Texas Prison Reform: A Success Story

Government

The prison population in the United States experienced an unprecedented expansion between the 1970s and the end of the first decade of the 21st century (Editorial Board, 2013). Beginning with a prison population of 174,000 in 1972 it grew to over 1.4 million by 2010, representing over a 700% increase (PSPP, 2010). By comparison, the growth of the U.S. population was a modest 32% during the same period (Multpl.com, 2013). In other words, the American prison population grew at a rate 21-times faster than the population in general. By the beginning of the 21st century, American prisons housed 25% of the world's prisoners even though the country was home to only 5% of the global population (ACLU, 2011).

Tough sentencing laws passed by state legislatures have been blamed for the unprecedented increase (ACLU, 2011). These 'tough on crime' policies have prompted critics to...
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