Byrne task force funds mainly financing low-grade drug enforcement

Having reviewed the new Tulia, Texas documentary yesterday, it's fitting to find quite a bit of recent drug task force related news to add context to the discussion.

Off the bat, around the country the backlash is growing among drug enforcers against proposed cuts to the Byrne grant program in Congress. The Steroid Report points to a high-profile Sheriff in Michigan lashing out in a Detroit News story, criticizing grandstanding in Congress over steroids in baseball while cutting funds for the war on drugs ("Federal funding cuts may mean fewer narcotics officers on the street," March 8):

[Sheriff] Bouchard said he would like to see Congress shift its interest in alleged steroid and human growth hormone use in Major League Baseball and focus more on funding the fight against drugs.

"While Congress focuses on the need to eliminate drug use from baseball, law enforcement is struggling to get action on Byrne . . . which fights drugs not just in baseball, but on our streets and in our neighborhoods," Bouchard said. "Literally thousands of children have been saved from drug scenes by this program."

The Sheriff is not alone decrying the funding cuts, though perhaps predictably, the only folks you hear complaining are the grant recipients. It's difficult to understand what Sheriff Bouchard is talking about when he says "thousands of children have been saved from the drug scenes." In their 20 years of existence, no objective measure shows that drug consumption or availability has been reduced in areas where Byrne task forces operate.

In Texas, when I examined task force grant applications several years ago, a pattern emerged (reported in an ACLUTX public policy report called "Too Far Off Task" in 2002) that every task force estimated and usually achieved INCREASED drug arrests every single year. Indeed, that's how they measured "success," to increase arrests from the year before. If arrests are increasing every year, though, you're losing the "war on drugs." When you think about it, if they're successful, the ultimate goal of law enforcement should be for drug arrests to decline.

The sky didn't fall here when our system of drug task forces lost their funding, and it won't in other states, either.

Meanwhile, an article in the Baltimore Sun featured former Permian Basin drug task force cop and inveterate self-promoter Barry Cooper with a new How-To video ("Former narc gives advice on avoiding arrest," March 9):

Cooper, 38, a fast-talking former narcotics cop, is best known for changing sides in the war on drugs in December 2006, when he released Never Get Busted Again. In the DVD, he offered marijuana users advice on how to avoid arrest during traffic stops.

Police greeted the movie with sarcasm, but no real concern.

Now Cooper has begun shipping a new title, Never Get Raided, which teaches viewers how to buy, sell and grow pot without going to jail. He also gives tips for identifying undercover officers.

"Now that's getting a little close to home," said Richard Dickson, who served with Cooper on the West Texas Permian Basin Drug Task Force in the 1990s. "That kind of information affects all kinds of undercover agents. It puts all kinds of operations at risk, even on homeland security issues." ...

"The last three months of my law enforcement career, I had started smoking pot," he said recently, sitting at his kitchen table in Big Sandy, a small town east of Tyler. "And I noticed the people I had been arresting were nice people. They had a balanced checkbook, their kids made straight A's, and I was like, 'This drug is not making people crazy.'"

He advocates the legalization of all drugs. If the laws changed, he said, addicts would receive better treatment, drug-fueled crime would plummet and illegal drug empires would collapse.

It is similar to an argument advanced by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an organization of 10,000 members including former judges, prosecutors, federal agents and police officers that opposes the war on drugs.

"We don't agree philosophically at all on these issues," said Jack Cole, executive director and a 14-year undercover officer for the New Jersey State Police. "He thinks he should be able to school people on how to break the law; we believe in changing the law."

Drug laws will be broken, whether or not the law is changed, Cooper said. He's simply trying to help people avoid jail time for non-violent crime:

"Americans are not going to stop growing it, they're not going to stop buying it, they're not going to stop smoking it, even if you continue to put them in jail."

He said the discovery of seven fields and more than 25,000 plants near Dallas last summer illustrates his point.

Dallas Police Department Deputy Chief Julian Bernal doesn't dispute the public's appetite for marijuana, but he condemned Cooper's tactics.

"I think it's unconscionable for an ex-law enforcement officer to give tips to criminals. I don't think there's any question he's putting officers in danger, and he bears full responsibility for that."

I didn't promote Cooper's first video because I thought he gave bad advice to drivers about consenting to searches at traffic stops (he told them to do so, and just gave advice how to successfully hide drugs in your car, while I think all drivers should exercise their 4th Amendment rights and decline so-called "consent searches"). I'm not any more enamored of a video trying to teach people to out undercover cops, though like Cooper I'm a critic of the erosion of the Fourth Amendment at traffic stops and the increased use of military-style police raids. Still, Cooper's apostasy continues to fascinate the media, and I've heard his video products sell fairly well.

The Sun mentions that during his career as a drug task force officer, Cooper made 800 arrests including 300 felony arrests. That's a particularly interesting statistic because the only misdemeanor drug charges in Texas are for marijuana. That means 5/8 of the arrests Cooper made as a drug task force officer were for less than 4 oz of pot, not for harder drugs.

I'll bet an investigation into the specifics of who drug task forces arrest in other states would yield similar results, but that's not been the focus of recent press coverage on the subject. Those are pretty low-level targets, in the scheme of things, and helps explain why eliminating drug task forces in Texas didn't really harm public safety.

RELATED, via Drug Law Blog: Crappy Hackington Award: Chicago Tribune Invokes "Narcotic Scourge" And Stumps for the Byrne Grants

Sheriff real, unintentional star of 'Tulia' film

The slew of drug arrests in Tulia in 1999 set off a wave of legal wrangling and political action that turned the state's criminal justice establishment on its ear, and ultimately resulted in the pardoning of dozens of wrongfully convicted people and the dismantling of Texas 50+ Byrne-grant funded drug task forces.

Now, nearly a decade later, those ripples from the legal and political world are steadily filtering into the cultural milieu.

Yesterday afternoon I attended the premier of a new documentary - Tulia, Texas - which opened at the SXSW film festival. Tulia activist Freddie Brookins and his wife, parents of one of those wrongfully arrested, along with Nate Blakeslee, author of a book on the case, attended and answered questions afterward. The missus and I joined them and the filmmakers, Cassandra Herman and Kelly Whalen, afterward at Ruby's BBQ for a meal and a chat.

The hour-long film, which was funded through a public television grant and may wind up on PBS within the next year, featured more extensive interviews with undercover agent Tom Coleman and Sheriff Larry Stewart (the real star of the show) than have previously been available - Blakeslee told me he never got that kind of face time with Coleman in all his years covering the story, and I'm not sure anyone has. I've never heard the disgraced peace officer speak at such length except on the stand.

I say Sheriff Stewart was the star of the show, because his comments more than anyone made sense of the situation for outsiders - not because he explained it well, but because he epitomized the deep denial of any wrongdoing or wrong thinking shared by so many in Tulia. His statements seemed so oblivious to facts proven in both the courtroom and the extensive paper trail documentation, you almost felt sorry for the guy, who clearly was in way over his head.

Almost.

One's sympathy dried up, though, as evidence mounted through the film that Tom Coleman's statements repeatedly didn't match the facts (which resulted, ultimately, in his perjury conviction), and stories emerge of families losing loved ones for several years based on this man's uncorroborated word.

The film is visually gorgeous, and the filmmakers had been tracking the case since 2002, so they had lots of footage from the courtroom drama over the years. I attended several of the events and court hearing featured in the show, and found myself scanning the crowd scenes looking for (and finding) many familiar faces.

Attorney Jeff Blackburn similarly came off in the show as both a legal hero and quite a character, which if you know him is a pretty accurate portrayal. Jeff's a real piece of work, and it shows. Now that he's running the Innocence Project at Texas Tech, I'd guess this video should help significantly with his fundraising; I hope so, anyway.

Most coverage of what happened in Tulia falls along one of two paths - tracking the legal case, as this film and Nate's book do, or tracking the political process, which has dominated much of the MSM news coverage over the years. The piece that you didn't get from the film was that a large-scale, statewide movement developed around the case that passed several corrective laws and ultimately convinced the state to abolish Texas' drug task force system entirely.

