Texas Pols Look to Treatment to Ease Prison Crowding April 5, 2005
News Summary
Despite building enough prisons to house 150,000 prisoners, Texas' corrections system is bursting at the seams. As a result, lawmakers are casting a fresh eye on addiction treatment and other alternatives to incarceration, the Associated Press reported April 4.A bipartisan group of state lawmakers is developing a plan to expand treatment and probation programs for low-level offenders, utilizing up to $88 million in state funding. Currently, the state has just 2,400 treatment beds for criminal offenders.
The plan marks a dramatic shift from 2003, when legislators voted to cut funding for prison-based treatment programs, which only caused recidivism rates to shoot up. "The problem is, you go into prison a drunk, you come out a drunk and we haven't accomplished a thing," said Sen. John Whitmire (D-Houston), chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.
Lawmakers see treatment and probation as a more palatable alternative to building up to five new prisons over the next six years to meet increased demand.
COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE: