Overincarceration at local jail responsible for Wichita County tax hike

Higher county property taxes in Wichita Falls are entirely attributable to rising jail costs, the Times Record News reports today; their county commissioners court this week approved an 8% tax hike:

County Judge Woody Gossom said the extra revenue will all go to the county jail, with about half the increase dedicated to additional jail staffing and the rest toward the expense of housing inmates out of county due to overcrowding.

The 2011 budget contains no pay raises for county employees, except for hikes for two district court reporters, which commissioners are required by law to pass.

Gossom said the budget is designed to meet the requirements of the jail and the demands of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.

He said a “great deal” of effort has gone in to dealing with issues that plague both the jail in the courthouse and at the Sprague Annex, including leaking roofs. Gossom also said a committee of county officials and others will be formed to “look into things we can do to reduce the number of people in jail.” (emphasis added)

“We have to look at ways to reduce expenses,” he said.

Gossom said the county is paying nearly $750,000 a year to transfer inmates to jails in nearby counties because of overcrowding here.

The tax rate increase approved Monday is just below the level that could by law allow taxpayers to petition for a rollback..

Politicians in Wichita County aren't looking to "reduce the number of people in jail" because they're suddenly soft on crime. They face stark budget choices just like the Legislature does next year, and unlike the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, they recognize it isn't possible to put off forever policy changes that reduce incarceration rates instead of endlessly indulging the system's carceral appetites.

TDCJ budget would lay off 7,300 employees before closing a single prison unit

Why am I not surprised? The Texas Department of Criminal Justice yesterday came out with its Legislative Appropriations Request (LAR) purporting to comply with budget cuts demanded by legislative leaders. Rumors were flying last week that TDCJ would suggest closing two units as part of a broader array of cuts, but that notion clearly didn't make it into the final draft, which mostly slashes staffing, community supervision, and mental health treatment. Here are the details from TDCJ's website:

• FY 2012-2013 Legislative Appropriations Request (LAR) (brief two-page synopsis of major budget issues)
• Fiscal Year 2011 Operating Budget and Fiscal Years 2012-2013 Legislative Appropriations Request (summary with additional detail)

At 5% below their current budget, TDCJ suggests closing no prisons but somehow believes they can safely cut 1,700 staff, including 1,200 at correctional facilities. If required to cut their budget by 10%, says the LAR, they'll eliminate 4,700 staff (mostly prison guards and parole officers) and still not close any prisons, while cutting mental health services by $88.8 million! If required to cut 15%, reports the Statesman's Mike Ward, TDCJ might close one private facility and would lay off 7,300 people. The only reduction in capacity suggested in the LAR are Intermediate Sanctions Facilities (prison alternatives that by all account have worked well) and the elimination of 471 beds at unspecified private units.

These frankly aren't serious proposals. Indeed, nearly every cut proposed by the agency - to probation, to parole, to treatment, to mental health - seems targeted not to best serve the public interest but to maximize the future inflow of prisoners to ensure that all 112 Texas prison units remain full, no matter what. This is classic bureaucratic self-interest at work from an agency that perceives itself first and foremost as a prison operator and thinks of community supervision as frills. Likely TDCJ officials are hoping against hope that Sen. Whitmire will prevail in his effort to have criminal justice agencies exempted from budget cuts.

In any event, this LAR confirms my fears that TDCJ will never go along willingly with shuttering any prison unit, even ones like the Central Unit in Sugarland which are inappropriately located and rife with security problems. As I've editorialized repeatedly, legislators will have to do the fine cutting themselves. It's possible to identify cuts and policy changes that would allow TDCJ to safely close 4-6 prison units while retaining or even expanding community supervision and diversion programming. Getting to 10% or 15% becomes more difficult, but cutting 5% shouldn't be remotely as hard as TDCJ's LAR makes it out to be.

Louie Gohmert and judicial temperament

I try to steer this blog away from straight-up culture war debates and onto more constructive terrain, so I resisted commenting when state Rep. Debbie Riddle went on national TV to say that "terror babies" were being birthed in the United States by extremist Muslims in preparation for future attacks. Though we disagree on many things, I like Riddle personally and thought perhaps she'd merely been confused by a trailer for the Angelina Jolie movie Salt. (Those were Russians, Debbie!) But then Congressman Louie Gohmert from my hometown followed up by repeating the accusation on the House floor, afterward going on Anderson Cooper and yelling at him for 10 minutes in a truly bizarre rant of the type you might expect right before somebody goes out to shoot up a post office or fly a plane into an IRS building. His originating source for the accusation is an unnamed woman (perhaps Riddle?) he spoke to on an airplane! No, really! Radley Balko provided this clip of the remarkable exchange (no need to watch all of it, since it becomes repetitive after Gohmert begins yelling and refusing to answer any direct questions):

I hardly know how to react to such a display from a former judge. It's one thing to be conservative but do you have to be an asshole? I've had far more polite disagreements with white supremacists and John Birch Society members. What can you say? My homies voted for him. I wonder what it was like to practice law in the man's courtroom?

Writ Denied: Judge Keller frustrated from futility of frivolous filings

The Supreme Court of Texas denied Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller's writ asking that they vacate the public warning lodged against her by the State Judicial Conduct Commission. See the Austin Statesman and Jeff Gamso for more. Then on the last possible day (yesterday) Keller requested that the SCOT appoint three judge to hear her appeal of the Commission's warning. Gamso remarks that the whole affair is:

kind of like how she describes those death penalty appeals of which she's so derisive.  You know, frivolous filing after frivolous filing after frivolous filing. There are two differences, though.

1. Keller's filings now really are frivolous.
2. There's essentially nothing at stake here.

Here's Keller's letter (pdf, via the Texas Tribune) requesting either a trial de novo or an "appellate-like review based on the the trial record," declaring that "Judge Keller wishes to avail herself of her right to oppose the Commission's unconstitutional behavior in whatever forum you deem appropriate. She frankly does not know what that is, and is frustrated by the fact that it is the Commission's unconstitutional Order which has created this conundrum."

What in the world is an "appellate-like review"? Who knows? At this point, everyone seems to be just making it up as they go along. The whole episode has long ago descended from tragedy to farce. I don't know what Judge Keller thinks she gains by dragging this out, much less going through another public trial to protest what amounts to a meaningless wrist slap, but she's either suffering from extreme hubris or receiving really terrible advice. Most likely both.

Reportage hyping DWI sidesteps biggest enforcement issues

The Dallas News is running a series of stories about criminal prosecutions in DWI death cases, the first article of which opened with this provocative but misleading statement:

You drink. You drive. You go to jail.

