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Texas' largest counties sending fewer to TYC

The number of juveniles sent to youth prisons from Texas' largest counties dramatically declined after 2007 - when the Legislature implemented reforms at the Texas Youth Commission in the wake of a sex abuse scandal - demonstrating the remarkable extent to which state and local decisionmaking drives incarceration policy as much or more than crime rates. This chart (compiled from data published here) depicts those declines, which by far were steepest in Houston and Austin:Bottom line, if Texas decides to incarcerate fewer people, the experiment with juvenile prisons shows the state can do so. Those declines mainly represent local judges and prosecutors deciding to utilize prisons less and focusing more on probation, with the net result of roughly halving TYC's inmate population...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on August 01, 2010 (boomark / email).