Policy Background

Texas’ state jail system was originally intended to divert people with nonviolent drug and property offenses from crowded prisons and instead offer them rehabilitative services in localized facilities, followed by community supervision. However, because the state did not adequately fund rehabilitative services, the 8,000 people in state jails today have extremely limited access to treatment and programming options, and typically have no post-release supervision.

Policy Background

In 2017, more than 800,000 people were arrested in Texas – 147,000 for drug violations alone.¹ According to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, low-income people with substance use disorder must wait weeks for intensive residential treatment, outpatient treatment, and Medication-Assisted Treatment.² People in need of co-occurring psychiatric and substance abuse treatment must similarly wait we

Doug Smith, a senior policy analyst with the nonprofit Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, says lawmakers never delivered on the rehabilitation-focused approach they had promised. Without re-entry planning, ongoing mental health care and other rehabilitative programs, many formerly incarcerated Texans have little chance of reintegrating into society. 

Read the rest of this article at the Texas Observer. 

“Any criminal justice researcher will tell you that the people who are least likely to [commit the same crime over again] are people who have committed violent crimes,” said Doug Smith, a senior policy analyst at the non-partisan Texas Criminal Justice Coalition who has studied Texas’ reforms.

Read the rest of this article at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 

A bill aiming to detach the ombudsman from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice died in 2017. But news from the past year makes advocates hopeful that 2019 will be different.

Read the rest of this article at the Texas Tribune.

The liberal Texas Criminal Justice Coalition was a major player in the fight, but it was the support of the conservative TPPF that helped make passage possible in a Republican-dominated Legislature.

Read the rest of this article at Texas Monthly. 

"For 19 black women and a socialist to be elected judge in Houston, which is the epicenter of mass incarceration, is not a small deal," said Jay Jenkins, an attorney with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. "The possibility that we could fix some of the issues that the sitting judges have just proved unwilling or unable to fix is on the horizon."

After losing his bench in a Democratic sweep, Harris County Juvenile Court Judge Glenn Devlin released nearly all of the youthful defendants that appeared in front him on Wednesday morning, simply asking the kids whether they planned to kill anyone before letting them go.

County commissioners change course on substance abuse treatment funding.

Read the rest of this article at the Austin Chronicle. 

"What we ultimately got was a juvenile system where the lawyers get rich ... and everybody wins but the kids." — Jay Jenkins, an attorney from the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, who said Harris County judges and lawyers are part of a "pay-to-play" system.

Read the rest of this article at The Dallas Morning News.