That's what the billboards say.

But in Dallas County, a leader in alcohol-fueled traffic deaths, you may spend little or no time behind bars – even if you kill someone. 

Note, the ads don't say, "You drink, you drive, you go to prison," so from the get-go it's clear that whoever wrote the lede was stretching to find (or generate) controversy. The News provides no evidence that police don't arrest drivers for intoxication manslaughter, so the claim that they spend "little or no time behind bars" is blatantly misleading. Indeed, further down in the story we learn that for "those drivers who are prosecuted and get probation, the only time they will spend behind bars is between 120 and 180 days in county jail."

The ads referenced neither say nor imply that every defendant will go to prison, and they refer to routine DWIs, not only death cases. Their message is the same one as the adage under Grits' title at the top of this page: "You might beat the rap but you won't beat the ride" for the Class B misdemeanor of driving while intoxicated. The billboards are NOT claiming everyone arrested for DWI will be convicted, nor that every alcohol related auto death will generate a prison sentences, particularly when there are mitigating factors or the harsher sentence is opposed by the victims' family.

By framing the issue this way, the writers set themselves up to supposedly uncover government hypocrisy or wrongdoing, but so far the articles haven't made that case persuasively. Instead, reporters found local prosecutors and judges defending their decisions on the grounds that they improve public safety.

Backers of tougher sentencing often are frustrated by the emphasis on treatment. Rehabilitation is laudable, they say, but offenders also should lose their liberty. Doing so might deter other drunken drivers.

Prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges say probation makes sense because intoxication manslaughter cases are incredibly difficult to prosecute.

Also, probationers are forced to get treatment they probably wouldn't receive in prison, and rehabilitation is less costly to taxpayers than punishment.

Most important, they say, a combination of treatment and probation-ordered rehabilitation makes the public safer.

"The reason it doesn't work to lock them up is, eventually they get out, and most times sooner rather than later," state District Judge Tracy Holmes said. "And when they get out, their addiction has progressed, and so they are more dangerous."

Prosecutors would like to send more intoxication manslaughter defendants to prison, but say the lack of substance abuse programs in Texas prisons forces them to pick between punishment and probation with rehabilitation. 

If harsh sentences "might deter" drunk drivers, why haven't they already done so for those with multiple past arrests? More than 5,500 prisoners are incarcerated at TDCJ right now for their third DWI or more. Not infrequently one even sees life sentences imposed for repeat DWI offenders. When somebody is arrested for the ninth time for DWI, that means the justice system has miserably failed the first eight times it intervened. Because of the volume of DWI cases, incapacitation is not a cost-effective, long-term means to solve the problem and it usually fails to address underlying risk factors before releasing the offender back to the streets.

Strangely, so far the series has failed to address the most serious crisis facing DWI enforcement in Texas today: Laws have become so tough that many defendants in non-death cases will no longer subject themselves to probation - which requires taking drug tests, participating in treatment and changing their lifestyle - instead choosing to sit out their time in jail to avoid changing their behavior. That's ironic because all the "tuff on crime" buffs  quoted in these articles bellyache constantly that more people don't do enough "hard" jail time, while many offenders would prefer that to strong probation that these articles portray as potentially too soft.

I'm also surprised not to see the Driver Responsibility surcharge featured prominently in these discussions. At a hearing of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee last month, David Hodges, Judicial Liaison for the Texas Center for the Judiciary, testified that the Driver Responsibility surcharge had caused DWI conviction rates to decline statewide in recent years relative to the number arrests. Citing Department of Public Safety data, Hodges said that in 2005 roughly 2/3 of DWI arrests resulted in conviction, but by 2009 that number had declined to 44%. Over the same period (2005-2009), he said, according to the Office of Court Administration, the number of pending, undisposed DWI cases increased from 100,000 to 125,000.

Most of that increase he attributed to more defendants taking cases to trial and more prosecutors, whose duty is to seek justice, not convictions, agreeing to plea down to lesser charges in order to avoid imposition of the unjust surcharge, which many defendants simply couldn't afford.

Bottom line, said Hodges, since the Driver Responsibility surcharge was implemented, DWI conviction rates have decreased every year, dismissal rates have increased every year, and the backlog of pending, undisposed cases has gone up 25%. Further, Hodges said that “tens of thousands of cases” per year were being informally reduced from DWI to lesser charges like reckless driving, public intoxication, blocking the highway, etc., to avoid having to apply the surcharge. The News stories mention with derision the practice of plea bargaining to these lesser charges, but failed to discuss the Driver Responsibility surcharge as a causal factor.

A staff editorial laments that "the cycle of blame, overreaction and unintended consequences keeps spinning," but this series' main purpose so far seems to be to contribute to that cycle by fomenting outrage where it's undeserved. From my perspective, anyway, so far I'm afraid these stories have merely elaborated rather than enlightened.

Prison dog training programs deserve results-based evaluation

Having recently mentioned the new dog-training program at TYC's girls' unit in Brownwood, I should point out this article in the Houston Chronicle about a similar program for women offenders at TDCJ in Gatesville that trains dogs for disabled veterans. The story opens:

Sharon Cooper, a Houston woman serving 30 years in prison for embezzlement, wasn't quite sure what she was getting into when she signed up to train dogs with Patriot Paws. Maybe it was all about sitting up, rolling over and doing cute puppy tricks.

She quickly learned, though, that it was about much more: changing lives — her own and others'.

Cooper, 49, is one of 13 female inmates at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Crain Unit devoting their full time to training dogs to aid disabled military veterans. Ten more at the nearby Murray Unit also work in the program.

"I was in awe when I saw what these dogs did," Cooper said, adding that the training experience has given direction to her own life. "I never really had a passion in life. This could be my passion. This could be my career."

Many might be surprised at what Patriot Paws dogs, most of whom pretty much appear to be run-of-the-mill Rovers, can do.

These dogs — Barney, Parole, Memphis and the rest — are super-valets who can drop your dirty socks in the washer, fetch cold drinks from the fridge, bring your medicine or your trousers, open doors, gallop for help in emergencies and keep you steady on your feet and in your mind.

To the those who rely on them, they're best buddies, canine soulmates. To women such as Cooper, they're a heart-lifting chance to give back to society.

Former TDCJ board chair Christina Crain deserves credit for bringing the program to TDCJ:

[Lori] Stevens, 52, who has trained dogs for more than two decades, launched Patriot Paws in an effort to help Dallas-area disabled vets. The program expanded to the Gatesville prison units through the interest of former TDCJ Chairwoman Christina Crain, a Dallas lawyer for whom the prison was named. Crain, Stevens said, was familiar with similar programs outside Texas.

