TX GOP 2018 Party Platform: criminal justice reform

[Winehole23]

"Police should ..."

"Prosecutors should ..."

good luck with that. The LE culture is as corrupt as BigFinance and the military.

arrests, confessions, convictions are how the LE "culture", for decades, proves, come election time, its worth to politicians, voters.

And nobody is "policing the (immune) police" and prosecutors. How many prosecutors lose jobs, get debarred for malpractice, even after eg the Innocence Project exonerates their victims, ansd/or prove that the prosecution withheld exonerating evidence in order to convict?

Any politicians proposing bills or regs, running for office, that "go easy on crime"?

Punishing people, hurting people are fundamental to American adversarial, dog-eat-dog Capitalist so-called Christian society.

If I'm The Punisher, I must be good, God loves me.

And Trash epitomizes that "ethic". His goal is not only to win a negotiation, a deal, a conflict, but also to hurt the other party.

10Ms of Americans, esp Bible-humping evangelicals, elected Trash to "hurt", to punish non-whites, non-males.

However, informative article. I learned that police, as well executing unarmed, innocent blacks for just about anything, are in some locales then entire judicial system.

Texas has closed eight prisons in the last six years.

Why? Because the juice isn't worth the squeeze: costs too much, wrecks communities, no demonstrable benefit to public safety. Whether you're talking about state prisons or city/county jails the math is the same.

Btw, the motto is "smart on crime' and conservatives are using it too.

Facts are changing all around you, all the time; it's only your brain that's inert and never changes.

[boutons_deux]

Because the juice isn't worth the squeeze: costs too much,

... you should have stopped with the "co$t$",

because racist TX lawmakers simply don't GAF about the "communities" their LE wrecks the most: blacks, browns.

That's why they inhumanely cut $150M from pre-K, which overwhelmingly helps poor blacks and browns.

Conservatives "smart on crime" are eying the $$$ saved to give more tax cuts wealthy, business.

Humanity is not in their "math"

Your beloved TX assholes also have inhumanely denied expanding Medicaid ($$$) and inhumanely closed clinics (God told them to act on His vengeful behalf and screw poor people, esp women, because they are not godly people).

[Winehole23]

We're not all assholes and we're not all Republican assholes.

It won't be that way forever.

Political majorities and public policies change over time.

[boutons_deux]

We're not all assholes and we're not all Republican assholes.

It won't be that way forever.

Political majorities and public policies change over time.

In earlier times, maybe, maybe it was mythical times.

but those times are out of time

In USA, both parties are controlled by the oligarchy, eg, so-called progressive Obama's priority was saving Wall St, not Main st. Dems and Repugs only differ in degree not in kind.

USA, even the planet, is now the oligarchy's time.

The oligarchy's only objective is amassing unlimited Capital which buys them more power, to amass more Capital, no matter the external costs and destruction.

[Winehole23]

polling stations inside county jails?

https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/86...pdf#navpanes=0

[Winehole23]

here's nothing sacred about government debt. When Texans can't pay their Visa or cable bill, those companies don't get to incarcerate them until they come up with the money, and neither should the government. Grits expects legislation to be filed soon addressing this populist (and popular) bipartisan priority. That's necessary to prevent more than a half-million Texans from going to jail next year over unpaid Class C misdemeanor debt

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.co...-of-years.html

[boutons_deux]

Bill limiting suspensions a start at untangling worst-in-nation driver-license mess

Texas revokes more drivers licenses, by far, than any other state

a bill up in the Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee on Wednesday that would rectify a small but unremittingly ill-conceived provision in the current law.

Presently, Texas law doubles down on license suspension as a punishment, even when it fails to keep drivers off the road. When the Transportation Code lists grounds for suspending licenses,

the very first one is driving while one's "license was suspended,

canceled, disqualified, or revoked, or without a license after an application for a license was denied."

So one of the punishments for driving with your license suspended is to suspend your license for a minimum of one extra year.

Combined with the Driver Responsibility surcharge, which has left

more than a million Texans with suspended licenses,

this provision adds insult to injury, leaving drivers without a license even after delinquent surcharges are finally paid.

people who engage in "habitually reckless" driving, "fraudulent use" of their license, or are responsible for an accident that results in serious personal injury or property damage, only get a 90-day suspension.

HB 162 would apply an extra suspension only for drivers whose licenses were suspended for DWI.

And then, he would limit the suspension to 90 days, which is the amount of time for all other suspensions under the same provision.

would help untangle a particularly difficult bureaucratic gnarl which can ensnare drivers for years after they've otherwise paid their debt to society.

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.co...-start-at.html

Is this extreme punishment a form of Jim Crow / Jaime Cuervo?

What is the ethnicity or race of the 1M+ suspended drivers?

[Winehole23]

Prosecutorial discretion can do a lot of good:

“The criminal justice system has fallen disproportionately harshly on poor people and people of color, that’s just a fact,” Creuzot told the Observer. “The entire system is complicit in this dysfunction. We’re doing what we can within this office to address some of that.”

Under the new policies, the DA’s office won’t prosecute people arrested with misdemeanor marijuana possession for the first time; Creuzot said he’s already dismissed more than 1,000 pot possession cases that were filed before he took office. After the first offense, Dallas prosecutors will offer a diversion program — a fine, a class and drug testing — that, if completed, will lead to dismissal of the criminal charge.

