March 2025
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The University of Texas School of Law’s William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law and the Civil Rights Clinic released a report recommending changes to Texas’ parole system.
Parole reform is needed, the authors argue, because the state has become over-reliant on incarceration: Texas has a prison population of 130,000–the most in the country.1 Further, in 2024, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) budgeted $3.4 billion to cover operating expenses, yet while the prison population continues to grow, the prisons are in a “staffing crisis.”2
Recommendation #1 – Provide Targeted Administrative Release
During the 1995 Texas Legislature, legislation was passed requiring the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to review each case eligible for parole.3 Before this, parole-eligible inmates were automatically released to mandatory supervision “when good time and time served equals the sentence.”
This parole review process, the authors argue, needlessly delays release for parole-eligible inmates by burdening them with collecting supporting documentation for the board to consider. This documentation often includes letters of support, creating comprehensive release plans, including how the paroled individual will obtain housing and employment. If the parole-eligible individual is not fluent in English, this process can be nearly impossible.4
The report recommends the Texas Legislature create a statutory administrative release process. Then TDCJ should work with the Legislature to create a streamlined process to identify individuals likely to succeed (not re-offend) once on administrative release. The authors recommend individuals assigned risk levels 5-7, low-to-moderate risk, according to the board’s Offense Severity Matrix be the primary population considered for automatic release once they are eligible for parole.
In 2023, the authors estimate there were 17,551 inmates who could have qualified for this targeted administrative release program.5 Had these individuals been released, the net savings to TDCJ’s overall budget would have been more than $496 million.6
Recommendation #2 – Expand Medically Recommended Intensive Supervision
The authors recommend eligibility for Medically Recommended Intensive Supervision (MRIS, known in other states as compassionate release) be expanded.
MRIS currently allows “elderly”–defined as 65 or older7–inmates to be eligible for expedited parole, though the authors have found this category is being underutilized–in the past five years, only eight people have been released based on being “elderly.”8
Research9 has shown that recidivism is slightly more than two percent in people aged 50 to 65 and is nearly zero for those older than 65.
As of June 2023, TDCJ incarcerates more than 20,000 individuals over the age of 55. Thus, redefining “elderly,” as used by MRIS, to include offenders 55 or older could result in a greater reduction in Texas prison populations. Further, this cohort tend to have higher medical costs than younger groups. In 2019, for example, TDCJ had $750 million in hospitalization costs; individuals aged 55 and older made up almost half of this cost, despite only being an eighth of TDCJ’s overall population.
In addition, the report advocates that offenders with disabilities who are under the age of 55 be eligible for parole under MRIS, provided these individuals rank between 5 and 7 on the board’s matrix. Nationally, 40 percent of people in state prisons have a disability. Among these, cognitive disabilities–which affect concentration, recall, and decision-making–are the most common at 24 percent, compared to just 5 percent of the total U.S. population.10
Recommendation #3 – Use Good Conduct Time
In exchange for compliance with prison rules, regulations, avoidance of disciplinary infractions, and for participation in required or available activities, inmates can earn time off their mandated incarceration terms.11
This good conduct time accrues automatically, though not all inmates benefit from good conduct time.12 Individuals convicted of aggravated offenses are currently barred from benefiting from good conduct time.
In Texas, an inmate may forfeit some or all good conduct time if “the inmate commits an offense or violates a rule of the (TDCJ).”13 Once forfeited, good conduct time cannot be restored at a later time.
The report supports good conduct time reform in Texas similar to the reforms in Maryland, where, once good conduct time is credited, it cannot be revoked as a form of disciplinary action.14
Further, the authors say inmates convicted of aggravated offenses should be able to benefit from good conduct time, as earning this time is “affirming…and promotes rehabilitation.”
Recommendation #4 – De-emphasize Prior Offenses
The authors recommend parole authorities in Texas limit the impact of static factors and more heavily weigh dynamic factors.
Static factors relate to the incarcerated individual’s prior criminal history, age at first incarceration, whether he or she was incarcerated previously, employment history, and the underlying offense.
