Madden Advocates Texas Prison System

Madden Advocates Texas Prison System

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Dear Honorable Represenative Madden:

Thank you for the numerous devoted hours by you to promote a rehablitation system within the Texas Criminal Justice System.

The Voting Taxpaying Citizens of Texas appreciate this help in making a difference.

If we can help to promote this change please let us know because we want to see the change. We want to be proud of our state being a leader and not a follower.

Thank you , 2 Million Plus Member Citizen-in-Action

Representative Madden website with email:

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/dist67/madden.htm

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Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:42:40 -0700 (PDT)

http://www.planostar.com/articles/2007/10/30/plano_star-courier/news/03news1.txt

Madden advocates Texas prison system

By Stephanie Flemmons, Staff Writer

(Created: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 1:03 PM CDT)

“Texas is a leader,” said Jerry Madden (R-Plano). Madden, chairman of the House Corrections Committee and a member of the Justice Center board of directors, met last week with key members of the U.S. Congress. The meetings focused on the implementation of the new criminal justice policies in Texas and potential strategies for federal policy makers to provide support to their counterparts at the state level.

“I was educating congress on what we have done for our criminal justice system,” Madden said. “Specifically, the items we took on the rehabilitation approach. We are doing innovative things for criminal justice.”

During the 80th Texas State Legislative session, Madden tackled the issue dealing with alcohol- and drug-related crimes by authoring bills geared toward lowering the amount of repetitive non-violent offenders and giving them a chance to change their lives through behavior modification programs.

According to Madden, out of 150,000 individuals incarcerated in Texas, 100,000 are non-violent offenders who have committed drug- or alcohol-related offenses.

“Our hope and desire is to break individuals of the habit that got them in prison,” Madden said. “This will make our communities safer when they return to society.” Under House Bill I Article 5, Madden said more than $217 million was allocated toward the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) specifically to create more beds for rehabilitative programs.

During the next two years $17 million will go toward adding 700 beds to intermediate sanction facilities (ISF), $63.1 million to add 1,500 beds to Substance Abuse Felony Punishment Facilities (SAFPF), $21.7 million to add 1,000 beds to In-Prison Therapeutic Communities (IPTC) and $6 million to add 300 beds for halfway house facilities. Michelle Lyons, TDCJ spokesperson, said the state legislature has allotted more funds then requested. She said TDCJ requested 150 additional halfway house beds, but the state granted 300.

“This is an important component,” Lyons said. “We are not going to parole someone to a homeless situation. A lot of times due to the nature of a person’s crime, they have lost touch with family members. Halfway houses give them a place to start.”

She said the turnover for halfway houses is four times every year, so the initial funding allows 1,200 additional placements a year. Lyons said the expansion of ISF beds will result in a reduction of revocations on the probation end, while optimizing the use of ISF placement as a sanction for technical parole violators. She said it will allow for the immediate transfer of these violators from the county jails to the ISF and will reduce the backlog in the county jails.

“ISFs are short-term detention facilities that target offenders who violate a condition of their parole or community supervision,” Lyons said. “Instead of revoking an offender’s supervision and sending them to a correctional facility, these ISF beds are used as an alternative to incarceration, with the length of stay being between 60 and 120 days.”

For offenders subject to intense treatment, judges can sentence them to the 6-9 month SAFPF program. It serves as an intensive substance abuse treatment center that help convicted felons overcome addictive behaviors. SAFPF facilities are secure correctional facilities that use a therapeutic community approach, focusing on individual and group counseling, peer support and achievement goals.

Lyons said upon completion of the incarceration phase of the SAFPF program, offenders are placed in a community residential facility for three months followed by outpatient treatment counseling for up to 12 months.

Lyons said the funding for SAFPF treatment beds will increase the capacity by almost 50 percent.

“Expanding these programs will give judges more sentencing options,” Lyons said. “TDCJ anticipates that the additional SAFPF beds will reduce recidivism similar to that achieved by the existing SAFPF program.” She said TDCJ staff evaluated the demographics of offenders requiring SAFPF placement, and it was determined that of the 1,500 additional SAFPF beds, the need would be for 1,200 male treatment beds and 300 female treatment beds.

The appropriation also includes funding for aftercare in transitional treatment centers and outpatient counseling.

“TDCJ anticipates awarding a contract in January 2008 with an anticipated start-up in February 2008, assuming a sufficient number of proposals were received and vendor construction is not necessary.”

According to Jason Clark, TDCJ spokesperson, there is a 13 percent recidivism rate for offenders who complete a therapy-based program compared to the 27.9 percent rate for those who are sentenced to prison and don’t complete a rehabilitative program.

Madden said it cost the state $42 a day to house an inmate. He said overall it is more expensive to house an offender in a treatment based facility because of the intensity of the treatment. But, the lower recidivism rate and the time spent on addressing substance abuse issues, will ultimately save the state money. “We saved $250 million by not building new prisons,” Madden said. “We will have all the new rehabilitative expansions complete by Dec. 2009. We need to make sure we put them in, so the prison population doesn’t balloon on us.”

Lyons said the state also granted TDCJ with adding 500 beds for Driving While Intoxicated facilities and 1,200 beds from two former Texas Youth Commission (TYC) facilities that will become adult facilities.

“In several of the initiatives, requests for proposals were issued and have been received, and we are now in the process of reviewing those proposals,” Lyons said. “It is still unknown whether a sufficient number of beds will be immediately available for the program expansions to meet the appropriation levels as it will in part be contingent on whether an awarded proposal includes new bed construction by the vendor.”

Madden said each state does different things in their prison system, but he wants to ensure Texas is staying on the cutting edge on ideas. “We need plenty of space to lock up violent predators, but need to focus on having a place to put drug addicts and alcoholics,” Madden said. “We need to fight crime tough and smart.”

Contact Stephanie Flemmons at sflemmons@acnpapers.com