Enhancement Deterrence
April 11th, 2007 at 10:57 am
An interesting debate went down at Grits for Breakfast last weekend, with the chairman of the House Committee of Criminal Jurisprudence making a surprise visit. In a nutshell, Scott Henson, the blog’s author, continues to bang home the point that longer sentences on existing crimes, known as enhancements, only make the problem of prison overcrowding worse, while “Chairmans Whitmire and Madden are moving heaven and earth to shift away from mass incarceration to other alternatives.” He singles out Chairman Aaron Pena’s Jurisprudence committee for passing so many of these enhancements on to the floor, in one case allowing two bills that contradict each other out of committee.
Pena’s response is here, saying the contradictory bills were passed out in a symbolic show of respect for the sponsors’ hard work. While it’s nice that Pena weighed in, he didn’t address the numerous enhancements his committee has passed, which Grits took up in the response:
I don’t understand the urgency (to pass enhancements), e.g., to make a felony out of stealing copper wire - it can’t wait until the near-term population crisis is resolved?
As you know, I’ve said I don’t mind enhancements if in the same bill the author reduces penalties for other offenses sufficient to free up prison space. But y’all aren’t passing those bills, so to me passing so many enhancements seems, with all respect, flat out irresponsible from any fiscal or prison management perspective.
The whole debate is informative and worth reading in its entirety, but where do all these enhancements come from in the first place? Apparently from the Lege Council.
Ana Yañez-Correa, executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, tells the Observer that legislators are not necessarily enamored with enhancements, but that they are basically the default language the Council uses when drafting a bill. So if a rep asks Lege Council to draft them a bill that, say, cuts down on graffiti, without any more specifics, the first draft is usually simple enhancement language. Easy to make it look like you’ve gotten tough, without doing anything to really fix the problem.
“Automatically, there’s this assumption that increasing the penalty for the crime will decrease the likelihood of a person committing a crime,” Yañez-Correa said. “We need to think about: What actually is going to deter the criminal activity?”
That is a much more difficult problem than simply catering to the seemingly simple, yet increasingly dubious idea that stiffer penalties deter crime.
April 11th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
I think you are overstating the enhancement issue. As I recall only a few of these bills have actually made it to the House floor. EVERYBODY, liberals and conservatives alike, file enhancement bills and all these Reps want their bills at least to get out of that committee. Calendars can sit on it, the House can vote them vote them up or down and then the process starts all over again in the Senate. So its not as if House Crim Jur is stocking our prisons. I think the committee process has been pretty fair and obviously its chairman hasn’t been afraid to discuss the issue.
April 12th, 2007 at 6:54 am
It’s not like CrimJur is stocking our prisons? Why not? Every legislator is responsible for their own votes. These members (and the committee is 7-2 Dem) have voted for more prison-filling bills than any other Texas elected officials this year. I also disagree with several assessments above:
1. I agree enhancements are a bipartisan pastime, which doesn’t make it good public policy. 2. There’s no reason to believe Calendars will sit on enhancements. 3. Several major enhancements have already passed - Jessica’s Law, vehicle burglary, making stealing wire a felony, etc., and there will be more.
This happens every session, and only in one direction - longer and longer sentences. Criminal Jurisprudence is the primary committee that oversees Texas’ penal code in the House. I don’t see why they shouldn’t be held responsible for their contributions to the prison overcrowding crisis, especially when other criminal justice related committees are trying to solve the problem instead of exacerbate it.
May 3rd, 2007 at 6:00 pm
“Chairmans Whitmire and Madden are moving heaven and earth to shift away from mass incarceration to other alternatives”… Hmmm… Here’s a new idea: build a secured TOWN instead of a prison. With the focus on EDUCATION, instead of punishment, the recidivism rate whould plummet. There’s a group starting up that will meet next year to brainstorm. Want to join? Here’s the blog: gracetowne.blogspot.com