Reentry: Hamstrung from the start
We're turning out animals, and not only that, their children are learning by watching their parents [and] becoming prison acculturated. There are neighborhoods... in every major city, where prison culture predominates around the 7-11's, where the right of passage is to go to [prison].
"Houston Matters," KUHF 88.7 FM, December 18, 2013
I have no doubt prison can change people -- but focusing primarily on that puts the cart before the horse.
Many of the law-and-order problems we see in Texas' cities are the result of those cities being among the most economically segregated in the country, which concentrates poverty and distances residents from good jobs and other opportunities they need to pull themselves out of poverty.
Economic segregation up in U.S.; Texas cities top list, Dallas Morning News (Aug. 1, 2012)
The Geography of Opportunity in Austin and How It Is Changing, Kirwan Institute (Apr. 11, 2013) (impoverished neighborhoods cut off from opportunity)
It's also a result of Texas spending less on public education than 48 other states. In fact, courts have repeatedly found the Legislatures inadequate funding of education violates the Texas Constitution (it's happened six times since 1984).
Texas now 49th in spending on public schools, Dallas Morning News (Feb. 22, 2013)
Judge Rules School Finance System Unconstitutional, Case Heads to Texas Supreme Court, Texas Observer (Feb. 4, 2013).
Economic segregation up in U.S.; Texas cities top list, Dallas Morning News (Aug. 1, 2012)
The Geography of Opportunity in Austin and How It Is Changing, Kirwan Institute (Apr. 11, 2013) (impoverished neighborhoods cut off from opportunity)
It's also a result of Texas spending less on public education than 48 other states. In fact, courts have repeatedly found the Legislatures inadequate funding of education violates the Texas Constitution (it's happened six times since 1984).
Texas now 49th in spending on public schools, Dallas Morning News (Feb. 22, 2013)
Judge Rules School Finance System Unconstitutional, Case Heads to Texas Supreme Court, Texas Observer (Feb. 4, 2013).
If schools are under-funded they cannot prepare children for the future; and often the most-underfunded schools are in poor neighborhoods, where residents are already isolated from jobs and other opportunities. Of course that causes problems -- revolutions have started for less.
The world's unemployed youth: revolution in the air? The Guardian (Apr. 4, 2011).
And people returning from prison are in an even worse situation. First, Texas has laws that bar ex-prisoners from getting many jobs. Second, and more pervasive, is private discrimination against former-prisoners; it can be next to impossible to get a job or even a place to live because many employers and landlords won't accept ex-prisoners.
Texas ex-offenders are denied job licenses, Austin-American Statesman (Apr. 11, 2011)
HUD: Ex-inmates need help to stay off streets in Houston, Houston Chronicle (Jul. 19, 2011)
Although some states are fighting this problem with campaigns like "Ban the Box," our
States push to provide some ex-felons a second chance, MSNBC (Jul. 21, 2013)
Texas sues EEOC over federal guidance on employer use of arrest and conviction info, ABA Journal (Nov. 5, 2013)
Think of it this way: every year, over 70,000 people enter TDCJ and over 70,000 leave. Only 22% of them people were convicted of a violent crime (which includes everything from murder, to sexual assault, to child molestation). Most are going to prison for a property crime or drug crime. Over half of them are sentenced to 2 years or less; another 25% are sentenced to just 3-5 years. Most never go back, and the older a person gets (no matter their age when originally convicted), the less likely he or she is to be arrested or incarcerated again.
With 70,000 people leaving prison every year, what do you think the impact is on their communities when they cannot get a job or a place to live? That's a hell of a lot of people being disenfranchised from our economy, and they're disproportionately African American and Latino. It's like a permanent depression.
Does this make any sense from a public policy perspective? No, it doesn't. We should be doing everything we can to safely reintegrate ex-prisoners into the world instead of driving them to the edge of desperation. Is it too blunt to point out they're our neighbors, and we live shoulder-to-shoulder with them just about every day?
Reform prisons by ending mass incarceration
About a week later I appeared on "The Prison Show," a well-respected program that's been around for about 30 years. 'The Prison Show' Helps Texas Inmates Find Escape, NPR (Jan. 16, 2012).
"The Prison Show,"" KPFT 90.1 FM Houston, December 27, 2013
The greatest evils I see in Texas prisons are the result of under-funding. For the last decade, Texas has had one of the largest prison populations in the country, both in absolute and relative terms. But the Texas legislature is ideologically predisposed to small government and cutting spending. As a result, the prison system is not given enough money to house its inmates in constitutional conditions.
If Texas justice reforms were so great, why does the state still have nation's largest prison population? Grits for Breakfast (Sept. 5, 2013)
The most expedient way to tackle the worst conditions in Texas prisons (outlined below) would be to reduce the prison population. It costs $18,500 a year to keep a person in prison, and as I mentioned before, we add 70,000 the prison system every year -- about 7,000 of whom were convicted for mere drug possession. Those 7,000 people cost $129,500,000 a year to incarcerate.
Take health care, for instance. Judge William Justice, in the final opinion of the Ruiz v. Estelle litigation, issued in 2001, described extensive expert testimony he received on systemic deficiencies in prison medical care and psychiatric treatment. And things didn't get much better afterwords. TCRP released a report in early 2011, warning Texas prison health care was on the edge of unconstitutionality -- we were spending $9.88 a day on inmate health care compared to California's $28.55 (and California had just lost Brown v. Plata in the Supreme Court, in part because of health care).
