Federalism in Action
How Conservative States Got Smart on Crime
“My administration started treatment programs and drug courts for people who wouldn’t be served well by sitting behind bars. We made sure our parole and probation programs were strong. Most of all, we evaluated prisons based on whether they got results. Did an ex-offender get locked up again? Did he get a job? Is he paying restitution to his victims? In Texas, we believe in results.” – Former Texas Governor Rick Perry
[ You'd think justice reform aimed at reducing prison populations and promoting rehabilitation in an intelligent effective way would be something liberals would like. Maybe if this movement wasn't being pushed by conservatives like Rick Perry.
A thought ... perhaps judges regularly facing re-election in TX has something to do with the success of judicial reforms that will be implemented by judges.
Note: For some reason f's got changed to ?s when copied from freedomworks. Just be aware and compensate. ]
Justice re?orm has become such a hot topic in the United States over the last several years largely because o? the groundbreaking, data-driven re?orms implemented in Texas. The Lone Star State’s prison population grew signi?icantly between 1990 and 2010, rising ?rom approximately 50,000 inmates in 1990 to nearly 174,000 in 2010.
Over the same period, the incarceration rate grew ?rom 293 inmates per 100,000 residents to 652.
In 2007, ?aced with $523 million in immediate prison construc-tion costs to house the state’s growing prison population and $2 billion in additional costs by 2012, lawmakers, led by then-state House Corrections Committee Chairman Jerry Madden (R-Plano) and Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whit-mire (D-Houston), sought to take a new approach to corrections. Madden and Whitmire, as well as others in the state legislature, decided that the implementation o? rehabilitative programming would be a better alternative than building new prisons or expand-ing existing ones.
In the 2007 budget, lawmakers appropriated $241 million that would have been used to expand or build new prisons to imple-ment programs designed to reduce recidivism, or the rate o? repeat o?enders. Programs included those sponsored by ?aith-based or-ganizations and secular nonpro?its and were targeted at an array o? o?enders, including drug and other nonviolent o?enders, as a way to reduce their chances o? becoming repeat o?enders and a threat to their communities.Because Texas has virtually no mandatory minimum sentences, state lawmakers and courts had the ?lexibility, in many instances, to sentence o?enders in special courts, including drug courts, to complete rehabilitative programs, rather than serve potentially lengthy terms in prison.
For those who were serving prison sen-tences, work training and education programs were o?ered to lower their risk o? recidivist behavior. Community supervision pro-grams allowed o?enders, not solely limited to nonviolent ones, to reintegrate into society, including helping them ?ind employment, to ?urther encourage them lower their risk o? recidivism.The re?orms were overwhelmingly success?ul. Although the Lone Star State’s prison population declined by 12 percent, the crime rate dropped by an eye-popping 21 percent.
And the drop in crime was across the board.“Speci?ically, Texas saw an 8.3 percent drop in property crime and a 9.3 percent drop in violent crime. This included a 14.3 percent drop in murders, a 15.4 percent drop in robberies, and a 4.3 percent drop in rapes,” noted Right on Crime, a project o? the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation that worked on the re?orms. “The drop in Texas outpaced the decrease in crime rates nationwide—only a 0.8 percent drop in property crime and 4 percent in violent crime.”
Texas now has its lowest crime rate since 1968.
The key to the success was reducing recidivism. In 2004, ?or exam-ple, 31.9 percent o? o?enders released ?rom prison were back in jail within three years. But among those released in 2007, afer the ?irst wave o? re?orms was implemented, only 24.3 percent went back into to the corrections system.
Recidivism is now at 22.6 percent, ?ar below the average o? 43.3 percent ?ound among prisoners released in 41 states in 2004.
