Why Texas Prison System is Harsh Than Other States

Why Texas Prison System is Harsh Than Other States

Towards Better Correctional Facilities: A Case of the Texas Prison System                                           

                                                           ABSTRACT

With more than 2.3 million people behind bars in the United States, the country has the highest prisoner population in the world. Because of this statistics, the country has adopted policies that are geared in ensuring that the country reduces the big number of people languishing in its prisons. As such recent years have seen states cut the number of people in their prisons.

However, Texas state has remained fixated as it still records the largest number of incarcerated people in the country. The state has an incarceration rate higher than the national average jailing about 891 Texans for every 100,000.

Therefore, this paper presents an analysis of aspects in the state’s prison system identifying areas that are very harsh on inmates. The paper also provides recommendations and possible measures than the state can adopt to change the state of affairs. The paper compares Texas’ prison system with that of Illinois and Louisiana in order to foreground the often sharp contrast between Texas and other states.  

Some of the aspects found in dire need of reform include; lack of prisoner wages for the labor in Texas prisons, poor living conditions in the prisons with most prisons lacking air conditioning, poor parole policies adopted by the state making it hard for most prisoners to survive when released, the introduction of controversial video visitation that replaced face-to-face interactions, the throwing 17-year-old teenagers in the adult jails, high cost of medical services in prisons and extended solitary confinement in Texas prisons.

Introduction

The United States is known in the world for it large number of incarcerated citizens. It estimated that more than 2.3 million people are spending time in the country’s jails and prisons. This big number of incarcerated people is as a result of tough war on drugs and crime in the 1990s characterized by tougher laws and longer jail sentences. As such, mass incarceration has seen many Americans especially Black-Americans behind bars serving longer sentences.

However, due to the increased public outcry to do something about the sky-high incarceration rates, both republicans and democrats seem to agree on this one point that the United States should adopt measures and enact policies that will ensure incarceration rates in the country decrease. Policy makers on both these sides agree that the mass incarceration approach of the 1980s and 90s was more than was called for. That is the approach was not the best method to reduce crime rates in the country.  As a matter of fact, incarceration, tough laws and longer sentences have been proven not to have a huge contribution in crime reduction but may have contributed to more crime. Therefore, imprisonment has had negative effects not only to the inmates but also their families and the society in general. In addition, the increasing cost of keeping people in prison has necessitated action to reduce the number of inmates in the country’s jails and prisons.

However, although federal laws and regulations have helped bring down incarceration rates, they need to be supported and complemented by states laws to have real impact on the worrying statistics. This is because only about 13% of the total inmate’s population are held in federal prisons. Therefore, the bigger percent of incarcerated people is in states jails and prisons. In the recent years, there has been positive development towards the incarceration problem. Many states have recorded a significant drop in both the rate of incarceration and crime rates. For instance, there was an overall 8.5% and a 15% drop respectively.

States that have recorded a greater drop are California, Jersey and New York with a state 27%, 24% and 18% respectively between the years 2010-2015.

The Rationale for the Paper

However, alarming incarceration numbers are still recorded in the states of Texas. Texas has the biggest number of people behind bars in the United States. This paper analyzes the Lone Star State’s prison system which is considered one of the harshest in the United States in a bid to understand what are some of the contributing factors to its large number of incarcerated people. The paper begins by providing statistics about the states incarceration rate and numbers then proceeds to analyze some of the aspects of its prison system that are considered very harsh comparing to other states. For comparison, the paper will draw examples from the prison system of Illinois and Louisiana and compares them to that of Texas.

These aspects include prisoner earnings in Texas jails and prisons, the living conditions of the inmates, parole policies in place in the state, the controversial introduction of video visitation to replace in-person visitation, cases of 17-year olds in adult jails, the high cost of medical services to inmates among others. The paper will also provide feasible suggestions and measures that can be adopted to make the state’s jails and prisons more inmate friendly and ensure rehabilitation of the inmates to be productive, law abiding and tax paying members of the society.

Texas State Prison System Statistics and Facts

In the 1990s which saw a prison boom throughout the country because of the tougher laws on crime passed by congress, Texas state recorded the biggest growth in the number of imprisoned people in the United States.  In this period, Texas recorded an annual 11.8% growth in the number of its prisoners. This was double the average growth rate of the country that stood at 6.1%. The state is reputed for it staggering rate of incarceration. Texas imprisons about 891 people per every 100,000. This even exceeds the country’s rate standing at 698 people per every 100,000. This rate is higher than the rates in some democratic countries. Texas has more people in prison than the entire populations of some states in the United States such as Wyoming.