It would be possible to view this film and think, "This is just a story about an aberration in a rural backwater, it doesn't happen anywhere else." But drug task forces nationwide operate on an essentially similar model to the one in Tulia. That's a point I wish the film more strongly emphasized, especially at a time when the Byrne grant program and drug task forces nationwide face major budget cuts. President Bush want to de-fund the task forces, which in some states are responsible for up to 85% of all drug arrests.

Indeed, the film only hinted at the odd, left-right coalition that worked together on the political end of the Tulia saga. A questioner after the show expressed surprise that Bill O'Reilly took up the Tulians cause, and the filmmakers were at a loss to explain why. But really, conservatives were as alarmed at this case as liberals. To me, that's one of the most important new developments from the whole episode.

Nationally, the Heritage Foundation and the National Taxpayers Union have been more active opposing drug task force funding than any liberal group. Then-House Criminal Jurisprudence Chairman Terry Keel (R) and Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa (D) spearheaded the relevant legislation that ultimately led to the task forces' demise in Texas and a requirement for corroborating evidence for testimony of undercover drug informants, while Gov. Perry's pardon placed his permanent imprimatur on the case.

Meanwhile, the Tulia episode taught organizations working at the capitol in Austin who'd previously been on opposite sides of the fence to work together for the first time, a development that contributed greatly to coalitions pursuing other criminal justice reforms like strengthening probation or expanding treatment capacity in the justice system.

All that to say, this film captured an important piece, but IMO not the full the legacy of the Tulia case, which in some ways has yet to fully play out. I've wondered if we may look back in a couple of decades and see Tulia as a major turning point for the criminal justice system, an event that permanently changed the terms of debate about America's war on drugs. I hope so.

BLOGVERSATION: See another early review from the Drug Law Blog. See also from Panhandle Truth Squad, a story about Jeff Blackburn demonstrating thta some men are born to greatness, and others have greatness "spilled upon them."

Statesman: Governor rewards "eyes and ears" that were "blind and deaf"

The Austin Statesman's editorial board found the Governor's appointment of Alfonso Royal as the new TYC chief of staff as odd as I did, editorializing yesterday ("Oversight indeed: Perry rewards aide," March 7) that:

Gov. Rick Perry has arranged to have one of his budget aides, Alfonso Royal, named chief of staff of the Texas Youth Commission. It’s an odd appointment given that, despite his position on the governor’s staff at the time, Royal had little or nothing to do with uncovering last year’s scandal at the commission.

Royal was one of several gubernatorial aides who oversee various state agencies, acting as the governor’s eyes and ears. One of his agencies was the Texas Youth Commission.

In late October 2006, Royal was given graphic reports of sexual abuse by two administrators at a commission facility, the West Texas State School in Pyote. The two men had left the school, but they remained free, and the Texas Ranger who had investigated the abuse had been trying for a year to get the local prosecutor to act. A legislative aide who learned of the Ranger’s frustration told Royal of the problem on Oct. 30.

Records indicate that over the next month, Royal spent 12½ minutes on seven phone calls to the local prosecutor and the Ranger about the case. Just this week, a spokesman for the governor said Royal did all that could be expected, especially given that the two administrators already had left.

But the governor’s eyes and ears apparently were blind and deaf to the depth of rot at the commission hinted at by the Ranger’s reports. Or maybe Royal did not want to disturb the governor in the last days of his political campaign before that year’s election, on Nov. 7, against Chris Bell, a Democrat, and two high-profile independents, Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman. (Perry won, with 39 percent of the vote.)

At any rate, when the reports of sexual abuse of inmates and other problems at the commission finally broke statewide in February 2007, Perry said the first he knew of the Ranger’s frustration in getting the cases prosecuted was when he read a story in The Dallas Morning News.

News of just how bad things were at the Youth Commission - abuse of inmates, the hiring of guards and supervisors with questionable records in their own past, internal efforts to hush up reports of abuse - exploded, thanks to the media and the fact that the Legislature happened to be in session. ...

But Royal had seen nothing, heard nothing, reported nothing to the governor.

The governor, however, is pleased with Royal’s performance, said a spokesman. And it’s not just talk: Royal’s salary has jumped from the $70,000 a year he was paid on the governor’s staff to $109,950 a year at the Youth Commission.

It doesn’t make sense to us.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, either.

DOJ investigating Harris County Jail

The defining reforms in Texas corrections historically have come about through federal litigation: The famous Ruiz case for our adult prisons, and Morales v. Turman at TYC, constituted the most significant impetus for change at those agencies in the last half century.

So it must make prison and jail administrators nervous that Texas has received a lot more attention lately from federal authorities regarding deficiencies in our corrections systems. First DOJ released a scathing report about healthcare at the Dallas County Jail. Then recently the Texas Youth Commission entered into an Agreed Order to end litigation over the Evins Unit in South Texas.

Now, the feds are turning their sights on the massive Harris County Jail system, AP reports (March 7):

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the Harris County jail system, officials said Friday, probing sanitation and health conditions that have come under scrutiny from civil rights groups in recent years.

Department of Justice officials, in a letter to Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, said its investigation will focus on "protection of inmates from harm, environmental conditions, and inmate medical and mental health care."

For the last few years, civil rights groups and local religious leaders have criticized the jail system, alleging overcrowding and poor health conditions. They have compared the jail to a "slave ship."

The jail system has a population of nearly 9,900 inmates, according to a Texas Commission on Jail Standards report last month. The commission lists the capacity at about 11,000.

In a statement, Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas, whose department runs the jail system, said federal officials will have his agency's "full cooperation."

The Justice Department said in its letter that it has not made any conclusions in the case.

Harris County's jail houses more inmates than the entire prison systems in a score of states - more than 9,000 at the jail, and another 600 housed in private contract facilities in Louisiana. The jail in Houston actually has almost 2,000 empty beds, but the Sheriff can't hire enough guards to staff it properly; for a while, before they contracted with the Louisiana facility, many Harris jail inmates were sleeping on mattresses on the floor.

Harris voters wisely rejected new jail building last fall; why build new space when you can't staff the facility you've got? Harris County officials have many options besides jail building to reduce overcrowding, if local judges and the commissioners court would support them, but Sheriff Thomas is pursuing policies that make the problem worse. Maybe pressure by the feds will encourage Harris County to consider more practical solutions than building jails that can't be staffed.

See Grits' series on the Harris County Jail from 2005 - most of the issues described therein have changed very little.

Here and there about the blogs

Here are a few items from around the blogosphere that caught my interest today.

Robert Guest who had been blogging at I Was the State has a new blog, Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog, where he'll be spending his time now. Update your blogrolls accordingly. Note to Robert: The old name was MUCH better, though the layout of the new one is superior. What was wrong with "I Was the State"?

Meanwhile, Migra Matters has several good posts up on their blog that add context to some of the issues I was writing about earlier today.

Steanso, an Austin prosecutor whose blog I hadn't run across until Jamie Spencer mentioned it, shares his thoughts on the Pew report that one in 100 US adults is incarcerated, as well as the Roger Clemens steroid case.

Simple Justice recently shared an hilarious YouTube sendup of economic theory, and I enjoyed a nice conversation on some of the issues raised in the comments.

Stephen Gustitis is in trial and his case features "snitches galore."

Finally, Kevin Kelly thinks a blogger can make a living if s/he has "1,000 True Fans."

Stop Digging: US policies enriching Mexican drug cartels

When you find yourself in a hole, the saying goes, the first thing to do is stop digging. But when fighting Mexican drug cartels, US policy over the last several years has been to buy more shovels and hire laborers to make the hole deeper and wider.

As Mexican soldiers engage in battles with cartel gunmen south of the border and Congress considers the Bush administration's $1.4 billion pork barrel anti-drug aide package, it's worth stopping for a moment to consider how we got here. It wasn't that long ago that the big drug lords lived in Colombia, and the Mexican "cartels" were regional smuggling operations that may have corrupt contacts in local police, but did not compete openly with the government for power.

US policy, though, combined with international economic trends, have added several major new revenue streams to the cartels' business, enriching them beyond the imagination of the boldest observers at the turn of the century.

