Adult, juvie corrections took 39% of state employee reductions in last year

After the Texas Legislature finished its budget cutting last year and the dust finally settled, a whopping 39% of Texas state employee reductions in the last year came from two agencies: the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) and the recently merged Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD).

TDCJ lost 2,035 FTEs (full-time equivalent positions), and TJJD lost 816.5, according to a recent state auditor's report (pdf). All told, according to a summary, "As of the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 2012, agencies reported that they employed 147,100.4 FTEs. That was a decrease of 7,321.6 (4.7 percent) FTEs since the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 2011." TDCJ's staff was reduced by 5%, TJJD's by 23%.

Of course, both these agencies suffer from high turnover among front-line staff, so relatively few of those reductions represent layoffs, particularly on the adult side. But Texas' corrections footprint declined in the last year in more ways than just from the closure of the Central Unit and lowered jail populations: Prisons and jails have gone from a reliably expanding government sector to among the first areas to be cut when Texas policymakers must prioritize in the face of tight budgets. That's a big change in political priorities from just a few short years ago.

In 2013 when legislators again face tough, arguably tougher budget choices even than last session, Texas could not conceivably focus employment reductions as heavily in corrections without closing (probably several) more prison units. For these and related reasons, Grits remains convinced that budgets will stymie the growth of the prison-industrial complex long before any brand of moral outrage might convince state leaders to reduce it.

Deconstructing data on police deaths

Okay, here's a strange one. The headline in the New York Times Monday read: "Even as Violent Crime Falls, Killing of Officers Rises," reporting "a 25 percent increase" in 2011 in police officer homicides "and a 75 percent increase from 2008. Startling data, huh? But the truth is more complex. While police officer deaths did rise in 2011, they've also dramatically declined so far in 2012, as Radley Balko pointed out over the weekend. Here are the data for 2012 so far compared to last year via the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund:

Law Enforcement Officer Fatalities
Preliminary 2012 Numbers
April 11, 2012

	2012	2011	% Change
Total Fatalities	31	59	-47%
Firearms-related	11	26	-58%
Traffic-related	12	19	-37%
Other Causes	8	14	-43%

Why wasn't THAT the news hook? Such preliminary data were good enough to hype last year. IMO the answer is that sensationalistic bad news draws more readers than stories about positive trends. Journalists have a natural schadenfreude that encourages them to frame stories in the most alarming ways, but good news travels slowly, even during the 24-hour news cycle.

In this case, the Times also cherrypicked the data a bit. Dating the 75% increase from 2008 obscures the fact that on-the-job officer deaths were much higher in 2007, when 189 officers died on the job compared to 141 in 2008. This graph depicting the long-term pattern on officer deaths shows the recent "trend" hyped by the Times is really more a regression to the mean:

Police Officer Deaths in the Line of Duty, 1961-2011

So the tendency analyzed in the Times is a bit of a construct. Reporters could just as easily have said the total number of police officer deaths declined 8.5% compared to 2007, but would Times editors have considered that news "fit to print"?

In addition, limiting their stat to police homicides ignores most on-the-job police deaths, which much more frequently happen because of accidents, often in traffic. In 2010, for example, 153 officers died on the job nationwide, but the FBI data on which the NY Times based its analysis counted 56 officers "feloniously killed" that year. So when calculating the increase in the Times story, most on-the-job police deaths weren't counted.

Anytime you're analyzing statistics involving such small numbers, special care is warranted. With more than 700,000 sworn officers in the United States, these small fluctuations are not necessarily statistically significant. Notably absent from the Times story was any analysis by a statistician on whether these short-term data fluctuations are meaningful. Instead, the article is filled with speculation about the reasons for a trend that may or may not exist.

Being a police officer is not remotely the most dangerous job out there, nor even the most dangerous government work. Excluding soldiers who die in combat, garbage collectors rank highest among government workers in the likelihood they'll be killed on the job. The people picking up your trash put their lives on the line every day and are more likely not to make it home at night than their brethren in blue. But one suspects we won't any time soon see a New York Times headline memorializing their sacrifice.

