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Printable Versionwww.marlinde mocrat.com TDCJ still on track to open medical facility in FY 2012 \ In May 2007 Senators Kip Averitt and Jim Dunnam secured $3.5 million for renovations to the building that once housed the Thomas Connolly Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital on Ward Street in Marlin. The five-story building, which was officially transferred to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) from the federal government in December 2008, is to be used by TDCJ for a long-term medical facility for incarcerated offenders. They also procured another $10 million for first year operating expenses. Reopening of the hospital under TDCJ is expected to produce approximately 140 jobs and have 250 beds. As of February 2010, $1 million of the $13.5 million allocated for renovation work has been spent but due to the condition of the hospital and the renovations necessary, this facility will not be operational until the beginning of fiscal year 2012. These renovations will be slow and costly but, according to Dunnam's office, everything is still on track. Some of the funds earmarked for the facility may be diverted to help cover a state budget shortfall, with officials projecting the figure to be as high as $21 billion. As a result, Gov. Rick Perry asked most state agencies to come up with a plan for lowering spending by 5 percent. To meet that goal, the state prison agency would have to eliminate $294.3 million from its budget. Although the agency is asking the governor's office for an exemption from most of that amount, it found $50.4 million in cuts it said it could carry out without major repercussions. The $10.3 million that were included in the proposed cuts were to cover operating expenses during the 2011 fiscal year, and since the building will not be ready until FY 2012, it will not affect the renovation process. To get the facility up and running, the agency will include a request for first-year operating funds in the 2012-13 budget. The VA stopped using the facility as a hospital in 2002 and operated only an outpatient clinic there until 2005. ================================================ Thursday, July 01, 2010 Dropping the baton: Is recidivism the wrong metric for measuring reentry success? At yesterday's House Corrections Committee hearing, Dee Wilson of TDCJ's new Reentry division likened the failures of the criminal justice system to a dropped baton in a 4x100 relay. Cops hand inmates off to jails who hand them off to probation or prison, she said (probation can also "hand them off" to prison), then prison hands them off either to parole or to society at large through direct discharge. At too many points in the process, she said, institutional players drop the baton, often because of a failure to share information, accurately assess inmates, and act on those assessments. Half of the 72,000 people released from TDCJ each year are "flat discharges," said Wilson - people with whom the system loses contact entirely after their release. Ironically, flat discharges have slightly better recidivism results overall than people on parole, even though they're unsupervised and can't access services. That's in part because many are older inmates who served their full sentences are far less likely to recidivate (which is the case with older inmates generally). Drilling deeper into the data, though, one category of flat discharges has among the highest recidivism rates: State jail offenders, particularly those with mental health diagnoses. Texas' 3-year recidivism rate, said Wilson, is 27.9%, compared to 44% in Florida and New York and 58% in California. However, Becky Ney, a consultant from the National Institute of Corrections, said she didn't know if Texas' lower recidivism rate is inherently good or bad, and I'd tend to agree it's an open question. All else being equal, it could mean Texas does a better job at rehabilitation. OTOH, it could also mean the state is sending people to prison who aren't really that big a threat and just aren't likely to return. (See past Grits discussion of Texas recidivism rates here and here.) Jerry Madden at one point suggested that recidivism may be the wrong metric to watch, that there should be metrics documenting success instead of only failure. I agree. If Texas successfully reduces the number of low-risk offenders in prison, that may reduce crime overall but recidivism may increase for the more hardened inmates who remain. It'd be more probative to identify measurements of success to monitor - getting an ID, a home, a job - instead of focusing exclusively on recidivism. Posted by Gritsforbreakfast at 6:03 PM Labels: House Corrections, Recidivism programs, reentry This is an update with more information:Friday, July 02, 2010 The contract: A reasonable alternative to adjudicating low-level offenses? Before I leave the subject of Wednesday's House Corrections Committee meeting, one more idea from Harris County DA Pat Lykos that might be more widely applicable. She said her office has instituted community supervision by "contract" with some 2,200 juveniles in lieu of formal adjudication, saying it's not really true that juvenile records are closed. When the contract expires, there is no formal criminal record. The catch: In some cases prosecutors have been forced to file charges in order to access services for youth, said the DA. That's pretty pathetic, when you think about it. Basically, kids can only get help when they screw up. The "contract" idea reminds me of a program described on Grits a few years back "In South Australia [where] many low-level juvie cases are handled not through the courts but through agreements extracted through a police officer with youth and their parents that keeps them out of the system entirely." I mentioned earlier the suggestion that drunks and druggies might be taken to "detox centers" instead of jails to sober up without going through formal adjudication, and it's possible this "contract" model might be a good mechanism to enforce limited supervision terms on such offenders. So tell me, gentle readers, what potential benefits and drawbacks of the idea come to mind? Posted by Gritsforbreakfast at 5:35 PM Labels: District Attorneys, Harris County, juvie corrections, Restorative Justice 5 comments: Anonymous said... grits - did the harrris da tell you the outcomes of the 2200 juvies who contracted with her? who did the supervision? how long have they been doing this? what level of offense? sounds a lot like deferred adj. to me. most larger counties defer adjucicate hundreds per year with about a 20% reoffending rate. tell it all, brother, tell it all. 7/02/2010 08:24:00 PM Whitney said... I know the Governor's Office gets lots of money (or at least used to a few years ago when I worked there) for "juvenile justice" grants, many of which were targeted at intervention for "at risk" youth, or youth who had had contact with the criminal justice system. I wonder where these funds could come in here, perhaps as a type of diversion program or program for low level offenders... 7/02/2010 10:18:00 PM Anonymous said... I understand trying to find solutions for juvenile offenders, but the question presented here is about adult offenders if I understand correctly. My first question is exactly why would this be a consideration for adult offenders? Are we concerned that individuals are being prosecuted that you feel should not be, and so they are innocent of any wrong doing to begin with? Or, are we concerned that these sorts of crimes are creating an impact on the jail overcrowding issue, and this is some sort of possible solution? Or, are we concerned that these individuals should be receiving treatment in order to change their behavior, and this is some sort of possible solution? Or, are we concerned that prosecuting such cases is too costly and this boils down to economics, and so this is some sort of possible solution? Please shed some insight on the purpose. 7/02/2010 10:39:00 PM Gritsforbreakfast said... I'd say your last three reasons all apply in varying degree, 10:39. 8:24, the DA didnt' "tell" me anything, I'm quoting from her public testimony at a hearing. I don't know the answers to your questions. 7/03/2010 06:52:00 AM Anonymous said... Deferred Prosecution(aka "the contract") is a statutory scheme in the family code, not to be confused with adult deferred adjudication. 7/03/2010 08:00:00 AM

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