AMERICA'S
PRISON GIANTS
Texas leads the US in incarceration growth
Despite lackluster record on crime, one in 5 new prisoners added nationally during the 1990s were added in Texas
One out of 20 adult Texans under criminal justice control.
Washington, DC: The Texas prison system grew faster than any other prison system in the country during the 1990s, adding nearly one out of every 5 prisoners to the nation's prison boom. In a new study to be released by the Washington, DC-based Justice Policy Institute on August 29th, the criminal justice think tank found that one out of every 20 adults in Texas were either in prison, jail, on probation or on parole. There are more people in prison in Texas than in any other state, and Texas' incarceration rate is second only to Louisiana.
"Out of every 20 adult Texans you meet, one is under criminal justice control," stated Vincent Schiraldi, the Institute's Director and report co-author. "The sheer numbers of people in prison and jail in Texas are signs of system fixated on punishment, and devoid of compassion."
Texas just earned the dubious distinction of having the largest prison population in the country (163,190), surpassing the prison population of California (163,067), which has 13 million more citizens than Texas. The Lone Star State has more than 700,000 of its citizens under criminal justice control.
The average annual growth of Texas' prison population during the 1990s (11.8%) was not only the highest growth in the nation, but was almost twice the average annual growth of the other US states (6.1%) during the 1990s.
If Texas were a country, it would have the highest incarceration rate in the world, easily surpassing the United States and Russia, the next two finishers, and seven times that of the next biggest prison system in China.
Blacks in Texas are incarcerated at seven times the rate of whites, and nearly one in three young African American men in Texas is under some form of criminal justice control. The incarceration rate for Blacks in Texas is 63% higher than the national incarceration rate for blacks.
Despite adding more than 100,000 prisoners this decade, Texas' crime rate has declined more slowly than other large states. Between 1995 and 1998 -- the last year for which data is available -- the percentage drop in the overall number of index crimes in Texas was half the percentage drop in the number of index crimes nationally, and the lowest of the five largest states. The Texas crime rate also experienced a slightly lower percentage decline than the national average, and was the lowest among the five largest states.
There are 89,400 people being incarcerated in Texas for non-violent crimes. Standing alone amongst the states, Texas' non-violent prison population represents the second largest incarcerated population in the country (after California), and is larger than the entire prisoner population (violent, and nonviolent) of the United Kingdom-a country of 60 million people, or New York, the nation's third largest state.
The Institute drew a specific comparison between Texas and New York, the state closest in size to Texas. During the 1990s, Texas added more prisoners to its prison system (+98,081) than New York's entire prison population (73,233) by some 24,848 prisoners. This means that the number of prisoners that Texas added during the 1990s was 34% higher than New York's entire prison population. While Texas had the fastest growing prison system in the country during the 1990s, New York had the third slowest growing prison population in the US. Over all, during the 1990s, Texas added five times as many prisoners as New York did (18,001). Yet since 1995, the study found that the percentage decline in New York's crime index was four times greater than Texas' percentage decline in crime and New York's crime rate dropped at twice the rate of the Lone Star State. Texas' current incarceration rate (1,035 per 100,000) is 80% higher than New York's (574 per 100,000), yet Texas' crime rate (5,111 per 100,000) is 30% higher than New York's (3,588 per 100,000). In 1998, Texas' murder rate was 25% higher than New York State's rate.
"If locking more people up really reduced crime, Texas should have the lowest crime rate in the country," says Jason Ziedenberg, Senior Researcher at the Institute and report co-author. "The cost of having 1 in 3 young black men under criminal justice control is a steep price to pay for the states' lackluster crime declines."
In the state of California, nearly four in ten African American men in their twenties are under some form of criminal justice control. While African Americans make up 7% of California's population, and constitute 20% of felony arrests, 31% of the prison population and 43% of third "strike" defendants sent to state prison.5
From 1992 to 1994, the Florida Department of Corrections received a $450 million increase in funding. That is more than the state's university system received in the previous ten years.6
Florida prosecutors are sending as many children into the adult prison and jail system as judges do in the entire rest of the United States.7
In New York State more than 90% of people doing time for a drug offense are African American or Latino. There are more blacks and Hispanics locked up in prisons than there are attending the state university system.8
The District of Columbia literally has more prison and jail inmates than D.C. residents enrolled in its one public university. D.C.'s correction system experienced a 312% increase in funding from 1977 to 1993, compared to an 82% increase in university funding during that 16 year period.9
While African Americans represent one out of every four (25%) Maryland residents, they represent over three out of four (77%) of the state's prisoners. Since 1990, 9 out of every 10 new inmates imprisoned in Maryland have been black.10
In a continued examination of those states that lead the national trend in increasing levels of incarceration, the Justice Policy Institute turns a focus on the state of Texas. The Lone Star State's criminal justice system is particularly worthy of scrutiny at this time, as the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reported in August, 2000 that Texas, for the first time, leads the nation in imprisoning its citizens: Texas now has the nation's largest incarcerated population under the jurisdiction of its prison system.11 Since 1990, Texas has lead the nation's 50 states with an annual average growth rate of 11.8%, about twice the annual average growth rate of other state prison systems (6.1%). Even more important to the national context, since 1990, nearly one in five new prisoners added to the nation's prisons (18%) was in Texas.12
In this report, we examine to what extent the criminal justice population of Texas has grown in recent years, as well as what specific communities have been most impacted by this growth. This brief will also examine the effectiveness of such growth in decreasing the rate of victimization experienced by Texans by comparing changes in crime in Texas to other U.S. states.
