commission on Jail Standards meets this morning at 9 a.m. in Austin (see the agenda), they'll be told by the Harris County Sheriff's Department that no more inmates sleep on the floor at the Harris County Jail, which recently failed its third annual inspection in a row. Last summer as many as 1,700-1,900 inmates slept on mattresses on the jailhouse floor because of excessive incarceration of probationers, reduced access to personal bonds and guard shortages.

Now the Sheriff says the problem is fixed, but one of his own jailers says that's not true. Reported the Houston Chronicle ("Jail system's crowding cited," May 4):

Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas, whose office operates the jail, acknowledged Wednesday that, because of a shortage of guards, some prisoners are being housed in areas designed to house a small number of inmates, and that some inmates have had to sleep in temporary bunks.

A temporary bunk is a rectangular piece of metal with four legs that sits about 4 inches off the ground. Inmates sleep on mattresses placed on the steel structures. But some inmates, said a Harris County guard, are forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor, sometimes next to toilets,

"That happens frequently," said the guard, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation.

"Some inmates just have a mattress — if they're lucky — and their bed is just whatever spot on the floor they can find."

Thomas denied that inmates are sleeping on the floor. The commission report did not state how many inmates are without regular bunks. Last year, inspectors reported that almost 1,300 inmates were sleeping on the floor.

So Harris County's official position before the Jail Commission will probably re-state Sheriff Thomas' claim that no prisoners still sleep on the floor, but a guard who feared retaliation says it "frequently" happens. Hmmmm. Who to believe?

This isn't the first time a Harris County Sheriff's deputy accused his boss of manipulating the Jail Standards Commission. Last year, reported the Chronicle, "Speaking on the condition of anonymity, ... two jailers charged that Sheriff's Office officials sometimes hid inmates from state inspectors. 'They played a game of musical inmates,' said one jailer, who also is a deputy sheriff. 'They would take them from one building to another through the tunnel system.'"

Whaddya think? Should the Commission accept the Sheriff's claims at face value? Would you? What's going on at the Harris County Jail?

Report to La Migra as probation condition?

In my home county of Smith up in Northeast Texas (Tyler is the county seat), judges are requiring probationers they suspect of being illegal immigrants to report to immigration authorities for "voluntary deportation," reports ImmigrationProf blog. Longview attorney Jose Sanchez said probation conditions for two of his clients included the requirement that, "At the end of twelve (12) months from the date probation begins, if you have not obtained legal status from the U.S.I.C.E, for being within Smith County, Texas, you must leave the country and reside in a location where you do have a legally authorized status."

Heavens! Talk about making law from the bench! This activist judicial genuflection to popular sentiment certainly makes a bold gesture, but possibly not a legal one I'm told by a couple of friendly immigration lawyers. The issue is whether and how a state district judge would have authority over a defendant's immigration status in the first place - state judges historically have no jurisdiction to enforce federal statutes. Sanchez said he wants "to investigate as to whether what they are doing is constitutional?"

I'm not an attorney and can't address the legal question, but from a public policy perspective I've argued before that local policing and immigration enforcement don't mix. In this case, it seems to almost guarantee the probationer will abscond - then what is gained? At root, immigration is an economic issue, not a criminal justice concern, or it shouldn't be. Ask anyone who lived through the Great Depression: poor people who migrate looking for jobs just aren't the same as criminals acting with malicious intent. Despite pious rhetoric about respecting the law, using the criminal justice system for immigration enforcement worsens public safety for everyone.

University cops promote web snitching for fun and profit

After the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the Chinese government broadcast surveillance camera footage and offered cash rewards for anyone willing to rat out individual protesters.

The University of Colorado at Boulder has taken a page out of the Communists' handbook and published surveillance photos online from a "smoke-in" style anti-drug war protest on April 20, aiming to identify and presumably prosecute the participants.

You get $50 apiece for snitching out your fellow students. Ugh! That's revolting to me, both that the university would do it and that anyone would participate to help identify folks. I've argued before that, while sometimes justified, snitching violates a number of positive, right-thinking values that deserve more respect than the criminal justice system and the drug war often afford them.

I'm sure police believe publishing these photos on the web will serve a shaming function, punishing alleged offenders through public disgrace whether or not they can be convicted of anything (after all, who can prove what was in the depicted hand-rolled cigarettes?). But that's not law enforcement's role - judges and juries decide punishments in this country, not police.

If these aren't actually prosecutable cases, this tactic becomes nothing but thuggish harassment, no better, really, than what these guys are doing. Certainly it's hard to argue that anything about this totalitarian exercise improves public safety.

Surely some people would report anyone they saw smoking pot to authorities; for them, the pay wouldn't change a thing. But if you wouldn't snitch without it, fifty bucks seems a grotesquely small sum for someone to be willing to trade their values, turn on their friends and become a rat.

Thanks to Daniel Bear for pointing me to this case.

Highest paid Houston cop also most punished

Talk about rewarding failure.