Did a prisoner repair your government computer? Correctional Industries program said to reduce recidivism

The Houston Chronicle yesterday had a nice little article about TDCJ's Texas Correctional Industries program training inmates to perform computer repair, which unlike picking cotton or working on a hoe squad actually teach prisoners a skill that's marketable when they get out. The story opened thusly:

With stacks of broken computers towering toward the ceiling and intense white-clad technicians frowning over workbenches filled with the machines' electronic guts, this could be any high-tech repair shop in America. Or so you may think until rolls of concertina wire bristling from the walls remind you of where you are.

Welcome to Huntsville's Wynne Unit, home of one of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's two computer repair labs, where each month inmate workers fix or discard up to 250,000 pounds of malfunctioning equipment.

In Texas, a state whose prison work programs are best known for agriculture and license plates, the computer shops represent the cutting edge of a factory system that produces everything from street signs to mattresses for state college dorms and soap for scrubbing jailhouse floors.

Here's a summary of more common types of TCI labor:

Textile operations remain a big part of prison jobs today. Inmates grow and harvest cotton, then spin and weave it into fabric for use in prison clothing, which they sew. Prisoners each month make 110,000 towels, 120,000 pairs of socks, 85,000 shirts and pants, and 75,000 pairs of underwear.

Prison officials say the cost of inmate clothing purchased through a vendor is $7 to $10; making the same clothing in-house costs about $5.

Workers also refurbish public school buses, re-tread tires, produce signs, banners and departmental awards, build furniture, craft shoes and, of course, make license plates

In some cases, writes reporter Allan Turner, "the most valuable lessons taught are simply how to responsibly keep a job. As many as 40 percent of those inmates entering the TCI program have no work experience."

Participants in TCI work have lower recidivism rates, reports the Chron: "Overall in the 156,000-inmate system, he said, up to 24 percent of those released from prison return within three years. Among the inmate workers who stay on the job the longest, recidivism drops to 11 percent."

More of this, please: Vocational training for prisoners facilitates jobs on reentry

Prison trusties in Hondo participate in get on-the-job kitchen training at a community food bank, with many hired as cooks upon release. Reported the SA Express-News ("Inmate cooks give back at food bank," Feb. 5):

Most employers are turned off by ex-convict applicants, [TDCJ laundry, food and supply director Tony  D'Cunha] said, but hiring from this program has been “exceptional.”

“This can be a model for food banks nationwide, where the prison system gives back to the community by returning (inmates) to society as taxpaying citizens,” D'Cunha said.

Want to reduce recidivism and long-term costs for incarceration and crime?  More than anything else, transitioning ex-offenders into the workforce makes the rest possible. It'd be nice to see this program not just continued  but scaled up.

Off-duty police employment deserves greater vetting

A story from the Austin Statesman published January 5 reminded Grits of a research project I conceived awhile back, but put on the back shelf because of a lack of resources and manpower (Oh, how I miss having interns!). The Statesman story opened:

Federal and local authorities are looking into the off-duty employment of several Austin police officers who were paid cash by a wealthy Mexican man to watch over his daughter while she attends college, the American-Statesman has learned.

Two officers have left the Austin Police Department in the past month since the inquiry started, and others who may have also worked on the private security assignment have been questioned.

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo confirmed Wednesday that the department recently learned of allegations concerning one officer and "immediately launched criminal and administrative investigations." He declined to describe the nature of the allegations or disclose who alerted the department, citing the ongoing inquiry.

Acevedo also would not say how many officers have since been investigated or questioned.

"Anytime we investigate incidents, you are much better off as an organization to start with a very broad view to ensure that we don't miss anything," Acevedo said.

Sgt. Wayne Vincent, president of the Austin police union, said "less than 10" officers had their duties restricted in recent weeks after the department initially learned about outside employment concerns.

