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Texas' criminal justice challenge in 2010: Find solutions for the coming budget crunch

I have a guest column today over at the Texas Tribune on the subject of Texas' 2010 criminal justice agenda, in which I took the opportunity to make the pitch for planning now how to safely cut corrections spending in ways that protect recent investments in strengthened probation and parole supervision. The article concludes with advice Grits readers have heard before:In years past, when budget cuts were required, lawmakers shielded TDCJ's ?institutional division? (which operates the prisons) from reductions, which meant cost savings instead had to come from treatment and probation programming. But if the state cut off funds for all the new diversion infrastructure created over the last two sessions, we wouldn't actually save money because that's what's kept the prison population in relative check, and the diversion programs are much cheaper than building more units to house low-level probation violators...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on January 18, 2010 (boomark / email).