I ssues C o n f i n e m e n t Texas jail standards require jails to leave 10% of their beds open so that high-risk inmates are not housed in the same cell as low-risk inmates. That means of the current 410 beds at the county jail, 368 can be used. After expansion is complete, 543 beds will be considered usable. If the current average of 668 inmates is maintained or grows, Hays County will still have to transfer inmates to other counties. i nmate populat i on b r e a k i n g d own t h e This snapshot of the Hays County Jail population from April 27 provides a glimpse of who is in jail and why they are there.
Hays Count y i nmates C u r r e n t c o u n t i e s h o u s i n g
through the courts. “Obviously, there’s so many vari- ables. Will a public defender’s o ce reduce our need to outsource? It’s possible,” Hays County Precinct 3 Commissioner Lon Shell said. “We would hope that anything we do pro- vides e ciencies in the system over- all, which should, in turn, get cases moved through the system more e ciently, resulting in less needs for outsourcing.” The county is expected to take up two proposals in May from law rms that responded to requests for proposals issued by the county last year. One is called Neighborhood Defender Service and the other Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. Neighborhood Defender Service operates public defender o ces in New York City, Detroit and is establishing an o ce in San Antonio. Texas RioGrande Legal Aid operates in Austin, San Anto- nio and also has o ces throughout South Texas and two in West Texas. Even with a PDO to expedite and take on advocacy to get more inmates to trial, the courts are operating at max capacity, Shell said. “We’re getting an additional dis- trict judge. The last legislative session we had one approved. That appoint- ment comes from the governor [and] will likely happen toward the end of this year. … So that’s important because that’s another judge that can run courts,” he said. As the I-35 corridor becomes more populated and more people traverse Hays County, the possibilities of more individuals charged with crimes that are not local increases. “I think we had a day where we had 34 individuals arrested this weekend. That’s pretty high, even by our his- torical numbers. And of those it looks like half are probably out-of-county residents. … If the county continues to grow, there’s more tra c on [I-]35;
Red River County 1 Grimes County 2 3 Lee County Fort Bend County 4 Blanco County 5 Comal County 6 7 Atascosa County Maverick County 8
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Daily cost per inmate range: $50-$85
Daily cost to transfer inmates: $15,000-$17,000
C u s t o dy T y p e
D e mo g r a p h i c s Asian Black Native Hawaiian*
L e n gt h o f S tay
Less than a week: 60
0.15% 15.43% 0.59% 0.45% 83.38%
1 week to under a month: 90
Felony: 581 Misdemeanor: 41 Parole violation: 27 Immigration and Customs Enforcement violations: 25
Other White
1 month to under 6 months: 263 6 months to under a year: 120 1 year to under 3 years: 107
Total inmates week of April 27: 6 74
Of these inmates identify as Hispanic 53.26%
More than 3 years: 34
SOURCE: HAYS COUNTY, HAYS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT, HAYS COUNTY CORRECTIONS, VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER *OR OTHER PACIFIC ISLANDER
when needed in the common areas of the jail, such as the kitchen and laun- dry areas, Davenport said. “In the master plan, we’ve already got the designs for two additional pods—192 beds each. Once those two are built, that will get us up to the 1,000-bed capacity. That’s what the common areas of the jail are designed for,” he said. Roadblocks to trial From October 2020 to October 2021, more than 80% of inmates in the county’s corrections system were held pretrial, unable to bond out or not quali ed for a judge to grant per- sonal recognizance, according to data from the county compiled by the Vera
Institute of Justice. That gure still holds true, Daven- port said. In April, out of the average of 668 inmates in the system, 27 were in on misdemeanor charges, he said. Of those held on misdemeanor charges, Davenport said they are being held because they did not qual- ify for a personal recognizance bond due to criminal history or the nature of the o ense (usually assault), they are su ering from mental illness and are held for their own safety or they are a repeat o ender. In order to get more of these cases to trial, one of the initiatives Hays County is pursuing is the establish- ment of a public defender’s o ce that would aid in moving cases
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week the county spent $113,457 on contracts with those other counties to house Hays County inmates. “Once everything is complete, we still don’t have enough sta to bring the inmates back. Not all of them anyway,” Davenport said. “Right now, we’re averaging anywhere from $15,000-$17,000 per day outsourcing inmates.” Hays County Corrections has more than 70 un lled positions, and Dav- enport said that few, if any, appli- cants are applying. The jail will also have capacity to add pods—or the exibility to use other areas of the jail to house inmates
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