'Six Impossible Things': Do you believe in a conservative, rational, and smaller corrections budget?

Grits for Breakfast recently had a post detailing ways in which the Texas Government could help close part of our state budget deficit by making necessary and smart cuts to our prison corrections system. The post, 'Six Impossible Things': Do you believe in a conservative, rational, and smaller corrections budget?' discussed six ideas that our Legislative Budget Board should start to accept as truths rather than as "Impossible Things."

The author examined ideas ranging from shortening incarceration terms, to closing down prisons that have a higher cost per prisoner, to focusing more time and money to the reentry period for prisoners that are released. He makes very valid points. Texas needs to stop being so "tuff on crime" that it makes it impossible to financially house all of the criminals, and Texas needs to focus more on helping people merge back into society so that once prisoners are released, they are able to give back to their community and state.

According to the author of Grits for Breakfaste, the TDCJ (Texas Department Criminal Justice) system spends approximately $17,000 a year on every person that is incarcerated. Seventeen thousand dollars every year. The author makes a point that if we just incarcerate 20 less people each year that would normally have a 2 year term, the state would save themselves $680,000 in expenses, and then the state would also receive tax money from these people. The state would not only be able to lower their budget, they would also see an increase in their income.

Some people might think that if we lower the amount of time that people spend in jail it would mean more time that criminals are out in our communities. I agree, this doesn't sound like a good idea, but if we focus more energy on the probation aspect of reentry into society, the state has a chance to change people and make them contributing people in our communities.