Public Safety 2000: Expenditures

Although there is no comprehensive assessment of the community's investment in the public safety effort, Table 16 provides a sample of public sector expenditures. These funds purchase a range of public safety services, including juvenile and adult correctional institutions, courts, police, and programs for offenders. As Table 16 shows, expenditures by Community Action Network partners with public safety programs totaled more than $240 million in FY 2000.

CAN Funding Agencies	Annual Expenditures	Percent
City of Austin Police & Municipal Court	$125,700,000	53.0%
Travis County Direct Services	$106,838,676	45.0%
Austin and Travis County Joint Social Service Contracts	$227,320	0.1%
Austin Independent School District	$2,994,650	1.3%
United Way/ Capital Area	$754,310	0.3%
Austin Travis County MHMR	$742,888	0.3%
TOTAL	$237,257,844	100.0%

Note: The 1999-2000 period represents varying fiscal calendars. Spending for capital projects such as buildings and heavy equipment are not included. Expenditure data represents personnel and operating expenses only.

In addition to spending by CAN partners, other local and state agencies spend millions of dollars on public safety for Travis County (See Table 17.) When added together, over $331 million is being spent every year on public safety for the County, and this figure does not include a large percentage of the prevention programs that are also in place. To put these expenditures in perspective, in Travis County, approximately five times more is spent on public safety than is spent on housing, early education and care, and basic needs combined ($40 million, $14 million, and $7 million, respectively).

Because budgets are often not broken out by service area, it is difficult to determine how much is being spent locally on Victims Services. It is known that, in 1999, the Legislature increased statewide money for domestic violence programs by $5 million to $33.6 million (Copelin, June 25, 1999). In addition, the US Justice Department awarded the Austin/Travis County Family Violence Protection Team a $750,000 grant to continue its efforts to protect victims of domestic violence and prosecute batterers.

Table 17.
Public Safety Expenditures in Travis County by Other Local and State Agencies, FY 2000

Funding Agencies	Annual Expenditures	Percent
Local Police Departments*	$13,404,098	14%
Texas Department of Criminal Justice - State Jail Division	$6,064,688	6%
Texas Department of Criminal Justice - Institutional Division (Prisons)	$56,318,791	59%
Texas Department of Criminal Justice - Parole Division	$4,054,934	4%
Texas Juvenile Probation Department	$2,273,549	2%
Texas Youth Commission (Residential Care and Parole)	$9,321,101	10%
Department of Public Safety (Estimated Highway Patrol)	$4,856,236	5%
TOTAL	$96,293,397	100%

* Includes the University of Texas, Pflugerville, Westlake Hills, Lakeway, Lago Vista, Manor, Rollingwood, Mustang Ridge, and Sunset Valley Police Departments.

Similarly, it is difficult to know how much is being spent on prevention. As was mentioned before, the social service system in Travis County is so fragmented that it is difficult to survey. In 1996, Justice and Public Safety attempted to capture prevention expenditures and estimated that, in 1996, about $92 million was spent on prevention or early intervention in Travis County.

COST PER DAY

In addition to determining public safety expenditures, it is useful to examine the cost per day of various justice sanctions. Table 18 presents the cost of supervising one offender for one day by sanction. As Table 18 shows, recidivism rates actually increase as costs per day increase. Of course, these higher recidivism rates are likely due to the harsher offenders that receive those sentences, but, according to Loeber and Farrington (1998), alternatives to confinement for juvenile offenders are at least as effective as incarceration in curbing recidivism and are far less costly. Additionally, juveniles who receive the harshest penalty (i.e., transfer to adult court) are actually more likely to re-offend.

As the data in Table 18 show, simply locking up individuals is not an effective means of rehabilitating offenders or deterring offending, and it often costs much more than other options. Studies by the Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council show that nearly one in two felons released from prison will re-offend and return to prison, and that locking up offenders costs nearly $40 a day for each inmate. Programming can be more effective and less costly than these options.

Sanction	Total Cost per Day (1998)	Local Cost Per Day (1998)	% who Recidivate	Definition of Recidivism
Juveniles
Community Supervision13	$8.44	$4.90	1-7%	Committed to TYC
Detention Facility	$85.90	$79.50	Unknown	N/A
Residential Placement14	$88.62	$53.37	29%-36%	Committed to TYC
Institutional Facility (TYC)	$110.11	$0.00	50%	Return to TYC
Adults
Drug Court	Unknown	Unknown	15%	Re-arrest for graduates
Probation Supervision	$1.92-$3.89	$0.27-$0.98	26-37%15	Return to prison
County Jail	$45.00	$45.00	40%	Return to jail
State Jail (state-operated)	$31.07	$0.00	Unknown	N/A
Prison (ID)	$38.71	$0.00	41%	Return to prison

Note: Costs include programming obtained by offender while under sanction. Recidivism is measured differently depending upon the entity tracking the offender.
Source: Reed, January 1999, Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council, Travis County Juvenile Probation (1999), Travis County Drug Court, and Travis County Sheriff's Office.

13. Community supervision services include supervisory caution, deferred prosecution, and adjudicated probation. Expenditures for services received in addition to community supervision are included in the cost per day.

14. Residential placement includes the cost of both secure and non-secure facilities, as well as any services received in addition to residential placement.

15. Recidivism rates are 26% for offenders placed on deferred adjudication and 37% for offenders given probated sentences.

Expenditures

TOTAL EXPENDITURES

COST PER DAY