Stop Overcriminalizing Children

• Decriminalize failure to attend school offenses for children.
• Reform policies that subject children to criminal penalties for engaging in conduct that would not be deemed criminal if engaged in by an adult.

Right-Size The Texas Criminal Justice System

• Provide property owners relief by giving prosecutors the option to require graffiti offenders to serve on cleanup crews as part of their sentences. In addition, reduce penalties for graffiti and create a new offense level for minor offenses (under $50 worth of damage).
• Provide representation to all defendants at their bail hearing to ensure reasonable bail is set and so the magistrate can make an informed decision on whether to grant pre-trial release.
• More effectively address property offenses by updating damage thresholds in light of inflation. These thresholds have not been updated since 1993.
• Improve Texas’ state jail system:
  1. Decrease the state jail population by allowing individuals charged with certain felonies to serve probation terms rather than serving state jail sentences.
  2. Require post-release supervision for greater reentry success.
• Modify penalties for minor drug possession offenses and allow courts to divert individuals to a treatment program to address substance abuse, mental health, or other needs, when the offender is deemed by the court not to be a threat to public safety. Use the savings derived from diversion to strengthen existing treatment programs in the community or create tailored treatment programs, as necessary, to address possession offenses.
• Improve probation incentives and outcomes to reduce unnecessary incarceration costs:
  1. Cap terms of incarceration for technical revocations at 270 days or half of the remaining probation term, whichever is shorter, for probationers who have at least six months remaining on their probation term, and who have no instant or prior violent or sex offense. Note: This should apply only on the first motion to revoke filed during the individual’s probation term; after serving the term of incarceration, the individual should return to probation for the remainder of his or her sentence.
  2. Incentivize an offender’s use of probation by reducing certain nonviolent state jail offenses to misdemeanors upon successful completion of the probation term, and with approval of the prosecutor.
  3. Help probation departments fully implement localized “commitment reduction plans” to safely reduce the number of individuals who fail to meet their probation conditions and who are sent to prison.
• Establish a temporary volunteer commission to review the criminal laws outside the state penal code, and recommend to the Texas Legislature which offenses should be placed within the penal code and which may be abolished altogether.
• Repeal Texas’ Driver Responsibility Program.

Improve Reentry Outcomes

• For individuals already in state confinement, take steps to improve success upon reentry:
  1. Allow the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to provide the timely award of credits for participation in self-improvement programming within state jails.
  2. Incentivize wardens to improve access for community-based and faith-based organizations to provide workforce training, education, and other programming to fill gaps in rehabilitative services.
• Improve educational outcomes at Windham ISD (which provides educational and vocational training to eligible inmates) utilizing existing funding.
• Improve access to housing among individuals returning from confinement.
• Ensure the Texas Department of Public Safety provides driver’s licenses and identification to all eligible youth and adults who leave confinement.
• Limit the extent to which licensing authorities can deny, suspend, or revoke occupational licenses for certain individuals with a criminal record.
• Ensure the accuracy of criminal history information disseminated by local and state agencies.
• Expand the eligibility criteria for orders of nondisclosure.
• Create an approximately 90-day early release program of education, workforce training, job counseling, or job placement, funded by diversion of funds made available by early release from confinement.