Criminal Law

Juvenile justice hearing in Texas Senate; House committee will discuss drugs and violence on border

Posted on April 13, 2010
The Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee has announced a hearing on Thursday, April 29, to discuss three interim charges related to juvenile justice, including oversight over the new diversion grants which pay counties to find alternative placements for youth who would otherwise end up in state juvenile prisons...

Top earning jailers make more than judges in Harris County

Posted on April 13, 2010
It's hard to imagine that the top earning jailers in Harris County earn upwards of $150K per year, but that's the case thanks to an overstuffed, understaffed jail that pays out oodles of overtime, the Houston Chronicle reports ("Taxpayers get tab for OT at Sheriff's office," April 12):In a 4,300-employee department, the 67 who earned at least $50,000 in overtime last year accounted for $4...

Labor force changing in front-line criminal justice fields

Posted on April 12, 2010
Here are a pair of headlines that to me seem at least partly related:50 year old prison guard dies after fitness test, andIn down economy, police agencies seeing older, more weathered recruitTexas Department of Criminal Justice guard Robert Goodley was not a new recruit, but he was participating in a trial-run of a fitness test that new TDCJ recruits must already undergo and all COs will soon have to complete...

New payphones fully rolled out in Texas prisons, says vendor

Posted on April 12, 2010
Making Texas the last US state to provide regular phone access for prisoners, the vendor chosen to install Texas' prison phone system has completed installation at all of TDCJ's 112 units, the company reports in a press release:Embarq Payphone Services, Inc...

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Forensic commission should 'reconsider' rules, pull Willingham case out of stacked committee

Posted on April 11, 2010
From Dave Montgomery at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram ("Texas Forensic Science Commission to reopen discussion of Willingham case later this month," April 10) we get a few more details that appear to confirm my earlier suspicions that the "rules" newly appointed Chairman John Bradley insisted on creating for the Texas Forensic Science Commission were really a ruse to waylay the Todd Willingham investigation, postponing the Commission's results until after the next election cycle...

Noticias de Mexico

Posted on April 11, 2010
Speaking of Mexico, here are several other MSM items related to our southern neighbor and the cartel wars that merit Grits readers attention in light of recent events:Explosive device damages US consulate in Nuevo Laredo'House of Death' drug informant freed, won't be deportedMexicans fleeing violence facing reduced US visa limitsUnion Pacific: Fines and forfeiture from Mexican routes unfair to freight haulerUS blacklists Mexican businesses tied to drug smugglingSheriff to Texas border town: 'Arm yourselves'Stratfor: Mexico and the failed state revisited

"Tweeting Danger": Open sourced intelligence on cartels happening with or without law enforcement

Posted on April 11, 2010
The part of the headline in quote marks is the title to a Texas Observer story about social media filling in gaps in MSM reporting on the Mexican drug war because of cartel murders and intimidation of journalists, with texted photos and brief, tweeted descriptions often the main sources of news coverage...

Female guards biggest source of inmate sex abuse allegations

Posted on April 09, 2010
One excellent result from the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) is that we're getting for the first time a more accurate picture of sexual assault behind bars that in many ways defies the usual stereotypes. A Houston Chronicle editorial this morning ("Stopping prison rape," April 9) remarks on the results of a study authorized PREA which showed several Texas prisons led the nation in alleged sexual assaults on inmates:Even by the standards of the Texas justice system, the number of rapes committed in our prisons is astounding...

Texans and Pardon Power

Posted on April 09, 2010
A couple of posts related to Texans caught my eye at the excellent blog Pardon Power:The Very Colorful Joe Don Looney, andHow the Media [and Lyndon Johnson] Killed the CommutationAnd as a bonus, here's a pardon story that starts in Louisiana and ends up on Galveston Island:Madison's Pirate Pardon: Celebrating New Orleans' Jean LaFitte

El Ganador: AP calls La Batalla de Ciudad Juarez for the Sinaloa Cartel

Posted on April 09, 2010
Remarkable, if true. According to AP:After a two-year battle that has killed more than 5,000 people, Mexico's most powerful kingpin now controls the coveted trafficking routes through Ciudad Juarez. That conclusion by U.S. intelligence adds to evidence that Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's Sinaloa cartel is winning Mexico's drug war...