• NAFTA, combined with US corn and ag subsidies, eliminated millions of rural agricultural jobs in Mexico, driving workers into Mexican cities in droves, as well as north of the border into the United States.
  
• Meanwhile, expanded immigration enforcement shifted immigrant smuggling from informal systems to more expensive, cartel-run criminal smuggling organizations.
• Restrictions on pseudoephedrine over the counter in the United States eliminated most local self-suppliers and shifted the lucrative methamphetamine trade to the cartels' control.
• Lack of western US port access has meant more Asian imports coming in through Mexico. Smuggled goods of all types coming in from Asia are now just packed in the same trucks and vessels carrying immigrants and dope. Simultaneously, the resurgence of Afghan poppy production under US occupation adds new heroin supplies to this Asian mix.
• Marijuana remains the mainstay of cartel income, according to federal officials, but as with meth, US policy has targeted domestic production. The Department of Justice has been cracking down on medical marijuana dispensaries in California, and domestic grow sites are a principal target of Byrne-grant funded drug task forces, tipping market share further in Mexico's direction.
  

These trends have combined to enrich Mexican cartels unimaginably, even financing military-grade weapons purchases, most of which is smuggled in from the United States through the checkpoints, and a great deal of it from weapons purchased at gun shows in Dallas and Houston, according to Mexican and US officials. An excellent article in Word Politics Review ("As violence grows along border, Congress debates funding for fighting Mexican drug cartels," March 7) sums up what's happened, blaming most of the impact (certainly the volume) on boosted immigration enforcement:

It is difficult to gauge with hard statistics just how well these measures have worked. But local and federal law enforcement officials in Arizona and Texas, academics, activists and migrants themselves all agree that, in recent years, it is much harder to get into the United States illegally from Mexico.

But an unintended consequence of these tighter controls has been the rapid criminalization of the border, according to these same people. The coyote business -- the trade of moving people across the border illegally -- has fallen into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, which are now using what were once human smuggling routes to run drugs into the United States. Essentially, human and drug smuggling operations have become one and the same.

"Human smugglers and drug cartels were [once] separate entities. A lot of the time the human smugglers were using the same corridors the drug runners were using," said Special Agent Joe Romero, a spokesman for Border Patrol, during a tour of El Paso's border with Juárez. "The routes that were being used by the human smugglers, they were burning those areas for the drug runners. So [drug cartels] decided to basically take control of those routes. Now they control all of these routes."

There are some who will inevitably read this (Hi, kaptinemo!) and immediately declare that the solution is drug legalization. For cocaine and heroin, in particular, I'm increasingly skeptical how well that would work. Look how poorly we do regulating legal drugs: tens of millions of people taking Prozac and other anti-depressants just found out the companies knew all along they didn't work. "Regulating" drugs may provide little real-world protection, or else continue a high-end black market. For the time being, my personal preference would be a harm reduction approach.

On immigration, though, and probably also for marijuana (which after all is safer for users than alcohol), the nation is cutting off its nose to spite our collective, increasingly brown face. Taking those funding streams away from the drug cartels through some manner of "legalization" - a regulated market for pot, and some form of amnesty and expanded quotas on immigration - would strike a crippling financial blow to the criminal gangs currently battling each other and President Calderon's army in Mexico.

Among presidential candidates, Obama's stated positions are closest to those policies, but all three candidates support immigration reform that should assist substantially, if it can make it through Congress. On the corn subsidies, I wonder if those can EVER be deleted so long as Iowa's presidential caucuses are first.

Perhaps after the next election, the US will take advantage of its historic opportunity to rethink foreign policy on our southern border in addition to overseas, before the violence in Mexico spills even further onto the American side.

Judge who promoted Prometa defeated at polls

While I've completely dropped the ball covering the dustup over a Collin County judge's questionable experimental sentencing of probationers to use of "Prometa," an anti-addiction medication, Bill Baumbach at the Collin County Observer has been all over it, and has another excellent post and roundup informing us that the judge in question was defeated at the polls on Tuesday. Reports Baumbach:

Judge Sandoval contacted Hythiam [a drug company] last year and with little public input or oversight, began a pilot program on 20 probationers in his court. On his website, Sandoval claimed to save the county $400,000 in the pilot tests.

Attempts by The Collin County Observer to see documentation of the financial claims were answered by Sandoval with, "This office has no records of the Prometa pilot program."

While Sandoval and Hythiam touted great successes with Collin County's program, others, including the county's own probation manager disputed the data.

In spite of it's spotty record, the last Texas Legislature appropriated $2 million for "Medically Targeted Substance Abuse Treatment" programs. The grants were written to allow more pilot program testing of Prometa. Collin County received a grant of $158,000 under this program. So far our inquiries have not found any experiments or expenditures of the grant money.

These pilot programs, whether funded by Hythiam or taxpayers are used by Hythiam as marketing tools. Look at the last pilot done in Collin County. All records are kept by the company. Collin County and Sandoval's court have little or no recruitment or results data. All was turned over to Hythiam, which then issued glowing press releases (and no data).

The lack of records is glaring, and troublesome - especially since one of Collin County's test subjects died before the end of the study. (The cause of death was noted as "suicide".)

All attempts by the Collin County Observer to gain insight into how the test subjects were recruited, what promises were made, and what rewards or consequences were offered were rebuffed by the county and court. Collin County and its court had no such records, even though many of the test subjects had just been released from jail - presumably to take part in the program.

Bexar deputy's arrest shows police more deserving of steroid investigation than baseball players

As the media continues to rip into Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens over allegations of steroid use, I continue to wonder when the same sort of systematic attention will be paid to steroid use among law enforcement?

When I first raised this issue, more than a few people expressed surprise and said they didn't believe it was common. So since then, I've been paying closer attention when these cases come up, especially in Texas. Last month in San Antonio, a Bexar County Sheriff's Deputy was busted purchasing steroids at his off-duty job as a flea market security guard, reported WOAI radio ("Deputy arrested and charged with drug possession," Feb. 12):

The deputy, 34-year-old Omar Rubio, was taken into custody Saturday. Sheriff's detectives said Rubio was in his full deputy's uniform when he purchased several vials of illegal steroids.

"The sheriff's office started an investigation about 90 days ago into the allegation that Rubio had been purchasing and possibly using steroids," said Deputy Chief Ronald Bennet of the Bexar County Sheriff's Department.

Sources inside the sheriff's office said a tipster warned detectives about the 34-year-old deputy and the illegal body enhancing drugs.

The Bexar Sheriff's department only discovered the deputy's drug use because an informant came forward, not because of departmental testing or other proactive efforts by the Sheriff. In the scheme of things, it's a lot bigger deal if law enforcement officers are engaging in black markets to purchase performance enhancing drugs than if Marion Jones or Andy Pettite did so. But while federal investigators went actively hunting for steroid use among sports stars, apparently abuse among police isn't so big a priority. Authorities usually only go after such cases among law enforcement, as in this instance, when somebody hands it to them on a silver platter.

See prior related Grits posts:

• Where is Congressional investigation of steroid abuse among law enforcement?
  
• Congressional steroid hearings an abuse of power
• Lawsuit: Private mercenaries, police trainers abuse steroids in Iraq
  
• Contrarian views on steroids hysteria
  
• DOJ media ploy on steroid investigation rightly decried as foul
  
• Marion Jones already punished, why send her to prison?
  
• Clemens informant shielded from prosecution: Do snitch agreements give incentives to lie or tell the truth?
  
• Baseball's Mitchell report relies on uncorroborated, coerced informant testimony to accuse 'Rocket' Roger Clemens
  
• Barry Bonds perjury indictment is pure USDOJ media ploy
• Why test Texas high school athletes for steroids but not police officers?
• Arbitrator reinstates steroid using police officer
  
• Cops on Steroids
• Insert Shrunken Testicle Joke Here: Book by ex-Texas cop defends steroid use by police
  
• Feds should check names of steroid customers with state law enforcement registries

Against "Link Rot": Using citations in blog posts helps combat decaying usefulness of web links

This post is really for other blog writers, but the rest of y'all mere readers can still check it out if you like:

Perhaps it's hubris to propose a uniform blog citation standard. Perhaps the point of blogs is their freedom from conforming to the constraints of other media. But the blogosphere is still early in its development as an information medium, and I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't time for those of us who write seriously online to begin to professionalize what we're doing just a bit.

