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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 23, 1987)
SHORT ON CASH??? Sell your books at University Book Stores Northgate & Culpepper Plaza NEED MONEY??? Page 6/The Battalion/Monday, March 23, 1987 Sell your BOOKS at University Book Stores Northgate & Culpepper Plaza •cut here I Defensive Driving Course March 25, 26, March 31, and April 1 College Station Hilton Pre-register by phone: 693-8178 Ticket deferral and 10% insurance discount |cut here! Q: Can we trust the Soviets? A: March 30, 7 pm 601 Rudder Presented by MSC Political Forum r Sigma iota Epsilon Officer Elections Monday, March 23 Flying Tomato 7:00 p.m. Aggie Hostess Applications are available from Mon. March 23 to Fri. April 3 at 5:00 p.m. They can be picked up on the 9th floor of Rudder Tower. A General Information meeting will be held wed. April 1 at 8:00 p.m. In room 301 of Rudder Tower q , u ;S, k ^ s is on the move... from Post Oak Mall and we’re taking our | speed and expertise in film processing with us. Vi H i—i ■Lh •ff the same reliable family owned and operated business only now in a more convenient location at 110 Dominik (in Culpepper Plaza) Opening April 1st your full service photo lab 110 Dominik AND— Manor East Mall ONE PRICE- ONE ROLL! For Only *3°° We will •process & print 1 roll of C-41 color print film (includes 135, 126, 110, or Disc) OR •process & mount 1 roll of 35mm E-6 slide film 1 roll per coupon 1 coupon per visit must present coupon before processing good from April 1 thru May 15, 1987 Good at Dominik location only Criminologist: Prison crowdin could have been stopped ea A&M professor says Legislature failed to probe options By Cindy Bomba Reporter Overcrowding in Texas prisons started in the mid-1970s, but at that time the Texas Legislature spent little time and money investigating options which may have solved the problem before it de veloped into a state crisis, a Texas A&M profes sor says. It’s been 10 years since the Texas Department of Corrections recognized its problem, but the Legislature, citizens and criminal justice system can no longer ignore the TDC, says Dr. Ben Crouch, A&M criminologist and associate profes sor of sociology. sometimes again and again. We just cut them a lot of slack.” The trend of overcrowded prisons started in the 1970s and wasn’t restricted to Texas, but in volved the entire country, Crouch says. Throughout the 1960s, the nation saw a rise in the number of crimes committed by young peo ple, he adds. “We had an inclination not to treat youths harshly,” he says. “We put them on probation, Texas citizens and legislators finally decided they had had enough, and more convicted crimi nals were sentenced to prison, Crouch says. Texas has always had a unique approach to crimi nal law and there are two major reasons for it, he says. “One reason is a general tough attitude toward crime,” Crouch says. “The belief that, by gosh, if you’re going to commit the crime you’re going to serve the time. We also have the inclination to use prison and we’re inclined to give stiff sentences. “So, what happened in the 1970s is that the amount of time an inmate took to prison in creased. The time actually served increased, and parole was niggardly given.” Overcrowding also was complicated by a 1977 legislative move in Texas called the “aggravated law,” which said that any person convicted of a felony involving a weapon would be sent to prison to serve one calendar third of his sentence before becoming eligible for “good time.” Good time is time an inmate can earnil dnc e his sentence for staying out of trouble,! in prison. “So if you had a 60-year sentence todi.y says, “you would serve now until 2007.1® care if you were St. Francis of Assisi whiiEI were inside. That adjective "aggravated":j|j you’d serve a calendar third.” Texas has limited options to solve the ® lem, he says. The state can send fewerpeefi prison, let more people out or build mor(|| ons. Dan Beto, chief probation officer forjL County, says his department uses intern.M pet vision to help alleviate overcrowding.iJ in the program must visit probation offop ei v week and are given urine tests regular^ | The Brazos County Probation Officehai I felony offenders, 1,023 misdemeanor ofIe;| and 105 intensive .supervision offendersoiS bation. Matching prisoners to beds confusing for TDC officials HUNTSVILLE (AP) — In the old days, when the Texas prison system had 15 or 20 percent of its beds va cant, Scotty Kyle’s job was much eas ier. Now, with prisons near capacity, the process of matching inmates with prisons and cell block wings based on their crimes and back ground has turned into an ordeal. Kyle heads a four-man committee that meets in a cramped second- floor meeting room of the Texas De partment of Corrections Diagnostic Unit. The committee that receives prisoners from the county jails opens its doors two days a week now and gets as many prisoners in that amount of time as it used to get in a five-day week. -«■ The Texas prison system, the na tion’s third-largest, has been operat ing under a cycle of being open two days and closed five because the population within the 26-unit system has exceeded a state-mandated 95- percent capacity. Prison officials don’t know how many inmates to expect from the state’s county jails, nor do they know how many inmates are going to be released on a given day by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles until the day before the release. Add to that some internal confu sion when space is especially tight, and three sets of administrators might be filling one open bed with three inmates. “It borders on chaos,” says Carl Reynolds, general counsel for the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. “It’s a logistical nightmare.” It’s a nightmare Kyle lives. “I come in at 7 a.m. with a pot of coffee and get going,” he says. “No body leaves this room unless they “I come in at 7 a.m. with a pot of coffee and get going. Nobody leaves this room unless they have to go to the