As new crimes and sentencing enhancements mount, more offenders fill probation rolls and prisons, and many return after being discharged without being reformed. To break the cycle, policymakers must align incentives and goals by rewarding results through tying a portion of corrections funding to outcomes such as recidivism, cost effectiveness, restitution to victims, and the employment of ex-offenders.
By continuing to build upon the initiatives that are successfully reducing both crime and incarceration rates, Texas can achieve further crime reductions and lower its corrections budget through the closure of unneeded adult and juvenile correctional facilities.
There are common sense initiatives that states can take to protect public safety while limiting costs to taxpayers. These include drug courts, graduated sanctions for probationers and parolees, and electronic monitoring.
Since 2005, $55 million in state probation funding has been incentive-based. Departments are eligible if they adopt progressive sanctions and pledge to reduce their technical revocations. Progressive sanctions involve utilizing graduated measures such as increased reporting, community service, curfews, electronic monitoring, mandatory treatment, and shock-nights in jail prior to revoking a probationer to prison for technical violations.
The private sector can bring innovation and competition to the criminal justice system. Private prisons cost about 14 percent less to operate than their government-run counterparts--saving taxpayer money and providing greater public safety.
While Texas should maintain tough laws that keep violent offenders, sex off enders, drug kingpins, and habitual home burglars in prison for long periods, narrowly tailored policy changes can control future incarceration costs by rerouting nonviolent substance abuse offenders who do not pose a threat to public safety.
This invited written testimony regarding interim charges relating to state jails, technology in the criminal justice system, and offender reentry was presented before the Texas House Corrections Committee on August 21, 2008.
The overcriminalization of occupational licensing is limiting job growth and competition while unfairly excluding some Texans from the workforce. Texas regulates too many occupations, applies excessive criminal penalties to violations of licensing rules, and too often prevents otherwise qualified individuals from obtaining licenses because of a minor and sometimes decades-old conviction. This testimony offers solutions that can put more Texans to work and, by increasing competition, bring greater choice and value to consumers.
For Texans behind bars, a job can be the key to unlocking gates of opportunity and abandoning the criminal lifestyle. The limited experience in Texas and evidence from around the nation indicates that work release programs that properly monitor and carefully screen participants can reduce recidivism and costs to taxpayers while protecting public safety.
November 07, 2007
Working with Conviction Criminal Offenses as Barriers to Entering Licensed Occupations in Texas By Marc Levin
To maximize the productivity of Texas’ workforce in a tight labor market, we must fully utilize the skills of the 20 percent of Texans with a criminal record. While ex-offenders who are employed are three to five times less likely to re-offend and more likely to pay restitution and child support, Texas law precludes some of them from entering over 100 licensed occupations. Through targeted reforms such as provisional licenses, licensing authorities can expand economic opportunity for ex-offenders seeking to turn their life around while still protecting the public.
This Powerpoint presentation describes the current statutory and regulatory barriers that exclude ex-offenders from numerous licensed occupations ranging from plumbing to nursing to cosmetology and suggests reforms to lower these barriers. Such reforms can improve economic productivity and reduce crime, as ex-offenders who are employed are three to five times less likely to re-offend.
