BREAK THE CHAIN

If all the people in the Texas criminal justice system lived in a
single community, it would be the fourth largest city in Texas. More
than 700,000 Texans are either behind bars or on probation.

By 2040, the number of incarcerated could balloon to more than
340,000, according to the state demographer. If state leaders and
prison officials consciously set out to create the least effective,
most destructive, fiscally unsound prison system possible, they
probably couldn't match the irrationality of what we have. The
system's reckless disregard for reality fails inmates and guards, and
imperils every Texan.

That Texas prisons are hellish--violent, unsanitary, and cruel--is
not news. The longest-running prison litigation in U.S. history, Ruiz
v. Estelle, amply documented that fact. Federal oversight of the
Texas prison system ended in 2002, but conditions can still only be
described as abysmal.

From October 2006 to October 2007, 12,806 Texas inmates reported
injuries requiring care beyond routine first aid. According to the
federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, Texas accounted for 36 percent
of all inmate rapes nationwide in 2005.

It's unsettling to realize that many free-world Texans take a
perverse pride in how vile the prisons are. The harsher the
punishment, the more effective the deterrent, they figure.

If only it were that simple.

Even locked inside, prisoners are part of the community.

Texas recidivism rates are among the highest in the nation.

Approximately 30 percent of released offenders will be locked up
again within three years, according to a 2006 legislative report.

Hepatitis C and other infectious diseases rage through the system.

When ex-convicts try to reintegrate into society, they bring all the
dysfunction of the system with them. This is to say nothing of the
broken homes they leave behind when they go inside.

For those tasked with guarding Texas inmates, the situation is
equally bleak. The Texas system is short approximately 3,000 guards.

In the last six years, 30,000 correctional officers have left--that's
5,000 more than the total number still working, according to AFSCME,
a union that represents prison guards.

It's more than just low pay that's driving guards away. Exit
interviews reveal that 28 percent left because of poor working
conditions. And no wonder.

From August 2006 to August 2007, inmates attacked Texas prison
officials an average of 86 times a month. Legislative efforts to
improve working conditions by improving training, advancement
opportunities, and grievance policies were vetoed by the governor.

Folly seldom comes cheap.

Between 1980 and 2002, Texas increased prison capacity by 127,000
beds at a cost of $2.3 billion.

Voters just approved $233 million in bonding authority to build three
more prisons without considering how much it will cost to operate
them. Building prisons and increasing sentences is like crack cocaine
for ambitious politicians. There are nearly 2,000 felonies in the
Texas penal code. Between 1997 and 2002, the average amount of time
served by prisoners increased 83 percent in part because of harsher
sentencing laws.

It doesn't have to be this way. Increasing parole rates for
nonviolent, first-time offenders by only 4 percent would eliminate
the need for any new prison beds in the short term, according to the
Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. The group's Web site
(www.criminaljusticecoalition.org) has a number of commonsense
solutions to prison overcrowding, including increased drug treatment
and probation reform. For what we spend on each addict in a Texas
prison, five could be given drug treatment at nearly the same cost.

The time to act is now. Texas is on the precipice of a huge
demographic boom. We can no longer afford to make the prison system
the drain of choice for societal ills best handled in a less punitive fashion.