If Texas justice reforms were so great, why does the state still have nation's largest prison population?

Texas justifiably gets a lot of credit in the national press for its "smart on crime" probation reforms from 2007, but three sessions have passed since then and far fewer in the national press seem to have noticed that the Texas Lege subsequently has done very little on that front.

California has significantly reduced its prison population, though not to the full extent required by a federal court order. The Golden State reduced its inmate population by 15,035, or around 10%, between 2011 and 2012, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics ("Prisoners in 2012 - Advance Counts"). Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed spending several hundred million dollars per year for private-prison space while the Legislature wants to fund diversion programs. Reported the LA Times, "Brown's effort to comply with the court order has short-circuited some of his previous plans to lower prison spending and end contracts to house inmates out of state. If the Legislature approves his proposal, prison spending will outpace state funding for higher education in the current fiscal year." Whichever side prevails, California has already reduced its prison population until it's lower than Texas, remarkably, even though the Lone Star State has less than 70% of California's population.

Texas' incarceration levels finally appear to have plateaued. Crime rates have for the most part continued their two decade plunge while the overall population boomed. That expanding denominator partly explains why one in 27 Texans were under supervision of the justice system in 2012 compared to one in 22 in 2008. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Texas had the second largest decline in the number of prisoners from 2011 to 2012 after California, down 5,852 inmates from the year before. This drop allowed Texas to close three prison units - one nearly a century old that was a hub from the old convict leasing days and two private units from the Ann-Richards/George Bush-era expansions. No court order required. Grits continues to believe that just a handful of minor policy tweaks would allow the state to close another 5-6 units next session without harming public safety in the least, given current crime rates and imprisonment trends. Looking past California and Texas, among states reducing prisoner populations, those two large states were:

followed by North Carolina (down 2,304). Colorado, Arkansas, New York, Florida, Virginia, and Maryland also reported at least 1,000 fewer inmates during the same period.

Louisiana (up 1,538 prisoners or 3.9%) and the federal prison system (up 1,453 prisoners or 0.7%) reported an increase of at least 1,000 inmates. The prison population in Mississippi, Michigan, and Kentucky each increased by more than 500 inmates in 2012.

Still, there is an enormous qualitative and quantitative difference between Texas and these smaller states that must be fully acknowledged. It only really makes sense to compare Texas to other large states where people actually live. Even by that standard, though. Texas' incarceration levels are still completely over the top. We're just being congratulated for not getting worse anymore! When you hear people say the United States has 5% of the world's population but 25% of its prisoners, Texas is still driving that train. Sure, other, smaller states like Louisiana or Georgia may have higher incarceration rates per capita, but Texas' massive size makes its similarly draconian rates a major driver of the national data.

For a more accurate understanding of where Texas stands in terms of incarceration levels compared to other large states:, see this chart compiled from Bureau of Justice Statistics "Prisoners in 2012" (pdf) and Census data:

Comparing Incarceration Levels in

America's Four Most Populous States (2012)

	Texas	California	Florida	New York
State Pop (2012)	26,059,203	38,041,430	19,317,568	19,570,261
Prison Pop (2012)	166,372	134,534	101,930	54,210
Ratio: State prisoners per 100,000 population	638.4	353.7	527.7	277.0

To be fair, Texas has made progress - especially considering we're Texas and demagoguery about being "tuff on crime" seems to come second nature to our pols.  But any way you slice it, our incarceration rates remain excessive compared to other large states. And there's an extent to which our Legislature can't stop some really bad habits, like creating new crimes, enhancing penalties for existing ones, and pretending any extra, resulting incarceration will all be free. According to the Texas District and County Attorneys Association's count, Texas created a whopping 184 new crimes between 2007-2013, and "enhanced" (read: "increased") penalties for many dozens more. For almost all of these, the Legislative Budget Board said the costs would be too insignificant to include in the budget.

Which brings us back to the question in the title: Texas' reforms occurred at a time (2003-7) when the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) projected the state would need 168,166 prison beds by 2012. Back then, the state's max capacity including private contracts was perhaps 157K. Now, though, instead of far surpassing that, Texas is around 6,000 or so inmates below its max-ever capacity and as of last weekend has closed three large prison units. Texas prisons and state jails house nearly 20,000 fewer prisoners than LBB at one point projected would be the case.*

The Texas Legislature deserves kudos for averting that pointless extra spending. (Helpfully, the crime surge predicted by opponents of probation reform like then Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley never materialized.) But clearly we have a long way to go and in the near term, it's hard to find reason for optimism. Crime is down, but it's down even more dramatically in some of those other large states, particularly New York, where the incarceration rate is less than half of Texas'. Meanwhile, except for Sen. John Whitmire, many of those most intimately involved in the '07 reforms have either left the Legislature or may soon leave. Certainly no one has stepped up to fill Jerry Madden's shoes after the now-retired West Point graduate made this issue his signature, championing bipartisanship in the name of budgetary pragmatism that was praised on both sides of the aisle.

Texas is getting credit lately because it's taken folks from D.C. and New York six years to figure out what happened, and also because Marc Levin, Vikrant Reddy and Co. at the Texas Public Policy Foundation have been at the center of proselytizing the "Right on Crime" agenda outside of Texas to the national conservative movement, which has been a great mitzvah. It's also true that, on the juvenile front, the scale of de-incarceration in Texas has been downright breathtaking. But that doesn't mean our justice system all of a sudden has become some shining beacon of liberty: Far from it. It took more than a decade for Texas to fill its prison system after then-Gov. Ann Richards spearheaded the effort to triple its capacity. Texas has finally stopped prison population growth, but that shouldn't be such a noteworthy accomplishment in an era of declining crime! Three prison closures sets a fine precedent, but any national praise should not for a moment contribute to self-satisfaction nor complacency. In the scheme of things, Texas is still part of the problem in America on overincarceration, not really yet a vanguard charting new solutions.

* At the moment, I can't fully explain the differences between the numbers TDCJ self reports publicly, which is what LBB (not to mention your correspondent) uses, and the higher totals reported in this Bureau of Justice Statistics report. According to BJS, the federal number includes probationers and parolees sent to short-term facilities instead of being revoked to prison or state jail as well as blue-warrant prisoners waiting in county jails for transfer to TDCJ - typically 6-7% or so of local jail populations. Those two factors could explain the difference. Will try to learn more. UPDATE: See a post answering these questions here.