Two new prisons to be proposed

Initial reaction is lukewarm, signaling possible shift in political winds.

By Mike Ward
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, August 07, 2006

For the first time since Texas completed the biggest prison-building program in U.S. history a decade ago, officials are quietly discussing how many new prisons should be built to keep up with the growing numbers of convicted felons.

In less than two weeks, prison officials are expected to unveil a budget that will call for construction of two prisons at a cost of about $360 million, according to lawmakers who say they have been briefed on the plans.

Prison officials are remaining mum.

At a time when the state is facing pressure to budget more money for health care, education and welfare programs, among other big-ticket state expenses, approval of new prisons appears anything but certain, a big change from a decade when new prisons had fast-tracked, near-unanimous support from legislative leaders.

Even with the growing questions, with Texas prisons so full that 1,800 additional beds have been leased in county and privately run lockups to handle the overflow, all sides agree that the question of what to do promises to be a key issue when the Legislature convenes in January.

Last Tuesday, the prison system held 152,348 convicts in prisons and leased beds. The operating capacity is 152,217, according to the Legislative Budget Board.

State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, the longtime chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, which oversees the state prison system, is among several lawmakers who say top prison officials sent word in recent weeks that they plan to seek money for two new prisons. Some say maximum-security prisons will be sought. Others say the prison system's proposed budget will include an option to build drug-treatment units or units that will focus on rehabilitation programs.

"We don't need two new units," Whitmire said. "It's always been safer politically to build the next prison, rather than stop and see whether that's really the smartest thing to do. But we're at a point where I don't think we can afford to do that anymore. . . . We have to look for a best solution to the problem, and that isn't more new prisons."

State Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Plano, chairman of the House Corrections Committee, agrees.

"Building new prisons won't solve the problem," he said. "We're not going to spend taxpayers' money if we don't have to. There are alternatives."

New state projections show that an additional 3,100 prison bunks will be needed by the end of next year, 9,600 by sometime in 2010 and 11,000 by 2011. The reason for the continuing growth is a growing conviction rate in Texas, with inmates serving longer sentences.

To add all those beds, and then to staff them at an estimated cost of more than $40 million a year, would outspend available state revenue, some legislative critics of the building plan say. They cite another concern: Even if the state finds the money to build two prisons, can enough guards be found to staff them?

Texas' prison system is running more than 2,500 correctional officers short, a chronic staffing problem that has plagued the system for several years.

"We can't fill the jobs we have at the (prison) units we have, so why would we want to create more jobs we won't be able to fill?" Whitmire asked.

"No one's tougher on crime than me, but it makes no sense to build a whole bunch of additional capacity in concrete and steel. . . . We have to be smarter about crime."

Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley said the new units are much needed. As proof, he cites Texas' policy during the 1980s of not building new prisons, even though the convict population was growing, and the crisis that resulted.

"Let's not make the same mistake we did then," he said. "Unfortunately, by waiting as long as we have to build these units, it will stretch us past the point of having enough beds. . . . We have not funded or built a new prison in more than a decade."

The alternatives to building prisons?

Whitmire predicts that the state could free up as many as 5,000 beds if it were to expand treatment programs for imprisoned drunken drivers, as many as 2,000 if it were to deport Mexican citizens who are eligible for parole, andthousands more if it were to parole bedridden and low-risk elderly felons.

Madden suggests that thousands more could be freed up by diverting nonviolent offenders who are now sent to prison into intensive community probation programs, funding more drug treatment programs to cut recidivism, and improving the parole system so more nonviolent offenders could be released on parole.

"If we can divert some people into programs who really don't need to be in prison, who don't pose a public safety risk, we are much better off doing that," he said.

Like other officials who support the new prisons, Bradley said the state cannot free up enough beds to keep up with the growing numbers of convicts, even if it funds the treatment and alternative-to-prison programs. And the suggestion that more criminals should be paroled?

Bradley and other critics of such a proposal suggest looking back to the increase in crime attributed to parolees during the late 1980s and early 1990s, headlined by murderer Kenneth McDuff, who was released, only to kill again.

In recent weeks, prison officials have met privately with legislative leaders and aides to Gov. Rick Perry to discuss the options.

So far, though, they are remaining mum � at least until their budget request for the coming year is made public on Aug. 18.

"We're not in a position right now to discuss our request since our board has not approved it," said Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which operates Texas' prison system. "We'll be working with the governor and the legislative leadership to address the population growth."

But both Madden and Whitmire, who said they have been briefed in recent days by prison officials, said new prison beds are on the table.

