NCJ Number
189743
Date Published
June 2000
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This report presents the projection of Texas' juvenile justice correctional populations for fiscal years 2000-2005, which is the official Texas legislative projection mandated by law to be issued no later than September 2000.
Abstract
The reduction in arrests and referrals to juvenile probation departments, along with a policy adopted by the last Texas legislature that restricts the commitment to the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) of juveniles who have committed certain misdemeanor offenses, is projected to help stabilize the demand for TYC space. The TYC population has increased in recent years mainly due to increased time served for juveniles committed and increased probation and parole revocations due to the implementation of tougher community supervision policies. Nevertheless, given current arrest and referral trends, and provided a stabilization in time served increases, TYC is projected to have adequate capacity to meet demand for space until late 2005. After all scheduled TYC capacity expansion is completed, TYC will have a capacity of 6,120. The projected TYC population for August 2004 is 6,014. Only an additional 64 beds will be needed to meet demand by August 2005. These beds can be acquired through contracted capacity. The juvenile probation population is expected to start increasing again after a recent stabilization of approximately 39,000 juveniles in 1998 and 1999. The main reason for the increase will be demographic. Probation referrals are projected to increase by 12.8 percent between 1999 and 2005, from 118,996 to 134,208. During the same period the probation population under supervision is projected to increase by 11.5 percent, from 38,996 to 43,490. Extensive tabular and graphic data