Dynamic factors relate to post-offense facts, such as current age, prison disciplinary history, and educational/vocational/treatment programs completed while in prison.15
Focusing on dynamic factors gives better insight into current risk of re-offense and readiness for release, the authors write.
Recommendation #5 – Increase Parole Process Transparency & Predictability
As current parole decision-making relies heavily on static factors, the authors write, another important reform is for the board to determine how the incarcerated individual can overcome its assumptions about how the individual’s history will influence current and future behavior.
Thus, the authors write, when parole is denied, the board should provide the individual a copy of the board file and list the factors the applicant needs to address to ensure a different outcome the next time.
Subsequent reviews should happen within two years, the authors write, “absent extraordinary grounds (though what offenses this entails, the authors do not elaborate).
Further, interviews between the incarcerated person and the institutional parole officer (IPO) should be recorded. These recordings should be made available to the incarcerated person while reviewing the IPO’s interview summary to correct any omissions or inaccuracies before the board reviews the summary.
ENDNOTES
1 Incarceration Trends: Texas (graph). The Legislative Budget Board projects Texas’ prison population to surpass 150,000 by fiscal year 2028. LBB, Adult and Juvenile Correctional Population Projections, Fiscal Years 2024 to 2028, p. 3; TDCJ_TJJD_070924Memo.pdf.
2 https://www.texastribune.org/2024/10/01/texas-department-of-criminal-justice-sunset-report/
3 Tex. H.B. 1433 74th Leg., R.S. (1995). Discretionary mandatory supervision (DMS), as it is called, applies only to offenses committed on or after September 1, 1996. Individuals incarcerated for offenses committed before September 1, 1996, remain eligible for mandatory supervision (MS), which does not require the approval of the Board. Individuals sentenced for 3g and certain other serious offenses are not eligible for either DMS or MS and can only be released early via a discretionary grant of parole
4 Parole in Texas: Answers to Common Questions, supra note 39, at 11-12.
5 See Parole Guidelines Annual Report FY 2023, supra note 40, at 9. If one includes DMS cases, the total number of individuals eligible for early release determinations rises to 25,699. See Board Annual Statistical Report FY 2023, supra note 47, at 9.
6 See Criminal and Juvenile Justice Uniform Cost Report Fiscal Years 2021 and 2022 (texas.gov) at 4 and 8 (calculating the daily cost of incarceration and the daily cost of parole supervision, respectively).
7 Texas Gov. Code Sec. 508.146; Texas Dep’t of Criminal Justice, Correctional Managed Health Care Policy Manual, Medically Recommended Intensive Supervision (MRIS) Screening, A-08.6, effective Aug. 23, 2018, https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/divisions/cmhc/docs/cmhc_policy_manual/A-08.06.pdf.
8 Annual Statistical Report FY 2023 at 11. Notably, the Board did not release a single individual under the “Mental Illness,” “Intellectually Disabled” or ”Physically Handicapped” categories.
9 Vera Institute, Aging Out, supra note 103, at 3.
10 https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/chronicpunishment.html#disability; Laura Marushak, et. al., Disabilities Reported by Prisoners: Survey of Prison Inmates, 2016, Bureau of Justice Statistics, https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/disabilities-reported-prisoners-survey-prison-inmates-2016.
11 Good Time Credit Law and Legal Definition, USLegal.com, https://definitions.uslegal.com/g/good-time-credit/; Alison Lawrence & Donna Lyons, Principles of Effective State Sentencing and Corrections Policy, National Conference of State Legislatures (2011), https://www.ncsl.org/civil-and-criminal-justice/principles-of-effective-state-sentencing-and-corrections-policy.
12 Nora V. Demleitner, Good Conduct Time: How Much and For Whom? The Unprincipled Approach of the Model Penal Code, 61 Fla. L. Rev. 777, 781 (2009) https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1453&context=wlufac
13 Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. Sec. 498.004
14 Md. Code Ann., Corr. Servs. Section 3-702 (West).
15 Parole Guidelines Annual Report FY 2023, supra note 40, at 3; See Tex. Adm. Code, Chapter 145.2(b)(2).