At first, Stevens was nervous.

"I didn't know what to expect," she said. "You get goose bumps just walking in the gate. ...The first time we came down, we spent two weeks training the trainers. They were just a bunch of people who had made stupid mistakes. I met some amazing women. They're just like sponges soaking up knowledge."

Stevens said positive reinforcement is used to train the dogs to respond to voice and visual commands.

Once the dogs master dozens of basic skills, they are "customized" to care for their new owners. Ninety percent of the veterans who receive dogs suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder; some are amputees, others victims of head trauma.

"The dogs can open and close doors; get help in emergencies; pick up dropped items," Stevens said. "They do the laundry. They retrieve phones and medicine. They push emergency light switches. Now we have dogs who pull down zippers and pull off shoes and socks."

Patriot Paws, largely supported through donations, provides the dogs free. Close to 70 percent go to veterans.

I notice that in both the adult and youth systems these dog training programs are operated and presumably funded as nonprofits. But I'm willing to bet - and it's certainly worth gathering data and testing - that the experience of successfully participating in such programs has more therapeutic and/or rehabilitative value than many of the treatment and counseling programs TDCJ offenders go through now.

There doesn't seem to be much research I could locate on recidivism rates or related outcomes for offenders who participate in these programs, though they've been implemented here and there around the country. A search on the Social Science Research Network on the keywords "prison, training, dog" revealed nothing. Via Google Scholar I found a study showing the programs reduce depression and boost self-esteem among women inmate trainers, but didn't focus on recidivism. Most research on the topic, like this 2007 Master's thesis focused on a program in Ohio (pdf), is more descriptive than analytical. An article from 2006 said the field of criminology "has failed to systematically study the phenomenon."

Relatedly, last night on PBS there was a documentary titled "Through a Dog's Eyes" that told the story of end-users of service dogs like those being trained in the Patriot Paws program. Clearly the demand for such animals is greater than the supply. If the programs could be shown to reduce recidivism and/or improve inmate behavior, perhaps it'd be worth the state paying to scale up operations - in the case of juveniles perhaps financing it by jettisoning things that don't work, like TYC's failed drug treatment program.

Trying innovative strategies is great, but I'd prefer that when corrections officials do so that there's an evaluation component so it's possible to determine whether the program is working as intended (or at all). I consider the missing evaluation component a major shortcoming of Texas' 2007 probation reforms, so that criticism isn't specific to dog training. But in this case there are so many positive anecdotal accolades for such programs it'd be nice to get some evidence-driven analysis of what happens with inmates who participate after they leave custody. If the results are positive, who knows? Maybe a generation from now instead of being renowned for making license plates and furniture, prisons could become known as first-rate dog-training academies for people with special needs. That'd certainly change the culture of the institutions.

Backlash against new prisoner reentry housing

Mike Ward at the Austin Statesman reports on the allegedly muddled implementation and backlash against a new program to provide housing for long-time inmates who are eligible for parole but had no place to go ("Housing program for ex-cons not working as intended, some lawmakers say," Aug. 15). The story opens:

As Texas prison programs go, this one was tiny. Just a few hundred ex-cons would be eligible for housing vouchers those who had been approved for parole but were stuck behind bars because they had no place to live, either because their families didn't want them or they had no place to go.

It was also supposed to save taxpayers money, since the housing would cost less than a $47-a-day prison bed.

Instead, state records show, the 8-month-old Temporary Housing Assistance Program appears to have accomplished just the opposite. In some cases, parolees have been moved into state-rented homes from less expensive halfway houses. ...

Earlier this month, 98 parolees were living in taxpayer-paid housing across the state — most of them in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin. Their crimes included homicide, aggravated robbery, failure to register as a sex offender, driving while intoxicated, drug possession and escape.

One home in Dallas housed eight paroled felons — six from halfway houses, two just out of prison — until the author of the law demanded they be removed, officials said. In Houston, plans to house several felons at a site just a few blocks from an elementary school were scratched after neighbors complained.

"This program was not being operated as I intended, not even close," said an angry state Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, the author of the law. "I've told them to get it fixed, and get it fixed now.

Certainly nobody intended this statute to authorized essentially unsupervised halfway houses, but it was probably inevitable there'd be some NIMBY backlash when it was implemented, no matter what. Humorously (to me, anyway - I'm sure not to them), Ward's story also includes grumbling from prison officials who defended the program and think legislators are butting into their business:

The controversy is the latest of a string in which legislators have publicly challenged how the state corrections system is being operated — including lingering questions about lax security and an abrupt, and later canceled, downsizing of a drug treatment program.

That has left some corrections officials insisting privately that they are being unfairly micromanaged, a complaint that highlights simmering tensions between the agency and lawmakers.

Prison officials defend the housing voucher program and seem somewhat surprised at the criticism. They say the parolees who are being assigned to the homes are screened. Most are getting out of prison anyway and could live wherever they choose since they have no restrictions to stay away from schools or children.

"This is a program that's working," said Stuart Jenkins, the state parole director whose division oversees the housing vouchers. "As we're growing with the program, we're making some changes, as you would with any program. We haven't had any significant issues so far."

Even so, after complaints from Madden and others, parole officials ordered nearly a dozen felons removed from several residential homes where the state had been paying to rent rooms — including the Dallas house — and mandated that no more than two felons can live at any one location until further notice. Jenkins said officials are also reviewing the payment rates in the program and whether felons should be moved from cheaper halfway houses into more expensive housing assistance sites.

Texas releases more than 70,000 prisoners per year, so this squabbling over a few dozen at the margins hardly merits sounding the alarm too loudly. Ward notes that:

At the time Texas lawmakers approved the law in 2009, more than 300 parole-ready convicts were sitting in cells with no place to go.

Under the law, the state can pay for housing for those new parolees for up to 90 days at a price not to exceed the daily cost of a prison bunk. In some cases, officials said, they can extend the housing payments up to 180 days.

Since their sentences are up and the alternative is to cut the offender loose to live wherever they want, this doesn't seem like a bad solution to transition folks out of prison and reduce the pre-parole population at the margins. If they're placing 6-8 people at the same address, I've no doubt neighbors will complain. But as long as it's happening at an individual level and the living quarters don't violate conditions of parole (prohibitions against living near schools, etc.), I tend to agree with Jenkins the agency out to be given enough leash to implement the brand spanking new program and work out the kinks.