Right on Crime, “Former Texas Governor Rick Perry Joins Right on Crime Campaign” March 2015 http://rightoncrime.com/2015/03/?ormer-texas-governor-rick-perry-joins-right-on-crime-campaign/
Bureau o? Justice Statistics, “Prisoners under the jurisdiction o? state or ?ederal correctional authorities, December 31, 1978–2013,” Generated using the Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool at www.bjs.gov
Bureau o? Justice Statistics, “Imprisonment rate o? sentenced prisoners under the jurisdiction o? state or ?ederal correctional authorities per 100,000 U.S. residents, December 31, 1978–2013,” Generated using the Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool at www.bjs.gov
Reid Wilson, “Tough Texas gets results by going sofer on crime,“
Washington Post
, November 27, 2014 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/11/27/tough-texas-gets-results-by-going-sofer-on-crime/
Joseph A. Adams, “Texas Rehabilitation Programs Reduce Recidivism Rates,” Right on Crime, May 16, 2011 http://rightoncrime.com/2011/05/texas-rehabilitation-programs-re-duce-recidivism-rates/
Mike Ward, “Texas prison population shrinks as rehabilitation programs take root,”
The Statesman
, August 11, 2012 http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/texas-prison-population-shrinks-as-rehabilitatio-1/nRNRY/
Pew Charitable Trusts, “Growth in Federal Prison System Exceeds States’,” January 22, 2015 http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/?act-sheets/2015/01/growth-in-?eder-al-prison-system-exceeds-states
Jeanette Moll, “Texas Crime Rate Drop Indicates Progress,” Right on Crime, July 10, 2012 http://rightoncrime.com/2012/07/texas-crime-rate-drop-indicates-progress/
Pew Charitable Trusts, “Public Sa?ety in Texas,” August 13, 2015 http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/?act-sheets/2013/01/14/public-sa?ety-in-texas
Allan Turner, “Study praises Texas ?or prison re?orms but comes with warning,”
Houston Chronicle
, April 12, 2011 http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Study-praises-Texas-?or-prison-re?orms-but-comes-1689770.php
Reid Wilson, “Tough Texas gets results by going sofer on crime,“
Washington Post
, November 27, 2014 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/11/27/tough-texas-gets-results-by-going-sofer-on-crime/
Pew Center on the States,
State of Recidivism: The Revolv-ing Door of America’s Prisons
, April 11, 2011 http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/0001/01/01/state-o?-recidivism
“I’m not a lawyer. I’d never been interested in corrections. My district doesn’t have any prisons in it—it has a couple jails, but no prisons. I had never been on [the corrections] committee, never had a bill before that committee … I didn’t even know how much a prison cost at that time. Then, I asked the question that was the second most important question of my life. And that was, ‘Mr. Speaker, what do you want me to do? And he gave me the eight words that changed my life. He said, ‘Don’t build new prisons—they cost too much.’” – Texas State Representative Jerry Madden
Making communities sa?er was, o? course, the number one goal o? those who pushed ?or justice re?orm in Texas, which they managed to accomplish. But a byproduct o? the e?ort was cost-savings that allowed lawmakers to reinvest into expan-sion o? re?orms, creating new programming, or diverting limited dollars to other areas o? public sa?ety.“The ?irst priority will continue to be public sa?ety, absolutely,” Madden said o? the re?orms. “But the toughest thing you can do to some people is not send them to prison, but put them in programs that will turn around their lives.”
Texas spends, on average, $21,390 per prisoner.
Although this expense cannot be avoided in many circumstances due to the nature o? the crimes committed by the worst o?enders in society, programs designed to reduce recidivism come at a substantially lower cost.
As the recidivism rate dropped and new, less serious o?enders were diverted to treatment programs, Texas saved $3 billion in planned prison construction costs and reduced populations and recidivism.
The Lone Star State was also able to close three pris-ons due to the decline in its prison population.
The success o? justice re?orm in Texas has allowed state lawmakers to implement other policies designed to lower recidivism, which will, over time, increase the total budgetary savings.
Olivia Nuzzi, “Prison Re?orm is Bigger in Texas,” The Daily Beast, April 12, 2014 http://www.thedailybeast.com/arti-cles/2014/04/12/prison-re?orm-is-bigger-in-texas.html
Mike Ward, “Texas prison population shrinks as rehabilitation programs take root,”
The Statesman
, August 11, 2012 http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/texas-prison-population-shrinks-as-rehabilitatio-1/nRNRY/
Christian Henrichson, Ruth Delaney,
The Price of Prisons: What Incarceration Costs Taxpayers
, Vera Institute, January 2012 http://www.vera.org/sites/de?ault/?iles/resources/down-loads/price-o?-prisons-updated-version-021914.pd?
