Texas

Overview Implementing the Strategy Media Coverage Publications & Maps

Step 1: Analyze Step 2: Provide Step 3: Quantify Step 4: Measure

Step 1: Analyze the prison population and spending in the communities to which people in prison often return.

In 2006, Texas state leaders requested intensive technical assistance from the Council of State Governments Justice Center. In response, the Justice Center provided state policymakers with an analysis that identified the factors contributing to the projected growth of the prison population:

Between 1997 and 2006, the number of probation revocations to prison increased 18 percent, despite a three percent decline in the total number of persons under community supervision.¹
Reductions in funding for community-based substance abuse and mental health services led to a shortfall of treatment beds with over 2,000 persons awaiting space in various treatment programs or facilities. ²
The percentage of people approved for parole remained lower than suggested by the Parole Board’s guidelines based on risk levels and crime severity. Had the guidelines been followed, an additional 2,252 persons might have been released in 2005.³

The Justice Center also provided geographic analyses of the state prison population which revealed that five counties accounted for more than half of the people sentenced to prison at a cost to taxpayers of over a half billion dollars. Of these localities, Harris County (Houston) received and contributed the most prisoners, with 10 of Houston’s 88 neighborhoods accounting for almost $100 million a year in incarceration costs.

Step 2: Provide »

Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Community Justice Assistance Division, Statistical Tables, December 2006.
Memorandum from Deanne Breckenridge, Texas Department of Criminal Justice,December 7, 2006. As of December 2006, there were 1,386 offenders awaiting space in a Transitional Treatment Center, 823 offenders were in county jails awaiting treatment space in a Substance Abuse Felony Punishment (SAFP) facility, 174 were in prison awaiting in-prison therapeutic treatment, and there were 1,206 fewer therapeutic treatment beds in state jails as these were eliminated in prior budget cuts.
Sunset Advisory Commission: Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Board of Pardons and Paroles, Correctional Managed Health Care Committee Staff Report, October 2006.