Editorials

You might not think the Texas Capitol is the best place to go to look for new solutions to old problems, but the Texas Public Policy Foundation says state lawmakers deserve credit for some forward thinking on one issue.

"In Texas, building more prisons has always led to building even more prisons," the Foundation's Marc Levin says.

"Last January, the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) told lawmakers the state would need 17,000 more prison beds by 2012, at a cost of $1.3 billion to build and $306 million per year to operate," he recounts. "Rather than being handcuffed to the past - to the detriment of the taxpayers - legislators charted a new course that emphasizes alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders while continuing to lock up violent and sexual offenders."

And now the LBB reports that because of those reforms, those new prison beds are no longer necessary.

"That is a historic shift in a state with the nation's second highest incarceration rate; one that is 10 times that of China," he says. "Lawmakers engineered this turnaround without lowering the penalties for any offense. In fact, they lengthened sentences for sex offenses against children and repeat auto burglary."

And it was done without easing parole policies. In fact, those policies were tightened, with the most serious violent offender no longer even eligible for parole.

"While remaining tough on crime - particularly the violent crime Texans justifiably fear - lawmakers adopted policies that are expected to reroute from prison thousands of first-time nonviolent offenders and technical violators of probation," Levin says. "Technical violators refer to the 11,000 probationers revoked to prison every year for conduct other than a new crime, such as a missed meeting or positive drug test."

Most crimes are drug-related, and that fact hasn't been overlooked by the Legislature.

"The cornerstone of the 2008-09 criminal justice budget is 4,000 new treatment beds, most of which will be privately operated," Levin says. "Like prisons, these are secured facilities, but they provide substance abuse treatment, life skills, and other interventions in a shorter time period (usually between 90 and 180 days) without co-mingling these low-level offenders with convicts serving longer sentences for more serious crimes."

The Legislature also added 3,000 outpatient drug treatment slots.

"Interestingly, the new LBB estimate does not assume any diversions from prison will result from those, although lawmakers hope some prosecutors and judges will use these new slots in lieu of state lockups," Levin notes.

The state should closely monitor the new treatment programs, and make sure that all counties are taking advantage of them. There's good reason for that.

"Harris County accounts for more than half of the offenders sent to state jail for less than a gram of a controlled substance," Levin says. "The governor's office, which distributes millions in criminal justice grants, should prioritize those counties that are fully utilizing alternatives to incarceration that taxpayers are already funding."

While it is too early to fully assess the results of these reforms, there is no evidence of a crime wave, Levin says. Violent crime declined last year in both Houston and Dallas.

"Because Texas lawmakers were willing to embrace change, the only Texans receiving a 'get out of jail free card' are taxpayers who would have been on the hook for billions in unnecessary prison costs," he says.

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