Houston Chronicle 11/14/2019
Twelve years ago, Texas blazed a successful trail for criminal justice reform that even the federal government has tried to follow, but Oklahoma’s recent mass release of nearly 500 inmates may have given it the momentum to reach even higher ground than the Lone Star State.
With 170,000 inmates and a $523 million budget request to build three new prisons staring them in the face, the Legislature and Gov. Rick Perry finally admitted in 2007 that Texas’ lock-’em-up approach to criminal justice not only wasn’t working; it was too expensive.
The lawmakers subsequently passed a bipartisan plan sponsored by Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, and Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Plano, that would instead lower the prison population by spending $241 million on incarceration alternatives that included drug courts, rehabilitation for non-violent offenders, and more mental health and educational programs for inmates.
The results have been striking. Texas’ inmate population has dropped more than 12 percent and instead of building new prisons, the state has closed eight facilities. Among the impressed include a long list of conservative groups and Congress, which last year passed the First Step Act, which funds similar early-release and recidivism-reduction programs for federal inmates.
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https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Reduce-drug-sentences-to-lower-Texas-prison-14835715.php#
