Texas Democrats believe protection from crime is a primary responsibility of government essential to the quality of life in our communities. All Texans are entitled to be safe and secure, free from fear of violence. The guilty must be justly punished for crimes they commit, the innocent must be protected, the rights of victims must be ensured, the accused provided due process under law, and public safety officers must be strongly supported. We believe a community-based approach to crime fighting makes our streets and neighborhoods safer. Partnerships should be formed with community groups to assist officers on the streets.
Texas Democrats believe government must provide the necessary tools and equipment law enforcement personnel need to do their jobs, and we must support officers with higher wages commensurate with the daily risks associated with the profession.
Texas Democrats applaud the Dallas County District Attorney for working with the Innocence Project on innovative efforts to discover, exonerate and quickly release innocent people who have been wrongfully convicted. We urge the Texas Legislature to create an “Innocence Commission” to review cases in which nnocent persons were convicted of a crime and later exonerated, in order to identify the causes of wrongful convictions, and determine and implement needed reforms to prevent recurring systemic problems, including reforms requiring corroboration of eyewitness and confidential informant testimony and meaningful penalties for prosecutorial misconduct.
Texas faces an imminent crisis in prison space unless we reduce the number of people imprisoned by using prevention, education and alternative sentencing for nonviolent offenders. We shouldn’t spend money building more prisons in cases where prevention efforts can keep people from becoming career criminals. Texas has more people in prison than any other state, even though California has 13 million more residents. The incarceration rate in Texas is 687 per 100,000 population, compared to a national average of 440. Texas has the second highest incarceration rate in the nation, second only to Louisiana’s 835. There are too many people in Texas prisons who could be supervised safely in the community at a much lower cost, while also paying taxes, paying restitution to their victims and paying child support.
Texas Democrats are leading efforts to make the Texas criminal justice system fairer, more equitable and less costly. We support reforms passed with Democratic legislative leadership in 2007, which are a striking redirection of Texas corrections policy, including short-term residential diversion and treatment facilities for low-level substance abusing offenders and additional outpatient drug and mental health treatment resources.
Texas Democrats also passed legislation to remove the requirement that a person obtain a letter of innocence from the District Attorney to receive a pardon for innocence; and passed legislation to increase the level of wrongful compensation to $50,000 for each year of incarceration and $100,000 per year if the person was wrongfully convicted of a capital crime.
