Texas saved $2 billion for taxpayers by cutting prison spending while making the state safer. Now it's time to renew those reforms and make even more progress to be smart on crime in Texas....
========== I spent twenty years in the Texas Legislature,
was first elected in 1993. In the year 2005,the speaker of the house called me in, I was named chairman of the corrections committee.I asked him, well, Mr. Speaker, what do you
want me to do?He looked at me and gave me the eight words
that changed my life. He says "Don't buildnew prisons. They cost too much."The state of Texas is currently spending $2
BILLION dollars of your tax money to buildthe biggest prison system in the free world.In the early eighties we had 30,000 prison
beds. About all of the sudden, in 2005 wehad 155,000. Our prison projection in January
2007, we would need to add 17,332 beds by2012.We needed to spend enough money to build 3
additional prisons. The construction of thepriso...
