Activists are mapping a path to end arrests for possession and broaden the state's medical marijuana program ahead of the next legislative session.

Read the rest of this article at the Texas Observer.

Lawmakers in Texas say their efforts to reduce prison sizes and costs offer lessons for Oklahoma, where corrections officials are seeking hundreds of millions of dollars to build new ones.

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

The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, a research and advocacy organization on CJ reform, has just issued a report on the use of probation for youthful offenders in Texas.

Read the rest of this article at The Austin Chronicle. 

A coalition of health and advocacy groups have jointly developed recommendations to address substance use disorder in Texas.

Read the rest of this press release here.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is backing an effort to keep defendants with violent pasts behind bars. On Tuesday, Abbott appeared in Waco to ask state lawmakers to pass a new law that, among other things, would require judges to set bail based partly on whether the accused person is a threat to law enforcement. 

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

Drug abuse is involved 70 percent of the time when Texas Child Protective Services removes children from their families. Half of the inmates in county jails across the state have demonstrated a need for drug treatment.

Read the rest of this article at the Houston Chronicle. 

The consensus was clear at the state Capitol among criminal justice and Child Protective Services professionals facing the nation’s opioid crisis: Texas needs more treatment options.

Criminal justice and child protective services professionals told legislators Tuesday that the state is severely lacking in treatment services to combat the opioid crisis and other substance use problems.

Read the rest of this article at the Austin American-Statesman. 

The Texas Criminal Justice coalition calls for reforms to community supervision that are “developmentally appropriate” to young people who age out of the juvenile justice system but are still too immature to understand the consequences of their behavior.

Read the rest of this post at The Crime Report.

Coding bootcamps for prisoners have been around since 2014, but they used to be exclusively for men. Girl Develop It is one of the women-led programs tackling that problem.

Read the rest of this article at Broadly.