Study has shown that in every 20 adults in the state one will either be incarcerated, on probation or under supervision on parole. Critics argue that this is largely because of a prison system that solely focuses on punishing those convicted and that lacks any form of compassion.

The African-American population and other non-white communities such as Latinos in Texas have felt the effects of the state’s high incarceration rates. The Black-American’s incarceration rate is more than that of the whites by seven times and Latinos with a 2.6 times that of the whites. Nationally, African-Americans and Latinos are about a quarter of the entire population of the United States. However, they account for about 69% of the incarcerated population in the country’s jails and prisons. In Texas, about 7 out 10 inmates are Latinos and African-Americans. This has resulted in the worrying statistics that for every three African-American men, one is or has served time in prison or on parole. This shocking rate is higher than the country’s imprisonment rate for African-Americans.

From the above statistics that show that more than other states in the US has a no nonsense approach to dealing with wrongdoers, one would think that Texas would have the lowest crime rates in the country. However, this is not so. Texas has more than other states recorded the slowest decrease of crime. In the 1990s when the state was locking up more people than all other states in the country, the state’s crime rate decreased by only -5.2% a rate that is by half lower than what was the national average at the time standing at about -10%.

In addition, the state of Texas is convicting more people for crimes than are non-violent. It only comes second to California with more than 88,000 people behind bars for those crimes. If incarceration was the solution to curbing crime in society, then Texas should be registering the lowest crime rates in the United States. Therefore, this paper argues that the residents of Texas are paying a very high price considering the little effect the sky-high rates of incarceration have reducing crime in the state.

Reasons for Texas’ High Numbers of Inmates

In the above discussion, the paper has foregrounded the hard to believe facts and statistics about the Texas prison system. However, in order to understand how the state got to where it is today in terms of incarceration rates and numbers, the paper addresses the start of this problem. High incarceration rates were not always the case in Texas, in the 1980s, the state’s rate of imprisonment was at par with the national average imprisonment rates.

It was not until the 1990s and specifically in 1993 that Texas saw a sudden surge in its prisoner’s population. This can be attributed to the policies that regulated how people were admitted and released from jails and prisons. That is if the number of the people admitted to prison outnumbered that of the people released, the population of inmates in prison is set to overflow and this was the case in Texas.

Two factors largely contributed to the imbalance between admissions and release rates in Texas. To begin with, the state faced an increased number of lawsuits over the overcrowding in its prisons. As a result, the state commissioned more than 100,000 beds to be built in order to solve the overcrowding problem in a period of less than five years. Hence the state suddenly found itself with more room to accommodate more inmates and therefore had no qualms sending more people in prison.

Secondly, there was an outcry by the general Texan public over what they termed as short prison sentences. Consequently, the state’s legislators passed laws that ensured that those that were imprisoned would serve a bigger percentage of their sentences in prison as opposed to earlier legislation that allowed prisoners to serve a greater percentage of their sentences out of prison on parole or probation. For instance, the new legislation required prisoners incarcerated for violent crimes to have served at least half of their initial sentences to be eligible for parole. This resulted to the doubling of the time spent behind bars for a big proportion of the prisoners and ultimately the upsurge of the state’s incarcerated population.

Decades later, Texas is still dealing with the effects of the imbalance. However, the state has enacted a series of reforms on the sentencing rules and relaxed the qualifications for parole in a bid to regulate and decrease the staggering number of people in its prisons.

No Prison Wages in Texas

In many prison in the United States, there is not always enough work so not all prisoners have access to work in prison. Some of the work available in prisons include regular prison jobs such as laundry, food service and maintenance. Other include producing goods that are later sold to the various government agencies. For their work prisoners are paid although not as much a people on regular jobs. In many states wages for prisoners are very low comparing to the cost of the personal items they might need in prison.

While most states pay although very little for the regular jobs, the state of Texas does not pay its prisoners for these jobs. This opposed to what happens in Illinois and Louisiana which pay their prisoners an average of 0.09 and 0.04 dollar per hour. These are meagre wages but they are better than the non-existent wages in Texas. The wages paid to prisoners for their labor enable them to buy some basic things not provided by the prison such as extra clothes, toiletries a phone stamps to communicate with loved ones and family members.

Earning nothing while in prison does not make life after being released any better for these prisoners. Those released with no savings, as many in Texas are, are unable to afford the many bills they are required to pay once outside. For instance, they need to pay rent, buy food, pay healthcare bills and if they have children pay child support. Many of those released on parole also need to pay supervision fees. Because of their conviction history and criminal records, they are unable to access benefit programs such as food stamps. Finding employment is almost impossible with their records too and finding good places to rent apartments is similarly hard.

This situation is made worse by the fact the Texan prisons teach skills that are irrelevant to the labor demands in the market. Therefore, many released prisoners will find themselves with no means of survival hence revert back to committing crimes. As such, recidivism rates in the states are very high.

Because the Texas prison system seems to focus too much on punishing the incarcerated rather than rehabilitate them, then it fails because rehabilitation of convicted people should be the main focus of correctional institutions. This is because in order to deter a convicted person from committing the same or other crimes, imprisonment should be able to rehabilitate individuals and turn them better and productive members of their society. Therefore, not ensuring that prisoners are paid for regular jobs and equipped with skills that will enable them survive outside prison is not rehabilitating them.

Therefore, legislators should understand the key role paying prisoners and training them plays in ensuring their future which is in most cases pegged on their financial stability.

High Costs of Medical Co-Pays  

Inmates like all other human beings get sick and require medical attention. However, the cost of these medical check-ups is very high for prisoners who earn meagre wages for their work. It is especially hard for Texan prisoners who as seen above are not paid for their regular prison labor. Co-pays by prisoners are mostly paid to compensate the state government for the costly healthcare services they provide for inmates. For a state like Texas where the number of inmates is very large, the state government incurs huge costs for paying the inmates medical services. As a result, it charges the highest co-pays as compared to other states. The cost for medical co-pays in years in a Texas prison is $100.

Many states impose co-pays to discourage inmates from unnecessary medical checkups. However, costly co-pays may be counterproductive since they can discourage those who genuinely need medical attention from seeking it. It is important to note that while these payments may not look costly to regular free people, they are very expensive to an imprisoned person who earns less than a dollar for an hour’s work.

In Illinois for example, the co-pay for a medical examination is $5 while in Louisiana it costs $3. A prisoner in Illinois earning $0.09 per hour therefore needs about 55 hours of labor to afford a single visit to the doctor. At Louisiana, a prisoner need to work for 75 hours to afford a single co-pay. It is therefore a reflection of how bad the state of affairs is in Texas prisons that does not pay their prisoners. The inmates have to rely on family contributions to their personal accounts. Bearing in mind that these deposits from the family and friends, which are often not much, are divided among healthcare expenses and other day-to-day needs of the prisoner.

In extreme cases, funds are deducted from a prisoners personal account to pay for his or medical checkups. If the account has insufficient finds as in most cases, the prisoner will be required to pay the overdraft which is now a debt. In most cases, this debt will carry over until the prisoner is released and he/she is required to settle the debt. This is a hard thing to do and require from a person who is struggling to find employment, housing and even food after being released from prison.

As the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC) states, expensive co-pays will not only put the inmates’ health in jeopardy but also the prison staff and the general public. For instance, when inmates refuse to seek medical attention because of the unaffordable co-pays, their condition worsens making their treatment more expensive than it could have been if it had been treated earlier. Secondly, the delay puts fellow inmates and the prison staff in danger since the disease has a higher probability of spreading and infecting them. Lastly, if a prisoner is released and he/she a disease which had not been treated while in prison, then the released prisoner puts the general public in danger since the disease can spread to them.

Therefore, policy makers at the state of Texas must take into consideration the health disasters that are waiting to happen only because the co-pays are too expensive for the inmates. As such they should come up with measures that cut the cost of medical checkups to a reasonable and affordable costs to all prisoners.  The recent legislation in Texas to abolish the $100 yearly fee for healthcare and replace it with a $13.55 co-pay (the highest in the country) has little impact in improving things in a state where prisoners are not paid.

Lack of Air Conditioning in Texas Prisons

Texas is among 13 southern states that do not provide air conditioning in most of their prisons. Characterized by very hot summers, most households have air conditioning in southern states. However, prisons remain neglected as far as this important necessity is concerned. Due to lack of air conditioning, there are often unbearable heat which is dangerous for the inmates.

Some of the health risks of exposure to excessive heat include dehydration and heat stroke. Similarly, excessive heat can affect other parts of the body such as the heart which can result to heart attack. Therefore, prisoners in Texas jails and prisoners are at risk of contracting these fatal conditions due to lack of air conditioning in Texas prisons. Those prisoners that have pre-existing medical conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure are especially more vulnerable. Similarly, the aging prisoner population in the state is also more susceptible to heat related problems.

Another contributing factor to heat problems in Texas prisons is the materials used to build the, these materials are generally heat-retaining and result to higher temperatures inside the prisons than the temperatures outside. Prisoners also have limited options to cooling. Unlike free people who can take a cold bath, turn on air conditioning or even drink a lot of cold water to cool their bodies, prisoners do not have the luxury of all these options.