The last new prison to open in Texas was the 1,100-bed Hamilton Unit in Bryan, in 1997. Built by the criminal justice agency, it was operated initially by the Texas Youth Commission and held teen offenders, but it was converted into an adult prison two years ago.

That came at the end of a $1.5 billion expansion program that, for a time, gave Texas the biggest prison system in the free world, tripling its size in just five years. After more than a decade of chronic overcrowding, with more than 30,000 prison-bound felons backed up in county jails, the state was under increasing pressure from federal courts � and millions of dollars in fines � to expand its prison system.

For a time after the building frenzy, Texas had new prisons but not enough inmates to fill them, but the units eventually filled again.

Since 1997, prison officials have added beds at several of the 110 existing units to expand by another 25,000 bunks to the current capacity.

For all the talk now about alternative-to-prison programs, however, recent history at the statehouse showed support for just the opposite. Several prison-diversion bills failed to gain lawmakers' approval last year, and Perry vetoed a bill touted as an overhaul and expansion of Texas' county probation system.

Even so, as prison beds continue to fill, even some crime victim advocates � groups that have supported more prisons in the past � say they are not sure that more bunks are the best option.

"The violent crimes? Lock them up and throw away the key. But for the nonviolent ones, the minor dopers and financial crimes, alternatives can work well," said William "Rusty" Hubbarth, an Austin attorney who is the vice president for legislative affairs for Houston-based Justice For All, a leading victim advocacy organization.

"True politics is based on the bottom line, and that's where we are: There's a number of people in prison who probably don't need to be there. Whitmire's been spouting this line for years, but it looks like he's right.

"We're getting to the point where we can't afford to lock everybody up."

Here is a headline from 7 years ago [the construction didn't happen]:

More prison spending considered

AUSTIN -- Texas prisons are full, and voters may be asked to approve another large prison construction bond program next year, key legislative leaders say.

If Texas continues to imprison and parole convicted criminals at current rates, the state will have to build prisons to house 15,000 more inmates by 2005, state Sen. Kenneth Armbrister, D-Victoria, told the Houston Chronicle. Armbrister is the chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. The project could cost as much as $775 million.

State Rep. Pat Haggerty, R-El Paso, and Texas Board of Criminal Justice Chairman Alfred "Mac" Stringfellow confirmed that talks are under way about a new round of prison construction. Texas just spent $1.7 billion to build prisons to house 94,000 criminals.

The state now has the capacity to incarcerate 153,719 people in 116 prisons and jails. But those institutions have been full for two years, and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has turned to county jails to house its prisoners. The agency says it must rent 1,500 more beds in county jails by the end of August, bringing the total to 4,600.

AUSTIN -- Despite an unprecedented prison construction program
costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, county jails
across the state are more crowded than ever, bursting county
budgets and endangering security guards.

With the state sharply curtailing paroles because of a public
outcry over violent crime, the backlog of state prisoners in county
jails rose to an all-time high of 28,426 this month -- a 52 percent
increase over a year ago.

Serious prisoner disturbances, blamed on overcrowding, have
been reported in three jails this fall. Jack Crump, the head of the
Commission on Jail Standards, predicted in a letter to state Sen.
John Whitmire, D-Houston, that more violence would follow if the
crowding isn't eased.

Whitmire said Wednesday that some county judges fear
""they're going to lose their jails to riots. '' The Senate Criminal
Justice Committee, which Whitmire chairs, will discuss the
overcrowding problem and related issues in a public hearing
Tuesday.

Brazoria County Judge James W. Phillips, whose two county
jails hold more than 840 inmates in space designed for 376, said,
""We have very little room left even for mattresses on the floor. ''

Like many taxpayers, he said he ""couldn't care less whether
they (prisoners) are comfortable. ''
But the overcrowded conditions ""put our guards at risk'' and
hit local taxpayers in the pocketbook.

The backlog of state prisoners, he estimated, is costing
Brazoria County residents an extra $ 125,000 to $ 150,000 a month,
despite a partial state reimbursement for housing the additional
felons.

Brazoria is one of eight counties with jail populations now
exceeding 200 percent of capacity.

""We need to accelerate the construction (of new prisons) at
every opportunity,'' Whitmire said Wednesday, echoing statements he
made last week at a meeting of the Board of Criminal Justice.

Being built or being planned are prisons and a new system of
state jails that will house more than 40,000 prisoners -- boosting
Texas prisons' capacity to 180,000, far more than any other state.

But Whitmire said the state can't build fast enough to meet
the demand. He also has accused some legislators of trying to slow
down the construction of new state jails in political maneuvering
over where to put the new lockups.