We won't know more about this case until the department releases more detail, but over the years Grits has observed that, when police corruption arises, there is sometimes a nexus of money changing hands surrounding either approved, off-duty employment or separate small businesses owned and operated by officers, who as a group are a remarkably entrepreneurial bunch. You'd be surprised how many veteran police officers have one or more small business registered in their names in addition to their day jobs, including a disproportionate share of officers with significant disciplinary records..

At one point a few years back while I was unemployed for quite a few months on end, your correspondent seriously considered taking up a major research project aimed at exactly these sorts of off-duty employment issues at Austin PD. The idea was to get all the approval forms for off-duty employment under open records for some period  of time, say a year, and to simultaneously take the complete list of Austin police officers and run their names at area courthouses and the Secretary of State to identify all sole proprietorships, business partnerships or Texas corporations registered under their names.

Once you've created a database of businesses owned by officers and those which employ off-duty cops, the larger task becomes systematically vetting the businesses to look for discrepancies, improprieties, litigation, government contracts, shady associations, etc.. It would be a monstrously large undertaking for a force the size of Austin PD - almost worthy of a book-length project - and in the end I decided Grits didn't have the resources to take it on as a one-man show, choosing to focus on other, more attainable priorities.

But I've always thought that the extracurricular moneymaking activities of law enforcement deserve more focused attention because often, when you look closely, as in this case, it can become a point of vulnerability for the department in many, perhaps too many, respects.

Police unions finding renewed opposition after years of bipartisan kowtowing

In a local story from the Valley about a change of leadership at the police union in the McAllen police department ("Police officers union to move forward under new leadership," Jan. 7), I was interested to see a reference to the union's losses in their recent contract negotiations. Reported the McAllen Monitor:

Sgt. Joe Garcia, the union’s president since 2009, will be replaced by his vice president, Officer David Alvarado.

They helped negotiate the union’s four-year collective bargaining agreement, which runs until Sept. 30, 2015.

The agreement, inked July 18 after negotiations failed and the union unsuccessfully sued McAllen, was widely seen as a victory for City Hall.

“One thing I’ve learned is you’ve got to pick your fights with the city,” Garcia said, referencing the contentious negotiations.

The contract phased out a health insurance subsidy for some retired officers and eliminated a union information session for police cadets, an important recruiting opportunity. Union officials had pushed for an across-the-board raise and permission to work security at downtown bars while off duty, but city officials rejected those proposals.

With the contract behind them, Garcia decided to step down, and Alvarado ran unopposed to succeed him. Alvarado will be officially sworn in later this month.

While the union doesn’t attract much attention when there isn’t a contract to be negotiated, it’s a major player within the Rio Grande Valley’s largest police department, which has 275 certified police positions. The union’s contract sets pay and benefits, and the union provides work-related legal services to members.

In the wake of the contract losses, the new union president "said he wants to build closer ties between the police union and the public, in part to improve the image of public employee unions, which have been under attack nationwide." McAllen snubbing the union in contract negotiations is a notable contrast to the way elected officials from both parties in recent years have kowtowed to police unions in larger cities. Being a "right to work" state, Texas has few strong unions anymore in the private sector and our public-sector unions are incredibly weak compared to those in other large states. (E.g., our prison guards are virtually unorganized and unconsidered compared to their powerhouse counterparts in California.) As a result, police unions in Texas elections often are the only union interest with significant political muscle, money to spend, etc..

These unions - particularly those under the CLEAT umbrella - historically in Texas have tended to garner bipartisan fealty among politicians at all levels. I understand why Democrats strongly support unions; less so why Rick Perry does, except to associate himself generally with law enforcement. In Austin, then-Mayor Kirk Watson's extravagant handouts to the police union were the driver for a decade and counting of continuous property-tax growth since the turn of the century, with more of the same projected in the foreseeable future. From the 30,000 foot level, there's a growing resistance by taxpayers to paying - usually through local property tax hikes - for the kind of lucrative pay and benefit packages they themselves lost to corporate restructuring and the recession.

