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Rethinking probation as primary punishment

Beaumont probation director Jim Stott offered this optimistic wish in Grits' comments to this post: "I hope that one day, we can effectively argue that prison is the alternative, not probation." That's an at-once ambitious and also a rather pedestrian goal - one that certainly should be achievable if the Texas Legislature continues to focus on the problem.Probation is already the sentence a majority of adult felony offenders receive, but the adult system is still heavily reliant on incarceration compared to the juvenile courts, where fewer than 2% of convicted juveniles are sent to TYC - a ratio of 50-1 probation/prison. By contrast, the same ratio for adults is around 3-1. So there's a lot of room to move toward greater reliance on beefed up community supervision in the adult system...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on February 11, 2010 (boomark / email).