Fitzsimon File

Lawmakers’ perceptions of public opinion—or their fear of it—can differ dramatically from their understanding of what public policy options make the most sense for the state. Nowhere is that clearer than in criminal justice.

Ask legislators individually if it makes sense to divert nonviolent offenders to community programs instead of prison and the majority will say yes. Most will agree that drug courts and other treatment programs that save money and give people a chance to turn their lives around are a good investment.

And many will tell you that minor changes in state sentencing laws that save hundreds of millions of dollars in prison construction and staffing are worth considering, especially when a panel of law enforcement officials, judges, and corrections experts say that adjusting the sentences won’t negatively affect public safety.

But collectively and publicly, lawmakers routinely reject proposals that would reduce or slow the growth of the state’s prison population, now roughly 40,000, and free millions of dollars for other priorities like education and human services.

Monday, lawmakers heard the plea for some sanity in criminal justice policy from an unlikely source, a conservative Republican state legislator from Texas, Jerry Madden. Madden appeared at an N.C. Policy Watch Crucial Conversation Luncheon to talk about what happened in Texas when the state faced an exploding prison population and he was appointed to chair the House Corrections Committee with orders not to fund any more prisons.

Madden approached the problem using his background as an engineer and brought advocates from  the left and right together to listen to their ideas and chose the best from both. And he found problems up and down a state corrections system that housed 150,000 inmates.

Prisoners were not receiving the drug treatment ordered for them. Small technical parole violations were sending thousands of people back to prison. Residential treatment programs were underfunded. So were halfway houses and intermediate punishment alternatives.

Madden and a small group of Texas legislators set out to change things, with the help of Michael Thompson of the Council of State Governments, a nonpartisan group in Washington. Thompson also appeared at Monday’s luncheon.

The results in Texas were startling. More than $450 million in savings over two years and a slight drop in the prison population that had been forecast to sharply increase. And lower crime rates.

And it’s just not happening in Texas. Thompson reviewed the experience of four other states that changed the way they run their corrections system. The problems identified in each place were different and so were the solutions developed by state policymakers.

But the results were the same, million in savings for taxpayers, thousands of people back in the communities where they can get treatment, pay back their victims, and turn their lives around.

Thompson called it a justice reinvestment strategy. It’s really just figuring out why people end up in prison and why so many return after they are released. It includes intervening at several places along the way, from neighborhoods with a large percentage of offenders to probation offices where overwhelming caseloads make meaningful supervision impossible.

The data that Thompson and his colleagues at the Council of State Governments compile often isn’t easy to come by, but the policy options it presents to lawmakers aren’t really rocket science.

Spend more on treatment and reentry programs. Find out why people in certain areas are more likely to wind up behind bars. Design probation systems to help offenders stay out of prison instead of waiting for them to make a mistake that sends them back.

It is an approach that saves money, saves lives, and generally reduces crime. North Carolina lawmakers have heard most of this before and have largely ignored it.

Let’s hope a conservative Texas legislator and crystal clear data finally gets through to them.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 6:54 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.