harris revokes probation most among

Harris revokes probation most among big Texas counties

Governor Rick Perry apparently thinks Texas' overincarceration crisis

will go away if he ignores it, but local officials must still manage

the state's broken probation system in the wake of the Governor's

ill-conceived veto of HB 2193.

The Houston Chronicle's Andrew Tilghman reports this morning that

Harris County is struggling to improve supervision of probationers and

lower its probation revocation rate, despite Governor Perry's veto of

legislation to strengthen the probation system. Their goal of reducing

revocations is welcome, but it'd be a lot easier to accomplish if Gov.

Perry had not vetoed new tools to better supervise probationers.

Just as the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee found in last

year's interim report, Harris County's high revocation rate leads the

state and is a major driver of Texas' overincarceration crisis:

Roughly one of every seven Harris County probationers was put

behind bars last year for failing to comply with court-ordered

conditions, the highest revocation rate of any major Texas

metropolitan area, state data show.

Once viewed as a respectable sign of a tough criminal justice

system, a high revocation rate is increasingly considered a

liability that fills costly jail space with low-level offenders and

drains tax dollars.

That shift in perception puts mounting pressure on judges and

probation officials at a time when the county probation department,

formally known as the Community Supervision and Corrections

Department, is ailing. ...

Last year, Harris County judges sent 15.8 percent of the county's

felony probationers to jail for violating court-imposed rules or

committing new crimes. The statewide average is 9.8 percent.

If the debate over strengthening Texas' probation system did nothing

else, at least it has busted a hole in the argument that weak

probation benefits society or reduces crime. This "shift in

perception" largely stems from the big-picture reality that right now

Texas' probation system isn't adequately supervising anyone, much less

those most likely to commit new crimes. Revocation and imprisonment

represents an expensive failure of the system, not a "tough" outcome.

Among big Texas counties, here are the 2004 revocation rates:

REVOCATION RATES

Probationers from Harris County end up behind bars at a higher rate

than those from other Texas cities. Listed are counties and the

percentage of felony probationers sent to jail after revocation in

2004:

Harris: 15.8 percent

Tarrant: 15 percent

Dallas: 11.9 percent

Travis: 9.3 percent

Bexar: 8 percent

El Paso: 6 percent

Texas Department of Criminal Justice

That's a pretty impressive range. To me, it shows that probation can

supervise people more successfully than they're doing it in Houston.

After all, El Paso's not revoking one in seven probationers. Sen. John

Whitmire, who chairs the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee,

blamed Harris County judges for the high probation revocation rates,

but Tilghman reported those jurists may yet want to change their

stripes:

Others, however, say it is the judges, who impose probation

conditions and ultimately decide whether to revoke, who drive

Harris County's high rates.

"The (county) bench is made up of very conservative people, most of

them former prosecutors," said state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston.

"Elements of the judiciary are applying their own theories and

philosophies, contrary to what a lot of experts and advisers would

suggest works."

State District Judge Belinda Hill disagrees.

"I can't imagine that (Harris County judges) are any more rigorous

than any other place," said Hill, who heads the judges'

subcommittee on probation matters.

Hill said the county's 22 felony judges, who oversee the probation

department and hire its director, are working to reduce the

revocation rate. They are discussing plans to create a system of

"progressive sanctions" that will give low-risk probationers more

opportunity to stay out of jail, she said.

That's welcome news. Governor Perry's veto of HB 2193 was a grave

disservice to public safety and to the taxpayers, but the issues

raised by the bill haven't gone away. Tilghman's article shows that

now local governments must wrestle with this looming state crisis,

which the Governor knew existed but refused to provide leadership to