Among other changes, prosecutors will no longer take “trace” cases involving a minuscule amount of drugs, nor will they accept criminal trespass charges against someone who is clearly homeless and in need of services. Creuzot’s letter seeks to reduce the county’s heavy reliance on cash bail — the subject of an ongoing federal lawsuit — directing prosecutors to advocate for pretrial release in many low-level felony and most misdemeanor cases. “Our system of justice cannot depend on whether individuals can afford to buy their freedom,” he wrote.

https://www.texasobserver.org/dallas...incarceration/

[boutons_deux]

Prosecutorial discretion can do a lot of good:

notable only because it's an exception that proves the rule

[Winehole23]

notable only because it's an exception that proves the rule

elections matter

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elections matter

Texas is solidly racist, red, xenophobic, evangelical.

The 4 Big Blue Cities (SA muni elections have sub-15% turnout) can't overcome the rurals, voter suppression, Repug gerrymandering, and ditto for all the retrograde slave states, that all together vote Repug for regressivity.

KY wants to make voter registration people state felons. etc, etc, etc.

America is ed and un able, by the red/slave states controlled by the oligarchy.

[Winehole23]

Texas justice reformers will spend the next couple of years lamenting what the Texas Lege DIDN'T do in 2019 - e.g., reduce marijuana penalties, pass the Sandra Bland law, close the dead-suspect loophole to the Public Information Act - or else frustrated by new criminal penalties boosting sentences for petty offenses.

But it's worth giving legislators credit for what they DID do on #cjreform, and by far the most important measures relate to providing relief from justice-system debt:

Abolishing the Driver Responsibility Surcharge: The Texas Fair Defense Project estimates that $2.5 billion in justice-debt will be wiped off the books on September 1st when HB 2048 takes effect, and some 1.5 million people will be eligible to have their drivers licenses reinstated.

Eliminating red-light cameras: While a few cities have lengthy contracts which will keep red light cameras operating for years to come, the Legislature forbade new ones and eliminated the ability to deny vehicle registration or license renewal for nonpayment. These cameras affect on safety is dubious, at best, and are viewed by locals as revenue generators.

Limited automatic driver's license suspensions: HB 162 would end the practice of searching driver records to suspend licenses of people driving without them. Now, such administrative suspensions based on a government database search will be limited to people whose licenses are suspended for DWI, and those would be limited to 90 days. The Washington Post last year reported that Texas has more people with suspended licenses than any other state. This new law and abolition of the Driver Responsibility surcharge should go a long way toward knocking that number down.

Defined "undue hardship" in debtors prison cases: In 2017, the Texas Lege approved legislation to make it easier for municipal judges and justices of the peace to waive Class C fines and authorize community service. But many local judges had been defining the term "undue hardship" narrowly to avoid waiving fines. Amendments to SB 346 define that term so that more fines will be waived. This was a cleanup bill, but quite necessary: Although more than 50,000 people had fines waived in the 2018, for example,more than ten times that number sat out their Class C fines in jail.

Two of these - surcharge abolition and eliminating red-light cameras - were pushed by reformers for 12 years before finally passing.

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.co...medium=twitter

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500K people in jail for unpaid Class C fines, costing taxpayers $K/month x 500K.

We vengeful, God-fearing Repugs don't care what our Jim Crow / Jaime Cuervo enforcement costs taxpayers, but you knitters and Messcans going to jail.

[Winehole23]

well, at least you skimmed it. you're not required to cheer.

[Winehole23]

[Winehole23]

2020 criminal justice reform year in review:

https://theappeal.org/politicalreport/states-in-2020/

[Winehole23]

even conservative groups like the TPPF are for bail reform, and, if memory serves, bail reform is still in the GOP platform for the upcoming lege:

https://www.texaspolicy.com/blog/det...stem-for-texas

LA doing away with cash bail today, SF has already done so.

[Winehole23]

Looks like Illinois will get rid of cash bail, predictive algorithms and pretrial electronic monitoring.

[Winehole23]

A big deal if it passes.

[Winehole23]

Dp

[Winehole23]

on to the TX Senate

[Winehole23]

if not for the 2020 BLM protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd -- which might be the largest mass political movement since MLK and the second US reconstruction -- you probably don't see this.

[Winehole23]

denouement:

[Winehole23]

Three year study drops on Harris County bail reform.

A federally mandated change in the misdemeanor bail policy of Harris County, Texas, has resulted in fewer low-level offenders in jail and improved public safety, according to a new study.


The bail reforms in the county that includes Houston, ordered five years ago as part of a consent decree, have resulted in a 13% increase in people released within the first 24 hours of a misdemeanor arrest and a 6% decrease in new prosecutions over the three years following arrest, indicating that releasing these defendants doesn’t increase recidivism, according to the study by the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...new-study-says

[Winehole23]

“This idea that when you release people charged with these low-level crimes you’re going to harm public safety, the data doesn’t support that at all,” said Paul Heaton, academic director at the Quattrone Center and the lead researcher on the study. “You can fix this and you can do it in a way that doesn’t compromise public safety, it doesn’t compromise accountability, it ratchets back the cost of the criminal justice system.”