bathroom. . . . We stay until we finish. ” — TDlC official Scotty Kyle have to go to the bathroom. Nobody leaves to eat. I don’t take phone calls. We stay until we finish.” He sits at a long conference table. In a briefcase at his side are files on inmates who will be classified that day. A computer terminal on the other side shows where the vacancies are. In the old days, he used to work on a stack of files, carry them down to the computer room to be entered into the system. He can’t do that any more. “If I wait that long, the count will have already changed,” he says. meaning he would have to redo the classification. He says a five-percent buffer, which is supposed to give the prison system flexibility in times of crowd ing, isn’t what it seems. Because of special designations, some cells are set aside and can’t be used for the general population, Kyle says. The number of beds in the system is 42,241, but 808 beds are in the in firmary and solitary sections and are automatically excluded. That leaves a capacity of 41,433, but even that number changes daily because of court-ordered single-cell housing. With an inmate count of 38,773 earlier this month, the system was 94.75 percent capacity. It had 1,658 free beds. But af ter the hundreds re served for the infirmary, death row, women and the mentally ill, the ac tual number of beds that could be used for the general population was 264. Debbie Roberts, manager for the prison’s social services, says, “When you talk about a system as large as Texas, that’s not a lot of flexibility.” If there is no room, sometimes in mates are held over at Diagnostic or the nearby Goree Unit — also used for intake of inmates — until room is found. Some relief, however, is in sight. A new 2,500-inmate prison is sched uled to open in September. Texas inmate seeks repriei in court revie HUNTSVILLE (AP)- death row inmate Jem hopes the Texas CourtofO nal Appeals will grant hint prieve to prevent his execution before dawn Tuk 1 he state apjjeals courtm ❖ tin is expected to reviewH« case today, his attorney, Re Alley of Fort Worth, said “I feel like the man'senD-; have his case heard,” AUp “Whether or not the coun hear it, I don’t know.” » Hogue. 36, a former wa® sr builder in Fort Worth, wai victed of capital murder fa Jan. 13, 19/9 lire death o; year-old Jayne Markham. hands and legs were tied bdi her hac k. She died in her whic h prosecutors say waste fire by Hogue. I u a recent death row view, Hogue said, "The do sentence is wrong. It’s toot for a person to be sentence; death who is innocent.I’yeah claimed that I was innocent Alley said the appeal foras challenges the death penal; 1 unconstitutional and claims fective counsel during the and inadequate jury selectio: that the- trial judge did nous standard accepted by theUS preme Court. ❖ Legislature fighting $1 billion deficit in budget at halfway mark of sessid AUSTIN (AP) — The Legislature reaches the halfway mark of its 140- day session today, embroiled over a $ V billion budget deficit. State Comptroller Bob Bullock has asked the state attorney general whether the deficit projected for the end of the fiscal year, Aug. 31, can be carried over to the next biennium or if Texas’ constitutional “pay-as- you-go” provision would prohibit such a move. A ruling by Attorney General Jim Mattox that the deficit must be erased would force lawmakers to raise $ 1 billion in new revenue in the remaining five months of the cur rent two-year spending cycle. Rep. Stan Schlueter, chairman of the House Ways and Means Com mittee, said this would require a “surcharge on existing taxes” since there would not be enough time to expand the sales tax base and bring in $ 1 billion by Sept. 1. In committee today, House mem bers will hear Texas health officials Economy forces resignations of top Dallas oil executives DALLAS (AP) — A growing num ber of Dallas oil companies are say ing goodbye to long-time employees with six-figure incomes. In the last 13 months, six top ex ecutives of leading public energy companies have stepped down un der pressure, and industry observers say others are likely to follow. Some say the trend reflects the turmoil in the oil industry, but oth ers say it is a rejection of old-fash ioned management and wasteful wildcat drilling strategies of the past. “It doesn’t have anything to do with some great watershed period, a new crop of managers or whatever,” said Charles Ramsey, former presi dent and chief executive of May Pe troleum, who now is an investment banker for a brokerage. Other industry observers, critical of oil company management, said the changes reflect a much-needed shift from outdated strategies to more professional, risk-manage ment approaches. talk about AIDS, and senators will review a proposal to strengthen the 1967 Open Meetings Act. The House Committee on Public Health said in a statement that seven health officials, including Dr. Peter Mansell, medical director of the In stitute of Immunological Diseases at Houston, would appear at the AIDS session. The Senate State AffairsCot tee has scheduled a hearingom by Sen. Kent Caperton, D Bn amend the Open MeetingsAci Chairman Jeffrey BruceoH Media, a coalition of thestaif jor journalism groups, said tli( tion has been meeting for six# “with statewide organization- resenting public officials thai historically expressed co« about amending this law.” Bi nee said Texas Media lx ! the Caperton bill “both solves serious problems with thee law” and also addresses theco^ of such organizations as the 1 Municipal League and Texas ciations of counties, school ai mistrators and school boards The Senate Criminal Justice^ mittee agenda for Tuesday^ Sunset legislation on the B»' Pardons and Paroles, Adult ^ tion Commission and Texas! of Corrections, which oversee state prison system. CASINO'87 1 APRIL lOthi ML | 1 roll per coupon 1 coupon per visit ■ f must present coupon before processing 3 good from April 1 thru May 15, 1987 ■ Good at Dominik location only J WHEN IN ROME... 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