Texas Tough (Texas criminal justice)

“Texas tough” can apply to any number of things, from boxers to automobiles to HEB pansies. In 2000, the Justice Policy Institute (a George Soros-backed think-tank) issued a report on Texas criminal justice titled Texas Tough. In 2003, the JPI issued Texas Tough: Three Years Later.  The term “Texas tough” most often refers to the “tough love” of the Texas criminal justice system.
 
 
Austin Chronicle
HOME: FEBRUARY 9, 2007: NEWS
‘Texas Tough’ Sex Crime Wave Hits the Dome
BY WELLS DUNBAR
 
The headline topic at the inauguration early last month was re-incumbent Rick Perry’s dark admonitions concerning rogue states, terror cells, AIDS, and genocide, the guv’s transparent attempt to position himself on the national stage. Lite Gov. David Dewhurst, similarly yearning to follow Perry at the Mansion, pandered rightward here at home – no less frighteningly – making the cornerstone of his talk “child sex predators.” Advocating a minimum 25-year sentence for child sexual assault – a “Jessica’s Law” (named for slain Floridian Jessica Lunsford, whose father Mark appeared in Dewhurst’s campaign ads) – Dewhurst said he hopes to do one better: enacting legislation giving two-time sexual assailants the death penalty. “Two strikes, and you’re out, forever,” said Dewhurst. “There’s tough, and then there’s Texas tough.”
 
Justice Police Institute
For Immediate Release: October 1st, 2000
Contact:  Jason Ziedenbberg, Vincent Schiraldi (202) 737-7270
 
Texas Tough?
 
Washington, DC: The Texas prison system grew faster than any other prison system in the country during the 1990s, adding nearly one out of every 5 prisoners to the nation’s prison boom. In a new study to be released by the Washington, DC-based Justice Policy Institute on August 29th, the criminal justice think tank found that one out of every 20 adults in Texas were either in prison, jail, on probation or on parole. There are more people in prison in Texas than in any other state, and Texas’ incarceration rate is second only to Louisiana.
 
“Out of every 20 adult Texans you meet, one is under criminal justice control,” stated Vincent Schiraldi, the Institute’s Director and report co-author. “The sheer numbers of people in prison and jail in Texas are signs of system fixated on punishment, and devoid of compassion.”
 
Other significant findings reported in the study include:
 
Texas just earned the dubious distinction of having the largest prison population in the country (163,190), surpassing the prison population of California (163,067), which has 13 million more citizens than Texas. The Lone Star State has more than 700,000 of its citizens under criminal justice control.
 
The average annual growth of Texas’ prison population during the 1990s (11.8%) was not only the highest growth in the nation, but was almost twice the average annual growth of the other US states (6.1%) during the 1990s.
 
If Texas were a country, it would have the highest incarceration rate in the world, easily surpassing the United States and Russia, the next two finishers, and seven times that of the next biggest prison system in China.
 
Blacks in Texas are incarcerated at seven times the rate of whites, and nearly one in three young African American men in Texas is under some form of criminal justice control. The incarceration rate for Blacks in Texas is 63% higher than the national incarceration rate for blacks.
 
Despite adding more than 100,000 prisoners this decade, Texas’ crime rate has declined more slowly than other large states. Between 1995 and 1998—the last year for which data is available—the percentage drop in the overall number of index crimes in Texas was half the percentage drop in the number of index crimes nationally, and the lowest of the five largest states. The Texas crime rate also experienced a slightly lower percentage decline than the national average, and was the lowest among the five largest states.
 
There are 89,400 people being incarcerated in Texas for non-violent crimes. Standing alone amongst the states, Texas’ non-violent prison population represents the second largest incarcerated population in the country (after California), and is larger than the entire prisoner population (violent, and nonviolent) of the United Kingdom-a country of 60 million people, or New York, the nation’s third largest state.
 
The Institute drew a specific comparison between Texas and New York, the state closest in size to Texas. During the 1990s, Texas added more prisoners to its prison system (+98,081) than New York’s entire prison population (73,233) by some 24,848 prisoners. This means that the number of prisoners that Texas added during the 1990s was 34% higher than New York’s entire prison population. While Texas had the fastest growing prison system in the country during the 1990s, New York had the third slowest growing prison population in the US. Over all, during the 1990s, Texas added five times as many prisoners as New York did (18,001). Yet since 1995, the study found that the percentage decline in New York’s crime index was four times greater than Texas’ percentage decline in crime and New York’s crime rate dropped at twice the rate of the Lone Star State. Texas’ current incarceration rate (1,035 per 100,000) is 80% higher than New York’s (574 per 100,000), yet Texas’ crime rate (5,111 per 100,000) is 30% higher than New York’s (3,588 per 100,000). In 1998, Texas’ murder rate was 25% higher than New York State’s rate.
 
“If locking more people up really reduced crime, Texas should have the lowest crime rate in the country,” says Jason Ziedenberg, Senior Researcher at the Institute and report co-author. “The cost of having 1 in 3 young black men under criminal justice control is a steep price to pay for the states’ lackluster crime declines.”
 
Open Society Institute
Texas Tough: Three Years Later
Justice Policy Institute
 
In August, 2000, the Justice Policy Institute reported the significant role Texas had played in prison expansion in the United States. Today, Texas’ prison population is once again on the rise, and state legislators and policymakers are at a crossroads:either policy changes will be enacted to reduce the state’s incarcerated population, or the state will once again expand the number of prison beds. As Texas contemplates how to reconcile public safety, fiscal health and community justice through its corrections system, the Justice Policy Institute updates some of the startling statistics that define the Lone Star State’s prisoner dilemma.
 
Google Groups: newsguy.us.crime
Newsgroups: newsguy.us.crime, newsguy.us.state.texas, newsguy.us.region.central, newsguy.living.lifestyle, newsguy.world.gov, newsguy.pub.world.gov
From: UPI
Date: 1998/02/18
Subject: (UPDATE) Bush calls for more juvenile facilities
Bush calls for more juvenile facilities
 
MARLIN, Texas, Feb. 18 (UPI) - After getting a first-hand look at a juvenile lockup in Central Texas, Gov. George W. Bush has called for more room in Texas Youth Commission facilities for violent juvenile offenders.
 
Bush today called on the Legislature to approve an additional 330 secure beds for the TYC in the 1999 regular session. The space is needed, he said, because juvenile justice reforms enacted in the last two sessions mean that youthful offenders are spending more time behind bars.
 
Bush said, ``We are making progress, but we need to make sure we have adequate space to enforce strict consequences for bad behavior.’’
 
Bush made his remarks after touring the Marlin Orientation and Assessment Unit in Marlin, just east of Waco. He called the facility an example of Texas’ “tough-love’’ approach to juvenile crime.
 
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Word Mark BUILT TEXAS TOUGH
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