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center for civic & public policy improvement
Weekly Brief, March 13th, 2023
Focus: Safety and Criminal Justice

Legislature Has Another Chance to Give Youth Offenders a 'Second Look'

Representative Joe Moody has filed HB 213, which would give youth offenders sent to adult facilities eligibility for parole after serving 20 years. After a series of Supreme Court decisions between 2005 and 2016 changed how youth offenders can be sentenced, including eliminating mandatory life without parole for youth under eighteen, Texas began requiring that those who receive that sentence serve forty years before they are eligible for parole, making it a de facto life sentence. Texas’ forty-year requirement makes them an outlier amongst states. Reducing the requirement for a parole hearing to twenty years would give youth offenders a meaningful chance for rehabilitation. A similar bill, HB 686, was passed last session with bipartisan support (including a two-thirds majority in the House), but was vetoed by Governor Abbott. In his veto statement, Governor Abbott suggested that the bill would conflict with the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure and “...would result in confusion and needless, disruptive legislation.”
Source: https://rightoncrime.com/second-look-in-texas/
 The ‘Second Look’ movement is supported by clear evidence that youth offenders have a great capacity for change. Research has shown that the brain continues to develop into our early twenties, with the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for reasoning, advanced thought and impulse control, being the last area to develop. The developing brain means that youth offenders have the ability to mature and experience meaningful rehabilitation. Offering the possibility of parole at twenty years provides greater motivation for youth offenders to focus on rehabilitation and build skills that can benefit wider society. Evidence shows that long prison sentences shorten life expectancy and offenders released after forty years are less likely to have the skills and family support for reintegration. ‘Second Look’ policies have no negative impacts on public safety with youth offenders released under these policies showing low rates of recidivism. A study from Pennsylvania found that only 2 of 174 youth offenders with life sentences who were released under ‘Second Look’ policies were convicted of a new crime within twenty-one months of release. 

According to Second Look Texas, there are approximately 1400 youthful offenders serving de facto life sentences in Texas prison and the average age of incarceration is sixteen. In addition to the profound impact of these policies on the lives of the teenagers incarcerated under this policy, there is a serious financial cost to the state. It costs the state of Texas approximately $2.5 million to incarcerate a youthful offender for life. 
Incarcerating them for twenty-years years costs approximately $626,000, which means that offering the possibility of parole at the twenty year mark offers the state significant savings. 
 
HB 213 offers the Legislature the opportunity to once again pass bipartisan legislation that will both help reduce the prison population in Texas and save the state money. The bill would allow those who were under the age of eighteen when they were convicted of either capital murder or a first degree felony to be eligible for parole after serving twenty years of their sentence. In addition, it directs the parole board to consider mitigating factors such as what we now know about the developing adolescent brain, the diminished capacity of juveniles, maturity, rehabilitation and the greater capacity for change by young offenders. This bill gives juvenile offenders a meaningful opportunity to live a productive life outside of prison by recognizing that who someone was at seventeen is not who they are twenty years later.

A Number of Bills Are Seeking How to Keep Kids out of the Criminal Justice System

