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.
In allocating limited correctional resources to maximize public safety returns for each taxpayer dollar spent, it is important to know which offenders pose the greatest risk and what strategies are most effective in reducing that risk for various types of offenders.
Policymakers must continue the state’s recent progress in driving down crime and lowering the burden on taxpayers through reducing unnecessary incarceration and investing in alternative approaches for nonviolent offenders that provide a greater public safety return for every taxpayer dollar that is spent.
Through replicating effective, evidence-based juvenile probation programs and implementing reforms in policies and practices at the state and local level that are described in this report, Texas can make further progress in reducing crime, reforming troubled youths, restoring victims, and preserving families while controlling costs to taxpayers.
By expanding the use of victim-offender mediation and continuing to strengthen viable alternatives to incarceration, Texas can empower and restore victims and communities impacted by crime.
With so many sweeping and often ambiguous criminal laws, including those that are created every week by regulatory agencies without the approval of elected officials, it is impossible for any person or business to regularly stay abreast of the line between what is legal and what is criminal.
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.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is at the forefront of a broad reexamination of the criminal justice system by advocates of policies that emphasize limited government and personal responsibility. There is an increased recognition that policymakers must think outside the cell and embrace approaches that reduce crime, restore victims, reform off enders, and control costs to taxpayers. Policymakers must also rein in the ever-growing body of criminal law so it focuses on its traditional mission of addressing serious wrongdoing that harms individual victims and degrades neighborhoods.
Evidence from Texas cities and scholarly research increasingly indicates that communities can enhance public safety and reduce costs to taxpayers by providing alternatives that divert appropriate youths from detention, adjudication, and probation.
This presentation to lawmakers from across the nation highlights the growing evidence and public consensus supporting alternatives to incarceration that enhance public safety, empower and restore victims, and reduce the burden on taxpayers.
As thousands of troops return from Afghanistan and Iraq, unfortunately some of them will violate the law. A new type of specialty court promises to reduce recidivism among eligible veterans by holding them accountable and helping them address the challenges they face that often stem from their service and readjusting to society.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is at the forefront of a broader rethinking of criminal justice issues by many advocates of free market-oriented policies. There is an increased recognition that alternatives to prison for nonviolent offenders can both reduce recidivism and costs to taxpayers.
Businesses face many challenges in complying with federal, state, and local immigration laws. In some situations, business owners can be imprisoned for employing illegal immigrants, even if they were not personally aware of it. Congress can take steps to ease the burdens that immigration laws place on business while continuing to combat illegal immigration.
A review of the 81st Texas Legislature’s work on effective justice policy including: overcriminalization, controlling costs, juvenile justice, and victim restitution.
May 28, 2009
Keeping Our Kids at Home Expanding Community-Based Facilities for Adjudicated Youth in Texas By Michele Deitch, J.D.
As plans proceed to shift the Texas juvenile justice system to a more community-based model, policymakers, juvenile justice officials, and service providers would be wise to consider ways to overcome the barriers to expansion of local residential options for adjudicated youth.
States should utilize parole for low-risk offenders. There are a number of key practices that can improve the effectiveness of parole decisionmaking and supervision.
Mental illness poses a serious challenge for the criminal justice system. Fortunately, there are policies and practices that Texas can adopt which improve outcomes for mentally ill offenders, enhance public safety, and save taxpayers’ money.
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.
Texas lawmakers are now considering a pilot program to provide counties with funds to deal with youths they would otherwise send to TYC. Ohio adopted this policy in 1995, and this paper describes the policy and examines the results, which have included fewer commitments to state lockups, lower costs, and reduced recidivism.
Written testimony of Marc Levin, Director of the Center for Effective Justice, regarding Sunset recommendations on the Texas Youth Commission and Texas Juvenile Probation Commission.
How best to deal with Texas students who abuse alcohol and drugs? The question grows in importance and immediacy, despite four decades of public commitment to protecting young people from harmful substances such as alcohol, marijuana, and inhalants.
There are over 150,000 juveniles arrested every year in Texas, and more than 50,000 are incarcerated at Texas Youth Commission (TYC) and local detention and postadjudication facilities. The Texas Juvenile Probation Commission (TJPC) monitors these local lockups. Also, some 68,000 Texas youths are on probation or parole.
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.
In 1989, Texas adopted a constitutional amendment now in Article I, Section 30 establishing the various rights of crime victims, including the right to be reasonably protected from the accused throughout the trial process, the right to notification of court proceedings, the right to be present at all public proceedings, the right to confer with a prosecutor’s representative, and the right to restitution.
