Direct sentences to prison up despite declining Texas crime

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Texas policymakers in recent years have nearly broken their arms patting themselves on the back for the state's much ballyhooed criminal-justice reforms. In a sense, it's justified. The 2007 probation reforms cut against the grain of decades of lock-em-up legislation and the state has curbed growth of incarceration levels. At one point, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) was projected to house 17,000 more prisoners by 2012 than actually turned out to be the case.

Still, Texas' results are disappointing compared to jurisdictions that incarcerate far fewer people. Texas houses more prisoners today than any other state including much-more populous California. New York, where crime rates are far lower than here (see the chart), imprisons its citizens at a rate of 288 per 100,000 compared to 648 per 100,000 in Texas. (If incarcerating more people reduces crime, somebody forgot to tell the Empire State.)

Crime rates descended significantly across the country in the 1990s and continued to decline over the most recent decade. In Texas, crime ebbed somewhat but remains higher than in other large states and nationally. Texas crime rates per 100,000 people dropped by 25% from 2002 to 2011, but reported crime in Texas is still much higher than the national average, much less New York (source).

Texas vs. National, New YorkIndex Crime Rates, 2001-2011
Oddly, despite fewer reported crimes, the Texas criminal justice system successfully prosecuted more people for felonies throughout most of this period. The total number of Texas criminal cases resulting in convictions or deferred adjudication (a form of probation) continued to grow throughout the decade, topping out in 2011 and defying lower crime trends (source):

 
Until quite recently, arrests in Texas continued to increase despite declining crime, topping out in 2009. Then, over the next two years, arrest numbers began to precipitously drop (source: 2012 data not available yet):

Given lower crime rates, recent declines in arrests and the 2012 nosedive in conviction numbers, it's possible, but by no means certain, that criminal prosecutions and prison admissions may soon begin (after a frustratingly long lag time) to reflect declining crime trends. But it remains to be seen whether those patterns a) continue or b) affect admissions to TDCJ. So far, those reductions have not resulted in a lower prison population.
Confoundingly, despite declining crime, the number of people entering TDCJ each year has remained remarkably stable (TDCJ annual statistical reports are available online only back to 2005; ditto for probation revocation data from TDCJ-CJAD).
TDCJ Admissions by Source  Prison admissions due to probation revocations remained fairly steady since 2005, declining by a scant 3%. Parole revocations, OTOH, declined by 38% while the rate of prisoner releases on parole ticked up slightly. By contrast, felony prosecutions resulting in direct prison sentences actually increased by 12% since 2005, despite overall crime declines. That explains why the Legislative Budget Board projects, paradoxically, that prison admissions will increase in coming years. The trend can't be explained by crime rates or arrest patterns and appears to stem primarily from prosecutorial charging and plea bargain decisions.
See the spreadsheet underlying these charts here.
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