The Political Dynamics of Justice Reform in The U.S.

The county jail system in Texas has excess capacity these days, with only about two
out of every three beds filled, thanks to a boom in jails built on spec by private firms with
public bonds. Public and private county jails have sought to cover their losses by
securing contracts to provide beds for inmates transferred from other counties and from
overcrowded state prisons in Texas and other states. They also have entered the brisk
and lucrative market in federal immigrant detention.
Texas leads the country in the number of immigrants held in privately run immigration
detention facilities and local jails through contracts with the federal Immigration and
Customs Enforcement agency. Over the past few years, immigrant detention for families
has become the most profitable sector for the private prison industry, thanks to the
policies of the Obama and Trump administrations. The private prison industry in Texas
was among the greatest beneficiaries of the Obama administration’s decision to ramp
up family detention on an unprecedented scale and demonstrate its toughness in the
face of an uptick in migrant families from Central America seeking asylum in the United
States. The controversies surrounding the Trump administration’s family separation and
other immigration policies have spurred some local governments in Texas to terminate
their immigrant detention contracts with the federal government, while others have
sought to retain or expand these contracts.
Wrong on Crime
Meanwhile, despite the Right on Crime spin, Texas has been energetically divesting
from the items proven to reduce crime and improve inmates’ quality of life: better
education, good health care, adequate family planning, mental health, and social
services, and living-wage jobs. Furthermore, Texas’s periodic budget shortfalls are not
acts of nature but rather politically engineered crises by the very people hailed as
leaders in penal reform.
To take just health care as an example of the interlocking systems of harshness,
consider that Texas has been ground zero in the political and legal trench warfare
against the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Texas maintains some of the toughest Medicaid
eligibility requirements, second only to Alabama’s stringent rules. Opposition to the ACA
and Medicaid expansion has been a nonnegotiable red line for leading conservatives.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), the state’s most prominent conservative
think tank, not only opposes Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, but has also
advocated to turn the entire program into block grants for states to manage as they see
fit without any interference from Washington.
Right on Crime was the brainchild of the TPPF, which has deep and long-standing
connections to ALEC, the powerful conservative organization. TPPF is funded by a
Who’s Who of conservative individuals, foundations, and corporations, including the
Koch brothers, the Bradley Foundation, Exxon, and Big Tobacco.
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