The result is 115 counties have too many prisoners, and many
counties have added or are planning additional jail space.

Because of the overcrowding, Phillips said, Brazoria County
is ""grossly violating'' state and federal standards for prisoner
care.

A similar situation in the state prison system 20 years ago
ended in a federal court order for improvements that have cost
Texans billions of dollars and, for several years, prompted state
officials to parole violent criminals early to meet a court-ordered
cap on the prison population and make room for new convicts.

Two years ago, about 150 inmates a day were being paroled or
released on mandatory supervision, some after serving only a
fraction of their sentences. Under the mandatory supervision law,
an inmate had to be released after his actual time served plus good
time credits equaled his sentence.

Responding to public outrage over the prison system's
""revolving door'' and well-publicized violent crimes by recent
parolees, Gov. Ann Richards' appointees to the Board of Pardons and
Paroles have drastically tightened up on early releases.

Paroles and releases on mandatory supervision are now
averaging only 52 a day, a prison spokesman reported Wednesday.

And releases could be tightened up even more under a new law,
which went into effect Sept.1, to change the mandatory supervision
statute, and under a policy change, approved by the prison board
last week, to ban the restoration of lost good-time credits to
unruly prisoners.

Richards spokesman Chuck McDonald said the slowdown in
paroles has helped reduce crime. He also noted the state is
reimbursing the counties for at least part of the costs of keeping
state prisoners.

""That cost is far better for us to pay than releasing these
parolees,'' he said.

The state significantly reduced the backlog of convicted
felons in Harris County jails earlier this year after a federal
judge began fining the state for every prisoner over a 9,800 limit.

But even the prisoner population there has been creeping back up --
to 10,610 inmates on Nov. 15 -- despite the fines.

In addition, prisoners from Harris County also are housed in
26 other county jails.

It would be a lot easier to have sympathy for the legislators' plight if they had not stripped away so many of the treatment options available to community corrections over the last decade. They put some beds back in place last session, but the wait for SAFPF and other treatment beds is 6 weeks or more - and that usually translates to time spent in a county jail.

I know some counties have laid out the money to pay for their own treatment facilities, but that is not really an option for poorer counties. We are struggling to find space for inmates in our jail. Among the problems (but not the only one) is the delay between sentencing and TDCJ coming to pick up prisoners. But they do not have a place to put them either.

I am all in favor of probation for lots of people - but once even a nonviolent offender has botched his probation two or three times, there has to be some real consequence, and that ultimately means a prison bed.

In the mid 90's, we increased the time that bad felons had to spend in prison before parole and we built more prisons. And our crime rates across Texas dropped...precipitously. Legislators and others who keep saying that the answer is not to build more prisons and that we need to sink more into treatment and rehabilitation are just wrong, and there are a lot of future victims out there who are going to pay the price for their short-sightedness and political correctness. We sink a ton of money every year into treatment programs and probation programs and our prisons keep filling up. Every line prosecutor knows that we don't send people to prison for drug and property crimes until they have had numerous chances to straighten out at taxpayers's expense. The unspoken truth here is that the cost of failing to incarcerate those who repeatedly commit crimes is astronomical. Putting aside the money we spend trying to rehabilitate them, consider the social cost of having to address all of the crimes they commit while they are "rehabilitating" or on early parole. If there was a way, and there may be, to compare the cost of incarcerating repeat offenders with the cost of investigating, arresting, prosecuting and jailing repeat offenders for the crimes they commit when they should have been in prison, the dynamics of this dialogue about whether to build more prisons would change dramatically. I'm glad to have gotten that off my chest.

quote:

---

"... There's a number of people in prison who probably don't need to be there. ...

"We're getting to the point where we can't afford to lock everybody up."

---

Since this is becoming the prevailing opinion at the Capitol, it deserves attention, esp. as it begs these two questions:

(1) If the state doesn't want non-violent drug and property offenders in prison, then why did the state make them felonies in the first place??? One answer is that "non-violent drug and property offenders" are wonderful, swell people that just need our help -- until it's YOUR street on which they're selling their drugs, or YOUR house they burglarize, or YOUR car they steal. Real people understand this; why don't legislators?

(2) We don't "lock everyone up" -- for every felon in prison, there are 5 on probation or parole -- and the numbers tell us that 3 of those 5 will commit new crimes within 2-3 years of their sentence/release.

