Guest column by Marc A. Levin
AUSTIN - Confronted with the staggering costs of the state prison system,
the Legislature appears ready to replace the longstanding policy of "lock 'em up and throw away the key" with "don't build
it and they won't come."
Although Texas prisons are at capacity, the Texas House and Gov. Perry
have signaled their opposition to constructing new prisons. Prosecutors and judges now will be forced to rely more on alternatives
to incarceration, particularly probation, for nonviolent offenders.
However, this change will succeed only in reducing crime and relieving
the burden on taxpayers if the probation system is reformed. Currently, half of all probationers have their probation revoked,
and these probationers serve an average of 4.5 years in prison. Probation must evolve from a revolving doorway to prison into
a gateway to responsibility, restitution and rehabilitation.
The ultimate goal should not only be to prevent future crimes, but -
using supervision, treatment and the threat of prison - to encourage probationers to put their own lives in order while working
to heal the wounds they inflicted on their victims and community. Almost by definition, a reformed probationer is in a much
better position to do this than a prison derelict.
The Legislature must solve several fundamental problems with the probation
system.
First, multiple violations by a probationer, short of committing
another crime, often result in no punishment at all and are followed by yet another violation that leads to a long prison
term. The Texas Senate's Criminal Justice Committee passed legislation to create a progressive sanctions program. Examples
of such sanctions include a night in a county jail, a curfew, a fine, and mandatory counseling.
Several Texas jurisdictions have demonstrated the effectiveness of progressive
sanctions. Judge Bradley Smith founded a Special Sanctions Court in Fort Bend County that has reduced the number of probationers
sent to prison for rule infractions by 63 percent. San Patricio County has achieved similar reductions in both revocations
and recidivism.
Among the sanctions that must be available are commitment to residential
drug or mental health facilities or work restitution centers. Unfortunately, these facilities have waiting lists of up to
six months because the number of beds has declined from 4,751 in 1995 to 2,800 today, due primarily to decreased legislative
funding. Yet a 1999 study by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice found 70 percent of probationers who complete these
programs do not have their probation revoked, realizing a 39 percent savings to the state compared to the cost of revocation
and incarceration.
Second, probation officers often fail to provide adequate supervision.
This is, in part, because each probation officer is currently asked to oversee 150 probationers. A study by the Manhattan
Institute recommends the ratio be less than 100 to 1. Probation officers also should shift from a 9-5 weekday schedule to
a flexible schedule that includes monitoring of probationers on nights and weekends, when they are most likely to step out
of line. Also, rather than relying only on office appointments, probation officers should visit the probationer in his neighborhood
and engage his family and neighbors.
Community supervision must be active rather than passive, with the goal
of fostering compliance with probation conditions rather than waiting for a violation.
Success must be measured not by how many probationers are supervised
or imprisoned, but by how many succeed in refraining from further crime, compensating their victims, and becoming productive
members of society.
Finally, the stick
that goes with this carrot must really be a stick. The San Antonio Express-News recently reported: "Convicted criminals themselves
sometimes prefer a short state jail sentence to probation." The expansion of prison manual labor programs that produce goods
and services could encourage offenders to accept probation and deter them from violating probation conditions, while also
providing a funding source for compensating victims.
Legislators pressed for cash are ushering in a new era of Texas criminal
justice in which it is the key to the prison bulldozer that is being discarded. To achieve the benefits of this change, we
must also reform the probation system so it corrects the behaviors that lead to crime, rather than serving as a halfway house
to the big house.
Marc A. Levin is the director of the Center for Effective Justice
at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit research institute based in Austin (www.texaspolicy.com).