Like the new McAllen police-union president, ever since the budget fights in Wisconsin Grits has been wondering if and when anti-public employee sentiment within the conservative movement might bubble up as feuding with local police associations. To hear CLEAT Executive Director John Burpo tell it, the fight is already here, and the barbarians are at the gates:

A little background is in order. From the 1960’s to just a few years ago, law enforcement pensions were improved significantly and then maintained. Law enforcement officers and their unions advanced and state legislators pushed the proposition that policing is a tough, dangerous job that deserves decent retirement benefits greater than other public employees.

Unfortunately, private sector unions have declined significantly over the last 20 years, and with that decline there has been an attendant decline in private sector defined pension benefits. The majority of private sector employees no longer have retirement plans – they are now fortunate to even have a 401(k) and a meager contribution by the employer. Sadly, most folks in the law enforcement world did not pay attention to this development because it was their problem, not ours.

In the past 2 years public sector pension plans have come under attack, including law enforcement retirements. These attacks have taken place in other states so once again, it was their problem and Texas law enforcement officers didn’t worry.

But it is definitely now our problem as antiretirement forces are on the march right here in Texas. A cabal of anti-union, anti-public employee businessmen out of Houston are leading the charge to take away your long held and much deserved retirement rights. This cabal doesn’t care that each one of you lays your life on the line every day; or that the Memorial Wall on the State Capitol grounds is filled with the names of heroic law enforcement officers who have sacrificed their lives protecting Texas citizens.

CLEAT will lead the fight to take on these Forces of Darkness. We have a battle plan that is eloquently outlined in Todd Harrison’s article on page 2 of this edition of The Police Star (pdf). Please take the time to read this important article so that you understand what we will be doing over the course of the next 2 years.

I find Burpo's language wonderfully hyperbolic, if sadly typical of much internal police-union rhetoric: Anyone with a different opinion on something they care about is generally considered by CLEAT to be part of the "Forces of Darkness," which in this case includes a "cabal of anti-union, anti-public employee businessmen out of Houston." Who knew? A shadowy cabal! Throw in a few references to the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group and he could write for Alex Jones.

The schtick about dangerous jobs will only get them so far when garbage collectors, whose jobs are statistically far more dangerous, are paid much less and get no comparable memorial on the capitol grounds. (In 2009, according to the most recent Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (pdf), "refuse and recyclable materials collectors" died on the job at a rate of 26.5 per 100,000, compared to 12.9 for "Police and Sheriff's patrol officers.")

CLEAT's plan includes backing electoral opponents to run against incumbents who support restructuring retirement benefits (through their PAC), extensive polling to craft messages that will sell with the public, creating a "Truth Squad" to quickly attack critics who question the viability of large police pensions, fundraising for their PAC (surprise, surprise!), and engaging union locals in their message delivery. The plan, or at least its public, fundraising-letter version, notably does not contemplate any path to compromise on the kinds of issues (ethics, accountability, public information) that might demonstrate the union's commitment to the sort of professionalism expected of government workers who make more money and have better pensions than the average voter. Instead, the plan is to attack anyone who questions them.

In McAllen, the city manager said part of the union's trouble was a simlar us-against-the-world mentality:

City Manager Mike Perez said the relationship between the police union and city leaders has been “rough at best.”

“I think the approach they take is: City Hall is the enemy,” Perez said. “The fact that they’ve gotten involved in politics and supported candidates hasn’t helped the relationship.”

Perez said he’s heard second- and third-hand reports that officers thought Garcia wasn’t tough enough on City Hall, and backed Alvarado because he’d take a harder stance.

When the GOP took over Texas state politics, police-union interests never missed a beat and continued to wield significant power, thanks in large part to their influence with Rick Perry and the advisers surrounding him (as well as a few, key, senior legislators, many of whom have now departed). Will that continue to be the case as a radicalized GOP base sends more Tea-Party types - Burpo's "Forces of Darkness" - to the legislature and city councils? Or will the police unions, perhaps for the first time in a generation, finally be forced to learn the art of compromise, both at the capitol and at city hall? Time will tell.