Fans that can be installed in cells to cool them are generally very expensive to the prisoners especially those in Texas where they are not paid for their work in the prison. During a heat-wave in the summer of 2011, ten prisoners died in Texan prisons from heat caused heart conditions. Recently in 2018, about 19 other inmates and prison staff were treated for illnesses that are reacted to exposure in a lot of heat. Therefore, in Texas not only prisoners are in danger of heat-related illnesses but also the prison staff.

It is hard to fight against excessive heat in prisons because they managed by different states and the federal government. Similarly, jails are managed by many different local authorities. Hence, reforms on heat conditions in prisons can only be done in specific prisons and jails which further delays the reform process.

In order to institute reforms on air conditioning in Texas, the people’s perception of air conditioning as a luxury in prisons need to change and view it as a necessity it is. For instance, the state of Louisiana in 2016 spent four times the money needed to install air conditioning in its prisons fighting lawsuits requiring it to install air conditioners. A church in another case only built a prison on the condition that no air conditioning should be installed.

Therefore, Texas should go the Mississippi and Arizona way to declare imprisonment under very cold or very hot conditions is a violation to the Eighth Amendment. Air conditioning in prisons is a human right and should be treated as such.

Video Only Visitation for Prisoners

Many counties in Texas transitioned from face-to-face visitation of inmates by their loved ones to adopting video visitation for half the visits and the other half for in-person visitation. They later went to adopt a 100% video visitation policy. The counties argued that video visitation will ensure more frequent visits by friends and family to the inmate and also minimize the chances of contraband entering the prisons.

While the former was true and well meant, the latter was unrealistic. From data is some counties in Texas, video visitation was reported to have a positive impact on the efficiency in which these visitations are conducted hence resulting to increased number of visitations. For instance, the visitors had to wait for about 2 hours for a face-to-face visitation. However, that time was cut by almost an hour or less of waiting for a video visitation. When offering a combination of the two visitation methods, many counties registered an increase in the number of visitations. However, when they adopted a full transition to video only visitation, this number drastically went down.

The argument that video visitations will reduce the chances of introduction of illegal drugs into prisons and jails was an incorrect and unrealistic one. This is because, the face-to-face visitations were carried out through glass. There was a glass wall separating the inmate and the visitor. This shows that contraband found their way into prison by other ways but not during visitations.

A survey conducted by Travis county in Texas about the experience of visitors to prisons on video visitations showed that although they had no problem with the method, many of them would have preferred a face-to-face visitation experience. There are a number of reasons why this is so. First, conversation does not flow naturally between the inmate and the visitor during a video visitation as compared to that of a face-to-face interaction. Other reasons include relatively short conversations because video visitation reduces the intimacy and connection between the visitor and the inmate.

Following the findings of the Survey, Travis county reinstated face-to-face visitation in it jails and prison. However, video visitation was not totally dealt away with, it was made available for those who prefer it to in-person visitation.             As such, this paper urges other counties in Texas using only video visitation to go the Travis county way and return back to face-to-face visitations.

Tougher Parole Qualifications and Laws

In the United States there a many rules which have to be met and strictly adhered to for the criminal justice system to send someone to jail. These range from why and how the suspect was arrested and fair trial. This process is justified to be strict to ensure fairness to the suspect and justice to the complainant. The country continues to revise the rules and minimum standards for the process in a bid to minimize the cases of wrongful sentencing that have plagued the system as exposed by the Innocence Project.

However, this consistency and predictability is not always the case in the process of freeing inmates. This especially the case in the parole systems that are very different from state to state. These systems are put in place to ensure that people in prison can earn an early release from prison and spend the rest of their sentences free but under supervision. However, the policies for qualifications for parole and the process by which one is released in many states do not promote this right by inmates. In many states, policies are in place that make a prisoner’s eligibility for parole almost impossible.

Texas for instance is one of the 16 states that makes discretionary parole almost impossible. For instance, it passed legislation that requires prisoners convicted for violent crimes to serve at least half of their sentences before they are eligible for parole. These are often known as 3g offences under the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure and include crimes such as sexual assault, human trafficking, murder and robbery with violence.

In Texas, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles is responsible for processing parole requests and either granting or denying them. Various factors such as the inmate requesting parole criminal history, the time already served in prison and the person’s conduct while in prison guide the parole board members in determining whether a person qualifies for parole. Nevertheless, before an offender is released on parole he/she must understand and agree to follow often very strict conditions for and after one is released. For example, one must agree to be a law abiding citizen adhering to both the state and federal laws. Secondly, an individual on parole is required to regularly report to the supervising officer, one cannot leave the state of Texas without a written permission by their parole officer. Besides, the person on parole must avoid meeting and interacting with other people with a criminal record or others on parole. Finally, the person is also required to pay supervisory fees every month.

