In the news: March 2007
Maybe We Can Sell the Orange Jumpsuits on EBay?; 3/30/2007
TEXAS OBSERVER: Last week, we heard from the Senate Finance Committee how inevitable… er, vital it will be to get started building prisons right away to house all the inmates who’ll be overflowing the system in the next few years, especially if criminals don’t take kindly to treatment. The felons will run rampant in our streets, apparently, the rivers will run red, and there will be much wringing of hands. It’s funny, but in the House last night, things sure didn’t seem so urgent. After speculation all week about who would be the one in the House to bring up a prison-funding amendment to match what was happening with the Senate budget, the answer turned out to be…nobody.
If we build, will guards come?; 3/17/2007
HOUSTON CHRONICLE: With another prison bed shortage on the near horizon, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is doing what it has always done: asking the Legislature to build new prisons. Texas is projected to be short 17,000 prison beds by 2012. To address the problem, TDCJ wants $377 million to build two new prisons. Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst have voiced support for similar proposals. But before TDCJ deals with its future shortage of prison beds, it ought to first deal with its current shortage of correctional officers. Otherwise, the department could blow nearly $400 million of your tax dollars on two new prisons, because it may not have the 1,000 correctional officers needed to secure them.
Bexar seeking break on technical parole violators; 03/06/2007
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS NEWS: Bexar County officials say taxpayers should not have to continue shouldering the $5 million annual burden of jailing technical parole violators. Commissioner Tommy Adkisson and the county's criminal justice chief, Keith Charlton, are supporting a bill that would allow counties to release technical parole violators on bond, rather than holding them an average of 45 days in county jail before a hearing that often releases them anyway. Technical parole violations include missing an appointment with a parole officer, missing a restitution payment or failing a drug test.
Legislation would provide drug treatment; 3/01/2007
TEXARKANA GAZETTE: Jail and prison are meant to protect the innocent and punish the guilty. Incarceration doesn’t cure addiction, though roughly 22 percent of people locked up in Texas are there for non-violent offenses related to drug use and alcohol, legal analysts say. “Just locking them up doesn’t treat the root problem,” says state Rep. Stephen Frost, D-Atlanta. “We need to look at treatment issues.” Legislation pending before the Texas Legislature is designed to do exactly that. House Bill 530, a bi-partisan effort aimed at providing counties with the resources to create and expand drug court programs, would save money and change the lives of addicted offenders and the other victims of addiction, their families, say Frost and other proponents of the bill.