Bruce Schneier in Wired Magazine gives a name to a concept about which I've given a lot of thought: "Link rot," or when the links in your blog or website get old and no longer link to the original, relevant, material. His point is that when Third Parties control your information, it might disappear at their whimsy. It's an excellent essay that I recommend, but here's a snippet of the problem he describes ("Third parties controlling information," Feb. 27):

Bits and pieces of the web disappear all the time. It's called "link rot," and we're all used to it. A friend saved 65 links in 1999 when he planned a trip to Tuscany; only half of them still work today. In my own blog, essays and news articles and websites that I link to regularly disappear -- sometimes within a few days of my linking to them.

It may be because of a site's policies -- some newspapers only have a couple of weeks on their website -- or it may be more random: Position papers disappear off a politician's website after he changes his mind on an issue, corporate literature disappears from the company's website after an embarrassment, etc. The ultimate link rot is "site death," where entire websites disappear: Olympic and World Cup events after the games are over, political candidates' websites after the elections are over, corporate websites after the funding runs out and so on.

I find this to be a particular problem with political, legal, and other nonfiction weblogs. If your blog is about your family life, your links and sources don't matter much. But if you're writing about the issues of the day, as this blog attempts to do, part of the credibility of any argument is inevitably one's sourcing. That's why you put the link there in the first place, so anyone who wanted to read the backup to your argument could go do so for themselves.

In the 3-1/2 years I've been writing on Grits I've developed my own protocols to combat this troublesome "link rot," using an abbreviated citation whenever I pull quotations I want to preserve for future use (in future arguments, public testimony, policy reports, or other information products). It's the same citation formula used with Schneier's quote above. You might have noticed before if you're a regular Grits reader, see here, here, and here. Essentially I put in parentheses the headline of the article, the date, and make sure somewhere in the post is the name of the publication from which I pulled the data.

Most bloggers, by contrast, simply link within a sentence to the point they're referencing, or even just say "Go here." Kuff is a good example of that blogging style, as is Schneier himself.

Putting enough data for a footnotable citation for the "money quotes" used in blog posts saves me a lot of time and legwork, and is one of the main reasons I blog in the first place. You use your judgment, of course, and I don't put a citation for every quote used on Grits - just those bits of datum from transitory media websites and other spots that I fear might be subject to "link rot," to use Schneier's term.

For example, I don't use citations when linking to other blogs (though some of them ultimately go offline), or in a passing reference when I don't pull any specific "money quote" or statistic. But when I use a significant quote from a source, I try to record at least enough information so that later I could footnote the argument without finding the original item, something I've done MANY times. That way, blog arguments and sourcing posted here remain valid even if, over time, the post suffers from "link rot," and I (or others) don't have to go back through old newspaper archives looking to pull one quote you didn't source properly.

Schneier's main point is that if a third party controls your web access (i.e., if you don't own your own server), you aren't fundamentally in control of your own data, citing a wine lovers user group that lost years worth of hosted discussions. My own inadequate solution to that is to back up my blog posts once a month in a text file on my hard drive. That doesn't preserve discussions in the comments, though, if Google's blog architecture ever went down.

That said, third party hosting can also work positively against link rot. For me, continuing to use a Blogspot blog after all this time is partially a long-term homage to the reality of link rot. If I quit writing on Grits tomorrow, there's a lot of useful information here from years past that people access all the time via search engine, etc.. If I were paying for a blog host, when the contract ran out that information would go off the web. On Blogger, presumably old blogs stay online ad infinitum, at least until Google changes its policy (which seems unlikely in the near-term).

Link rot is an annoyance, not a big problem, but adding footnotable citation data to the "money quotes" on blogs adds value and staying power to the medium, and adds tremendous long-term use-value for the writer, as well, I can tell you from first-hand experience.

Pew Center on States lauds Texas' 2007 probation reforms

The Pew Center on States had nice things to say about Texas' prison and probation reforms from 2007, citing them as the main reason for the state's high score on it's state report card:

As last year's budget deliberations began, Texas was looking at a 17,000-bed shortage of prison space over the next five years. To deal with that problem, the Department of Criminal Justice submitted a $520 million proposal for three new prisons, as well as modest support for drug treatment in order to cut down on recidivism.

But the legislature, bolstered by a report from the Sunset Advisory Commission — a legislative entity that assesses the effectiveness and efficiency of Texas' agencies — crafted an alternative plan to invest more funds in programs with a track record of reducing recidivism. This biennium, those efforts are getting $240 million. Current projections for prison population show zero growth over the next five years.

Is this kind of work now part of the state's permanent governmental culture — impervious to changes in leadership? That's hard to know. But the state's budget process leaves legislators with the tools they need to focus on performance.

The Houston Chronicle in its coverage honed in particularly on Texas' low per capita spending as an example of the state's efficiency, but that could also be because the state underspends on education, drug and alcohol treatment, indigent mental health care, and other critical services that caused the prison overcrowding crisis in the first place.

The Texas state government spends less money per resident than any other state in the country, according to a new survey that also ranks Texas as the fourth best-run state in the nation.

Texas spent $3,638 per year for each person in the state, according to the report — less than one-third the amount of top spender Alaska's $12,833. While the Lone Star State budget ranked third in the country, Texas spent about half as much per resident as the states ahead of it, California and New York.

The report card from the Pew Center on the States, released Monday, gave Texas an overall grade of B+ for quality of governance, improving upon its grade of B from its last report card in 2005. The state scored highest for its innovative uses of technology.

Only Utah, Virginia and Washington state received better grades from Pew's Government Performance project. Texas finished in a five-way tie for fourth place in the study.

Despite the state's positive scores, the report had little good to say about Gov. Rick Perry, concluding that legislators succeeded despite Perry's "distaste for performance budgeting."

Perry spokesman Robert Black dismissed the criticism and noted that recent Texas prison system reforms lauded in the study were initially championed by the governor in his State of the State address.

"Initially championed" is a little strong to describe the Governor's actual role in this process. The main credit Rick Perry deserves is for not vetoing the legislation the way he did a nearly identical bill in 2005 (see a discussion of some of that history in this post).

Here's the home page for Pew's Grading the States project.

Immigration and County Jails: Are high costs caused by an unfunded mandate or poor choices by county sheriffs?

A national study confirms a proposition I've contended for some time: That immigration enforcement has placed a huge unfunded mandate on counties, particularly when, for political reasons, Sheriffs choose to expand immigration enforcement duties beyond minimum requirements, as has happened in Austin, Houston, and elsewhere. Reported the NY Times ("Border counties shortchanged in immigrant costs, study says," March 6):

Counties along the Mexican border from California to Texas are shortchanged millions of dollars a year in costs related to prosecuting and jailing illegal immigrants, according to a study released Wednesday.

The study was by the University of Arizona and San Diego State University on behalf of the United States/Mexico Border Counties Coalition, a group representing the 24 border counties.

Cumulatively, the counties spent $1.23 billion from 1999 to 2006 to process illegal immigrants in the justice system, the study found. Federal programs offset only a fraction of those costs, and often did not receive the maximum level of financing that they are authorized to receive, the study said.

“This is a huge problem because we can’t keep up with fixing roads, the others costs of law enforcement, keeping up health agencies,” said Paul Newman, a member of the board of supervisors in Cochise County, Ariz., a hot spot for illegal border crossings. “It is a big hit on counties that per capita are unable to meet other needs.”

It's in this same context that I find completely inexplicable the decision by the Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton to expand the presence of federal immigration officers in the already overcrowded county jail. According to city councilmember Mike Martinez, "Prior to the change there were only a handful of cases per month resulting in detainments (4 to 5). That number has now risen to approximately 111 for December and over 110 for the first 2 weeks of February alone."

