Because the Friend of Unfair Park loves reading ACLU-generated reports so close to closing time, we thought we'd direct your attention to the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas' just-released study about the prison population in Texas titled Texas: Tougher than Ever. Specifically, the report compares how Texas and New York deal with their exponentially increasing prison pops, and it makes a few suggestions how Texas might best deal with the problem. (In short: "Sentencing reform instead of building new facilities.")
Now, we're no experts on the subject of prison population; all we've learned about the subject has come from watching episodes of Oz and a few minutes of the amazingly overrated The Shawshank Redemption. (Guaranteed, if we get any comments on this item, it'll be about that last sentence and nothing actually in the ACLU's report -- like, oh, this sentence: "During 2006 the Parole Board approved for release fewer than 30% of eligible offenders -- and far fewer of the safest, nonviolent offenders than indicated by their own guidelines.") So we'll leave the analysis to the experts. Best part: The report's only 10 pages, which ain't no life sentence. --Robert Wilonsky
