Don't get arrested in Texas

Texas is the nations leader in locking people up.

Long known for its tough-on-crime image, Texas on Thursday was hailed nationally for a package of reforms designed to curb its wildly growing prison population. But even as lawmakers were lauded for innovative programs for drug and alcohol abusers, Texas pushed past California to become the nation's leader in putting people behind bars.

Texas, said the new Pew Center on the States report, had 171,790 prisoners on Jan. 1 - down 326 inmates from Dec. 31, 2006. California, which long had led the nation in inmates, reduced its prison rolls by 4,068 during that period.

Nationwide, the study found one in every 100 adults is locked up in state and federal prisons or local jails. Of the states with the largest prison systems - those with 50,000 or more inmates - Texas, California, New York and Michigan reduced their offender populations in the past year.

Between 1985 and 2005, the study said, Texas' prison population quadrupled. Even after spending $2.3 billion to add 108,000 prison beds, crowding continued. As many as 17,000 more prisoners were expected to be incarcerated within five years.

Faced with the prospect of spending an additional $523 million for new prisons, Texas legislators last year virtually remade the corrections system, the study said. Key changes included dramatic expansion of drug treatment programs and so-called "diversion" beds, broad changes in parole practices and increased use of drug courts.

The reforms could save the state $210 million over two years. With the new measures in place, authorities anticipate no prison population growth in the next five years.

2 lawmakers credited

Acknowledging "it's going to take hard work to get it all to work," study director Adam Gelb credited state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, and Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Plano, corrections committee chairmen of their respective houses, for crafting the legislation and getting it passed.

"Government effectiveness and efficiency are better targeted at high-risk dangerous offenders and incarcerating them for long periods of time," Gelb said. "People want violent and career criminals behind bars. But they don't want to spend $24,000 a year on a cell for minor violators any more than they want to pay for a bridge to nowhere."

`Tough but smart'

"There is no compromise on public safety," Whitmire said of the new programs. "They're tough but smart on fighting crime."

The legislation will create 500 single-occupancy cells for inmates incarcerated for substance abuse offenses. "Right now we've got 5,500 inmates incarcerated for DWI - three or more offenses," Whitmire said. "They're in the general population, sharing a cell with a murderer or a rapist. ... Rather than putting them in a hard two-man cell, we've gotten smart and are putting them in a treatment program."

Additionally, he said, 6,000 new beds will be created at intermediate sanction facilities. "We're sending literally thousands of probationers to prison on technicalities - failure to appear, failure to pay probation fees," Whitmire said. "We take all these requirements seriously, but we need to be smart on how to use prison space."

The intermediate lockups would hold lapsed probationers up to 60 days to contemplate their transgressions. "It's not a feel-good soft-on-crime place," Whitmire said.

The Pew report lauded the state's efforts at creating drug courts, legal proceedings that direct non-violent substance abusers to treatment programs rather than prison.

Laura Flynn, director of Harris County's five-year-old drug court program, said 155 offenders are currently enrolled in treatment programs; 58 others are completing probation after treatment; and 60 have met their probation requirements.

Only 7.8 percent - about half the national average - returned to court within a year of leaving the program.

In September, the number of criminal court judges hearing such cases doubled to four.

Don't be fooled by the rhetoric. In Texas a treatment program is just another prison but with a nicer name.