Geo Group's purchase of Houston private prison company leaves it highly leveraged

I noticed recent news that the Geo Group (formerly Wackenhut), a private prison company which has been expanding aggressively in Texas, saw its earnings increase last quarter not because its operations became more profitable but because they purchased yet another competitor, this time the Houston-based Cornell Group.

Geo's boosted earnings, though, also bring with them nine figures in additional debt for a company already leveraged to the hilt. In 2007, I'd quoted from their 10-K (which is an annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission) which informed us that:

the company has a "significant level of indebtedness that could adversely affect our financial position," mostly spent to buy competing private prison companies. And how might this debt "adversely" affect Geo? First and foremost, the company says, it could "require us to dedicate a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations to payments on our indebtedness." Translated, that means they've got so much debt they're going to have to divert funds from their facilities they're operating to help pay it off!

The same warning was included in Geo's most recent 10K, but after the purchase of Cornell it deserves to be amplified. The more debt the company has, the greater risk they must "dedicate a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations to payments on our indebtedness." (They'll also be dedicating a portion of their revenue, btw, to pay the board chairman's son-in-law a fat $144K salary plus stock options, which is the kind of executive hire that to me raises a red flag.)

According to Texas Prison Bidness, Cornell operated 10 facilities around the state, many of them housing juveniles and/or focused on treatment programming. The acquisition beefs up Geo's Texas portfolio considerably after a spate of lost contracts around the state. Texas Prison Bidness recently observed that:

GEO has lost at least 5 contracts in Texas in the past several years.  GEO lost its Bridgeport TDCJ contract earlier this summer and the 2008 re-contracting of the Estes unit to MTC.  In 2007, the state of Idaho pulled its inmates from the Dickens County Correctional Center in the wake of the suicide of inmate Scot Noble Payne and a subsequent investigation into "squalid" conditions at the lock-up.  Idaho also cut its contract the Bill Clayton Detention Center in Littlefield, Texas after the 2008 suicide of Randy McCullough.  And, as the the article indicates, the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center was shuttered in October 2007 by the Texas Youth Commission after a damning investigation into conditions at the youth detention center.

Geo has six contracts up for renewal this year, according to its 10K, and at four are in Texas (Mineral Wells, North Texas ISF, South Texas ISF, and Bridgeport, which they already lost). About 1/3 of GEO's contracts end by 2012 and must be renewed or re-bid. Five customers including the State of Texas account for most of Geo's revenue:

We have provided correctional and detention management services to the United States Federal Government for 23 years, the State of California for 22 years, the State of Texas for approximately 22 years, various Australian state government entities for 18 years and the State of Florida for approximately 16 years. These customers accounted for 63.5% of our consolidated revenues for the fiscal year ended January 3, 2010.

The lull in the immigration detention market that's left competitor CCA with 12,500 empty beds is also affecting Geo on a couple of speculative construction projects, says their 10-K:

We are currently in the process of expanding two facilities to add additional beds that we do not yet have corresponding management contracts to operate. While we are working diligently with a number of different customers for the use of these remaining beds, we cannot in fact assure you that contracts for the beds will be secured on a timely basis, or at all. While these facilities are vacant, we estimate that we will incur carrying costs ranging from approximately $1.0 million to $1.5 million per facility, per fiscal quarter. Failure to secure management contracts for these projects could have a material adverse impact on our financial condition, results of operations and/or cash flows. In addition, in order to secure management contracts for these expanded beds, we may need to incur significant capital expenditures to renovate or further expand these facilities to meet potential clients’ needs.

I'd also pointed out back in 2007 that GEO making its debt payments required the company to rely on payments from subsidiaries that it could not guarantee:

The 10-K declares that Geo relies on "distributions" (i.e., "profits") from its subsidiaries to pay its increasingly large debt. Profits from subsidiaries made up more than 28% of Geo revenue last year, but the 10-K cautions that "Our subsidiaries are separate and distinct legal entities and are not obligated to make funds available for payment of our other indebtedness in the form of loans, distributions or otherwise."

In other words, we're not solvent without payments we can't ensure will keep coming, and our subsidiaries are "separate and distinct legal entities" who we don't control. That works out nicely for Geo if they go bankrupt, doesn't it?

That was written when subsidiaries made up 28% of Geo's revenue. Today, according to Geo's 10K, "For the fiscal year ended January 3, 2010, our subsidiaries accounted for 50.1% of our consolidated revenue, and, as of January 3, 2010, our subsidiaries accounted for 59.0% of our total segment assets." If the Cornell acquisitions are treated as subsidiaries, that risk will be even further magnified. The Geo Group is a heavily leveraged company.

In closing, here are a few more Texas-specific tidbits culled from Geo's 10-K:

"On May 4, 2009, we announced that we executed a contract with Bexar County, Texas Commissioners’ Court for the continued operation of the 688-bed Central Texas Detention Facility located in San Antonio, Texas. This facility, which is owned by Bexar County, houses detainees predominately for the U.S. Marshals Service. We have managed this facility since 1988. The new contract will have a term of ten years, effective April 29, 2009."

Some of the company's gains were "offset by a decrease in revenues of $20.6 million due to the termination of our management contract at the Sanders Estes Unit in Venus, Texas, Newton County Correctional Center in Newton, Texas, Jefferson County Downtown Jail in Beaumont, Texas, Fort Worth Community Corrections Facility in Fort Worth, Texas, and the Tri-County Justice & Detention Center in Ullin, Illinois."

"Effective June 15, 2009, our management contract with Fort Worth Community Corrections Facility located in Fort Worth, Texas was assigned to another party. Prior to this termination, we leased this facility (lease was due to expire August 2009) and the customer was the Texas Department of Criminal Justice."

"On September 8, 2009, we exercised our contractual right to terminate our contracts for the operation and management of the Newton County Correctional Center, referred to as Newton County, located in Newton, Texas and the Jefferson County Downtown Jail, referred to as Jefferson County, located in Beaumont, Texas."

"[R]evenues increased $24.1 million in total due to the activation of three new contracts in Third and Fourth Quarter 2008 for the management of Joe Corley Detention Facility in Conroe, Texas, Northeast New Mexico Detention Facility in Clayton, New Mexico and Maverick County Detention Facility in Maverick, Texas ... [and] revenues increased $24.6 million in 2009 as a result of our opening of our Rio Grande Detention Center in Laredo, Texas in Fourth Quarter 2008."