Some of the above conditions are often not helpful in ensuring that a person on parole leads a free and productive life. For instance, it is not realistic to assume that if a person on parole interacts with another person on parole, or one who had a criminal record, this interaction is likely to result in criminal behavior. This is a bad policy that does not consider the fact that the interaction with someone with similar experiences give the person a sense of belonging, one feels that he/she is not alone. The mentorship that results from these interactions is always very good because it comes from people the person can identify with.

Secondly, making prisoners released from prison on parole from a state that did not pay them for their labor in prison, pay supervision fees every months is not only detrimental but cruel to these individuals. Very few have the financial stability to acquire basic needs such as housing and food leave alone paying supervision fees and unpaid fines. This is because they leave Texas prisons without any savings. Although the state of Texas promises that it can waive these supervision fees if the individual is unable to pay them, there are cases of officers who threaten people on parole to pay these fees quickly or they will make life harder for them outside.

Another problem related to parole in Texas is that they do don have face-to-face hearings where the prisoner gets to appear the parole board and present his or her case. Similarly, parole hearings do not provide an opportunity for people who had interacted with the prisoner, like prison staff, to testify on the reformation of the person in question.

As such, the Texas state should work on refining their parole hearings, processes and conditions for parole to be much more flexible and friendly to prisoners.

17-Year-Olds in Adult Jails

Cases of 17-year-old teenagers being tried like adults in the United States have been largely reported. However, these cases are rampant in only seven states. Texas is one of them. In Texas, these teenagers one-year shy of being adults are already treated like adults by its criminal justice system. Rather than being put in juvenile correctional centers and tried in the Juvenile system like they should, Texas throws its 17-year-olds into the adult jails and tries them as adults.

The authorities do not stop to think about the serious negative and often fatal consequences of their actions. These youngsters are at risk of being hurt physically and psychologically. Throwing 17-year-olds into adult jails increases the risk of sexual harassment and depression as a result. It is no wonder than suicide rates increase among them.

If they survive this ordeal, they remain with an adult criminal record that impedes any future plans and targets in education. Schools will turn them away because of the criminal record, employers will also not be willing to hire them. They can also not be admitted into the military with the criminal record. This is to say that for most of the 17-year-olds who find themselves in this situation, their life is over before it even starts. They can never have a future which that criminal record will not haunt them. All happens because they were incarcerated in an adult justice system before they were 18.

Study shows that these 17-years-olds are arrested for similar crimes committed by other younger teenagers incarcerated in juvenile facilities but by virtue of their age thrown in the adult justice system.  This is very wrong because although they are all minors, 17-year-olds are treated differently by the Texas criminal justice system. This not only has detrimental effects on their mental health but also results to increased rates of recidivism. Therefore, this policy creates more problems than it actually solves.

However, there is hope for 17-year-olds in Texas as the state has enacted a series of laws that ensure that they are removed from and are not tried in the adult justice system. By 2015, the cases where 17-year-olds were arrested and put in adult jails dropped by 61%. These laws were supplemented by initiatives that saw juvenile correctional facilities get more funding. As a result, the teenagers rehabilitated at community-based facilities have proved to be better later in life than those incarcerated in adult jails.

Extended Solitary Confinement

Solitary confinement in prisons is a practice that has been passed by time. It is known to cause harm and other negative effects to prisoners. However, Texas still had about 4,165 prisoners in solitary confinement in 2019. Texas is also known for putting people in solitary confinement for a very long period of time, longer than all other states.

The main reason why people are put in solitary confinement is to protect the person when the inmate’s life is in danger. Either the victim or the aggressor is confined but in most it the latter. When solitary confinement extends for a long time, with prisoners having no form of physical exercise, many become depressed and have suicidal thoughts. As a result, many states and federal prisons have implemented reforms that move away from this practice. Therefore, there is need for Texas to end this practice. For instance, they can adopt Mandela rules that require solitary confinement not to exceed 15 days.

Conclusion

Texas has been proved to have one of the harshest prison systems in the United States. This paper has provided the worrying statistics about its high incarceration rates and explained why the sad state of affairs. The paper has discussed and provided possible solutions to some aspects in the Lone Star State prison system that are very harsh and are in dire need for reform. These are suggestions if followed will go a long way in helping the state transform its prison system to be better and effective in its role of rehabilitating wrongdoers.

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