Texas Prisons May Enter Building Mode

HOUSTON – The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in late May that Texas had the largest inmate population in the nation on June 30, 2003. The Lone Star State’s inmate population had grown by 6,578 inmates from the previous June to a total population of 164,222.

If the state is not careful, it will be back in a very short term in a building mode, said Sen. John Whitmire (D-Houston). Explaining that the growth in the state inmate population is not surprising, he said that the state might be edging toward a new prison-building boom.

At the start of the 2003 Legislature, the head of the Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council told lawmakers that the state prison population would grow by about 5 percent during 2003 and at a higher rate over the next two years.

Whitmire said the prison system has responded in part by building a new 1,000-bed unit in Byran that is scheduled to be online in August. He said the state also has done a good job of moving inmates out of county jails to prisons in less than 45 days after their convictions.

He also said that the prison system has been at its capacity of about 148,000 inmates for the past several years, and the pull of continued growth might hamper the state's ability to take in new inmates from the county jails. By 2005, the state could be looking at having to lease beds, he said.