Ruiz v. Estelle, 154 F.Supp.2d 975, 987 (S.D. Tex. 2001)
"A Thin Line": The Texas Prison Healthcare Crisis and The Secret Death Penalty, TCRP Human Rights Report (2011).
Then the Legislature slashed $75 million from the health care budget in the "great budget crunch crisis" called the 2011 legislative session (which turned out to be a false emergency -- panic stemmed from a gross underestimate of the state's projected revenue). If an investigation were conducted of prison health care across all 109 state prisons, I think we would find it is deficient to the point of cruel and unusual punishment.
UTMB set to halt prison health care, Houston Chronicle (Oct. 14, 2011)
A Bad Budget Estimate Fit Nicely With Prevailing Politics, New York Times (Jan. 10, 2013)
Keep in mind, $75 million is roughly the cost of keeping 4,000 people in prison for one year.
Now, consider heat. About 90 of TDCJ's 109 prisons were built after 1980. Most fall into two types -- the "Michael prototype," a high security prison modeled on the Michael Unit; and the "bowling alley unit," named for its straight layout, used for state jails, transfer facilities, pre-parole facilities, etc. Both types generate internal temperatures in the summer that are life threatening for inmates (sometimes rising above 130 on the heat index).
At least as early at 1999, Judge Justice expressed concern about prison heat, when an audit revealed 16 inmates at 13 prisons had recently suffered heat illness, three of whom ultimately died. In 2012, prison heat came to the fore again through TCRP's litigation. At this moment we are litigating wrongful death cases out of several prisons of both the Michael-prototype and bowling-alley varieties. This means roughly 90 out of 109 Texas prisons are lethally dangerous every summer for every inmate in them.
Ruiz v. Estelle, 37 F.Supp.2d 855, 905 (S.D. Tex. 1999)
Two Lawsuits Challenge the Lack of Air-Conditioning in Texas Prisons, New York Times (Jun. 26, 2012).
Texas isn't alone -- a judge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana recently issued a 102-page order concluding very similar conditions in the Angola prison were cruel and unusual punishment. He ordered Lousiana to find a way to keep temperatures below 88 degrees in the summer. You can expect to see something similar in Texas.
Judge rules heat levels on Angola death row subject inmates to 'cruel and unusual punishment', The Times Picayune (Dec. 19, 2013)
Further, last summer, the union for TDCJ officers spoke out in support of inmate heat litigation -- in part because 92 officers suffered heat illness the previous year. And it didn't help TDCJ agreed to pay $750,000 to build an air conditioned pig barn. It's rare for inmates and officers to agree on systemic prison issues, which illustrates how horrendous the conditions are in the prisons.
Guards to join convict litigation over hot state prisons, Austin-American Statesman (Aug. 29, 2013)
Extreme Heat Tests Prisons, Wall Street Journal (Oct. 17, 2013)
TDCJ officials have tried to explain-away the lethal temperatures by saying many prisons were built before air conditioning was common. But that's baloney -- the overwhelming majority were built in the 80's and 90's, and those units are also the worst. Don't overlook the fact that every county jail in Texas is required to by state regulation to keep housing areas between 65 and 85 degrees, year round.
Finally, look at under-staffing. Judge Justice observed in 1980 that TDCJ's force of correctional officers was plagued by under-staffing and high turnover, primarily because of low pay, and that it threatened inmates' safety. It's not much better today. TDCJ is unable to fill a couple thousand positions because of low pay and suffer high turnover in positions they manage to fill. As a result, it's no surprise Texas has 5 of the 10 worst prisons in the country for sexual assault of inmates.
Ruiz v. Estelle, 503 F.Supp. 1265, 1288 (S.D. Tex. 1980)
Guard shortstaffing extends to Huntsville-area prison units, Grits for Breakfast (Nov. 29, 2012)
Welcome to Texas, prison rape capital of the U.S., Dallas Voice (Mar. 22, 2012).
Meanwhile, just this summer, TDCJ's leadership gave themselves massive raises between 20-40%, as if they were trying to paint a caricature of bad government. They told the public the raises were necessary to "retain talent," but I'm not sure if the men and women responsible for the problems outlined above warrant keeping.
Texas prison executives’ pay raises trigger new criticism, Austin-American Statesman (Nov. 18, 2013)
Solution: Increase the budget by ending mass incarceration
Sentencing reform would be the quickest and most surefire way to find money to fix the problems plaguing TDCJ. And it is eminently possible.
Texas' record-setting rate of incarceration is not an accident -- which means it can be reversed. Texas' prison population increased by 900% between 1970 and 2010, even though the state population only doubled. It happened because the Legislature began creating new crimes as quickly as laws could be written. Today we have over 2,500 felonies. In the last decade alone, the Legislature has created about 40 new felonies each legislative session, which doesn't include increased penalties for existing crimes.
TCRP letter to Sunset Advisory Committee (Nov. 30, 2011)
Texas criminalized uprooting seagrass, legalized switchblades (but not daggers, dirks, stilettos, poniards, or Bowie knives), Grits for Breakfast (Jul. 22, 2013)
But this trend can easily go the other way. In 2005, the Legislative Budget Board predicted Texas would need to build prisons to house 17,000 new beds at a cost of $2 billion by 2012. In response, the Lege passed reforms that increase the use of probation and parole. Those reforms halted the increasing prison population, and actually decreased it slightly.
Levin: Keep criminal-justice reform ball rolling, Grits for Breakfast (Feb. 3, 2013)
The Legislature should use the same strategy to free up resources to improve prison conditions. If it doesn't, federal courts might force them to.