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.
Criminal law is not just for criminals anymore—at least not criminals as we have traditionally defined them. Significant differences between criminal and civil law make criminal law an overly blunt instrument for regulating non-fraudulent business activities.
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.
As the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) and Texas Juvenile Probation Commission (TJPC) undergo sunset review, their performance measures should be enhanced to focus more on results-based performance measures such as recidivism, educational progress, administrative costs, and restitution to victims.
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.
After working closely with state policymakers on landmark legislation to overhaul the Texas Youth Commission (TYC), the Texas Public Policy Foundation is pleased to share with the Sunset Advisory Commission key research and recommendations as it reviews both TYC and the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission.
Better utilization of technology in the criminal justice system can help control costs and maximize the productivity of personnel. In some cases it can also improve outcomes such as recidivism, crime rate, and percentage of crimes solved.
June 19, 2008
Thinking Outside the Cell Aligning Goals and Incentives in the Texas Criminal Justice System By Marc Levin
This PowerPoint presentation was given to the Montgomery County Bar Association Luncheon and provides policy recommendations on how to align goals and incentives in Texas' system of criminal justice.
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.
With more than 1,700 criminal offenses on the books in Texas, policymakers should carefully weigh some key factors in considering whether additional criminal laws are needed. Evaluating these factors suggests that in many circumstances civil laws and market incentives can more efficiently and less onerously achieve the intended results.
The Legislative Budget Board declared in early 2008 that Texas taxpayers would no longer be handcuffed with a billion dollars of new prisons. However, Texans need not worry that they are saving money by opening the floodgates for violent offenders. The hard reality is that Texas is not going "soft on crime," but it is getting smarter.
Jails are the largest item in most county budgets and Texas jails currently house over 69,000 inmates - 29 percent more inmates per capita than California. This Powerpoint presentation highlights solutions to the county jail overcrowding problem that protect public safety without punishing taxpayers.
This letter requests that the Sunset Advisory Commission, as part of its review of the Texas Department of Public Safety, examine the issue of the Private Security Board’s disqualification of many otherwise qualified professionals from occupations such as locksmith and alarm salesperson solely because of a minor criminal offense that occurred many years ago.
February 14, 2008
The ABC's Before TYC Enhancing Front-End Alternatives in the Juvenile Justice System By Marc Levin
By linking each county's TYC commitments of nonviolent offenders to state funding for local probation and prevention efforts, and tying a share of state juvenile probation funds to key outcome measures like recidivism, restitution, and educational progress, Texas can encourage local innovations that will control TYC utilization and incentivize best practices.
There are many unnecessary, and unnecessarily excessive, criminal laws relating to licensing and regulation in Texas. This letter requests that the Sunset Advisory Commission examine this issue during its review of the Texas Department of Agriculture to determine whether some of the occupations regulated by TDA with criminal penalties require continued government regulation or would be better left to market processes.
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.
This series of policy briefs by the Center for Effective Justice cover nine areas of criminal justice reform including victim restitution, parole reform, business overcriminalization, juvenile justice, prison overcrowding, offender reentry, student overcriminalization, empowering victims, and probation reform.
This paper presents an analysis of pending legislation and budget strategies that will successfully divert offenders from prison while protecting public safety and demonstrates how these initiatives will eliminate the need for building new prisons.
By reining in the excess of existing criminal offenses, lawmakers can chart a new course that improves the state's business climate and enhances public safety by targeting law enforcement, prosecutorial, and judicial resources at those who pose a true danger to their fellow Texans.
Marc Levin, Director of the Foundation's Center for Effective Justice, presented this testimony on HB 3702 in front of the House Corrections Committee.
Marc Levin, Director of the Foundation's Center for Effective Justice, presented the attached testimony on HB 2291 to the House Juvenile Justice & Family Issues Committee at its March 28, 2007 public hearing.
Marc Levin, Director of the Foundation's Center for Effective Justice, presented the attached testimony on HB 2437 to the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee at its March 27, 2007 public hearing.
Marc Levin, Director of the Foundation's Center for Effective Justice, presented the attached testimony on SB 103 to the Senate Criminal Justice Committee at its February 27, 2007 public hearing.
By simply utilizing a bigger toolbox when it comes to nonviolent drug offenders, and selected nonviolent property and DUI offenders, Texas taxpayers can be spared a billion-dollar commitment to new prisons.
Through targeted, evidence-based parole initiatives, more nonviolent, low-risk offenders can be released with proper supervision, thereby ensuring public safety while freeing up existing space behind bars for the most dangerous criminals.
