Issue 2: Lawmakers Do Not Have the Information Necessary to Effectively Manage the State’s Criminal Justice System and Plan for Its Future.
Summary
Key Recommendation
· Establish a Criminal Justice Legislative Oversight Committee to provide objective research, analysis, and recommendations to help guide state criminal justice policies.
Key Findings
· The Texas criminal justice system is expansive, expensive, and facing significant challenges.
· Currently, no entity exists to provide comprehensive and ongoing analysis of the criminal justice system to determine its effectiveness and help plan for its future.
· The individual criminal justice agencies cannot effectively evaluate the entire criminal justice system on their own.
· The State uses legislative oversight committees to monitor, analyze, and report on other statewide systems to help guide policymaking.
Conclusion
Faced with growing prison capacity concerns and given the size and complexity of the State’s criminal justice system, lawmakers need access to independent, objective information and analysis to help determine and prioritize the long-range needs of the state criminal justice system.1 The State needs this information to know if the criminal justice system is operating efficiently, and more importantly, effectively. Without this information, lawmakers cannot make informed decisions on criminal justice policies and effectively plan for the future of the State’s criminal justice system.