When offenders are employed, the Lone Star State's tax revenue increases while its prison expenditures decrease - a win-win for all parties involved.
This requires the ex-offender to take responsibility for their actions, while the small business owner is protected from criminal and civil liability.
How is it that Texans sign a paper and obtain documentation of an agreement when purchasing a burger, but written consent in not required statewide to search private property without a warrant?
For nearly a decade, states like Texas have proven that we can increase public safety and reduce significant correction costs by investing in alternatives to incarceration for low-level, non-violent offenders.
More than 1 percent of all U.S. adults are now behind bars, giving the U.S. the distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Solitary confinement, which segregates inmates in a 60-square-foot cell for up to 23 hours a day alone, has consistently shown to increase crime at a much greater cost to the taxpayer.
It is concerning that this military-style equipment likely leads to unnecessary escalation and fosters a war zone-like environment.
[Nondisclosure] can serve as a model for states and the federal government to combat the cycle of recidivism that plagues our criminal-justice system, while not expanding the government's control over business.
Even before the last gavel ended the 84th Texas Legislature, much of the media coverage began centering on the failures and disappointments regarding many key issues. Unfortunately, this gloom-and-doom rhetoric has overshadowed many unprecedented successes and reforms, particularly in criminal justice.
Four out of five Texas voters agree that prisoners should spend a portion of their sentence in their community under supervision rather than being released with no supervision, even if their overall sentence length stays the same.