Juvie, adult prison guards atop list of high-turnover state jobs

The combined turnover rate for Texas juvenile and adult correctional officers (i.e., prison guards) in FY 2011 was 23.4%, according to a new report (pdf) on state employee turnover by the state auditor. That's 22.3% for adult COs, and 39.6 for JCOs, including layoffs. Other key highlights:

Statewide, 29.6% of turnover came from involuntary separations - either firings or other reductions in force (RIF), sometimes for budgetary reason, with 14% of departing employees dismissed for cause and another 9% resigning in lieu of dismissal.

The Texas Education Agency had a higher one-year turnover rate than TDCJ, but that's a statistical fluke resulting from a budgetary RIF. TDCJ "accounted for the largest percentage of separations (29.6 percent) within the State. The majority of the separations at TDCJ during fiscal year 2011 were voluntary. TDCJ’s turnover rate was 19.2 percent in fiscal year 2011."

The most experienced staff are more likely to retire these days: Statewide across all agencies, "Between fiscal years 2007 and 2011, retirements increased by 40.6 percent." (Some of those folks may still be working: A wag might add that even Governor Rick Perry has taken retirement, and is surely counted among those statistics.) The number of voluntary separations increased 12.9% over last year.

"Thirty-four state agencies experienced reductions in force. The Texas Youth Commission, the Texas Education Agency, and the Department of Criminal Justice accounted for 72.6 percent of all staff reductions due to reductions in force in fiscal year 2011."

Reductions as TYC was merged into the new Juvenile Justice Department accounted for a large chunk of involuntary separations: "The three job classification series with the most separations as a result of reductions in force in fiscal year 2011 were Juvenile Correctional Officers, Program Specialists, and Administrative Assistants."

TDCJ lost 8,116 employees in FY 2011, 3,025 of them via involuntary separation (including layoffs).

The turnover rate at the Department of Public Safety was 9.9%, with 66 involuntary departures out of 846 total.

Via the Austin Market Examiner.

Bexar commissioners wonder why 1,000 fewer prisoners in jail brings no budget savings

Grits wrote on Sunday that it's "almost becoming the norm in Texas jails to understaff them considerably and make up the difference paying overtime at time-and-a-half." I was writing about the jail in Midland, but the same thing's going on, reports the SA Express News ("Disputes over jail staffing may move closer to resolution," Dec. 20) at the Bexar County Jail in San Antonio, much to the commissioners court's consternation. The story opens:

Guards are being forced to work excessive overtime and will continue to steadily quit as their morale hits all-time lows, the consequence of cutting 100 positions at the Bexar County Jail through attrition, warns Sheriff Amadeo Ortiz.

But ask county commissioners and County Manager David Smith, and they'll tell you the mandatory overtime is unnecessary, the jail is mismanaged and wastes money, and the 2012 budget cuts reflect the actual needs at the facility.

Conflicting views of the jail aren't new in Bexar County, but a new staffing analysis by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, the state jail oversight agency, is expected next month and could bring the two sides closer.

“We have no vested interest as a third party,” said TCJS Executive Director Adan Muñoz. “Our only concern is: Can you get enough people to show up when you need them to? We do this routinely for jails, and it usually amounts to a difference of opinion between commissioners courts and sheriffs' offices.”

The commissioners court is frustrated that reducing the jail population hasn't resulted in tangible savings for the county budget:

“Obviously we don't agree with the way that they're running the jail,” said County Judge Nelson Wolff. “They refuse to recognize the fact that we have 500 less prisoners, and they still want the same number of people. It doesn't make sense to us.”

In January 2009, when Ortiz took the helm, there were 932 detention officers and the average daily inmate population was around 4,300, according to Smith. That summer, population peaked at around 4,600. Last week, it dipped to less than 3,600, a level not seen in a decade.

Staffing wasn't cut until the 2012 budget, passed in September. Exactly how many guards remain depends on whom you ask.

“We've used tons of money on drug courts, on mental health courts, on trying to treat people instead of incarcerate them,” Wolff said. “We've brought the population way down, but there's no savings on running the jail.”