Texas:The Toughest and Biggest
As of August 2000, BJS reported that Texas pulled slightly ahead of California to earn the distinction of having the largest population of inmates under the jurisdiction of its prison system. But even before Texas became first in prisoners, the state held the questionable honor of having the largest criminal justice system in the United States, with an astonishing proportion of its population under criminal justice control.
As of year end 1999, there were 706,60013 Texans in prison, jail, parole or probation on any given day. In a state with 14 million adults, this meant that 5% of adult Texans, or 1 out of every 20, are under some form of criminal justice supervision. The scale of what is happening in Texas is so huge, it is difficult to contrast the size of its criminal justice systems to the other states' systems it dwarfs:
There are more Texans under criminal justice control than the entire populations of some states, including Vermont, Wyoming and Alaska.
According to Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates, one quarter of the nation's parole and probationers are in Texas. California and Texas, together, comprise half the nation's parolees and probationers.14
The number of people incarcerated in Texas (in prison or jail) reached 207,526 in mid-year 1999. Only California, with 10 million more citizens, has more people in both prison and jail.
Texas has a rate of 1,035 people behind bars for every 100,000 in the population,15 the second highest incarceration rate in the nation (second only to Louisiana). If Texas was a nation separate from the United States, it would have the world's highest incarceration rate--significantly higher than the United States (682), and Russia (685) which has 1 million prisoners, the world's third biggest prison system. Texas' incarceration rate is also higher than China (115), which has the world's second largest prison population (1.4 million prisoners).16
If the US shared the incarceration rate of Texas, there would be nearly three million Americans behind bars (2,822,300)--instead of our current 2 million prisoners.
The Texas prison population tripled since 1990, and rose 61.5% in the last five years of this decade alone. In 1994, there were 92, 669 prisoners in Texas. This number had increased to 149,684 by mid-year 1999.17
The Texas correctional system has grown so large that in July 2000, corrections officials ran out of six digit numbers to assign inmates, and officially created prisoner number 1,000,000.18
Characteristics of Inmates
Contrary to the view that most of the people entering Texas prisons represent a threat to public safety, the majority of prisoners in the Lone Star State are serving sentences for non-violent offenses. When the composition of the prison population is examined, it appears that most are being incarcerated for low level crimes.
In 1998, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice reported that of its then 130,000 prisoners, 54.8% were being held for a non-violent crime. If these offense proportions held true for the 1999 BJS prison counts, there would be 89,428 inmates held for non-violent crimes in Texas. Just by itself, Texas' non-violent prison population represents the second largest state prison population in the country (next to California). Texas' non-violent prisoner population is larger than the entire incarcerated population of the United Kingdom (73,545)--a country of 60 million people-- and bigger than New York's prison system, our 3rd largest state.19
Of the almost 37,000 inmates entering the Texas prison system in 1998, more than two out of every three entered prison on a parole or probation violation. Of these, an estimated half were charged not with breaking the law by committing new crimes, but for committing technical violations, such as missing a meeting with a parole officer.20
Twenty one percent (21%) of the people in Texas prisons are there for drug related charges.21 While a large number on its own, the 21% figure understates the role drug incarceration policies have played in driving up the prison population totals, as it does not include people serving time for drug related crimes such as theft or burglary. Eighty-five percent of the prison population has a history of drug or alcohol abuse.
Tough on Whom?: Disparate Impact Upon Communities of Color
While Texas' punitive criminal justice policies have affected all communities within the state, the African American community has disproportionately born the brunt of the state's high incarceration policies:
While one out of every 20 Texas adults is under some form of criminal justice control, one out of 3 young black men (29% of the black male population between 21 and 29) are in prison, jail, parole or probation on any given day.22
One out of every four adult black men in Texas is under some form of criminal justice supervision.23
Blacks in Texas are incarcerated at a rate seven times greater than whites. While there are 555 whites behind bars for every 100,000 in the Texas population, there are an astonishing 3862 African Americans behind bars for every 100,000 in the state. This is nearly 63% higher than the national incarceration rate for blacks of 2366 per 100,000.
If Texas' black incarceration rate was applied to the United States, the number of blacks behind bars on a national level would increase by half a million. There are currently an estimated 824,900 African Americans in prison and jail in the U.S. The new figure, 1,346,370, would increase the number of African Americans incarcerated in the U.S. by 63