Houston's highest paid cop has also been disciplined by the police department more often than just about anyone - 32 times over the course of his career, reported Steve McVicker in the Houston Chronicle ("Highest-paid HPD officer also racks up reprimands," April 30).

Senior Houston Police Officer William Lindsey, Jr. made more than $170,000 last year as a police officer, most of it from overtime clocked with that city's DUI unit. But in the past, HPD's internal affairs unit sustained complaints against Lindsey for "falsifying time sheets to reflect overtime he didn't work," as well as turning off his radio during the workday and failing to turn in marijuana seized from a suspect. Reported McVicker:

Only 13 of HPD's 4,760 officers have been involved in more than 23 complaints resulting in "sustained" allegations, according to department records through 2004.

Internal affairs sustains an allegation after investigating and finding merit in complaints that come from the public and from within the department. The chief then decides discipline.

The complaints against Lindsey include verbally abusing citizens, falsifying time sheets to reflect overtime he didn't work and refusing to report for duty, according to documents obtained by the Houston Chronicle through the Texas Open Records Act. His punishment has ranged from being ordered to undergo counseling to being suspended for 15 days without pay. In nine of the complaints, Lindsey's discipline included unpaid leave.

But since the Texas attorney general ruled in 2000 that law enforcement agencies do not have to publicly reveal disciplinary action against an officer that resulted only in a written or oral reprimand, the number of sustained allegations against Lindsey could total more than 32.

They almost certainly do - I've not done the research for Houston, but under Austin PDs interpretation of the same civil service rules, information about fuly 2/3 of sustained complaints against officers remain secret. (That's a big reason why I support Prop 1 on Austin's May 13 ballot - it opens up records about the other 2/3 to public scrutiny, just like at hundreds of other Texas law enforcement agencies.) So there's a very good chance Lindsey had more complaints sustained than 32 - perhaps quite a few more.

It was interesting to me that the only law enforcement officers the paper could find who thought 32 sustained complaints was over the top wouldn't speak on the record - that blue wall of silence, it appears, is still working overtime. Reported McVicker:

several law enforcement officials contacted by the paper expressed surprise that a police officer with Lindsey's record was able to keep his job.

"I'm shocked," said the head of an internal affairs division for one Texas law enforcement agency, who asked not to be named out of fear of reprisals by his employer. "If the internal affairs file of an officer has 32 sustained cases, something's wrong with (that department's) system if he's still employed."

Other law enforcement officials who expressed similar sentiments also asked not to be named.

That tells you how strong is the taboo among officers against criticizing one another - why be embarrassed about appearing critical of this guy? Only 13 officers out of nearly 5,000 in Houston have more than 23 sustained complaints - the number of officers conistently causing problems, as in many departments, really is relatively small. The bigger problem is that good cops won't muster the courage to speak out when their compromised brethren misbehave, and police administrators are hamstrung by state law when they go to discipline the worst offenders.

I'd hope somebody from HPD Internal Affairs is triplechecking Officer Lindsey's overtime sheets from last year to ensure they're on the up and up, since he has a confirmed record of fudging them in the past.

Thanks to Bill for the email tip.

Student-Generated Data for Texas Taser Use by Police Online

This kind of experience might almost make going to journalism school in college seem worthwhile ... almost.

The Distributed Reporting Project at the University of North Texas' Mayborn Institute has placed online pdf versions of the results of public information act requests by journalism students from four Texas universities - UT Arlington, TCU, Tarleton State, and UNT - to Texas police and Sheriff's departments regarding their use of Tasers and stun guns. See the results for your jurisdiction here. The article from Fort Worth Weekly referenced in this Grits post used data from these student researchers.

The project is collaborating with the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, a nonprofit supported by many of the the state's daily newspapers. Students from UT Austin and SMU participated in the project during the Spring '06 semester, the website reports. I hope they were researching something cool.

Immigration detention boom in Central Texas

Earlier I discussed the coming detention boom spurred by misguided US immigration policies and how private prisons and some county jails view the situation as a potential, long-term cash cow. As protesters prepare for today's El Dia Sin Los Immigrantes, the feds continue to roll out massive new spending on old, failed approaches. Here's a microcosm of that phenomenon playing out in Central Texas:

A mothballed private prison facility in Taylor, a small town in Williamson County north of Austin, will soon begin housing immigration detainees, News 8 reported this weekend. The facility will house up to 600 immigrant families, according to the report, and employ around 200 people to administer and guard them. I wonder where the guards will come from? The State of Texas already can't find enough people for that job - the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is nearly 3,000 prison guards short and has reached the bottom of the applicant pool.

In any event, do you suppose those 200 employees and their families will be voting for candidates to rationalize immigration policies or for those who want to boost enforcement and thus guarantee their jobs? That's the most frustrating part to me about the current approach. As President Bush points out, it's impossible to deport our way out of the problem. Even so, we're spending a fortune in federal pork to manufacture new constituencies who benefit from current failed policies, not looking for real solutions on immigration.