Prison budget crunch invites innovation
Texas began 2017 as the nation’s leading incarcerator, with roughly 150,000 men and women in state prisons and jails operating at an annual cost of more than $3 billion.
The Legislature and state officials are under pressure to cut that budget by $250 million or more. Perhaps with a little imagination, Texas also could become one of the country’s leading innovators in closing, consolidating and repurposing some of its facilities while reaching those budget goals.
One way to do that is to build on prior changes and to increase diversion of individuals convicted of non-violent and lower-level felony offenses into less-expensive, evidence-based rehabilitation programs. Lawmakers are considering proposals to reclassify low-level felonies to misdemeanors that would do just that. In recent years 29 states have adopted reforms that scaled back the scope and severity of their sentencing policies and began shrinking their prison populations and budgets.
A new report by The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C. criminal justice think tank, notes that declines in state prison populations across the country and the shifting politics around mass incarceration have created opportunities to downsize prison bed space. Since 2011 at least 22 states have closed or announced closures for 94 prisons and juvenile facilities, a reduction of more than 48,000 beds and an estimated savings of more than $345 million.
Texas has been slower than many states to reduce its prison rolls. California, New York, Rhode Island and New Jersey each have reduced their prison populations by more than 20 percent from peak levels over the past 15 years, with no adverse effect on public safety. Mississippi and South Carolina reduced the number of people behind bars in their states by 18 and 11 percent, respectively. Texas now houses about 10 percent of the 1.5 million people in state prisons across the country, at a national average cost of about $54 a day per prisoner.
Local communities often resist prison closures that can cost jobs and tax revenue, but shutting down older and under-utilized prisons can lead to new beginnings. For example, when state lawmakers decided not to renew the contract for a co-gender prison in Dallas, Dawson State Jail closed in 2013. It was operated privately but owned by the state, and the shutdown opened up new development opportunities for the Trinity River Corridor Project. New houses, condominiums, office buildings and shops and restaurants are sprouting up where the operating prison had been considered an inhibition to development. The city of Dallas hopes to buy it outright or collaborate with developers, possibly for a hotel or residential tower.
Urban prisons easily lend themselves to new purposes. The closure of the medium-security Arthur Kill Correctional Facility on New York’s Staten Island led to a local company planning to buy the facility for $7 million and use it as a movie studio, investing another $20 million.
In Tennessee, the rural Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary, where Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin James Earl Ray was held, closed in 2009. A private consortium is transforming the site into a tourist attraction that includes a distillery, restaurant, horse trails and campgrounds.
Prison closings also offer an opportunity for state officials and communities to rethink spending on public safety and shift priorities from costly prisons to interventions outside of the criminal justice system. Reimagining uses for closing prisons and thinking about less expensive substitutes for incarceration can only benefit Texas taxpayers and those directly affected by the justice system.
Porter is director of advocacy for The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice research group in Washington, D.C. Kirby is Criminal Justice Programs Director for Grassroots Leadership in Austin.