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McReynolds: Prison cuts ‘could have rippling effects’ across Texas

February 20th, 2010

Lufkin Daily News

by Larissa Graham

The three largest agencies of the Texas criminal justice system face a proposed 5 percent budget cut in their 2010-11 biennial budgets. So do other state agencies, but state Rep. Jim McReynolds (D-Lufkin), chairman of the Texas House Corrections Committee, said the prison cuts could actually lead to more people being sent to correctional facilities.

“We must be cautious in making many of these cuts, as they could have rippling effects across our state,” McReynolds said.

The cuts will affect the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission (TJPC) and the Texas Youth Commission (TYC).

A 5 percent budget cut to TDCJ’s budget means a reduction of $294.3 million this biennium, executive director Brad Livingston said.

“For this agency, cutting the first $50 million is not terribly painful,” McReynolds said. “It’s that next $250 million that’s really painful. These cuts could spike a dramatic increase in those being sent to prison and could see a rise in recidivism, meaning those being sent back to prison.”

Livingston asked the directors of the Governor’s Office of Budget, Planning and Policy, as well as the Legislative Budget Board, for an exemption from all but the first $50.4 million of the proposed cuts, TDCJ representative Jason Clark said.

To save the initial $50.4 million, TDCJ will begin with cost-saving hiring freezes for nonessential personnel, complemented with a budget cap on capital items like vehicle purchases. These and several other cuts will, McReynolds hopes, reduce costs while preventing future public safety issues.

”If you reduce the criminal justice budgets too much, you can compromise public safety,” McReynolds said. “Under no circumstances will we ever do that.”

Besides providing incarceration for approximately 155,000 inmates in the 112 adult facilities across the state, TDCJ also oversees parole in Texas. In 2009, more than 80,000 offenders were released from Texas’ penitentiaries and state jails.

“For the past several years we have invested dollars in treatment services for those released from prison,” McReynolds said. “These programs include mental health services, drug therapy and a host of others.

“Without these important programs and careful oversight by our parole officers, offenders re-offend and are revoked back to prison. Texas has been successful in reducing adult recidivism and has one of the lowest rates in the nation.”

In addition to cuts in numbers of parole officers and treatment options, community probation services may face potential cuts as well.

“Our 122 adult probation departments across Texas may face significant cuts in the monies they receive from TDCJ,” McReynolds said.

In the past few years, more state dollars have been sent to local adult probation departments to help reduce caseloads, allowing the officers to invest more time and efforts with their probationers. McReynolds is fearful that cuts to probation, what he calls the “front end of the system,” means more people being sent to prisons, which he said is cost-ineffective.

The second agency hard hit by these cuts is the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission, a granting agency to the 166 juvenile departments across Texas.

“Although the number of juveniles being referred to juvenile probation has been declining since 2000, nevertheless, there are approximately 40,000 children annually being placed on juvenile probation,” McReynolds said.

Because of recent reforms to the Texas Youth Commission, juvenile departments can no longer send misdemeanants to state correctional facilities.

“This puts more and more pressure on our juvenile departments in keeping these troubled kids in the community, hence the need for these important grants,” McReynolds said.

State dollars are mixed with local dollars in providing services and treatment for juveniles on probation.

“The 5 percent cut to the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission will undoubtedly spike the number of juveniles who will be sent to TYC,” McReynolds said. “And it’s very expensive to incarcerate a child.”

The Juvenile Probation Commission is “strictly a pass-through agency and retains only 2 percent of its budget on salaries and overhead,” he said.

Juvenile minds are still developing, McReynolds said, “and with special people who care, there are ways to turn them around. If you can reach a juvenile and help them stay out of the criminal justice system, you save a lifetime of incarceration and a bundle of money. I’m hoping there’s absolutely no reduction in dollars to TJPC.”

The Texas Youth Commission, which handles juvenile detention, faces a $20.1 million budget cut.

“Juveniles who are considered a harm to their community, a danger to public safety, and have committed a serious felony crime are sent to TYC for rehabilitation,” McReynolds said. TYC was budgeted 2,400 slots for its 10 institutional facilities and nine halfway houses for 2010-11. Fortunately, only 2,100 of those slots are currently filled.

“We allocated those slots because the TYC juvenile population is determined by sentencing judges across the state and we never know when we set our budget exactly how many slots to have open,” McReynolds said.

Not filling these unused beds is a great cost savings to the agency, making the TYC’s 5 percent reduction easier than in other agencies, McReynolds said. Further savings could be had by the early closure to two of its facilities which were only budgeted to be kept open through fiscal 2010, he said.

“Making budget cuts is never easy to do, especially when you were prudent in setting the budget in the first place,” McReynolds said. “In Texas, where one person out of 22 is on probation, incarcerated or on parole, precious dollars and resources must be spent first to protect public safety. Secondly, they must then be spent on evidence-based programs that help redeem lives and keep people out of prisons.

“We won’t know which reductions will definitely have to be made until summer. Everything is in transition, and obviously we’re going to have to make some hard decisions when we get back to session next January,” McReynolds said.

State Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee and McReynolds have made plans to jointly visit with state leadership regarding criminal justice reductions, McReynolds said.

Larissa Graham’s e-mail address is lgraham@lufkindailynews.com.