Michigan's new corrections mantra: "Get out and stay out"

Posted on April 08, 2010
While the Texas Legislature is not in session this year, other states are struggling to cut corrections budgets because of the budget slump, notably Michigan. Now the focus has gone from "lock 'em up" to "get out and stay out," reports the Detroit News ("Michigan prisons focus on released inmates," April 7):Michigan's prison system has undergone a culture change from locking up law breakers for as long as possible to being more selective about whom to put behind bars, state Corrections Director Patricia Caruso told officials at a prisoner re-entry conference Tuesday...

Where's Waldo? Questioning the Forensic Science Commission chairman in absentia

Posted on April 08, 2010
Apparently there was quite a kerfuffle yesterday at the House Public Safety Committee meeting in an oversight hearing involving the Forensic Science Commission in which Chairman John Bradley declined to participate. In his stead sat two current members of the commission, Garry Adams and Sarah Kerrigan, and former member, Aliece Watts, who I understand was particularly critical of the new direction the commission has taken (backward)...

Spillover: Is a Texas prison gang responsibile for half the violence in Juarez?

Posted on April 08, 2010
Members of a Texas prison gang are working as contract killers and may be responsible for the murder of three Americans including an El Paso Sheriff's deputy, as well as half of the drug-related slayings in Juarez, the Washington Post reported over the weekend ("New adversaries in Mexican drug war: Contract killers for Mexican cartels," April 4):A cross-border drug gang born in the prison cells of Texas has evolved into a sophisticated paramilitary killing machine that U...

'Buyers behind bars'

Posted on April 08, 2010
You don't think of prisoners as big consumers, but the title of this post is the headline to a Texas Tribune story by Matt Stiles on how Texas inmates spend $95 million per year - mostly on food products, as it turns out, and not particularly healthy ones...

Levin: Time to Rethink What's a Crime

Posted on April 07, 2010
The prolific Marc Levin at the Texas Public Policy Foundation last month published a short paper (pdf) titled "Time to Rethink What's a Crime." Here's a notable excerpt:Texas can?t arrest its way out of a recession, but many policymakers act as if we could...

Forensic Science Commission under review at Public Safety Committee today

Posted on April 07, 2010
The Texas House Public Safety Committee will meet this afternoon to discuss a pair of interim charges, and I'm told the Forensic Science Commission will be among the agencies discussed during the agenda item to "Monitor the agencies and programs under the committee's jurisdiction...

TYC eliminating employee positions at two, soon-to-be-closed units

Posted on April 07, 2010
TYC had already announced it would close the West Texas State School in Pyote as well as the Victory Field Correctional Academy in Vernon this August, but they're eliminating all employee positions there as of June 1. TYC executive director Cherie Townsend sent out this letter on Monday notifying employees of the move...

Incarceration for DWI fails without treatment

Posted on April 07, 2010
In the Dallas News, Christy Hoppe has a story voicing concern that next year's budget cuts at TDCJ could wipe out already sparse treatment funding for DWI offenders, reacting to a terrible case where a repeat drunk driver plowed drunkenly into a family from Lewisville, killing a mother and daughter ("Prison budget cuts threaten treatment programs for repeat DWI offenders," April 7):Most drunken drivers like John Patrick Barton mark time in the Texas prison system without specialized treatment, only to return to the streets and potentially to their drinking...

Texas' medical parole process praised: Recommendations are timely, but parole board fails to act

Posted on April 07, 2010
Having recently discussed the Texas parole board's failure to act on 90% of medical releases recommended by TDCJ, I was interested to see via Doc Berman that the Vera Institute just published a new study titled, "Aging Prisoners, Increasing Costs, and Geriatric Release" (pdf), which includes a discussion of Texas' program...

Texas prison inmates spending $100 million per year: On what?