While HB 213 addressed youth offenders who have already been sentenced, a number of bills have been filed that would seek to prevent young people from entering either the juvenile or adult prison system at all. Here is a brief overview of some of the bills addressing young people’s interactions with the criminal justice system. 
Addressing the Age of Criminal Responsibility
Given what we now know about brain development in young people, four bills, HB 491 from Representatives Wu and Dutton and its Senate companion SB 1385 from Senator Miles and HB 501 from Representative Wu and HB 828 from Representative Dutton address how Texas defines the age of criminal responsibility. HB 491 seeks to raise the age of criminal responsibility from ten to twelve and HB 501 and HB 828 would raise the age of criminal responsibility from seventeen to eighteen. Currently, youth between the ages of ten and seventeen can be tried in juvenile courts. All three of these bills would help to keep juvenile offenders out of custody and stop the prison pipeline.
In Texas, children as young as ten can be sent to juvenile justice facilities. Children ten-twelve make up only a small percentage (less than 10%) of those either on probation or in detention. Raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility to twelve would save money by allowing the Texas Juvenile Justice Department to focus their resources on helping older offenders. Placing young offenders in therapeutic settings and community diversion programs can save the state approximately $159,505 per young person by lowering the daily cost from $523 to $86 a day. More importantly, it can help ensure that these young people do not continue to have interactions with the criminal justice system by getting them the community support they need to succeed. A study found that 40% of youth who were detained under the age of twelve were re-arrested before twenty-five. HB 491 would simply raise the age of criminal responsibility from ten to twelve. 
In Texas, seventeen year olds are automatically referred to the adult justice system (sixteen year olds can be referred under certain circumstances), one of only three states that automatically treats seventeen year olds as adults (Georgia and Wisconsin are the other two). In 2019,  95% of the seventeen year olds arrested were detained for nonviolent and misdemeanor offenses. Raising the minimum age from seventeen to eighteen would allow these young people to be adjudicated within the juvenile justice system and give them access to more community-based rehabilitation. A seventeen year old with an adult criminal conviction on their record faces barriers to employment, education and housing. Keeping them in juvenile court also lowers recidivism rates by 34% and ensures they are less likely to interact with the prison system in the future. In addition, raising the age of criminal responsibility could save the state $88.9 million for every cohort of seventeen year olds. 
Reforming Youth Prisons
House Speaker Dade Phelan selected HB 16 by Representative Moody as one of his priority bills. This bill would divert young people away from the juvenile justice system and into community-based programs that prioritize rehabilitation, mental health services, and mentorship. 

In response to revelations about conditions in the juvenile prison system, Representative Talarico has filed HB 4356, which would close the state’s five juvenile prisons and eliminate the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD) by 2030. It would replace TJJD with the Office of Youth Safety and Rehabilitation, which would create a plan for alternative rehabilitation and detention services by 2026. The bill would also create new opportunities for community-based programs and mental health treatment. 

These are just a few of the bills filed that would remake the juvenile justice system by taking into account what we know about the changing adolescent brain and young people’s capacity for change. Passing these bills would keep kids out of prison and in their communities where they have better opportunities to succeed. 
Call to Action 
 

For HB 491:
Contact members of House Committee on Juvenile Justice and Family Issues to voice your support for the bill

For HB 501, HB 828 and HB 16:
Contact the members of the Select Committee on Youth Health and Safety to voice your support for the bill

For HB 4356:
Learn more about the campaign to close Texas’ juvenile prisons by reading the Finish the Five Report

Days of Action 
 
Continuous Medicaid coverage ends on March 31st. A new website, Stay Covered Texas,  from Texans Care for Children, can help guide people through the re-qualification process and offers important information about the Medicaid wind-down. 

CCPPI and our partners in the Keep Harris Housed Coalition will be holding two events this weekend to help tenants sign up for the Texas Rent Relief Program. This first event will take place from 9am-1pm at the Tracy Gee Community Center (3599 Westcenter Dr Houston TX 77042)
. The second event will take place from 3pm-7pm at La Iglesia del Peublo (1600 Pasadena Blvd Pasadena TX 77502)For more information about the event in Houston click here and for Pasadena click here.

The Coalition is looking for volunteers to help tenants sign-up for rent relief. Sign up here. No experience necessary!
A donation would help the Center for Civic & Public Policy Improvement continue to fight for justice through our policy, advocacy, and community work. Our work contributes to the development and promotion of affordable housing, equitable education opportunities, access to quality healthcare, and reforms to the criminal justice system.
 
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The Center for Civic and Public Policy Improvement is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing policies that promote human, civic, social, and economic justice, and to taking the necessary action to affect progress in all areas of civic improvement throughout the culturally diverse communities in the Southern United States.
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