TEXAS INCARCERATION RATE LEADS NATION; CRIME RATE LAGS BEHIND OTHER
STATES

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Texas put people in prison at a faster rate than any
other state during the last decade, but its crime rate is higher than
other large states with smaller prison populations, according to a
study being released Monday.

The report by Justice Policy Institute, which supports alternatives to
prison, showed that the Texas prison population's annual growth rate
was 11.8 percent during the 1990s, which meant it added one in every
five inmates to the nation's prisons.

Meanwhile, the state's crime rate fell at half the national average and
the least of any of the nation's five largest states.

A Texas prison official said the last decade's growth was a response to
a prison revolving door during overcrowded conditions, and the state's
incarceration rate slowed in the latter part of the decade.

The study's authors zeroed in on Texas' prison system after the Bureau
of Justice reported earlier this year that the Texas prison population
of 163,190 had surpassed California's, 163,067. California's population
of 32 million is almost twice that of Texas.

"The sheer magnitude of what is going on in Texas alone is startling,"
said Jason Ziedenberg, the study's co-author.

"Not just that it surpassed California, but if you look at it in the
context of a state like New York with a million or so fewer citizens,
they (Texas) have got double the amount of people behind bars. ...
We're obviously concerned about the state that's responsible for one-
fifth of all new prisoners between 1990 and 1999."

The Justice Policy Institute is a think tank of the Center on Juvenile
and Criminal Justice, and the study was paid for with a grant from the
Center on Crime, Communities and Culture. The groups provide programs
for families of inmates and look for other solutions to criminal
behavior beyond prisons, such as substance abuse treatment.

The study comes as Texas prison officials are pressing for money to
build more lockups and as the inmate population is closing in on the
system's capacity.

Earlier this month, Tony Fabelo, executive director of the state
Criminal Justice Policy Council, told elected officials that without a
change in parole rates and policies for returning parole violators to
prison, Texas will likely need prisons to hold 14,600 additional
inmates by August 2005.

On Friday, Fabelo said Texas' rapid incarceration occurred when the
state went on a prison-building binge. Before that, the state
intermittently released inmates to relieve overcrowding and comply with
court-mandated capacity levels.

"Texas is a very large state with a growing population. In the 1980s,
we had a broken system with a backlog," Fabelo said. "A great deal of
the incarceration has been dealing with the revolving door."

Fabelo said while the incarceration rate grew by 12 percent from 1990-
95, it was 6 percent during 1996-98. "It has slowed significantly and
almost stayed level," he said.

Still, the study's authors calculated that about 5 percent of Texas'
adult population or 706,600 adults were in prison, jail on parole or
probation at the end of 1999.

Meanwhile, Texas' crime rate decline has not fallen as much as in other
large states. From 1995 to 1998, Texas' crime rate fell 5.1 percent,
half the national average drop of 10 percent. Meanwhile California's
fell 23 percent, Florida's 5.9 percent, Illinois' 9 percent and New
York's 21.1 percent, the study said.

"In light of these lackluster results, the architects of Texas' prison
policies should question whether these mediocre crime drops are worth
the social cost the state is paying for having 1 in 20 adults and 1 in
3 young black men under criminal justice control," Ziedenberg and co-
author Vincent Schiraldi said in the study.

Fabelo said making an impact on crime is tougher in Texas, which has
three major cities --Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. In New York, he
said, reducing crime in New York City significantly reduces the
statewide crime rate. The study also showed:

- --Texas has 89,400 people incarcerated for nonviolent crimes, more than
the entire prison population of New York.

- -- Blacks in Texas are incarcerated at a rate seven times greater than
whites.

- -- Probation is given to blacks at a lower rate, 20.6 percent of the
total probation caseload, than whites, 44.9 percent.

In a news release Schiraldi, Justice Policy Institute director, said
the Texas incarceration numbers show its prison system is "fixated on
punishment and devoid of compassion." But Ziedenberg said the study was
not a political swipe at Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the GOP's
presidential nominee. Its timing is linked to the Bureau of Justice
report, he said. He noted that Democrat Ann Richards was in office in
the early 1990s.

On the Net: Justice Policy Institute: www.cjcj.org (study available
Tuesday) Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council www.cjpc.state.tx.us