Posted on April 06, 2010
In preparation for a forthcoming article, Matt Stiles at the Texas Tribune just put online an interactive dataset on the subject of "What Texas inmates buy." The answer: Far and away mostly food, followed distantly by grooming materials, stamps, and clothing...

Former House Corrections Chairman: Don't make same mistake as in 2003, close older, expensive prison units to save money

Posted on April 06, 2010
I'd somehow missed two notable items first published in February on the blog of Ray Allen, a past Republican chairman of the Texas House Corrections Committee (and in the interest of full disclosure, a former campaign client). See:Livingston Announcement Rooted in Practical Political RealityTDCJ Budget Cuts Pretty Much as ExpectedBoth these posts, I think, are for the most part right on the money...

Hockley Sheriff removed from office by jury after civil trial

Posted on April 05, 2010
Using a mechanism I didn't know existed until recently, the Hockley County Sheriff was removed from office last week after a civil trial in which jurors found him incompetent. Reported AP:The 12 jurors deliberated less than three hours before 10 answered 'yes' to three of 17 questions pertaining to Kinney's competency as sheriff...

Dumb on crime: Kansas cuts diversion programs keeping prison pop down

Posted on April 05, 2010
Kansas is headed down exactly down the path I fear Texas may go if state officials don't seriously consider closing unneeded prison units in the coming legislative session: The Jayhawk State is dismantling treatment and diversion programs that received national acclaim, risking an unintended rise in incarceration costs if more offenders on probation and parole are revoked...

Grits comments submitted on Driver Responsibility rules

Posted on April 05, 2010
Today is the deadline for commenting on proposed Department of Public Safety rules to create an indigency program for the Orwellian-named Driver Responsibility surcharge. Find Grits' complete comments and suggested amendments to the proposed rule here...

Prosecuting Dad when Mommy kills

Posted on April 04, 2010
I couldn't disagree more with columnist Jacquielynn Floyd at the Dallas News, who finds praiseworthy a 10-year sentence for a father whose wife killed her child in an episode of postpartum psychosis. She thinks:there's a moral equilibrium, a sort of righting of the ship, that comes with judicial recognition that a father who leaves his child with a psychotically sick wife is guilty of more than just bad luck...

Police, judiciary costs rising as well as prisons

Posted on April 04, 2010
This blog focuses a great deal on prison costs, but the chart below from the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that costs for police and the judiciary have also been escalating over the past 25 years:Here's a link to the data underlying the chart. There's a lot of inflation represented in these numbers; i...

Texas leads nation in reported prison rapes

Posted on April 04, 2010
According to the Austin Statesman, Texas prisons stand out as experiencing a disproportionate number of prison rapes. The story opens:Each week, the staff of the prison watchdog group Just Detention International receives about 30 letters from inmates who say they've been sexually assaulted in prisons across the nation...

Holy crap! Mexican border prisons under seige

Posted on April 03, 2010
A Valley TV station reports:Three inmates at a Reynosa prison are dead following a Friday evening attack by armed men.The Tamaulipas Ministry of Public Safety (SSP) reported that gunmen tried to seize the "Centro de Ejecución de Sanciones" or CEDES prison around 7 p...

Some TX federal judges not waiting for Congress to fix crack sentencing disparity

Posted on April 03, 2010
Setting aside federal sentencing guidelines SCOTUS has declared voluntary, several federal judges in Texas including, most recently, Judge Leonard Davis in Tyler, have decided to reduce the disparity in drug sentencing for crack and powder cocaine, reports Jason Trahan at the Dallas News Crime Blog...

Tarheel prison units closed with budget cuts, Michigan may expand good time

Posted on April 03, 2010
I've been paying attention to what other states have been doing to reduce corrections costs and noticed this item out of North Carolina describing how, on April 1, the Tarheel State completed the process of closing seven adult prisons:Today?s closure of McCain Correctional Hospital in Hoke County marks the end of eight months of work to close seven prisons and convert several others as ordered by the legislature in the 2009-10 budget...

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