The real answer to the problem is to both build new prisons AND increase rehabilitation resources. But elected representatives at any level of gov't only spend that kind of money when there is a crisis (see, e.g., school finance). Perversely, things will have to get much, much worse -- both in the prisons and on the streets -- before the real solution will be seriously considered.

Exile. Total exile for all violent offenders. Put them on an island and let them off each other Lord of the Flies-style. Then there'll be plenty of room for the nonviolent folks. Shoot, get 2 or 3 states to pool their resources to buy the island. Get their criminals and our criminals together and see who's got the toughest ones. They could play dodgeball with coconuts; the winning state gets bragging rights, the losing state has fewer surviving felons to take care of. Everyone wins.

Seriously, I don't know the best answer. No one wants to pay more in taxes, and everything costs money. Our legislators insist on being paid as well (although they probably don't need to be paid as much as they are). Ain't economics fun.

I have been reading these posts for a while now to try and gain knowledge that I might not otherwise have access to in an effort to help me in a patrol environment. I have never responded to one, but on this one, I have ask the following:

Have our "wise and selfless" legislators ever listened to George Carlin? He has offered an excellent solution to the problem we are again facing today. Not only would prison overcrowding be relieved, but we could generate the additional revenue needed to fund our educational system.

As a note, the name in this profile is a "nom de plume" so I may remain anonymous, and not find myself in trouble with any supervisors.

This seems like a good place to post this ...

Mass pardon for convicts in Italy leads to a crime wave

The Independent (London)
By Peter Popham in Milan
Published: 06 August 2006

As a way of easing pressure on Italy's overcrowded jails, the mass pardon that began to come into effect last week has the advantage of simplicity. But as a stream of released prisoners began heading straight back into the cells - one for attempting to strangle his former wife, others for attempted robbery - Italians began asking themselves if Romano Prodi's government had fully thought the measure through.

In addition to being simple, it is traditional: the last such jail-emptying exercise was in 1990. This time again, prisoners serving terms of three years or less are being released, with the exception of convicts guilty of Mafia crimes, terrorism, sexual violence or (a little oddly) usury. With 62,000 prisoners crammed in jails overcrowded by nearly 50 per cent, Justice Minister Clemente Mastella hopes to see the back of 12,000 of the state's involuntary guests.

Britain, with a similar problem, may wish Mr Mastella well. But to the undisguised glee of Silvio Berlusconi's opposition, things began to go wrong at once, with a prisoner in his 50s, from the city of Udine, going straight from jail to the home of his ex-wife and attempting to murder her. Others were speedily rearrested, one in the act of smashing the window of a pizzeria in Genoa, others for stealing cars in Trieste and Brescia, and, in a smart city-centre store in Bologna, an ex-inmate shoplifter was caught with three pairs of jeans. Voices on both right and left attacked the government for failing to put in place mechanisms to help prisoners readjust to life outside.

Antonio Mazzocchi, an MP with the right-wing National Alliance, suggested the first 700 prisoners rearrested should be put under house arrest, in the homes of the MPs who had voted in favour of the measure.

Prisoner advocate organisations protested that facilities to help released prisoners risked being overwhelmed. "It's like opening a dam," said Francesco Gesualdi of Pisa's New Development Model Centre, which helps released inmates. "A smaller number would have been more manageable. The main issue is the rehabilitation of the people released from jail."

An extra headache for the government was the 5,393 foreign prisoners expected to be freed, most of whom are thought to be illegal immigrants. Under present immigration law, once out of jail, these so-called clandestini must either be issued with a notice to quit the country within five days - in practice an invitation to disappear - or be consigned to one of the notorious temporary reception centres for illegal immigrants, which are already bursting at the seams owing to the continuous influx of new arrivals by leaky boat on the island of Lampedusa.

There are also fears that potentially dangerous Islamist extremists are among those streaming out of the jails. La Stampa newspaper named 20 such prisoners it claimed pose a possible threat. On Friday, the Interior Minister, Giuliano Amato, said the authorities were "keeping a particularly close eye" on immigrant convicts released under the pardon. "We are trying to expel fewer than 10 immigrants who are suspected of links to terrorism, on the basis of the powers given to us by the most recent anti-terrorism law," he said. "Yesterday I signed the first [expulsion] decrees and today I will sign others."

So the wide-ranging pardon is proving far less simple in its consequences than in its conception. But one look at what happened last time could have told Mr Mastella to expect that. Back then, 8,451 prisoners were freed out of a total jail population of about 26,000. Within six months, the number in prison had risen to 30,000.

this exile thing might not be a bad idea. look how australia turned out.

