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Texas Says They Need More Info To Integrate Criminal Records
To maintain consistent and comprehensive information on offender recidivism rates, the author of a bill suggesting changes to Texas Department of Criminal Justice operations addressed the importance of data collection.
Rep. Four Price, R-Amarillo, said his bill would address the most glaring need in the department and the Windham School District, the Correctional Managed Health Care Committee and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, which the department works in conjunction with.
“The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing,” Price said, referring to a lack of data flow between the different agencies.
April Zamora, director of the Reentry and Integration Division of the Department, said her office is currently working toward the goals outlined in the bill, but that it would give them more of a structure to collect all the necessary data and put it in a department-wide information “warehouse.”
TDCJ Executive Director Brad Livingston said he didn’t think the bill would require a fiscal note and that they could create the data warehouse with what means and technology are currently available.
But Ana Yanez-Correa, executive director of advocacy group Texas Criminal Justice Coalition disagreed.
“They do not have all the technical assistance they need to have comprehensive data management,” she said. “That takes money and we’re far away in our mind from having a comprehensive database system that can be shared.”
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