For starters, kudos to Bexar County (and it could only result from a collective effort by many people) for reducing the jail population 22% in a year-and-a-half. That's a remarkable accomplishment. And indeed, it does seem queer that overtime costs haven't declined as a result.

At a staffing ratio of 48-1 (mandated by the Commission on Jail Standards), in theory a reduction of 1,000 inmates would allow the jail to have 20 fewer guards on duty at any give time. Other jails that have reduced populations were able to commensurately reduce jail expenditures. So I can understand commissioners' frustration. But classification issues and other complications aren't taken into account in such back-of-the-napkin calculations, so it's good they've turned to TCJS as a neutral arbiter.

Such conflicts between sheriffs, who run county jails, and commissioners courts, who hold the purse strings, are a fundamental, structural feature of jail oversight in Texas. While providing additional checks and balances, it also frequently results in gridlock and needless conflict over rather routine  management decisions, particularly when commissioners and the sheriff come from different political parties or indulge in personal feuds. I don't know who's right about the jail staffing question in Bexar County, but it seems to me a factual dispute, not an ideological one.

Legislative recommendations from LBB criminal-justice focus group, practitioner interviews

Scanning the Legislative Budget Board's new Adult and Juvenile Correctional Population Projections (pdf), in the "qualitative analysis" section, for which they queried more than 100 people in "Focus groups and interviews with criminal justice practitioners, juvenile justice practitioners, and adult offenders," I ran across these interesting summaries about what these insiders told LBB they think could/should be done to improve the justice system:

REGARDING CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN TEXAS, WHAT SHOULD BE THE EIGHTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE’S MOST IMPORTANT PRIORITIES?

Focus group and interview participants most consistently mentioned the need for investment in mental health resources of all types. Expanded inpatient and outpatient treatment, additional funding for specialized community supervision caseloads, increased reimbursement rates for mental health professionals, and additional state hospital capacity for competency restoration were all mentioned as important needs. Practitioners also agreed statutes and policies regarding DWI punishments need revision. Currently, DWI offenders have little incentive to obtain treatment through community supervision; offenders increasingly prefer short terms of incarceration in county jail. Possible solutions mentioned for this issue included offering deferred adjudication and potential early termination from community supervision for DWI offenders. Participants also voiced support for ending or reforming the Driver Responsibility Program (DRP), which provides significant financial burden on DWI (and other) offenders with seemingly little to no public safety enhancement. Other legislative recommendations included providing Community Supervision and Corrections Departments (CSCDs) additional flexibility in the use of state funding and providing offenders more incentives to choose community supervision over incarceration.  (emphasis added)

Equally important, questioning offenders:

WHAT CAN THE STATE OF TEXAS DO TO IMPROVE CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND KEEP OFFENDERS IN THE COMMUNITY AND OUT OF PRISON OR STATE JAIL?

Offenders most consistently mentioned three factors that would improve criminal justice and keep offenders in the community: employment opportunities and assistance, expanded access to substance abuse treatment, and additional educational opportunities. Offenders indicated employment opportunities and assistance as the most important need of these three responses.

Relatedly:

WHAT RESOURCES ARE NEEDED TO KEEP OFFENDERS IN THE COMMUNITY AND OUT OF PRISON OR STATE JAIL?

According to focus group and interview participants, mental health treatment options are the most needed resources to rehabilitate offenders in the community. Specifically mentioned resources included additional residential treatment, additional outpatient treatment, and increased reimbursement rates for mental health treatment providers. Along with mental health resources, practitioners indicated offenders need additional incentives to choose and/or remain on community supervision in lieu of incarceration. Participants also mentioned the need for additional resources specifically directed to meet the needs of female offenders.