“Let me be clear so that there is no misinterpretation—this is not a get out of jail free card. These reforms do not in any way diminish the seriousness of the seven deadly sins. If you com- mit one of these, you will spend time in our prisons. In fact, this transformation of our corrections efforts will ensure that we have the space and resources to incarcerate high-risk and violent offenders going forward.” – Georgia Governor Nathan Deal
Twenty years ago, the justice re?orms in Texas would have been politically impossible. But this new data-driven, smart-er approach to corrections has paved the way ?or other states to enacted similar re?orms, ones that meet the needs o? their communities.Georgia, ?or example, has implemented a series o? justice re?orms, beginning in 2011, under the leadership o? Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, who served as a prosecutor be?ore his election to Congress in 1992. When Deal became governor in 2011, Georgia’s corrections system was experiencing a crisis. The state’s prison population had doubled, corrections spending eclipsed $1 billion, and recidivism was hovering around 30 percent.
In 2011, at Deal’s urging, the Georgia General Assembly created the Special Council on Criminal Justice Re?orm ?or Georgians, which was tasked with developing re?orms and recommendations to his o?ice and state lawmakers. The initial recommendations were re-leased in November 2011, and those appointed to the panel could not have been clearer about the hurdles ?acing the Peach State.“I? current policies remain in place,” the report explained, “analy-sis indicates that Georgia’s prison population will rise by another 8 percent to reach nearly 60,000 inmates by 2016, presenting the state with the need to spend an additional $264 million to expand capacity.”
State lawmakers have passed re?orms over the course o? Deal’s ten-ure in o?ice. Georgia has seen a 10 percent drop in recidivism and taxpayers have saved $264 million in ?uture prison costs.
Impor-tantly, crime rates have dropped by 2 percent since 2012.
Among the steps Georgia has taken is the creation o? a “sa?ety valve” exception to mandatory minimum sentences ?or drug o?enses ?or low-level, nonviolent o?enders. For Deal, this step needed to ensure that prison beds were available ?or the worst o?enders in the state. “Public sa?ety will be improved by giving prosecutors leverage in certain cases,” he explained, “and by ensuring that our prison resources are reserved ?or the ‘kingpins’ while the ‘mules’ are given a chance at re?orm.”
Deal has also taken steps to re?orm Georgia’s juvenile justice system and worked with lawmakers to create an innovative back-end reen-try system that, like that o? Texas, o?ers work training, education, and other rehabilitative programming.
And he is not showing any signs o? slowing down his justice re?orm e?orts.
In addition to Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah are among the long list o? states that have either already implemented justice re?orms that ?it their respective communities or recently passed re?orms.
O?ice o? Governor Nathan Deal, “Gov. Deal’s State o? the State Address: Charting the course to prosperity,” January 10, 2012 http://gov.georgia.gov/press-releases/2012-01-10/gov-deals-state-state-address-charting-course-prosperity
Judge Michael P. Boggs, W. Thomas Worthy,
Report of the Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform
, February 2015 http://gotsr.dcor.state.ga.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/2014-2015-GA-Council-on-Criminal-Justice-Re?orm.pd?
Special Council on Criminal Justice Re?orm ?or Georgians,
Report of the Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform for Georgians
, November 2011 http://gotsr.dcor.state.ga.us/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2011-GA-Council-Report-FI-NALDRAFT.pd?
Bureau o? Justice Assistance,
Reducing Recidivism: States Deliver Results
, June 2014 https://www.bja.gov/Publications/CSG-ReducingRecidivism.pd?
Judge Michael P. Boggs, W. Thomas Worthy,
Report of the Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform
, February 2015 http://gotsr.dcor.state.ga.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/2014-2015-GA-Council-on-Criminal-Justice-Re?orm.pd?
Pew Charitable Trusts, “Growth in Federal Prison System Exceeds States’,” January 22, 2015 http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/?act-sheets/2015/01/growth-in-?eder-al-prison-system-exceeds-states
Families Against Mandatory Minimums, “New GA Sa?ety Valve Continues Common Sense Trend,” April 25, 2013 http://?amm.org/new-ga-sa?ety-valve-continues-common-sense-trend/
O?ice o? Governor Nathan Deal, “Deal signs second edition o? criminal justice re?orm,” April 25, 2013 http://gov.georgia.gov/press-releases/2013-04-25/deal-signs-second-edition-crimi-nal-justice-re?orm
Mike Klein, “Georgia Approves Aggressive Blueprint ?or Prisoner Reentry Initiative,” MikeKleinOnline.com, October 31, 2014 http://mikekleinonline.com/2014/10/31/georgia-ap-proves-blueprint-?or-aggressive-prisoner-reentry-initiative/
Naomi Shavin, “A Republican Governor Is Leading the Country’s Most Success?ul Prison Re?orm,”
The New Republic
, March 31, 2015 http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121425/gop-governor-nathan-deal-leading-us-prison-re?orm
Rachel Lu, “Justice Re?orm: Georgia’s Bipartisan Cinderella Story,” The Federalist, March 26, 2015 http://the?ederalist.com/2015/03/26/justice-re?orm-georgias-bipartisan-cinder-ella-story/
Mike Cason, “Alabama prison re?orm passes; governor plans to sign,” AL.com May 7, 2015 http://www.al.com/news/index.ss?/2015/05/alabama_prison_re?orm_bill_cou.html
Pew Charitable Trusts,
Mississippi’s 2014 Corrections and Criminal Justice Reform
, May 2014 http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/Assets/2014/09/PSPP_Mississippi_2014_Correc-tions_Justice_Re?orm.pd?
