Dallas Morning News Editorial Board
Time now for a quick refresher on the Texas prison system's boom decade,
the 1990s, when the state opened the almost unbelievable number of 73 new lockups – 29 in 1995 alone: Capacity tripled.
Criminals lost the revolving door that had spun them in and right back out because of overcrowding. It looked like penitentiaries
had a cell for anyone who could be put on the bus to Huntsville by tough-on-crime prosecutors.
Things have changed in the new millennium. The prisons are near capacity
again.
Warning against needless resumption of building, Sen. John Whitmire
of Houston is calling on colleagues to douse their eagerness for new laws that would jam prison buses full of new convicts
– especially the nonviolent kind.
Mr. Whitmire maintains that today's 154,700 prison beds are enough, if
used wisely. And so he has qualms about the wisdom of 100 bills that have been filed this session to stiffen sentences or
add felonies to the 1,900 already on the books.
Through a key committee chairmanship, he vows to block expensive bills
he considers of marginal value to public safety. Block away, senator.
A House-passed bill by Rep. Vicki Truitt of Keller is on a collision
course with Mr. Whitmire. It would upgrade car burglary from misdemeanor to felony and create enough convicts each year to
keep a new 500-bed prison full. Under the bill, a 16-year-old who reached into a car and swiped a stack of CDs would be eligible
for a felony record and two years in state lockup, instead of today's one-year max in county jail.
Leading lawmakers are concerned that state prisons continue to get a
steady stream of nonviolent offenders who are better dealt with in treatment or probation programs. That's especially true
of low-level drug offenders or many convicted of DWI. Such prisoners need not compete with hardened criminals for space behind
bars.
As Mr. Whitmire says, "Prisons ought to be for people who want to rape
you or shoot you or murder you."