These are OPTIONAL inmates, extra prisoners taking up jail space because of a political decision by elected officials, and for no other reason.

Similarly, when Harris County (Houston) already must ship 600+ inmates per month out of state because they can't house them all - and when voters rejected plans for a new jail - why in the world would Sheriff Tommy Thomas want his officers empowered to arrest people on immigration charges? The Houston Chronicle reported last month ("ICE to train jail workers to ID illegal immigrants," Feb. 1) that:

Thomas has authorized selected Sheriff's Office personnel assigned to Harris County's Inmate Processing Center to receive 287(g) training from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Sheriff's spokesman Capt. John Martin.

The program — named for the section of 1996 immigration law that created it — has trained state police in Arizona, Alabama, Colorado, and sheriff's departments in California's Los Angeles and Orange counties and in Maricopa County, Ariz., to identify, process, and detain immigration offenders encountered during regular law enforcement activity.

About six to 12 deputies and detention officers will make up the initial group to receive the training, Martin said.

"Illegal immigration continues to be an important topic for Harris County and a lot of people want to know what law enforcement is doing about it," he said. "This is just something that's going to supplement our efforts to identify people at booking who are in this country illegally."

The training would give employees the ability to interview inmates more thoroughly about their immigration status and authorize them to detain those determined to be in the country illegally, Martin said.

The only point of the training is to detain more people, but the jail is full. Other than making some abstract political statement, the practical function of Hamilton's and Thomas' new programs - whether ICE vets the arrestees or Sheriff's employees do - is to fill up the jail with defendants who otherwise pose little threat to public safety.

Without these optional initiatives, under the prior system illegal immigrants were identified by ICE upon conviction and a "hold" was then placed on the prisoner for deportation when their sentence was finished. What the Sheriffs are doing is pushing that identification process to the front of the system rather than the back end, when folks are arrested, not when they're convicted.

Immigration violations are a civil matter, to my mind something Sheriffs have no business getting involved in; that's why we have federal immigration enforcers. Even worse, though, than some abstract concern about separation of powers, when Sheriffs' decisions exacerbate jail overcrowding with no public safety benefit, you're starting to eat up resources that are supposed to protect the public from criminals and other actual threats.

RELATED: Add surname profiling to reason to oppose ICE in Travis County Jail.

Half million Texans disenfranchised from voting in primary elections: Harms democracy and public safety

The extraordinary turnout at Tuesday's elections and the spectacle of 1.1 million Democrats participating in their precinct conventions left the state abuzz, but over at Talk Left, Jeralyn rightly reminds us to remember those who weren't allowed to cast a ballot. She points to a new public awareness project on felon disenfranchisement, i.e., taking away felons' right to vote, and reminds us how many disenfranchised felons were disallowed from participating in Texas' primary elections:

Over half a million Texan citizens will be unable to vote due to a felony conviction. Over 165,000 of those disfranchised Texans are black,” said Laleh Ispahani, Senior Policy Counsel with the ACLU Racial Justice Program. “Disfranchisement runs contrary to fundamental precepts of democracy, human rights, and of giving people a second chance, a chance at true rehabilitation.”

Half a million people stripped of the vote is a lot of folks! However, I felt compelled to defend our beloved state, somewhat, on this point, replying in the comments that:

Texas has a good re-enfranchisement law compared to many states. Felons can vote again as soon as they're off paper, i.e., when they've completed either their sentence, parole, or their probation term. Quite a few other states ban for years afterward or even for life.

The reason we have half a million ineligible is we have ten year probation terms, so that's basically how many probationers and parolees are out there. But one in 11 Texans has a felony record, and the vast majority of them are eligible to vote.

However, that doesn't mean we couldn't do better. Governor Perry vetoed legislation that would have given ex-offenders notification and a voter registration card when they became eligible to vote. (Offenders already get a packet of information from TDCJ when they get "off paper," and the bill would have included notice of voting eligibility and a voter registration card in the packet.)

That insensible decision, IMO, was made purely out of political calculation, hoping to reduce the number of (supposed) new Democratic voters at the margins. However, from a public safety standpoint it makes little sense to discourage voting at all. If it's intended as punishment, it's a poor one; half of Americans don't vote even when they're allowed to, so it's not like you're taking anything from them that affects their daily lives.

Felons should be allowed to vote IMO even when they're on probation and parole, and it wouldn't bother me if mail ballots were cast from prison. (That happens right now only in Maine and Vermont. Probationers and parolees can vote in 13 additional states.) I don't see the logic of implementing a punishment that requires offenders to behave anti-socially.

I don't support re-enfranchisement because I think prisoners would vote for one or the other party, but because the act of voting requires public engagement. You must a) care about the activities of government and b) educate yourself about the candidates and issues in order to cast a ballot, and that process itself I believe has rehabilitative effects. Simply caring about something other than yourself - even if it's an election - might be a learning experience for many whose narcissism, bad decisions and immature behavior have already dug them into deep legal holes.

We're talking about a lot of people here: Roughly one in 20 Texas adults are incarcerated, on probation or parole. And they all have to live with the government we elect just like everybody else.

(See a state by state guide on disenfranchisement laws.)

DA who failed to prosecute TYC sex abuse cases won re-election in landslide

Yesterday's elections produced a slew of odd and surprising results, but none more bizarre than this, according to AP:

The West Texas district attorney accused of ignoring a graphic and detailed report alleging rampant sexual abuse at a state juvenile jail has won re-election.

Randall W. "Randy" Reynolds beat challenger Kevin Acker, the Ward County attorney, with about 68 percent of the vote in complete but unofficial returns in the Democratic primary. There were no Republicans on the ballot.

There's an old saying in politics that a gerrymandered incumbent can typically only be defeated if they're caught with a "dead girl or a live boy," which explains why the Pyote case generated such turmoil in Austin.

Which makes this outcome all the more mysterious: I don't know if Ward County voters would care if Reynolds were himself caught with a "live boy," but they don't seem to mind if those in his jurisdiction who do find themselves in that predicament avoid prosecution. What other conclusion can you draw from this result?

Hopeful electoral pattern emerging among GOP leaders on criminal justice reform

First, congratulations to Rep. Jerry Madden for pulling out his primary challenge from a 23-year old neophyte who's main past experience was an internship at the office of the Washington D.C. drug czar. No election result on Tuesday pleased me more.

Madden's young opponent ran an energetic and vitriolic campaign, accusing the chairman of being soft on crime for opposing new prison spending and spearheading, with Sen. John Whitmire, legislation to reduce the number of probation revocations filling up Texas prisons. Columnist Mitchell Shchnurman this morning in the Fort Worth Star Telegram summed up my feelings about Madden's position and the attacks he withstood in these closing lines ("A focus on savings resulted in prison reforms," March 5):

"We're doing the right thing for people who've broken the law and the right thing for taxpayers," Madden says.

Try telling that to his political opponent. In Tuesday's primary, Madden faced a Republican challenger, who blasted him for opposing new prison construction and preventing thousands of drug and property offenders from returning to prison.

In politics, that may be a liability. In the real world, that's leadership.

Though Madden pulled the race, out, it was closer than one would prefer. Still, I'm heartened that this is the second time a Republican House Corrections Committee chairman has faced a stiff electoral challenge based on being called "soft on crime" for supporting much needed and practical criminal justice reforms, and both won re-election.

In 2003, then Chairman Ray Allen filed legislation that would have reduced low-level drug crimes (possession of less than a gram) to a misdemeanor from a state jail felony, but in the political process the legislation moderated to keep the offense a SJF, and to require judges to give probation on the first offense for those with no serious priors.

Still, the bill (HB 2668) was the first move by legislators to reduce reliance on incarceration instead of increasing it. The following session in 2005, Allen and Madden co-authored more sweeping probation reform legislation that Gov. Perry vetoed. Then Allen retired and the Governor signed essentially similar legislation in 2007.

Allen's district in Grand Prairie was a "swing" district, and the Republican who replaced him (Kirk England) switched parties. So what did the Democrat who ran against him in 2004 do right out of the box? You guessed it: Accused him of being soft on crime for reducing prison time for first-offense, low-level drug offenders.

