The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Echoing sentiments from colleagues, Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, said the statistics show “a dramatic turnaround.”

Today’s Legislative Budget Board testimony to the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee marked the first public report card on the new programs, which two years ago were championed by corrections advocates as a step forward and opposed by some prosecutors and police groups as too soft on crime.

“Crime is down, the programs are working,” said Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice what operates the 112-prison system. “It’s been proven before that these types of programs have an impact on recidivism, so these new numbers are no surprise.”

Even so, Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley while he thinks some of the reforms have proven beneficial, such as expanded drug-treatment slots, he cautioned against reading too much into the new statistics.

“I would be very skeptical from making a connection between the numbers and legislation that passed two years ago, especially if you look back at at the LBB numbers — their predictions weren’t particularly accurate,” he said. “I would agree that the system does seem stable right now. The parole rate in the last five years has been very stable.”

According to the report, the number of convicts in Texas’ state prisons is expected to remain steady this year, and then decline slightly the following year — for the first time in several years.

In 2012, however, the prison population could begin increasing again and by 2014 will grow to almost 158,000 - from the current 154,000.

Billed at the time as the biggest shift for Texas corrections policy in years, the 2007 changes greatly expanded the capacity of in-prison drug and alcohol-treatment programs, opened new transition treatment centers to help convicts succeed once they got out, expanded counseling and specialized drug-treatment programs and opened new lockups designed especially for habitual drunk drivers.

Total cost was more than $227 million.

At the time, while proposing an additional $14 million for rehabilitation and treatment programs, Gov. Rick Perry had asked for $125.8 million to build two new medium-security prisons to add 1,000 beds, and converting a Texas Youth Commission lockup to a prison for adults to add 600 more.

Perry in 2005 had vetoed probation reforms that contained many elements of the 2007 plan.

The adult prisons were never approved, and that funding was diverted to the Whitmire-Madden plan that, at the time, made some legislative leaders nervous. The package beefed up funding for local probation departments to treat and rehabilitate some non-violent criminals in their communities, rather than sending them to a state prison.

“It looks very much like we thought it would at this point,” said state Rep. Jerry Madden, co-author of the plan who at the time was chairman of the House Corrections Committee.

Funding is being sought this year for additional treatment beds, which could further reduce the prison population, he said.

“The numbers clearly show if we worked toward providing adequate programming for alcohol and drug treatment, mental health and probation and other programs, that it can work.”
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/politics/entries/2009/02/19/report_prison_rehab_programs_w.html