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Truth in Sentencing Budgets: How the Lege boosts prison expenses without paying for it

At the Dallas News, Terrence Stutz provides that paper's biennial recounting of new criminal penalty increases passed by the Texas Legislature that go into effect tomorrow ("In Texas, penalties rise for senior fraud, graffiti, drive by shootings," Aug. 31). Writes Stutz,In all, more than a dozen laws boosting the penalties for certain crimes will go on the books Tuesday.Legislators raised the stakes even as they have tried to control the size and cost of Texas' prison system. Some critics question whether increased mandatory jail time for various offenses makes sense."Here's a list compiled by Stutz of some of the new criminal penalty increases. This was actually a relatively light session as far as so-called "enhancements" - some sessions the Lege passes dozens of these things, but restraint in the Senate Criminal Justice Committee combined with the meltdown in the House in the final days kept the number of penalty hikes relatively small this time around...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on August 31, 2009 (boomark / email).