Grand jury investigating BAT van coverup to question DA Pat Lykos

It seems that as a practical matter, examinations of flawed forensics in the justice system virtually never result from the mature, public exercise of judgment aimed at seeking scientific truth but inevitably are cinched up in some taut, emotional knot by whatever painful, uncomfortable or inconvenient memories or secrets may be exposed if the flaw were to come to light in a particular case. So when investigating flawed arson science, for example, the Forensic Science Commission gets sidetracked by death penalty politics. Similarly, flawed breathalyzer forensics at the Houston PD were only exposed when a crime lab supervisor quit rather than sign off on questionable results, then faced alleged retaliation from the District Attorney and the Harris County Commissioners Court, which eliminated her new job soon after she took it. So the question of breathalyzer mechanics gets wrapped up in a nasty employment dispute. For whatever reason, when flawed forensics are exposed the case is seldom as simple as the science.

In the Harris County B.A.T. van case, the Houston Chronicle today reports that DA Pat Lykos herself has been called to testify before a grand jury that's apparently investigating Brady violations (withholding exculpatory evidence) in addition to retaliatory termination regarding whistleblower Amanda Culbertson who exposed flawed forensics on mobile DWI testing units. Wrote Brian Rogers:

The testimony could affect dozens of past and future DWI cases that relied on evidence handled by the testing equipment in the vans.

Even more serious is the possibility that Lykos and other prosecutors had doubts about the tests' accuracy while prosecuting past DWI cases but did not alert defense attorneys.

Culbertson resigned rather than sign off on flawed breath-test analyses and went public with her allegations, taking a job at Lone Star College which held a decades-old training contract for breath alcohol testing with Harris County. If not in response to Culbertson's disclosures then at least soon after them, DA Lykos successfully pressed the Commissioners Court to transfer the contract to the Texas Department of Public Safety. Lisa Falkenberg writes that, "Retaliation, and perhaps even intimidation, seem far more likely motives for the DA's office to want to end Lone Star's contract," but added that "we'd never know for sure without a thorough investigation."

It seems, at least, the grand jury is performing one. What a dramatic turn of events! I'd love to learn the backstory of how it was orchestrated. We could use grand jurors like that in quite a few other Texas counties. The Houston Chronicle has been covering this well, so far, but if you're interested in the straight-up schadenfreude angle on this juicy story, Murray Newman's your man.

See related Grits posts:

• Current, former prosecutors in Williamson, Harris Counties forced to testify about alleged misconduct
• 'We've had enough of courthouse cronyism'
• Holy junk science BAT van!  Houston portable breathalyzers' accuracy questioned
• Paycheck vs. Integrity: Houston PD lab supervisor resigns over faulty breathalyzers, feared retaliation

2,000 jobs cut at TDCJ

Summarizing the effect of state budget cuts on job losses, the Texas Tribune's Becca Aaronson mentioned that the greatest number of jobs eliminated came from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which employs more people than any other state agency:

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the largest state government employer, lost more than 2,000 state-paid full-time positions. Agency spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said the job losses were “absolutely because of the budget cuts.” The agency attributes the loss of 1,000 positions directly to lost funding. The agency also chose not to fill many vacant positions, Lyons said, and eliminated programs, transferring the services offered by those programs to other departments. “Everyone was trying to be pro-active in identifying areas where we could save money in these economic times,” she said.

So Texas cut 2,000 prison jobs but failed to enact legislation that will significantly reduce the prison population. As Grits suggested earlier this year, most of those cuts came through attrition, which is possible because of the extraordinarily high turnover rate among Texas prison guards. Not only does high turnover among "new boots" contribute to understaffing at prisons, it also partially explains the high volume of contraband flowing into Texas prisons despite so-called "zero tolerance" policies which have been in place for several years. Less experienced staff with fewer institutional ties are more prone to corruption.

Will such large force reductions harm safety for prison staff and inmates or limit the number of beds the state can operate? Already we've seen reports of increased mandatory overtime to make up for fewer boots on the ground. It wasn't that long ago that TDCJ faced staffing shortages so severe that administrators had to shut down whole prison wings because of too few guards to oversee them. One wouldn't be surprised to see the same situation recur in the near future. With accompanying cuts to health insurance and retirement benefits for prison staff, even in the current recession, it's not likely to get any easier for TDCJ to recruit and/or retain staff in the short to medium term.