Rick Green, “Oklahoma governor signs bill to give judges more discretion in sentencing,”
The Oklahoman
, May 4, 2015 http://newsok.com/oklahoma-governor-signs-bill-to-give-judg-es-more-discretion-in-sentencing/article/5416267
Nicole Flatow, “South Carolina Saved $3M Last Year On ‘Smarter’ Prison Terms,” ThinkProgress, January 17, 2013 http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/17/1464031/south-carolina-saved-3m-last-year-on-smarter-prison-terms/
Robert Gehrke, “Sentences ?or some drug crimes reduced under newly signed Utah law,”
The Salt Lake Tribune
, March 31, 2015 http://www.sltrib.com/home/2353425-155/guv-signs-sweeping-prison-re?orm-education
Conclusion
Conservative states have led the way on justice re?orm over the last decade. By changing the culture o? corrections through sentencing re?orms that limit mandatory minimum prison terms to the most serious o?enders and rely on treatment as an alternative to incarceration, rehabilitative programs ?or those who do serve time, and continued assistance when o?enders reenter society, lawmakers have reduced recidivism, made communities sa?er, and saved taxpayers money.The results ?rom conservative states—these laboratories o? democ-racy—are key as members o? Congress look ?or ways to deal with the ?ederal corrections system, which has seen explosive popu-lation and cost growth o? its own since 1980. This is ?ederalism in action. Through sentencing re?orms and a ?ocus on treatment as an alternative to incarceration, the ?ederal government can lessen the cost-burden on taxpayers by using the lessons ?rom the states to get smart on crime.Conservatives have embraced the justice re?orm movement, and they should continue to do so. While passed with the best o? in-tentions, the policies o? the past have proven unsustainable, both in terms o? the ?iscal cost and the negative impact on poor and minority communities. The model that conservative states have provided ?undamentally changes the nature o? the approach. Pun-ishments are, o? course, still meted out by courts, but the sentences given o?er a means ?or o?enders to alter the direction o? their lives. One such example is a woman named Sarah Gilleland, whose sto-ry was told by Gov. Nathan Deal in a joint session o? the Georgia General Assembly in January 2012.
“Sarah was a drug addict. The drug use that began as recreation resulted in a destructive cocaine and methamphetamine addiction. It took control o? her li?e. At one point, she had no means o? transportation, she lost custody o? her little girl, she wound up homeless,” Deal explained. “But I mention Sarah tonight because she exempli?ies many o? the goals we hold ?or our corrections system.”“Under the supervision o? a drug court, piece-by-piece, she began rebuilding her li?e. With help, she beat addiction, she won back her daughter, she is now a sponsor helping other women who ?ace the same trials, and because she provides a power?ul example o? hope and redemption, I have asked her to join us in this chamber tonight,” he said, pointing to Sarah in the gallery o? the chamber. “Sarah was given a shot a better li?e and she took it. Her story is not the exception, it is playing out all across Georgia as people reclaim their lives through the work o? accountability courts.”
“That is why we must ?ocus on trans?orming our corrections system into a last resort o? opportunity—a place where low-level o?enders are reclaimed and restored to society as ?unctioning members o? the community—working to support their own ?amilies and paying taxes,” he added.Compelling stories such as this are not just told in Georgia, they are also told in other states that have adopted conservative justice re?orms that ?ocus on rehabilitation, rather than incarceration. And as more states and the ?ederal government adopt the e?ort, more prison space will be reserved ?or the worst o?enders in society, while those who have demonstrated a willingness to change their lives become productive citizens.
http://www.freedomworks.org/content/federalism-action-how-conservative-states-got-smart-crime |
