Who is the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition?

Our mission is to reverse the trend of mass incarceration in Colorado. We are a coalition of nearly 7,000 individual members and over 100 faith and community organizations who have united to stop perpetual prison expansion in Colorado through policy and sentence reform.

Our chief areas of interest include drug policy reform, women in prison, racial injustice, the impact of incarceration on children and families, the problems associated with re-entry and stopping the practice of using private prisons in our state.

If you would like to be involved please go to our website and become a member.


Friday, February 20, 2009

Rehab Instead Of Prison Seems To Be Working

Texas Statesman

Texas’ prison population has stopped growing for the time being, thanks in part to a controversial changes in corrections policy two years ago that ballooned funding for rehabilitation programs, new statistics indicate.

That means Texas will not have to consider building new prisons that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, at a time when the economic collapse is pinching the state budget, officials said today.

”We put 6,000 treatment beds on line in the past two years … and this is the initial result: Just what we expected,” said Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire, D-Houston, who co-authored legislation mandating the greatly-expanded treatment programs in 2007.

Echoing sentiments from colleagues, Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, said the statistics show “a dramatic turnaround.”

Today’s Legislative Budget Board testimony to the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee marked the first public report card on the new programs, which two years ago were championed by corrections advocates as a step forward and opposed by some prosecutors and police groups as too soft on crime.

“Crime is down, the programs are working,” said Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice what operates the 112-prison system. “It’s been proven before that these types of programs have an impact on recidivism, so these new numbers are no surprise.”

5 comments:

David said...

I'll suggest something that would really save money in the prisons = no toilet paper at all. Install bathroom bidet sprayers in all the toilets and all they'll need is a towel to dry off. It's cleaner, cheaper (yes for those who just have to object to everything water is cheaper than toilet paper!), it's better for the environment and it has health benefits like lessening hemorrhoids which would save even more money. If they object? Tough! You're a prisoner! Besides after they try it, like most people, they will like it. As Dr. Oz said on Oprah: "if you had pee or poop on your hand, you wouldn't wipe it off with paper, would you? You'd wash it off" This is a logical, doable and simple way to save allot of money and actually improve the prisoners living standards. But of course like all new ideas people will find countless silly and inane objections, that is the way of things. Theses sprayers are available at www.bathroomsprayers.com I installed mine myself, easy.

Anonymous said...

David...don't smoke before you post

David said...

Anonymous, smoking is your defense against new ideas? How sad for you.

Anonymous said...

The real issue here is the rehab story. Congrats to Texas for there diligent efforts to slow incarceration. Now a step further and start rehabilitating inmates the day they enter prison as well.When there time is served all you need to do is release them. You dont need community corrections and a heard of parole officers!!! djw

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