Grits for Breakfast: The Playbook: Under budget pressure, TDCJ prophesi...

Grits for Breakfast: The Playbook: Under budget pressure, TDCJ prophesi...: Nota bene, Robert T. Garrett and other journalists covering the state budget process: When the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) c...

Grits for Breakfast: TDCJ must reduce incarceration levels to cut a qua...

Grits for Breakfast: TDCJ must reduce incarceration levels to cut a qua...: Texas state legislative leadership this week told state agencies to submit a baseline budget four percent lower than the last biennium, wi...

Grits for Breakfast: On the need to measure (and limit) prosecutor disc...

Grits for Breakfast: On the need to measure (and limit) prosecutor disc...: Grits has been thinking quite a bit about Prof. John Pfaff's observations that we don't have a lot of data about prosecutors' f...

Grits for Breakfast: Ideas for diverting people with mental illness fro...

Grits for Breakfast: Ideas for diverting people with mental illness fro...: With the 85th Texas legislative session fast approaching, the House Select Committee on Mental Health continues to discuss the challenges of...

Grits for Breakfast: Five new indictments for former parole commissione...

Grits for Breakfast: Five new indictments for former parole commissione...: A reader emails to point out that former parole commissioner Pamela Freeman, who was indicted for record tampering in 2014 has five new fel...

Grits for Breakfast: Two calls for greater prison oversight

Grits for Breakfast: Two calls for greater prison oversight: Today we find two important calls for prison oversight. First, in the New York Times, Grits contributing writer Michele Deitch coauthored a ...

Grits for Breakfast: The arithmetic of de-incarceration: TDCJ edition

Grits for Breakfast: The arithmetic of de-incarceration: TDCJ edition: For long-term de-incarceration strategies to work, in the near term, while crime is low, prisons must release more inmates than they receiv...