The absurdity of this charge can only be fully understood if you know that Ray Allen was the House author for Texas' most draconian sex offender legislation in the '90s - it's just that as Corrections Chair, he understood the pragmatic reality that if he wanted to have a place to warehouse all those sex offenders (1 in 6 Texas inmates, as I write this), he couldn't fill up the prisons with drug addicts. He was also one of the most zealous pro-life advocates in the Legislature when he was there.

Allen defeated his opponent, Katy Hubener, and went on to work with Jerry Madden and John Whitmre to help craft what became the basic architecture of the 2007 probation reforms, which Ana Yañez Correa told the Star Telegram are causing "a whole cultural change in probation departments." Certainly itwas the first, important overhaul of the adult justice system since 15 years ago, when the decision was made to triple prison capacity to current levels.

(Conflict alert: I was a paid consultant on Allen's 2004 re-election campaign.)

I've brought up Allen's case when pols tell me they fear a political backlash for pursuing policies they know are best for the state but which they fear will earn them a "soft" label. That was a general election, the Rs would say, I'm worried about my primary.

So it's good to see Allen's successor as Corrections Chair prove he can win on such a record in the primary, too, and against an opponent who used those attacks as his main campaign message. I think this demonstrates, as I've long believed, that the GOP electorate is much more diverse on criminal justice topics than sometimes is portrayed by the neocon attack line, "soft on crime." An academic quoted in the News agreed:

"That's what this contest is about," Dr. Jillson [a political scientist at SMU] said. Mr. Madden's views "were what conservatism has been about through much of the 20th century. It's what George W. Bush has called 'compassionate conservatism.' "

What I take from this race is that opponents took their best shot trying to label the chief GOP proponents of criminal justice reform in the Legislature as "soft," and twice now - in a general election in 2004 and in this year in a GOP primary - those arguments failed to carry the day. Both incumbents ran on their record, not away from it, and voters rewarded them with re-election.

Perhaps that means other legislators in the future will feel more comfortable voting their conscience and the best interest of the state and taxpayers instead of voting from their fear somebody will label them "soft."

Results from selected criminal-justice related TX elections

What an election night! I don't know about y'all, but the precinct convention where I vote was a complete zoo. I left just before midnight, after convincing the group that remained to support the Grits resolutions on TYC and prison diversion, and they were still considering more resolutions when we left.

When turnout is so high, there's no telling what will happen in an election (because pollsters typically only ask opinions in campaign surveys of those who voted in the past, so new voters' opinions aren't measured). You can get your Clinton/Obama news elsewhere, but lets look around the state to see how the important criminal justice races turned out:

Court of Criminal Appeals: GOP voters returned incumbent Paul Womack to the bench over veteran District Judge Robert Francis from Dallas who said he was running because the court is no longer nationally respected. I've said for years this court represents an opportunity for Democrats, since GOP voters have placed their stamp of approval on the Sharon Keller court, which nationally has become a legal embarrassment. Clearly Republicans aren't going to get their own house in order. Womack's primary win gives him a free pass for the next six years, since he has no Democratic opponent. In the other two CCA seats up this year, Democrat Susan Strawn will face off against CCA Judge Tom Price, while J.R. Molina will be on the ballot against GOP incumbent Cathy Cochran.

Jerry Madden Returns: As important to the justice system, IMO, as any court race, House Corrections Chairman Jerry Madden survived a primary challenge from an opponent who's main campaign message was to label prison and jail diversion programs and Madden's legislation to strengthen probation "soft on crime." Perhaps it's a hopeful sign that even in a GOP primary, that message did not prove decisive.

Pat Haggerty Out: Former House Corrections Chair Pat Haggerty lost his seat in El Paso to Dee Margo, who was recruited and financed to punish the long-time rep for opposing Tom Craddick in last year's Speaker's fight. This reminds us, after all the calls for ousting Craddick last year, that opposing a sitting Speaker is serious business when you've got you're own skin in the game. Haggerty knew that and did it anyway. He also understood the prison system thoroughly, tolerated little bullshit, and with Jerry Madden and Ray Allen (the last three House Corrections Committee chairs), he helped pass a great deal of important reform legislation during the last few of sessions. I don't know much about Dee Margo, the Republican who beat him, but it will take him many years to learn as much about the Texas criminal justice system as Pat Haggerty as forgotten.

Travis County District Attorney: TV rules, is the lesson from this race: First Assistant Rosemary Lehmberg and Mindy Montford will face off against one another in what's likely to be an expensive runoff contest. Both had large TV buys compared to their opponents, including Rick Reed, who I supported. Rosemary was my second choice, and I think she's the superior choice of the two in the runoff, but Montford is a strong candidate who's been talking a good game about reform.

Harris County District Attorney: Kelly Siegler and Pat Lykos will face off in the GOP primary runoff, which should leave our pal over at Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center in an absolute tizzy for the next month. The winner will face off against former Houston police chief C.O. Bradley in the highest profile local race in Houston this year.

Bexar Sheriff: Congrats to Grits reader Dennis McKnight, who handily won his GOP primary race, while Democrats Amadeo Ortiz and Andy Lopez will face off in a runoff. McKnight's the best candidate here from a reformer's standpoint, by a longshot. He was Bexar's jail administrator for years, an ADA before that, and few people in the state IMO understand the dynamics and possible solutions for local jail overcrowding better than he does.

Dallas Sheriff: Incumbent Lupe Valdez prevailed easily over three primary challengers, while two septuagenarian Republicans are headed into a runoff, including former Sheriff Jim Bowles who left under a cloud of commissary-related corruption charges. The big issue in the race: "Dallas County residents have had two recent tax rate increases to help pay for the millions of dollars worth of jail guard positions, jail medical facilities, and maintenance and construction costs that commissioners have approved."

Dallas Judge John Creuzot: One of the pioneers of the drug court movement in Texas, Judge Creuzot took a big risk in the primary switching parties from an R to a D, but it paid off. He won his race going away with 69% of the vote. I was worried about that one, that in such a partisan year his terrific merit might be overlooked because of his past GOP affiliation; thankfully Dems in Dallas embraced him. I don't really care what party he's in, I'm just glad he'll remain on the court. Congrats, Judge Creuzot!

Those are the main criminal justice races I was watching, excluding the ones - and there were a lot of them - where incumbents comfortably won. What happened in the important criminal justice races in your area? (Also be sure to let me know in the comments or by email if you got either of Grits' precinct resolutions passed, and where.)

Central Austin turnout through the roof at my precinct - Don't forget to support corrections resolutions at precinct conventions tonight

When I worked on electoral campaigns professionally, I always voted early so I'd have election day to help out whatever campaign(s) for which I was working.

Since I left that profession, though, I've made it a point to always vote on election day proper, partially because I'm a traditionalist (or as Kathy says, a curmudgeon) who's stuck in my ways, but also to gauge turnout, chat with the election workers, and participate in the rituals of the democratic process.

Today at my precinct (#126 in central East Austin), more people voted by 3:30 p.m. (340) than sometimes vote all day in that precinct in a November election. I waited about a half hour in line to vote, and I'd say about 30-40% of the folks there (a lot more racially mixed bunch than was my precinct 15 years ago, incidentally) were planning to go to the caucuses this evening, from the conversations I had.

If you're attending your precinct-level caucuses this evening, don't forget to print out 5 copies each of the resolutions here:

• Resolution on Prison and Jail Overcrowding
• Resolution Supporting Reforms at TYC

Just speak with the chair before the meeting starts, give that person four copies of each resolution (and keep one so you can argue for it if need be during the meeting), then see if you can get your fellow convention participants to agree. Use this as an open thread to report back whether your precinct supported one of both of the resolutions.

Election Day

Hey, Mr. Police Man, please don't take my stuff
It cost me too much money and it probably ain't enough
To make it through election day
And didn't I hear you say
It's alright, it's alright, it's alright

- Blaze Foley, "Election Day" (popularized by Lyle Lovett)

All eyes today are on Texas' primary elections, so here's a roundup of related recent Grits coverage. For once, at least for Democrats, the message "vote early and often" isn't entirely a joke. Primary voters will decide about 55% of delegates at the ballot box, but another third will be decided by caucuses at local precinct conventions tonight when the polls close (the rest are "superdelegates"). Meanwhile, the presidential race is by no means the only important election held today.

