Successful Criminal Justice Sunset Legislation, 2013

Risk Assessment | Probation | Reentry | Parole | Other

In late 2011, the Sunset Advisory Commission began reviewing Texas’ corrections-related agencies: the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the Board of Pardons and Paroles, the Correctional Managed Health Care Committee, and the Windham School District.

This comprehensive, statutorily mandated review process offered TCJC – among many others – the opportunity to provide a multitude of recommendations for improvements to the state’s criminal justice system. Ultimately, all feedback informed key provisions of SB 213 (Whitmire; Nichols); Effective September 1, 2013.

These provisions include improvements in the following areas:

Risk Assessment

• Creation of a Standardized Risk and Needs Assessment Instrument. Under this bill, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (the Department) must adopt a standardized instrument to assess the risks and needs of each individual in the adult criminal justice system, based on criminogenic factors, to be fully implemented by 2015.

• Use of an Assessment in Prisons and State Jails. Each facility under the oversight of the Department’s Correctional Institutions Division must establish a case management committee to assess each inmate in the facility and ensure the inmate is receiving appropriate services or participating in appropriate programs.

• Use of an Assessment in Treatment Plans. The Department must also include the results of any assessment in an inmate’s individual treatment plan, including any assessment made using the risk and needs assessment instrument and any vocational, educational, or substance abuse assessment.

• Use of an Assessment in Probation. The Department’s Community Justice Assistance Division, which oversees probation (“community supervision”), must require each probation department to use the risk and needs assessment instrument to assess each defendant at the time of his or her initial placement on probation.

• Use of an Assessment in Reentry Planning. The Department’s comprehensive reentry and reintegration plan (see below) must incorporate the use of the risk and needs assessment instrument.

Probation

• Probation Grants. Under this bill, the Department’s Community Justice Assistance Division must examine the probation system’s grant processes and make recommendations pertaining to the possibility of performance-based funding formulas.

Reentry

• Implementation of a Reentry Plan. The Department’s reentry and reintegration plan must provide for programs to address assessed needs; provide for a comprehensive network of transition programs; identify Department-offered transition services and eligible participants; coordinate the provision of reentry and reintegration services for effective and efficient service provision; provide for data collection on inmates eligible for services and those who actually received them; provide for outcome measurements to evaluate the efficacy of services provided; identify providers of existing reentry and reintegration services that can assist the Department; and provide for information sharing among all service providers.

The entities involved – the Board of Pardons and Paroles, along with the Windham School District – must identify their reentry and reintegration goals, the strategies for achieving those goals, and specific timelines to implement their particular plans.

• Ongoing Evaluation of and Updates to the Reentry Plan. Each even-numbered year, the Department must submit a report evaluating the plan via the results of the plan’s outcome measurements. Furthermore, the Department must update the plan at least once every three years.

• Expanded Reentry Task Force Membership. The State’s Reentry Task Force, established in 2009, must expand to include representatives from the Board of Pardons and Paroles, the Windham School District, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, the Department of State Health Services, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the County Judges and Commissioner’s Association of Texas, the Sheriff’s Association of Texas, the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, the Texas Conference of Urban Counties, a probation department, an organization that advocates on behalf of system-involved individuals, and a local reentry planning entity.

• Expanded Reentry Task Force Duties. The Task Force must (rather than may) identify gaps in services for returning individuals relating to employment, housing, substance abuse treatment, medical care, and other areas, and coordinate with existing local program providers to recommend the provision of comprehensive services to such individuals. The Task Force must also identify its goals and deliverables, specify member responsibilities, and create a timeline for achieving its goals.

Parole

• Notification of Parole Panel Decision. The Board of Pardons and Paroles must give specific reasons, in writing, for a denial of parole.

• Parole Guidelines. The Board will also establish and maintain a range of parole approval rates for each category or score within established parole guidelines, which are the basic criteria upon which a decision is made, and the Board will meet annually to review and discuss this range of approval rates.

Other

• Individualized Treatment Plans. An Individual Treatment Plan (ITP) will be developed and sent to the Board of Pardons and Paroles when an inmate is being considered for release. Each ITP will include the results of any risk and needs assessment, along with any vocational, educational, or substance abuse assessment, and the dates on which the individual must participate in any subsequent assessments and all of the treatment and programming needs of the inmate. Individuals must also agree to participate in the programs and activities described by the ITP before release.

• Case Management Committees. Each facility must establish a case management committee to assess each individual in that facility and ensure each person is receiving appropriate services and participating in appropriate programs. The committee must meet with individuals upon their initial arrival at a facility, as well as every time the committee meets to reclassify the inmate. The committee must review each individual’s ITP.

• Windham School District Evaluation. The Windham School District (WSD) will be required to gather information about every individual who participates in each of its academic, vocational training, and life skills programs. This information will include in-prison disciplinary violations; any arrests, confinements, or convictions after release; and the kind of employment the individual obtains after release, and whether that employment was related to training. The WSD will evaluate this information to determine whether it is meeting previously set goals.

• Correctional Managed Health Care. In recognition that the Department may begin seeking providers for health care other than Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB), this bill makes changes to allow for the participation of other providers. Additionally, this bill requires the Department to report healthcare cost and use information to the Legislative Budget Board and the Governor, including actual and projected expenditures, and the amount of cost savings realized as a result of contracting with a provider other than UTMB or Texas Tech.

Click here to download a PDF copy of this summary, as well as summaries of all successful smart-on-crime bills passed in 2013.