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by Sheila Hotchkin
Express-News Staff Writer
Faced with the prospect of paying nearly $64 million to rent space in
county jails, lawmakers talked Wednesday about how greater use of probation could be used to make room in state prisons.
The Criminal Justice Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee
heard testimony on how prisons are filling faster than expected and the state will need to find other places to house inmates
by next month.
Even as the crime rate has fallen, the actual number of crimes has grown
along with the state's population, testified Michele Connolly, who analyzes criminal justice trends for the Legislative Budget
Board. And judges are sending more offenders to prison each year without first trying probationary sentences.
Lawmakers said they planned to study ways to instill greater confidence
in the probationary system, and to strengthen it so fewer offenders are sent to prison after their probationary sentences
are revoked.
"If we took all the money that we're spending just on renting beds, it
exceeds the amount in the bill as introduced that we're putting in for programs to try to keep these people from going into
prison," Rep. Pat Haggerty, R-El Paso, said.
Gov. Rick Perry, who didn't attend the hearing, also is looking at ways
to address prison crowding.
"The knee-jerk reaction — 'Let's go build more prisons' —
I don't think is the appropriate response. It's the last response," he said. "There are better, more efficient ways to deal
with the prison population than to build more prisons."
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