Approximately 450,000 Texans are on probation. Revoked felony probationers account for 37 percent of prison intakes and 41 percent of state jail intakes, resulting in approximately $600 million in incarceration costs. Although three times as many Texans are on probation as in prison, 10 state dollars are spent on the prison system for every dollar spent on probation.
Too many Houston crimes go unsolved. Here’s how to change that.
The latest HPD scandal underscores a national problem. Commit a crime, get caught and go to jail — directly to jail. It’s the justice lesson we learned growing up, but it’s far from reality in cities across the nation, where clearance rates are abominably low. News out of Houston is compounding the issue of unsolved crimes after the Houston...