The word among parolees here in Tarrant County is the only way to get revoked is to commit a new felony or a family violence assault and be convicted. Absent those two conditions, the worst that will happen is 90 days in the county.

California to Address Prison Overcrowding With Giant Building Program

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: April 27, 2007
LOS ANGELES, April 26 � In a move to ease chronic overcrowding, California lawmakers on Thursday approved the largest single prison construction program in the nation�s history and agreed to send 8,000 convicts to other states.

The plan, which would cost $8.3 billion and add 53,000 beds, has the strong backing of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, who is eager to avert a federal takeover of the state�s prison system, one of the most dysfunctional in the nation.

California prisons are so overcrowded � 16,000 inmates are assigned cots in hallways and gyms � that the governor recently took the highly unusual step of declaring a state of emergency in the system. The state�s prisons house 173,000 inmates � far ahead of Texas, which has the next largest state prison system with 152,500 inmates � and has an $8 billion budget.

The California prisons are the subject of several lawsuits, their medical program is in federal receivership, and various other components of the system are under court monitoring. The courts had given the state until this spring to come up with an overpopulation plan or face possible receivership.

Under the plan that narrowly passed both houses of the Democratic-controlled State Legislature, the state will move prisoners out of 17,000 temporary beds in places like gymnasiums and day rooms, either through transfers to prisons in other states or to older, unused jails in California that need repairs to be brought up to building and safety codes.

The plan, aimed primarily at easing the prison population, would also free space for rehabilitative programs for inmates, lawmakers said.

Further, the state will add the 53,000 beds over the next five years by building additions to existing prisons and through construction of so-called re-entry centers, or smaller buildings where prisoners would spend the last few months of their sentences in the towns and cities where they would eventually be paroled.

The plan calls for two phases of construction, with the financing of the second phase contingent on benchmarks like the start of rehabilitation and mental health programs. The plan would be paid for over two phases with $7.1 billion in state bonds and $1.2 million in local money.

Missing from the plan were a proposed sentencing commission and a program to reduce the number of parolees who re-enter the system, components that had been embraced by Democratic lawmakers and prison reform advocates, and, this year, by the governor. Seven of 10 inmates released from California prisons return, one of the highest recidivism rates in the country.

But Mr. Schwarzenegger, made anxious by the watchful eyes of judges around the state, backed off the contentious proposals to change the parole structure and to examine sentencing practices, handing a victory to Republicans in the Legislature who would abide neither.

�The things we didn�t want to have in this bill are not in it,� said Senator George Runner, chairman of the Republican caucus in the Senate. �We need a program that keeps people incarcerated and tries to rehabilitate them. But if they can�t be rehabilitated, then we need enough beds to bring them back.�

The Democrats who ultimately voted for the plan despite its perceived shortcomings appeared to calculate that they would avoid looking soft on crime while leaving any legal fallout at the governor�s door.

The state had until the middle of May to convince the courts that it had a plan to relieve some of the overcrowding or face a takeover and the potential imposition of caps on the size of the prison population.

It was unclear on Thursday whether the bill would pass muster with the courts. For instance, recent moves by the state to send prisoners to other jurisdictions around the nation was ruled unconstitutional by a state judge; lawmakers said language in the new bill would address the judge�s concerns.

The plan also does little to change the structural problems that have led to overcrowding, like the unusual parole system, which sends former inmates with minor infractions back to prison. Further, the state�s sentencing structure is blind to the problem of prison population, meaning new inmates keep arriving regardless of the ability to accommodate them.

Don Specter, the director of the Prison Law Office, which has filed a class-action lawsuit against the state over prison conditions, said the plan did not address many of the most serious concerns raised in the courts.

�It won�t do anything to provide short-term relief on the overcrowding,� Mr. Specter said.

Like many other states, California has had large prison building programs over the years, but few come close to the size or speed of this program. For example, since 1987 when Texas began to use general obligation bonds to build prisons, the state has used $2.3 billion in such bonds to do that.

Some California lawmakers who voted against the plan expressed outrage on Thursday.

�This is not a plan,� said the Senate majority leader, Gloria Romero, Democrat of Los Angeles. �This is a classic Hollywood prop that the governor wants to have when he walks into court on May 15. All we have done is dig ourselves into a deeper hole. This plan is not workable, and I fully expect a constitutional challenge.�

For his part, Mr. Schwarzenegger seemed ebullient.

�For the first time in a decade, we can add prison beds in California,� he said in a statement. �And that does not just include traditional beds. We will add beds with programs, education, drug and mental health treatment so that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation can truly live up to the rehabilitation part of its name.