"On September 15, 2006, a jury in an inmate wrongful death lawsuit in a Texas state court awarded a $47.5 million verdict against us. In October 2006, the verdict was entered as a judgment against us in the amount of $51.7 million. The lawsuit, captioned Gregorio de la Rosa, Sr., et al., v. Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, (cause no. 02-110)  in the District Court, 404th Judicial District, Willacy County, Texas, is being administered under the insurance program established by The Wackenhut Corporation, our former parent company, in which we participated until October 2002. Policies secured by us under that program provide $55.0 million in aggregate annual coverage. In October 2009, this case was settled in an amount within the insurance coverage limits and the insurer has now paid the settlement amount. On February 8, 2010, the Court of Appeals, 13th  District of Texas, entered judgment dismissing the appeal and the case has been concluded."

Red-light cameras make intersections near my home more dangerous

I've lived in central East Austin for the past 20 years, so when the City of Austin installed red-light cameras the two closest to me (and through which I frequently pass) were at MLK/I-35 and 15th/I-35. And at both those intersections, it turns out, traffic accidents increased significantly after red-light cameras were installed. Reports News-8 Austin:

Austin public safety commissioners say there have been mixed results at intersections where red light traffic cameras were installed.

At seven of those intersections, the number of accidents has dropped. But at two intersections, authorities have actually seen a significant increase in crashes.

The intersection of MLK and I-35 has seen a 33 percent jump in the last year. The intersection of 15th Street and I-35 has had a 64 percent increase in crashes in nearly two years.

Safety leaders are looking at possible causes for the increases at those intersections, but they do say both are high traffic areas near the interstate.

Thanks for nothing, Austin City Council.

Is it any surprise that the intersection with a 64% increase in crashes was also one of the City's highest revenue generators? Somebody needs to check the yellow-light times at that intersection, which clearly need to be lengthened if it's getting so many tickets AND crashes.

Cameras at intersections where the number of accidents increased should be removed yesterday. What's more, the City should compile a list of everyone who had accidents at those intersections and send them an apology letter. I don't care if they were supposedly installed "to save lives," it was evident before the cameras went in they were mainly moneymakers that were likely to cause more accidents. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and in this case lined with government surveillance cameras.

See related Grits posts:

• Houston accidents increased after installing red-light cameras
• Lubbock discontinues red-light cameras after accidents increase 52% at intersections with cameras
• All Virginia red-light camera studies show increased injury accidents
• Red light cameras cause rear end accidents

Exoneree's choice: Take state compensation or roll the dice in court

The New York Times has a feature on the dilemma facing Michael A. Green, a recent exoneree out of Harris County who "whether to take a $2.2 million compensation payment from the State of Texas or file a civil lawsuit in the hope of exposing the truth about the investigation that led to his incarceration. To receive the compensation, he must waive the right to sue."

The decision is entirely Mr. Green's, but the much-more generous compensation statute now in place in Texas would get him his money quicker and the lifetime annuity associated with it would make sure he's taken care of going forward.

Just like anybody else who first gets out of prison after a long stretch, a lot of exonerees have great difficulty adjusting when they first reenter the free world, which in Green's case is a radically different than when he went in 27 years ago during Ronald Reagan's first term. If he sues, Green may have to wait years before seeing a dime, and for each dime he wins, of course, he'd likely share 4 cents with his attorney before cutting in Uncle Sam. At the old, lower compensation levels many exonerees felt like the state didn't pay enough money to preclude suing; lately most have been taking the state compensation. OTOH, some folks who sue win more, while for others it doesn't work out so well It's a personal decision that has to be made by each, individual. I wish Mr. Green all the luck in the world in making the right choice for him.

The Times portrays Green's case as a classic example of faulty eyewitness identification overturned by DNA evidence:

Mr. Green, 45, was set free by a state judge two weeks ago after DNA tests on the rape victim’s clothing proved that he could not have been responsible for the crime. His exoneration was the work of a new unit in the Harris County district attorney’s office dedicated to reviewing claims of innocence.

The story of Mr. Green’s nightmarish imprisonment — and how a prosecutor, Alicia O’Neill, eventually unearthed biological evidence that led to the real culprits — throws a harsh spotlight on an uncomfortable reality in American justice: the identification of a suspect in a lineup or in an array of photos is not always reliable.

More than three-quarters of the 258 people exonerated by DNA tests in the last decade were convicted on the strength of eyewitness identifications, according to the Innocence Project, the Manhattan-based organization dedicated to freeing innocent prisoners.

In Texas, the problem is even more acute: identifications by eyewitnesses played a pivotal role in 80 percent of the 40 people who have been exonerated with DNA evidence.

Stories like this only make me angrier still that Texas' eyewitness ID legislation got mowed down last session thanks to the ignominious Voter ID debate.

I am glad to see the Harris DA's Office getting credit in the national press for her office's recent work on the subject, and glad to see that some DA's office insiders are developing some personal and institutional stakes in making exonerating innocents as important a priority as convicting the guilty. “'It’s what you go to law school for,' Ms. O’Neill said of the moment Mr. Green walked out of jail."

Graffiti Abatement: Murals target tagging hotspots

Denver is experimenting with grants to local arts programs to create murals at graffiti hotspots, reports the Denver Post ("Programs give graffiti arts a legitimate outlet," Aug. 13):

Aimed at reclaiming graffiti hot spots from taggers, these urban-arts programs are among 12 that have just received grants, ranging from $500 to $7,500, from the Denver Office of Urban Affairs.

The program started in 2009, one of the recommendations of the Graffiti Task Force.

"We looked at where murals were put up, and the radius around them, to see if graffiti increased or decreased," said Regina Huerter, co-coordinator of the Graffiti Task Force and executive director of the Denver Commission on Crime Prevention and Control.

There was a noticeable decrease — enough to spur creation of a program that in 2009 yielded nine projects that attracted 300 kids, about 80 percent of whom stuck with the programs.

Many of the programs asked for signed anti-graffiti pledges and recruited professional urban artists to mentor the participants.

The programs grew out of ideas developed in a set of 2007 recommendations (pdf) from a "Graffiti Task Force" in the Mile High City.

See related Grits posts:

• Toward a restorative graffiti policy
• Graffiti solutions: A cost-benefit analysis
• Kids do less art in school, more in street, Lege reacts with hammer
• Creating public spaces for invited art adds carrot to stick of banning uninvited graff
• Invited graffiti: Solution or enabling for unwanted tags?
• Paint responsibly: Museum offers hands-on graffiti exhibit
• Allowing invited graff best way to reduce unwanted graffiti
• Austin lags on important third component of graffiti policy
• Mexico prevents graffiti by encouraging it at El Azteca Stadium
• Moscow turns to invited graffiti to liven up Soviet era buildings

Panel on juvenile parole and reentry

At lunchtime today I attended a panel hosted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation regarding juvenile parole and reentry, focused on:

How can Texas enhance its approach to parole and reentry to break the cycle of youth crime so there are fewer victims and taxpayers pay less to re-incarcerate the same youths?

