With completion of its $1.5 billion prison-building boom, Texas’ system has grown from 40 units to 114 units, including 18 state jails with 25,000 beds to confine those convicted of a new class of fourth-degree felonies — basically 55 nonviolent crimes carrying sentences of two years or less, written into the new penal code in 1993. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) now has more than 34,000 employees and its annual budget surpasses $2 billion, about 5 percent of the state budget. The departing TDCJ Executive Director, James (“Andy”) Collins, claims that the expansion has been achieved at less than half the national average cost of prison construction.46

In terms of operating costs, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice spends almost $20,000 a year to keep a criminal in prison, or more than $50 per day. This cost is up dramatically from $2,900 a year in the early 1980s. The primary factor driving up costs so sharply was the Ruiz decision. Even $20,000 per year may underestimate the costs because it ignores, for example, the forgone rental value of state land, TDCJ employee pension costs and services provided by other agencies free of charge.