Marc Levin, director of the Center for Effective Justice, presented testimony before the Texas Legislative Budget Board regarding the TDCJ Legislative Appropriations Request, September 22, 2006.
Marc Levin, director of the Center for Effective Justice, presented testimony before the Texas Senate Education Committee regarding Disciplinary Alternative Learning Programs (DAEPs), September 20, 2006.
Marc Levin, director of the Center for Effective Justice, presented testimony before the Texas Senate Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Affairs and Coastal Resources regarding the Animal Identification Program, September 6, 2006.
Only an appreciation for the important but limited role of criminal law, and the unintended consequences of its indiscriminate application, can ensure that Texans are not handcuffed by a proliferation of criminal laws.
With Texas projected to need another 9,600 prison beds by 2010, the 80th Legislature must focus on policy changes that reduce or eliminate the need for new beds by preventing crime, lowering recidivism rates, and reducing probation revocations.
By diverting a share of the resources used to imprison non-violent probationers who may be reformed with better supervision and drug treatment, the state can save taxpayers' money and produce more effective outcomes for offenders, victims, and communities.
Texas prisons have once again reached their breaking point, and policy changes will be required to avoid the necessity of creating even more new prison beds.
One way to empower crime victims in Texas would be to offer mediation and binding contracts as a voluntary alternative to traditional prosecution for certain types of crimes.
This perspective addresses the need for reform at the intersection of school discipline and juvenile justice, providing recommendations to ensure Texas students are not being prematurely and unnecessarily written up and written off.
Drug courts are not soft on crime. They force participants to confront their addiction and repair damage to themselves, their families, and communities. Overwhelming evidence shows that by diverting minor drug offenders to drug courts, we can cut recidivism and costs.
While Disciplinary Alternative Education Programs (DAEPs) have a valid purpose in ensuring that the education of the many is not unduly impeded by the severe misbehavior of a few, we must focus on reforms such as eliminating unnecessary DAEP referrals, holding DAEPs to a higher level of accountability, and developing best practices for DAEPs in order to produce verifiable results in academic performance and behavior modification for Texas' youth.
Many of the challenges confronting Texas' criminal justice system result from public policies that create incentives which are not fully aligned with the stated goals of the system--reducing crime, restoring victims, and minimizing costs to the taxpayer. This perspective provides policy recommendations for better aligning the system's incentives and goals.
This report highlights several existing successful restorative justice programs in Texas
and offers recommendations based on effective restorative practices in other jurisdictions.
Because crime is first and foremost an offense against the victim — victims should
be provided with enhanced restitution, greater input in sentencing, and a mechanism for
securing prosecution when local prosecutors decline to act.
With the state's prisons approaching capacity with 150,000 inmates and more than half a
million Texans on parole or probation, the key to reducing long-term incarceration and
supervision costs is lowering the recidivism rate through initiatives such as victim-offender interaction programs
that emphasize accountability and penance.
By making restitution a mandatory rather than an optional part of sentencing, HB 1751 recognizes the paramount importance of compensating crime victims for the harm they have suffered.
We support the probation concepts in HB 2193, particularly progressive sanctions, more intensive supervision, and the expansion of drug courts. We are hopeful that some of the money saved on incarceration costs can be redirected to residential restitution centers and mental illness and drug treatment programs.
In Texas, criminal law is not just for criminals anymore –
at least not criminals as they have traditionally been defined. Pending legislation would criminalize everything from failure to recycle any piece of electronics equipment to placing a business sign on a rural road, and even leaving a dog tethered to a tree for a total of eight hours in a 24-hour period. The blurring of civil and criminal law is not a novel development in Texas, but rather part of a national trend.
Under this bill, graffiti offenders would make restitution by either personally erasing their markings or paying the cost incurred by the government, business, or individual in expunging the graffiti.
The costs of inmate health care are enormous. The state estimates that it costs over $500 a day to keep a prisoner in the hospital and the prison hospital at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston recently announced they will run out of money in a matter of months. County jails face these same skyrocketing health care costs.
January 15, 1995
Juris-Imprudence Law And Disorder At The Texas Court Of Criminal Appeals By Don R. Willett
Texans know very little about the Court of Criminal Appeals, but it must be reformed. The Court once ruled in favor of a man charged with drowning his wife because prosecutors neglected to say what she'd drowned in. The Court's approach forgets that an individual crime is a violent eruption that shatters lives. Enough is enough; only criminals and inefficiency would suffer in the Court's absence.
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