The attitude seems to be, that whether anyone wants the jail or not, they will have it! Whether the jail is needed or not, it will be built. The real question is: Why? Why is the commissioners court so dead set on building a jail with all the evidence against it? What is to be gained by such arrogance and obstinacy? Is it economic, political, or personal? It would seem to be one of these options, but which?

My tendency is to believe that in most matters of this type money is the motivation, but I do not see that in this case. At least no evidence of this has come to our attention.

The idea of political motivation is a possibility, but lacks sanity. The political atmosphere would seem to be against building the jail, and against higher taxes. The Incarcerex political motive doesn’t seem to hold water in a county so justifiably opposed to tax increases. Furthermore, running the jail in the same race as the school bond would seem to be political suicide with those who favor education over incarceration, as, for instance, educators.

What personal reasons could exist? I will have to pass on this one, other than to say that if it is some sort of supremacy issue, a political urinating contest, it should cease!

This was originally posted on 11/15/07, about what we expected to be the next move. I found it, and wanted to post it here. Seems pretty much on target, except that it took till November.

Posted by 1jeffersonian at 11/15/2007
Jailzilla Lite, Coming soon to A voting Booth Near You?
There are some of us who wonder if the outrageous figures presented in the last bond election might not have been a not so clever ploy to get taxpayers to say yes to jailzilla lite in May. Jailzilla lite. It is less filling than their regular jail and it tastes, well, you be the judge.

You are not going to solve the problems with the Smith County Jail, by building it a section at a time. There is only one cure for a jail that has gone from 28 inmates a day in the late 70′s to 950 inmates per day in 2007. (I understand that the population has increased, but not that much.) That is, to start solving the underlying problems. Why are so many being arrested for so little at such great expense to all?

If my calculations are correct, a new proposal will come to the surface that offers a baby Jailzilla with potential room for growth, at a cut rate price, more palatable for the population. Beware of such proposals! They have a tendency to grow during the birthing process. Once that camel gets it’s nose in the tent, it just keeps inching in until both humps are inside.

Besides that, we still have the problem, if it increased from 28 to 950 in thirty years, think of what it will be in thirty more! If the growth rate stays steady, it would be enormous, if it grows exponentially, as it seems to be, the figures go from enormous to astronomical! Tourism will have to be increased, just so they will have someone to arrest!

There has to be another way.

Like I said in an earlier post, at the current rate, we don’t need a jail, we need a fence.

It costs more than 29 thousand dollars a year to house an inmate in the TDC. That is not counting all the peripheral cost just to get him there. It costs much less to provide an education!

This aspect of criminal justice is one of the least tapped in the whole field. The fact is, that it is probably the highest common denominator in criminal justice, and gets the least attention. Looking at the rates of recidivism in Texas, and across the country, the answer becomes obvious. The State of Texas found that there is 20% lower recidivism for those who received a GED certificate and completed a vocational training while in prison.

Stopping crime before it starts.

The impact of education can not be taken lightly when it comes to avoiding the sort of lifestyle which might lead to incarceration. All of the studies, of which I am aware, say the same thing: The better the quality of the education, the less the chance of ending up in prison!

Prevention costs less.

The cost of education is a real bargain compared to the cost of prison, and that does not factor in the cost of the impact of committed crimes, or the cost of the process of getting the convicted person into the prison system to begin with.

Education is not the only factor, but it does seem to be a major factor, and may well be the major factor in this debate.

Why build a jail now?

This adds an ironic poignancy to the debate concerning the Smith county jail bond. It says something about the mindset of our county officials when they choose to present a jail bond package on the same ballot as a school bond package. It is illustrative of the fact that they either don’t understand the situation, or don’t care! I am not sure which is preferable, ignorance, or indifference, but it comes out the same.

This situation is even more dramatic, when you see that the programs and policies of our courts are lowering the incarceration rates, and that these programs are being increased, which will undoubtedly further reduce the numbers in the county facility to meet jail standards.

According to 2007 prison statistics, 1of every 21 adults in Texas are either incarcerated, on parole, on probation.

Texas adults with arrest warrants is over 10%.

From 1978 to 2004, the state population increased by 67%.

During the same period, Texas prison population increased by 573%.

Things considered felonies in Texas, 2,324 of which, Scott Henson points out, 11 involve oysters!

Source: Grits For Breakfast. These statistics have been checked against the official state records, and have been found to be accurate. Some of the statistics are worse than they appear to be, but are based on the latest available records.

A few thoughts on these stats:

If one out of 21 adults in Texas are “in the system,” and at any given time, another 10% of the Texas adult population is available for immediate arrest…well, do the math!

If the population increased by 67%, and the prison population increased 537% during the same period, we are either getting a much larger criminal population from out of state, growing new criminals at an accelerated rate, becoming criminals at an accelerated rate, or there is an official push to put more of us behind bars. Perhaps all of the above.

I think the most likely source of the increase is the next stat quoted above. We have so many things that are considered felonies in our state, that everyone becomes a criminal at some point during the week. If you fall out of favor with the local constabulary, it is almost certain that you have broken some law worthy of arrest. If you make breathing a felony, you can arrest anyone, at any time!

