On the Move

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With projections of offender population growth showing continued increases through the remainder of the decade, the 79th Texas Legislature allocated an additional $55.5 million during the FY2006-07 biennium for community corrections program. The agency’s Community Justice Assistance Division (CJAD) has been tasked with disbursing this money to programs that aim to divert a greater concentration of low-risk offenders away from incarceration. The recipients of this funding will be the Community Supervision and Corrections Departments (CSCDs), which are commonly referred to as adult probation departments.

The legislation set up a performance-based method for monitoring those CSCDs eligible to obtain funding. For example, those who qualified would have to demonstrate an increase in supervision completions and/or a reduction in the number of offenders whose probation is revoked.

CJAD announced the funding categories and requirements for this “Diversion Program” funding in July 2005 and received applications through the following month. By October, the qualifying grant recipients had been notified and began the process of employing new officers, organizing residential facilities and implementing their progressive sanctions models for achieving the goal of diverting probationers away from incarceration.

In addition to laying out the qualification parameters, the legislation also provided direction on how the funds should be used by the qualifying CSCDs. Rider 71 states that a total of $14,092,422 per year shall be used to fund additional adult probation officers to reduce caseloads consisting of medium and high-risk offenders. Rider 72 asked CJAD to give preference to CSCDs that agreed to have their diversion plans approved by the division; those plans were also supposed to be in line with other laws that aim to achieve the same goal of diverting offenders away from incarceration. Rider 73 of the bill stated that $13,637,500 is to be used each year on additional residential treatment and sanction beds. Finally, Rider 79 required that CJAD develop a specific system of accountability for the monitoring, tracking, utilization, and effectiveness of diversion funds.

Results of the evaluation criteria will be reported through the “Monitoring of Community Supervision Diversion Funds” web page, which is through the TDCJ website and will be updated quarterly (See http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/, click on the “Adult Probation Quick Link” and then on the icon labeled, “Monitoring of Community Supervision Diversion Funds.). The web site offers the evaluation criteria data for each of the 121 CSCDs, as well as statewide totals.

The chart on the preceding page represents data for the first five months of the 24-month funding period of this biennium as compared to the first five months of FY 2005. The chart indicates that CSCDs receiving diversion funding had significantly more positive outcomes than CSCDs not receiving funding.

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