Featuring:

• The Honorable Jim McReynolds, Chairman, House Corrections Committee

• The Honorable Robert Eckels, Former Harris County Judge

• Cheryln Townsend, Executive Director, Texas Youth Commission

• David Reilly, Chief, Bexar County Juvenile Probation Department

TPPF's Marc Levin set the stage by describing the state's somewhat fragmented juvenile parole system, run by the state in larger jurisdiction and by contract, usually with local probation departments, in more rural areas. There are 1,700 youth on TYC parole; about 420 were revoked in 2009, making up 20-25% of new commitments.

Chairman McReynolds focused on a theme that recurred among the presenters, that planning for reentry couldn't begin early enough. It should begin, he said, on the first day of confinement. He focused on the need to implement and use risk and needs assessment tools, and said it "sets the child up for failure" to release them without adequate services in place for them to succeed.

Because incarceration in TYC costs $271 per day and juvenile parole costs $15, he said, there may be room to develop middle ground programming - a "halfway solution" - that's more resource intensive than parole but stops short of full-blown detention, at least 24-7. He particularly mentioned in-home treatment and counseling as well as mentoring as examples of "interim" approaches.

Juvenile probation chief David Reilly from San Antonio showed us recidivism data from the first year out of detention for youth in their area: Seventy percent or so didn't re-offend at all in the first year, and of those who did, the overwhelming majority did so during the first six months, which makes the reentry period and "aftercare" programs critical to determining success.

Reilly made the provocative point that recidivism is not always a bad thing, that it should not be considered universally a negative event and that it's not necessarily a sign the child is failing. Recidivism is a limited piece of data regarding what it can tell you, he said. We rely on it because it's easy to count, while we ignore assessing things about youth that may be more difficult to quantify.


Bexar County Juvenile Probation is partnering with TYC and a Baptist children's charity to create a one-stop center for accessing resources for at-risk youth. The program includes the concept of a "circle of support" in which they bring in the youth's family, mentors, teachers, church leaders, or anybody else who's important in the kid's life and get them to assist in the intervention in a structured way.

Former Harris County Judge Bob Eckels described his history with juvie justice programs as a legislator and county commissioners court judge, saying at one point that after a while it dawned on him that by the time youth entered the juvenile justice system, society had already failed them. He identified mental health treatment, drug treatment and family counseling as the areas where state investments could help locals keep kids in the community instead of sending them to TYC.

Finally, Cherie Townsend from TYC said that youth sent to prison in Texas today are not much like other youth or even other delinquents because recent reforms removed most of the less hard-core offenders from the system. Those who remain require more supervision, more services, are generally doing poorly in school (40% qualify for special education), and have often been victims of serious trauma including physical and sexual abuse, she said.

Townsend referenced TYC's reentry plan (pdf), which I'd not read but which merits a link for anyone interested. She reiterated McReynolds' point that "aftercare shouldn't be an afterthought," declaring their goal was to get to the point where youths reentry plans began to be legitimately formed right at intake, keeping the goal (successful reentry) in mind from the get-go.

Interesting panel, if nothing too groundbreaking. Marc Levin's been doing a great job shining light into dark corners of the justice system, and this is a particularly obscure and rarely considered topic that deserves more attention than it usually receives.

Correction: Insuring unlicensed drivers

Thanks to the reader who alerted me via email to an error I've been making fairly routinely when discussing the Driver Responsibility Program, including I fear in testimony earlier this week to the House Public Safety Committee. I've mentioned several times that insurance companies won't write policies to unlicensed drivers, arguing that when the state revoked licenses under the Driver Responsibility Program, it is increasing the number of uninsured drivers. But this reader forwarded me a scanned Greensheet advertisement promoting liability insurance for sale even if you don't have a driver's license. The ad was unclear and I've heard that statement so many different times from different sources, I was skeptical, so this fellow called the company, writing back a few hours later:

I just checked with the Baja agent to make sure the insurance available with “no license” applies to Texas registered cars in Texas. According to our conversation, if you tell the agent “no license” you can get this insurance. If you tell the agent you have a suspended license, they may put it down and there’ll be trouble with the state.

The part about "trouble with the state" still sounded like it might be illegal or somehow improper for those with licenses suspended because of the Driver Responsibility Program. So this morning I emailed Jerry Hagins at the Texas Department of Insurance Public Information Office who informed me:

A driver's license is not required, by statute, in order to purchase auto insurance, but practically speaking, most insurance companies require it in their underwriting guidelines. Some insurers may write a policy for an applicant with no DL but require that a Texas DL be obtained within a certain timeframe; or they may write a policy but add a surcharge; or they may write a policy if the applicant can verify driving experience via some other means. It may require a lot of shopping around to find an insurer who will write a policy to an applicant without a drivers license but it is permitted.

So there you have it. Most insurance companies won't cover you without a driver license, but with so many people out there with suspended licenses, clearly providers have arisen to service this risky submarket because of its shear volume and the potential for predatory pricing.

I'd never been under the impression, FWIW, that state law forbade such insurance products, I just couldn't imagine auto underwriters willing to write policies for people with licenses suspended for cause. My apologies for the error. Who'da thunk? I wonder if the rise of such insurance products is directly attributable to the advent of the Driver Responsibility Program and the proliferation of administrative license revocations as punishment?

Would diverting mentally ill from jails and prisons expand the economy?

Jackie Shannon, who is chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of MHMR Services in San Angelo, has a column today in the Standard-Times which opens with the question, "Would you be surprised to learn that the odds of a seriously mentally ill person being in jail or prison in Texas compared with being in a hospital are 7.8 to one?" She supplies some interesting analysis mostly culled from a recent study from the National Sheriff's Association - More Mentally Ill Persons Are In Jails and Prisons Than Hospitals: A Survey of States (pdf) -  but also included a provocative, perhaps counterintuitive argument on the negative economic impacts of failing to supply adequate mental health care:

Obviously it doesn’t make fiscal sense to cut mental health services and hospital beds if the result is higher costs to the prison system. So, what’s a Legislature to do?

Ray Perryman, of the well-regarded Perryman Group, in a January letter to state Rep. Jim Pitts, chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee, wrote:

“For several years, I have been studying the economic and fiscal issues surrounding treatment for mental health and substance abuse. Even beyond the human cost of such problems (which is enormous and defies measurement), the drain on the economy and the State’s social services system is also substantial.

