Monday, October 22, 2012

Texas counties want control over juvenile system



        I found a post from Grits For Breakfast titled Counties pushing for more control over juvenile system from Thursday October 18th, 2012 discussing an article from the Austin American Statesman (Counties push to bypass state youth lockups by Mike Ward). The article in the Statesman is about Texas counties potentially being allowed to incarcerate their teenage lawbreakers locally instead of sending them to state-run lockups. Travis County is one of the many counties pushing for the change. If adopted, the plan would follow California's lead in downsizing state-run programs in favor of community-based programs. This change has been shown to reduce repeat offending of criminals. Officials are considering a changed in state law to allow the 16 largest counties in Texas, including Travis and Williamson, to handle all corrections for their youth offenders. State-run lockups cost just over $400 a day, while the cost in counties is about $118 a day (Travis county).
      Some questions I have regarding this issue is who pays for the day-to-day costs and what sort of rehabilitating programs will be in the facility to prevent youth from becoming repeat offenders? A decrease in cost always sounds like a good thing, but will county control be beneficial? I was curious to see someone’s view on this issue and see if they had the same questions and could help answer them, but Grits for Breakfast does not seem to have a stance on this issue. They just explain what the article says as I have done. If I wanted to read the Statesman article word for word, I would just read the Statesman, as I did. The only thing Grits says in their own words is “It sounds like a lot of the key opinion leaders are generally, on board, though that’s a long way from passing a functional reform bill.” From just this statement I do not know if Grits is for or against the change of the state law. I heard that Grits for Breakfast was a good Texas blog. I was disappointed and I was hoping it contained more opinion than just regurgitating the Statesman. 

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