A new report finds that the Texas prison populace has been growing smaller, ever since reforms were instituted ten years ago.
In fact,as the San Antonio Current reports, Texas prison populations have been shrinking at a faster rate than much of America. The population of Texas prisons reached its peak in 2010, with almost 175,000 inmates. Since that time, the number has dropped by nearly five percent. Experts attribute the decline to a number of incremental 2007 reforms.
Even so, Texas still has an incarceration rate higher than states like New Jersey and California. That’s because those states have instituted comprehensive prison reform bills—something Texas has yet to do. And it’s possible that Texas’s number could turn around, following the trend from the White House to return to draconian 1980s-style sentencing laws.