“With inadequate treatment, overall costs can notably escalate; for those Texans without private insurance, obtaining treatment can be impossible due to financial constraints.

“In a 2009 study by my firm, (‘Costs, Consequences, and Cures!!! An Assessment of the Impact of Severe Mental Health and Substance Abuse Disorders on Business Activity in Texas and the Anticipated Economic and Fiscal Return on Investment in Expanded Mental Health Services’), my analysis revealed that mental health and substance abuse cost the state economy billions of dollars each year, and that increasing funding for these services brings a net payoff to the state. The components of this total cost include medical spending related to treatment, comorbidity and disability expense, lost income and productivity, incarceration, homelessness and mortality.

“Simply stated, if all of the costs and associated losses associated with these factors could be eliminated, the Texas economy would be approximately 10 percent larger than its present size. While such an outcome is not practical, finding cost-effective methods to reduce the incidence and severity of mental health and substance abuse problems is an important endeavor that can improve the state’s fiscal situation. Clearly, improving mechanisms to provide care to those in need is an important task.”

If Perryman's right, maybe the best wedge argument against slashing mental health services isn't merely sympathy for the plight of those in need. Maybe it's that doing so would harm economic growth while alleviating the problem would promote it.

Glut in private prison beds bodes ill for overbuilt county jails

Here's some bad news for all those counties that speculatively overbuilt their jails planning to profit from federal contracts: They've got tons of competition. The blog Texas Prison Bidness reports that private prison company CCA said on a recent conference call with investors that there are 12,500 unoccupied beds in its system.

Even worse news: There's little doubt CCA has more political clout in Washington to swing such federal contracts than does any county government in the market. I'm betting their beds will be filled before the feds start bailing out bad decisions by Texas counties.

This report also reminds me that cutting private prison contracts up for renewal may be one of the shortest distances to eliminating unneeded prison beds at the state level, with a budget crunch upcoming and the possibility of closing prison units on the table. TDCJ this year is renegotiating those private contracts, but they shouldn't conclude the agreements until the Lege has decided how many and which prison units it may need to close.

When will final TYC sex abuse trial begin?

I've got to agree with the Texas Civil Rights Project that it's long past time for the final trial to begin in the Texas Youth Commission sex-abuse scandals out in Pyote. Scott Medlock at TCRP blames state District Court. District Judge Jay Gibson for the delay, but the last judge assigned to the case, Bob Parks, wouldn't set the cases for trial, either. The conduct at issue now occurred six years ago and most of the evidence has been made public in the pages of the Texas Observer and the Dallas News more than three years ago. There have been many excuses offered for the delays, but we're reaching the point where tragedy transcends to farce. The AG has said they're ready to go. Vamos! Get on with it, already!

Privatizing jail healthcare

Nueces County outsourced their jail healthcare to a private company out of Alabama that issued a bid $1 million per year lower than their closest competitor, reports the Corpus Christi Caller Times. Presumably this includes mental health, judging from Naphcare's list of services covered on its website.

Naphcare also runs jail healthcare in Beaumont (Jefferson County) and quite a few other local jails and federal Bureau of Prisons facilities around the country, though it no longer performs any work in its home state after Alabama changed providers in the wake of widespread litigation. A quick search also identified a recent lawsuit out of Beaumont alleging a "Naphcare employee mistakenly gave [an inmate] an anti-psychotic drug instead of his usual blood pressure medication."

I've never comprehensively examined how jail healthcare is delivered around the state, but my sense is it's all over the map. Some counties have contracts with local hospitals, some provide it themselves, UTMB used to provide it at the Dallas County Jail (as it does at 80% of Texas prisons), and I don't know how many have privatized it as they've done in Corpus and Beaumont. Especially as it regards mental healthcare, I would fear privatizing might limit flexibility because the availability of mental health services influences so many inmate classification and housing decisions.

Earlier this year I read some remarkable horror stories published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian regarding privatized medical care at county jails in California that one hopes won't be replicated in Texas. Here's a notable excerpt:

The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to a hear an appeal by the state of California to the federal court ruling that substandard medical care in California prisons constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and necessitates the early release of about 40,000 prisoners. At the May 26 hearing, healthcare workers familiar with the interiors of county jails and state penitentiaries came forward with horror stories.

"Every week I receive at least one inmate who has an open gunshot wound. They have not seen medical care in the county jails," Dr. Elena Tootell, chief medical officer at San Quentin state prison, told committee members. "It's quite surprising to me that they send inmates with gunshot wounds to prison. They just walk off the bus. They often have paper towels stuck to their bodies, seeping the blood. And then we are obligated to take care of them. This does not happen from San Francisco County, I'm going to tell you that right now."

Tootell said she'd observed a significant difference between those counties using private firms and those using public health care. "They will have a fracture — they've never been splinted, they've never seen a doctor. They're on anticoagulation [medication], but haven't had their blood checked in weeks and have bruises all over their body."

Connolly echoed similar concerns. For example, she told the Guardian, she's found herself asking questions like, "You were on AIDS medication before you got arrested and now you're not?"

Susanne Paradis, a healthcare research contractor with SEIU Local 1021, rejects the premise that the same services could be provided at a lower price. Under a private model, she says, the priority is to keep costs low — and that means doing less.

A key issue, Paradis said, is that private firms tend to rely more heavily on licensed vocational nurses (LVNs) — lower-paid medical staffers who aren't trained to assess patient's medical needs and cannot administer the same care that registered nurses (RNs) can. Using PHS data, Paradis found that in Alameda, there is one RN for every 92 inmates, compared with one RN per 32 inmates in San Francisco.

"An RN has the ability to assess, observe, and determine if there's emergency care needed," Paradis explained. "An LVN does not have the ability to do that."

John Poh, a nurse practitioner stationed at a jail in San Francisco's Hall of Justice, explained the difference this way: "The more RNs you have working for you, the fewer deaths you have."

The story about county jails leaving gunshot wounds untreated bespeaks of jawdropping negligence of a scope I've ever heard of in Texas. But of course, the trend of reducing the number of RNs isn't limited to either California or private companies: UTMB recently did the same thing at the Texas state prisons where they provide care.

In any event, this is an area where there are no good solutions - inmate healthcare is costly and if it's not provided at adequate levels, litigation and a few expensive cases could quickly outdistance the $700K Nueces County will save on the Naphcare contract.

The Supreme Court has dictated that whenever the state chooses to take someone's liberty, it's obligated to provide healthcare. Bottom line: If counties can't afford to provide healthcare for all the inmates in their county jail, the best solution isn't to cut corners on medical services but simply incarcerate fewer people in the first place.