As for the part about oyster felonies, well…

“Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it…”

No, I am not talking about falling in love, I am talking about the ability to make distinctions. The ability to choose to swallow something that is beneficial, to the swallower, over something that might look good at the time, but not be so pleasant during the regurgitation. I have seen a somewhat disturbing trend develop in response to the bond issues being brought before the people this November. That trend, is the tendency to lump all entities together, as though the school bond, and the jail bond are all one giant conspiracy to rob us of our money. Let me try to offer a different perspective.

The TISD bond proposal is a part of an ongoing plan to bring the local school district facilities up to a level that should have been attained some time ago. The jail bond is a plan that is half backed, half cocked, and totally unnecessary. There are alternatives that work much more efficiently, and much, much more economically.

Seeing the two issues brought up together in this way, should invite some obvious comparisons, and correlations.

The rate of recidivism in state prisons, has a direct correlation to the education of the individual, therefore, it would seem that the better the quality of education, the lower the rate of both first time entry, and reentry into our perpetually clogged system. What does that mean in terms of tax dollars and cents over the long haul? If you want it in purely economic terms, it can be boiled down to this: It costs less to provide education than to provide cell space!

Whether the current school bond proposal is the right one for us at this time, well, that is up to the local taxpayer to determine, but lumping it together with the jail bond, as though they were part and parcel, is an error! In fact, the Commissioners court should be ashamed of presenting the jail bond on the same ballot as the school bond. It is wrong on so many levels that it would take pages to drill through them all.

We should be able to make distinctions, whether they are philosophical, or economic. In this case, the philosophy and the economy both fall on the same side of the issue. School is cheaper than prison!

Besides, it just makes more sense. Education now, or incarceration later.

This is the statement made by Commissioner Fleming during a couple of interviews on local television. It is a pat answer intended to condescend to and shame any poor unlearned, ignorant souls, you know, like, anyone who would oppose the new jail plan.

Well, bless her heart, she has forgotten that the remedial order does not say that we must reduce overcrowding by building a new jail.

This would be sort of funny were it not so sad. The Commissioners Court has had ample opportunity to exercise it’s authority and bring about the changes that are needed to provide a long term solution to the overcrowding problem. Had they availed themselves of such opportunities, we would not even be talking about this issue now. The problem would be only a bitter memory. It is their failure as a court to take such actions that puts us in this awkward position today! Sadly, we are putting incarceration ahead of justice.

Lest you think that it is only liberal, left wing bleeding hearts who believe this, (I am a Libertarian myself) take a look at the people who have been proposing the alternatives. Truly, one example will do. Judge Kent, and other jurists who could hardly be seen as being soft on crime, have presented us with some well thought out ideas that not only will work, but have already been working, right here in Smith county. The Commissioners court has shown gratitude for this near heroic effort by eliminating funding for one of the ideas, before the bugs were worked out. It is their obstinacy that stands in the way of fulfilling the demands of this remedial order!

And, for the record, I don’t mind being condescended to, I have reached a stage in life where I realize that condescension of this type shows the lack of understanding in the one doing the condescending.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is dead. I heard the news as soon as it became public. I wanted to write some type of tribute to the great author, but could not come up with anything I thought fitting, or worthy of the Nobel Prize winning author of “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” and “The Gulag Archipelago”, so I hesitated, and procrastinated, knowing that anything I might say, would be insignificant, or sound downright corny. One thing that anyone who has read any of the authors works, or knows anything about his life should know however, is that you should never be halting in speaking the truth.

Solzhenitsyn’s works should be an eye opener for everyone, particularly those dealing with the issue of over incarceration, and for that reason, they are particularly applicable to a community preparing to vote on a jail bond issue. Having said this, I now let the author speak in his own voice through my favorite passage:

“A district Party conference was under way in Moscow Province. It was presided over by a new secretary of the District Party Committee, replacing one recently arrested. At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stood up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference at every mention of his name). The small hall echoed with “stormy applause, rising to an ovation.” For three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, the “stormy applause, rising to an ovation,” continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. And the older people were panting from exhaustion. It was becoming insufferably silly even to those who really adored Stalin. However, who would dare be the first to stop? The secretary of the District Party Committee could have done it. He was standing on the platform, and it was he who had just called for the ovation. But he was a newcomer. He had taken the place of a man who’d been arrested. He was afraid! After all, NKVD men were standing in the hall applauding and watching to see who quit first! And in that obscure, small hall, unknown to the Leader, the applause went on–six, seven, eight minutes! They were done for! Their goose was cooked! They couldn’t stop now till they collapsed with heart attacks! At the rear of the hall, which was crowded, they could of course cheat a bit; clap less frequently, less vigorously, not so eagerly–but up there with the presidium where everyone could see them? The director of the local paper factory, an independent and strong-minded man, stood with the presidium. Aware of all the falsity and all the impossibility of the situation, he still kept on applauding! Nine minutes! Ten! In anguish he watched the secretary of the District Party Committee, but the latter dared not stop. Insanity! To the last man! With make-believe enthusiasm on their faces, looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood, till they were carried out of the hall on stretchers! And even then those who were left would not falter. . . . Then, after eleven minutes, the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat. And, oh, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved! The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel.

That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them. That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different. But after he had signed Form 206, the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator reminded him: “Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding!”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The Gulag Archipelago