The Wikipedia online dictionary details the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) as a department of the government of the U.S. state of Texas. The TDCJ has a responsibility …show more content…
Crimes found in the Penal Code are the traditional ones like assault, theft, among others. But nearly every other section of Texas law defines criminal acts. In the U.S. incarceration is one of the main forms of punishment, rehabilitation, or both for the commission of felony and other offences as per Wikipedia write-up on Incarcerations in the United States. This has led to high number of prison population and a huge number of its adults at about 0.91% in 2013, were under criminal justice control. In 2015 the same article reported that that jails throughout Texas have become warehouses for the poor, the mentally ill and the people who are suffering from addiction since they lack the financial means or mental capacity to post bail. According to November.org that during the 1990s, Texas added more prisoners to its prison system than New York 's entire prison population by some 24,848 prisoners. Texas applied “ Tough on crime” by putting most of thefts, assaults, and drug offenses in jail. Many people are sick of this policy because it is too expensive and not effective. If it is effective, it does not make Texas the country’s leading jailer. Texas should have smarter crime policy. We need to reduce long prison sentence because it just have minimal impact on crime prevention, but it is making a huge financial burden on our society. There is no doubt that incarceration only works for some prisoners those are fear of jail. However, many people are not fear of jail, their life is just in and out jail. In these cases, incarceration is not effective. Therefore, besides incarceration we also need to add more mental health treatment, drugs treatment, and some programs to reduce violations instead of locking all of convicts up and throwing away the key. These programs can increase public safety and decrease