Texas' New Prison Reforms Are Paying Off
An interesting study on the Texas prison system was done by a subset of the Pew Charitable Trusts--The Pew Center on the States. The Center studies State policy decisions and researches policy interests such as corrections and public safety. The study praised Texas for its 2007 prison reforms which resulted in decreased recidivism rates. The study found that there was a seven percent decrease in the rate of recidivism in Texas from 2007 to 2010. The study examined the number of inmates that went back to prison within three years of being released. The number decreased from 31.9 percent in 2004 to 24.3 percent in 2004.
Some of the things that are substantially helping this number is funding for drug courts, mental health dockets, veterans dockets, and pre-trial diversion programs.
The major problem, as everyone knows, is that Texas (along with every American) is facing severe budget shortfalls. What happens when there are budget shortfalls? Funding for prison and school programs get cut. In Texas, these prison reform programs will become very vulnerable. It will be interested to see what happens to the funding of these programs as the Texas Legislature continues to meet.