AUSTIN – The Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Center for Effective Justice Director Marc Levin issued the following statement on the Texas House passage of HB 1490, which would establish new prevention measures designed to reduce truancy while also eliminating criminal penalties for skipping school.
“The country has made strides in reducing the number of kids in confinement over the past decade, but the U.S. still continues to incarcerate far too many young people for nonviolent status offenses like truancy. This is a problem that is particularly true in Texas, which has nearly 100,000 criminal truancy cases brought against children each year. Confining a child for skipping school does more to hurt young people than put them back on the right track, which is why we applaud the Texas House for its leadership in advancing truancy reform.”
Marc A. Levin is director of the Center for Effective Justice at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin, Texas.