The national prison system holds 2.1 million people, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. By June 2003, Texas had 164,222 inmates, leading the nation with the highest prison population.
To address overcrowding issues and the increased rate of inmate induction, state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, and Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, have filed bills, scheduled for committee hearing today, to reform sentencing and probation.
The prison reform legislation comes in response to other lawmakers' prison enhancement bills that would add even more inmates to a prison system almost at capacity.
The reform plan would increase judges' flexibility in imposing sentences, allowing them to set conditions for early release, including drug treatment followed by community service and other self-help programs. By decreasing prison sentences and establishing programs for early probation, Whitmire and Madden aim to avoid having to build more state prisons.
"It was believed that if we were to continue down the same course, we would have to build five new prisons," said state Rep. Aaron Pena, D-Edinburg, budget and oversight chairman of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. To avoid that outcome, Pena said his strategy is to "divert people who have drug and mental-heath issues into treatment and then fill the jails with the most serious offenders."
More than half of Texas inmates are imprisoned for drug-related charges, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Madden's reform bill, HB 2193, will be heard today by the House Corrections Committee. He said the bill provides for expansion of bed space for nonviolent offenders in local mental health and drug treatment facilities and increases the number of probation officers.
"We are in the process of reconsidering the entire probation system, and it needs modernization and updating," Madden said.
Madden said his bill would not affect sentencing or probation for violent criminals. Instead, he said, it focuses on preventing nonviolent offenders from committing violent crimes caused by alcoholism, drug addiction or mental health problems through treatment and rehabilitation programs.
Numerous prison enhancement bills in the Legislature increase punishments for various offenses, such as dog attacks and theft from vending machines.
Pena said although they contribute to overcrowding, enhancement bills are inevitable because of their value as criminal deterrents. He signed several bills that increase the punishment for burglary of a motor vehicle from a misdemeanor to a felony. Pena said impetus for the bill came out of increasingly organized car burglaries, especially in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio.
"We wanted to target the organized, repeat offender," Pena said. To this end, Pena's version of the bill would make vehicle burglary a felony on the third offense. According to the Legislative Budget Board, Pena's proposal would result in 80-percent fewer new prison inmates than an earlier proposal that would make car burglary a felony on first offense.
By limiting the scope of enhancement bills and steering non-violent criminals into treatment instead of incarceration, Pena said he believes a prison-overcrowding crisis can be avoided.
Whitmire, author of prison reform bill SB 1266, was unavailable for comment Wednesday.
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