Presidential

• Texas presidential primary relevant for the first time in years: Huckabee, Obama best on criminal justice issues
• Immigration, trade and presidential politics

Court of Criminal Appeals

• CCA incumbent faces strong GOP primary challenge
• Does the Texas GOP need judges who think being Latino makes you a "continuing danger"?

Travis County DA

• Rick Reed top choice in Travis DA's race
• Watch Travis County DA candidate forum online
• Challenge DA candidates to say what they would do to reduce racial disparities in drug imprisonment

Others

• Texas criminal justice races to watch
• Jerry Madden facing bizarre attacks in primary campaign
• DA who failed to file TYC sex abuse case runs for re-election
• Who's on TV?
  

Other important Texas elections today include the Harris County DA primary, where one of four GOP candidates will win the right to face former Houston police chief Clarence Bradford in November. Sheriff's races in Bexar and Dallas both should be competitive, with issues in both elections centering around the jail. El Paso will likely choose the replacement for the late Sheriff Leo Samaniego today in the D primary.

Meanwhile, many thousands of Texas Democrats will be attending their party's precinct conventions for the first time ever. I can't tell you how many people I've spoken to who told me this would be their first time at a precinct convention. If you're one of them, consider taking advantage of the opportunity to also bring these resolutions to propose in your precinct:

• Resolution on Prison and Jail Overcrowding
• Resolution Supporting Reforms at TYC

Print out five copies of each and take them with you - the convention will be held in the same place your precinct votes (NOT early voting sites), and will begin 15 minutes after the polls close at seven o'clock. Go here for more detail on the process. And be sure to come back and let me know if the resolution passed in your precinct, either via email or in the comments.

Finally, the blog Texas Prison Bidness has prepared a resolution opposing the incarceration of blameless children in immigration detention centers like the T. Don Hutto facility in Williamson County, which incidentally is the subject of a new blog that's also promoting the resolution.. In Travis and Williamson I'm told the party will actually be distributing this resolution, but in other counties you should definitely take 5 copies and attempt to get this resolution passed, too. (The resolutions are also suitable for GOP convention-goers if you change the party name - I'm more focused on Ds because their caucuses will be extraordinarily well attended.)

It's a big day, huh? Use this post as an open thread to let me know your thoughts about today's plebiscite, what races or issues you're watching, or for other election-related topics.

RELATED: Via Burnt Orange Report, see "Where to Vote and How to Follow Tonight's Election Results."

Governor appoints TYC chief of staff who never passed on news of Pyote scandal

Whoever is appointed the new executive director at the Texas Youth Commission won't get to choose their own chief of staff. Gov. Perry moved Alfonso Royal today from his slot at the Governor's criminal justice division to the position of chief of staff slot at TYC, reported the Dallas News.

Mr. Royal's is not a new name in the TYC saga. He was the point man charged with being the Governor's "eyes and ears" when the Pyote scandal was first reported. The Dallas News investigation put Royal at the center of whatever information flow existed between TYC and state officials about the West Texas sex scandal, but he apparently did not pass on the hot-button information, the News reported last March ("Mistakes, mismanagement wrecked TYC," March 13, 2007):

In February 2005, when the governor's office learned of the Ranger's sex-abuse investigation in Pyote, a 36-year-old junior staffer named Alfonso Royal was Mr. Perry's liaison to TYC. He had been on the job just over three months.

One of 32 analysts in the governor's budget office, Mr. Royal has refused to comment. His office calendar and e-mail records show more than 20 contacts with TYC officials or board members between February 2005 and February 2007.

Mr. Royal's job was to be the governor's eyes and ears with TYC, said Robert Black, Mr. Perry's press secretary. "The governor expects the budget, planning and policy folks to be problem solvers. They have some latitude - a lot of latitude, actually - to work with the state agencies to solve problems to implement law, to govern," he said.

During that two-year period, records show, Mr. Royal had two one-on-one meetings with TYC executive director Harris. He also met with unnamed TYC staff members, visited two TYC units and attended 11 TYC board meetings.

From June 2005 until October 2006, press secretary Black said, Mr. Royal learned no new information on the West Texas investigation, and the governor's office believed it was proceeding.

But around Nov. 1, 2006, Alison Brock, chief of staff for Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, told Mr. Royal that there had been no movement on the case and provide him with a copy of Ranger Brian Burzynski's graphic 229-page report. "He was concerned," she recalled.

The governor's spokesman said that when Mr. Royal found out, "he did what he thought was the right thing to do and that was to call the D.A. and call the Ranger, call the A.G. He did what he thought was actionable and what we would expect him to do."

It was not clear whom in the governor's office Mr. Royal told about the West Texas investigation, or when. Mr. Black at first said he told no one, then said he assumed Mr. Royal had informed senior staff during the 2005 legislative session and again late last year.

Gov. Perry was never informed, Mr Black said.

Can the list of advisers Gov. Perry trusts on this matter be so short that he couldn't find somebody whose name wasn't at the center of covering up the original sex scandal that caused this mess? To my mind, the appointment makes little sense. Mr. Royal already had the chance to be the Governor's eyes and ears on this topic, and he failed to pass critical information up the ladder. It seems crazy to assign him that same role again.

Things we take for granted: Mexico may transition to public trials

There are Constitutional guarantees we take for granted in this country - like the right to a public trial and the right to have evidence of alleged crimes produced publicly in court - that make an enormous difference in improving the integrity of the American justice system. As evidence, perhaps the most important proposed reform for the notoriously corrupt judiciary in Mexico is to shift, for the first time, to open courts and public trials, reports the Beyond the Border blog:

Federal legislators today approved — again — constitutional reforms that could radically change Mexico's criminal justice system by making public, oral trials a nationwide standard within eight years in place of the current closed-door norm.

Whether it's secret wiretaps at the federal level, the trend away from trials and toward plea bargains, concealing documents related to snitches, the shift away from civil courts to arbitration, or exercising search warrants without immediately revealing why (as the Texas Legislature approved last year, concealing information from the public, but inexplicably not the alleged criminal, up to 60 days), today in the US we face a general nickel and diming trend away from judicial decisions made publicly in open courts.

When we hear arguments for greater secrecy in the judiciary, proponents can always offer a slew of good reasons why whatever specific bit of information they're worried about should be concealed, usually prefaced with the hypothetical, "What if ..." . Perhaps then we wouldn't be so quick to take the idea of open courts for granted if we asked more often, "What if courts were closed?" For a definitive answer, Texans need only look south.

SXSW features new "Tulia" documentary

The Tulia drug sting happened nearly nine years ago, but the reverberations from events in that small Texas town continue to ripple through the nation's psyche, both politically and increasingly, culturally. Though Halle Berry's feature-film version has been put on hold by her pregnancy, I received word yesterday via press release that the drug sting in Tulia, TX will be the focus of a new film - this one a documentary - released at the South by Southwest film festival next week. Here are the details:

TULIA, TEXAS Challenges War on Drugs

World premiere at SXSW Film Festival March 7 – 15, 2008

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Austin, Texas)--TULIA, TEXAS, a documentary film revisiting one of the biggest drug stings in Texas history, will make its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival (http://www.sxsw.com) March 7 – 15, 2008, in Austin, Texas.

In 1999, undercover narcotics officer Thomas Coleman and his drug task force rounded up and arrested dozens of residents of the small farming town of Tulia. Thirty-nine of the 46 people charged with selling cocaine to the man later heralded as “Texas Lawman of the Year” were African American. In the following years, disturbing evidence about the investigation and the police officer’s past began to surface.

Filmmakers Cassandra Herrman and Kelly Whalen visited Tulia in 2002 to discover how 46 people had been indicted on the testimony of one undercover cop. The imprisonment of more than 10 percent of Tulia’s adult black population sparked a high profile civil rights case that captured the attention of the national media. Over five years of filming, Herrman and Whalen set out to find meaning beyond the popular images in the mainstream media, developing the trust of key players on opposing sides, and gaining deeper insights into the injustices committed in Tulia.