Do traffic stops reduce calls for police help?

The abstract of this recent paper offers up a suggestion with potential public safety implications:

Using data from the Police–Public Contact Survey (PPCS), the current study examined how experiencing traffic stops affect the likelihood that Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics will contact the police for services. First, experiencing one or more traffic stops in the past year significantly decreased the likelihood of contacting the police for assistance and to report a neighborhood problem, net of other demographic characteristics. Second, traffic stop experiences had similar effects on Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics, each group less likely to have contacted the police for assistance and to report neighborhood problems if they had experienced one or more traffic stops in the past year. This study also discusses the reasons why experiencing traffic stops are related to contacting the police for help and provides some implications for police–community relationships. 

The relationship observed raises confounding public policy questions. If there is a tradeoff between traffic enforcement and increasing the likelihood citizens will report crime, which is more important?

I was interested to read their assessment that "Calling the police is a highly discretionary act on the part of citizens. The NCVS has consistently found that citizens call the police to report crime in only about 37% of possible situations." The dynamic of when and why police are called and the crimes non-criminal members of the public choose not to report is an area where I've seen little research.

Researchers found that "traffic stop variables had the most important and consistent effect on reporting neighborhood problems across racial categories. In other words, regardless of race, those experiencing a traffic stop were significantly less likely to report neighborhood problems to the police."

Particularly curious, the effect was more pronounced among white folks than blacks: "Non-Hispanic Whites were significantly less likely to contact the police for assistance/information compared to non-Hispanic Blacks when they had experienced more than one traffic stops in the past 12 months."

The authors failed to propose a definitive cause of this correlation, offering several unproven (and relatively unsatisfactory) hypotheses to explain the data, but "suggest that traffic stops are likely to undermine positive relationships between citizens and the police." They note that:

Traffic stops are only one form of police crime fighting, but at the same time, the PPCS data indicate that traffic stops represent about half of all police citizen contacts and thus are likely to have a significant impact on both citizen attitudes and behavior toward the police, particularly when it comes to having confidence in the police and trusting them.

I've downloaded the math-heavy paper, and may have more to say once I've digested it.

Via The Crime Report.

DPS Director: No public safety benefit from Driver Responsibility Surcharge

At the House Public Safety Committee hearing today, state Rep. Stephen Frost asked Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw whether there is any evidence that Texas' Driver Responsibility Program (DRP) improves public safety or has increased the number of drivers with insurance. McCraw's answer: "No sir, not at all." No hesitation. No equivocation. From his perspective, this is merely a revenue generator. It was a rather startling moment.

In response to Frost's queries, I put in a card at the last minute and clarified for the members that all of the 1.2 million drivers who lost their licenses because of the DRP were by definition uninsured because they couldn't purchase insurance without a valid license. I also relayed some information that was included in written testimony (which I helped prepare) on behalf of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition regarding the societal costs in safety and treasure of creating that many additional uninsured drivers:

The 1.2 million Texas drivers who have lost their licenses over surcharges cannot buy insurance until their fees are paid, but large numbers (if not virtually all) of them continue to drive.

Particularly problematic, DWI defendants who lose their license and insurance may also continue to drive, and if they harm someone the DRP makes it less likely they will have insurance to cover the damages. Since drunk drivers have the highest surcharges, they are also most likely to fail to pay and thus end up unlicensed and uninsured. Despite claims to the contrary at the time it was passed, the surcharge has resulted in more uninsured drunks on Texas roads, rather than reducing their number.

In 2007, there were 6,024,000 crashes5 in the United States and 205,741,845 licensed drivers, giving us an overall accident rate of 2.93%. If we assume those 1.2 million surcharge debtors who lost their licenses (and therefore became ineligible to purchase insurance) continued to drive, and that they crash at the same rate as other drivers, then by reducing the number of insured drivers, drivers who lost their license through the DRP are involved in approximately 35,160 accidents per year. If DRP drivers were the responsible party in half of those accidents (a conservative estimate, as drivers with bad driving histories could be more likely to be at fault), then the DRP would be responsible for an additional 17,580 accidents per year in which the party at fault is not insured.

How much do those crashes cost Texans in uncompensated damages? It is possible to estimate. In 2000, a federal study analyzed costs from auto accidents, including medical costs, property damage, etc., attributing $230.6 billion in costs to 16.4 million auto accidents nationwide, at an average cost of $14,061 per accident. Adjusting for inflation, that’s $16,777 in 2007 dollars. Multiplying that figure by the number of estimated crashes caused involving surcharge owing drivers, we get an estimated $294,939,660 in costs from crashes in Texas caused by uninsured drivers.

Add in lost premium income to insurers, not to mention lost Department of Public Safety (DPS) fees from the more than 200,000 fewer driver license renewals each year (roughly $4.8 million annually), and nearly every facet of the Driver Responsibility Program is bleeding red ink – for the state and for average Texans – because of an array of unintended but now well-understood consequences from the program’s ill-conceived design. (Footnotes in original.)

Trauma hospital reps were out in force at the hearing, but only one of them unreservedly supported the DRP as is; most others said they recognized the program's funding source had problems that needed addressing, but were there to emphasize how important the additional funding had been to expanding the number of Texas trauma centers. I spoke to a couple of folk from Brackenridge and Seton Hospitals in Austin outside the hearing room who told me they didn't intend to oppose the current DPS rulemaking, which was encouraging.

I don't begrudge trauma hospitals their funding, but a revenue source should be found that doesn't create so many counterproductive, unintended consequences.

UPDATE: See coverage from the Texas Tribune.

Commission on Jail Standards: Toothless Watchdog?

Is the Texas Commission on Jail Standards too cozy with the county jails it regulates because it's "dominated by law enforcement interests"? That's the question posed in a story by Brandi Grissom today at the Texas Tribune. Commissioners affiliated with county jails must abstain when TCJS is evaluating their home facility comes up, notes Executive Director Adan Muñoz, but the bigger issue raised would be whether commissioners are willing to set general standards high enough out of fear their own county might not pass muster.

I don't know whether it has anything to do with the makeup of the Commission so much as the will of the Legislature, but of even greater concern to me, especially among large counties, there's an extent to which TCJS is pretty much all bark and no bite. Violations and variances to regs go on for years without resolution, and their prescriptions are too often taken as good advice instead of something mandatory. Their sanctions have no meaningful teeth short of outright closing a jail, which isn't realistic practically or politically outside of mostly small, rural jurisdictions. And the problems facing Texas' biggest county jails aren't going to be gummed to death.