TULIA, TEXAS tells the stories of the last remaining defendants in prison, the families and lawyers fighting for their freedom, and the sheriff, undercover agent and townspeople who stand against them. The small town's search for justice is a cautionary tale about the price American's pay for the war on drugs.

TULIA, TEXAS is a co-production of Cassandra Herrman and Kelly Whalen and the Independent Television Service. Major funding for the documentary was provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

MORE INFORMATION:

To learn more about the film and the issues, visit the film’s website at http://www.tuliatexasfilm.com. A downloadable press kit, including a documentary summary, directors’ statement, and publicity photos, is available at www.tuliatexasfilm.com/press. To request a DVD preview copy of the film, send an email to info@tuliatexasfilm.com.

SXSW screening times of TULIA, TEXAS (showing with Josh Brolin’s “X”):

http://2008.sxsw.com/film/screenings/film/F11467.html

March 8, 2008 – 2:00pm (Dobie Theatre) *Special post-screening appearance by featured characters from Tulia

March 11, 2008 – 9:30pm Dobie Theatre)

March 13, 2008 – 2:30pm (Alamo Lamar 2)

Texas ultimately abolished its statewide system of regional drug task forces as a result of Tulia and other drug task force scandals. This movie release comes at a time when similar drug task forces nationwide are facing budget cuts that could finally put them out of business, too, but oddly their chief defenders have been among the most liberal Democrats in Congress.

Here's hoping that the NAACP, the Drug Policy Alliance, the Heritage Foundation, or somebody who lobbies against Byrne grants in D.C. walks around the capitol to give copies of the DVD to offices of Senate Democrats (Tom Harkin, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama - I'm talking to you) whose past advocacy kept similar drug task forces alive.

Against Despair: Is it time for a 21st-century reinvention of the WPA?

If you've traveled extensively around Texas, you've noticed that many of the nicest spots in the state have been adorned with beautiful buildings, stone fences and walkways built in the 1930s by laborers employed by Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA). Perhaps my favorite is the gorgeous Botanical Garden in Fort Worth (pictured -a must visit whenever you're in Cow Town), but examples abound in every corner of the state, and I'm sure many other states.

Given the nation's economic woes and the difficulties for millions of felons to find employment, recently I've been thinking this program needs to be reinvented for the 21st Century, not just because it would boost the economy but because it would reduce crime.

I could be wrong, but if it was limited, targeted, and short-term, with a job placement component to send workers to the private sector, I doubt the idea would be nearly as controversial with the general public as it would have been during the Cold War era, when every debate on such matters inevitably centered around whether it smacked of "socialism." Sometimes a solution isn't an "ism," sometimes it's just a good idea.

There are strong public safety arguments for considering some version of a 21st century paid government work program.

The notion recurred to me upon reading a thoughtful article by the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial page, Harold Jackson, who delves this morning into the 40-year old Kerner Commission report, which sought to explain the source of dozens of violent riots that devastated US inner cities in 1967. Jackson argues persuasively that many black folks today are still "rioting," just in "slow motion," and I think he's right. What else could explain that one in nine black men age 20-34 are in prison? Wrote Jackson:

The Kerner Commission report (named after its chairman, Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner) was released as March began in 1968. Forty years later, America would do well to review its observations and consider whether current conditions could reproduce race riots....

"Social and economic conditions in the riot cities constituted a clear pattern of severe disadvantage for Negroes compared with whites," the commission said. "Negroes had fewer years of education . . . were twice as likely to be unemployed . . . (and) more than twice as likely to be living in poverty."

We've come a long way since then. The growth of the black middle class is unparalleled by any previous period in U.S. history. And yet. . . .

Today, the black unemployment rate is 9 percent, while it's 4 percent for whites; 24 percent of blacks live in poverty, compared with 8 percent of whites; the median income of black households is $30,858, compared with $50,784 for whites. Among blacks, 20 percent lack health insurance, compared with 11 percent of whites.

So why aren't blacks rioting now? Or Hispanics, whose statistics in many cases aren't much better?...

Perhaps, in a way, they are rioting - but it's in slow motion, so they are not getting the same attention.

"The frustrations of powerlessness have led some Negroes to the conviction that there is no effective alternative to violence as a means of achieving redress of grievances, and of moving the system," said the Kerner Commission.

The report even explained the "Don't Snitch" code that existed 40 years ago and persists today: "To some Negroes, police have come to symbolize white power, white racism and white repression. . . . [Their] cynicism is reinforced by a widespread belief . . . in the existence of . . . a double standard of protection - one for Negroes and one for whites."

It's been said (I can't recall by whom) that in America we have equal protection under the law: Both rich and poor are prosecuted equally for stealing bread and sleeping under bridges. Ain't it the truth? The Kerner Commission told the nation something it was not ready to hear forty years ago: The cause of the riots was despair, an angry, public denial of the verity of the American dream for black citizens, and not just in the South.

Four decades later that has changed to some extent, but not enough. The data from the Pew Trusts that one in nine young black men today is in prison speaks to a lack of hope and opportunity as much as it does the moral failings of those incarcerated - it's the same conundrum that faced the Kerner Commission forty years ago. That won't change with a campaign slogan.

Do you happen to watch the TV show The Wire? I consider it the most realistic crime drama ever produced, almost like a documentary novel of the modern drug trade. In the episode last week, a 15-year old black kid is walking door to door in the business district of West Baltimore looking for work. He's recognized by another kid from the streets, now working at a shoe store, who tells him the boss won't hire anyone under 17. "I guess you'll just have to keep bangin' a couple more years" then try again, he tells the disappointed youth.

Sure, it's just a TV show, but if you don't think that's exactly what's causing so many young black men to migrate to the lucrative drug trade - despair and a lack of other opportunities - you've got another think coming.

I've argued recently for allowing the labor and trade markets to function more freely, and so they should. But support for free markets does not absolve the state from responsibility to redress externalities they cause. At this point, it would be a lot cheaper just to hire and train unemployed young black men or NAFTA-displaced Ohioans en masse, WPA-style - particularly those with felony records who can't find other work - than to pay the price for policing, prosecuting and imprisoning one in nine young black men, and one in 99 out of ALL adults.

If that approach smacks of "socialism" to some readers (it's really "Keynesianism," but many conservatives don't recognize a difference), then how about sentencing low-level offenders to such job programs instead of to prison, transitioning at least part of the current reliance on incarceration to community-based work programs?

In Tyler, for example, Judge Cynthia Kent told the jail symposium in San Antonio recently that when defendants came to Smith County's newly established "day reporting center" (offenders who would have otherwise been sentenced to jail), about 85% were unemployed, but under supervision of the court, about 85% found jobs.

That's terrific news. But what if the county or state ran a paid work program that was an alternative for that 15%, for those first sentenced or who couldn't find work because of their record or some other reason? What if it facilitated day care and transportation so defendants had no excuses not to participate, and training in skills (unlike, say, making license plates) that transfer to the outside world?

As we approach $40 billion per year spent on drug enforcement alone (let alone considering the awesome size of the foreign war debt), the relative size of such employment programs all of a sudden begins to look like small potatoes. In a campaign season filled with talk of "Hope," perhaps it's a good time to remember that we face our greatest enemy not in Baghdad but in the streets of our own cities: It's name is "Despair," which flourishes in jail but can vanish overnight given an opportunity and a J-O-B.

Immigration, Trade, and Presidential Politics

A slightly off-topic aside in the face of the looming presidential primary:

The Republicans don't want immigration. Now the Democrats don't want trade.

Somebody tell me: Who do I vote for if I support free markets for BOTH trade and labor? Is it only possible to elect someone with an isolationist foreign policy in the 2008 presidential election? I used to think this was parody:

South Park - Blame Canada - More free videos are here

OTOH, on this matter perhaps we should blame Ohio. In general I don't trust states whose names contain more vowels than consonants (I'm talking to you, Maine!).