Katy Edition | February 2022

Average stay 202 days

Total jail capacity

Total jail population

Population experiencing homelessness 10%

Bond amounts 78% over $10,000

9,280

9,369

launched both the Holistic Alternative Responder Team and the Gun Vio- lence Interruption Program. Funding for law enforcement agencies has also increased 22% in the past ve years, according to county budget data. Howard Henderson, professor and director of the Center for Justice Research at Texas Southern Univer- sity, said the JAD’s work is helping the county rethink its approach to justice. “I think the social work model that Harris County is implementing is the right thing to do because many times mental health cases and domestic vio- lence cases turn sour unnecessarily only because we don’t have the trained personnel dealing with them,” he said. In November, commissioners approved a $2.6 million initiative intended to combat violent crime in unincorporated areas of the county, including in the Katy area. The rst part of the program—data analysis and crime mapping—was to determine seven “microzones” in unincorporated areas of the county that have the highest violent crime REQUEST FOR PROSECUTORS The Harris County District Attorney is working to address a criminal court case backlog and is asking for more prosecutors. SOURCE: HARRIS COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICECOMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER In January, the Harris County District Attorney’s Oce requested $13.6 million to fund 82 new assistant district attorneys and 43 support sta in 2022.

As of Jan. 24, more than half of Harris County’s jail population was Black, and most individuals were accused of a violent crime. SOURCE: HARRIS COUNTY JUSTICE ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENTCOMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER

WHO’S IN THE SYSTEM

2021 2006

0 500 1K 1.5K 2K 2.5K 3K

2,830

2,325

46-55 | 11.0% 56-65 | 5.5% 66 and older | 1%

AGE

651

474

250 350

Black | 51% White | 30% Hispanic | 17% Other | 1%

Total prosecutors

Average felony caseload

Average misdemeanor caseload

RACE/ ETHNICITY

OFFENSES

rates. The seven microzones, accord- ing to county ocials, include the area around Franz Road, Park Row, Morton Road and Saums Road inKaty aswell as areas near Spring, Aldine, Northshore, Channelview, Eldridge and a few other intersections in the county. The next stage of the program is to increase the presence of HCSO consta- bles and deputies in the areas to 96 o- cers per day. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said these police ocers will prioritize arrests of repeat oenders. In January, Harris County Pre- cinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey announced the launch of a new crime task force to reduce violent crime. According to JAD data, the county’s crime rate overall has decreased by about 6% since 2015. However, crime was up year over year in both 2019 and 2020, and Harris County’s crime rate was higher than that of Los Ange- les, Kings and Cook counties during that time. Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman said he thinks too many criminal cases are being “arbitrarily

and criminal justice involvement such as mental health, homelessness, sub- stance use and poverty, Correa said. Restoring Justice is one of the only indigent defense providers in the country also oering trauma-informed counseling, Wiley said, because he found trauma is often at the root of cli- ents’ circumstances. “The direct response to those ail- ments, to those root causes, has been to throw someone in jail, and all that does is destabilizes, and it makes the problem worse,” he said. “You could take a fraction of those dollars spent on the policing system, the jail system, the prison system and do the upfront men- tal health, homeless, substance addic- tion treatment … to prevent all of that wasted money and help that person’s life as well as help society.” Shawn Arrajj and Jishnu Nair con- tributed to this report.

dismissed.” In 2021 he began rel- ing cases that had been dismissed by judges, he said. “This is a very bad message not only to our citizens out there, but it sends a message to the criminals, and it emboldened them to make them to go out and commit more crimes [and] victimize more people,” Herman said. Implications on individuals The JAD plans to continue conduct- ing research and developing dash- boards this year. A use-of-force policy report and a bail bond dashboard are expected to be released in the rst quarter of 2022, Correa said. “There’s a lot of talk about bond and bail reform, which from a system per- spective is the most obvious example of, ‘If you’re poor, you can’t get out.’ Being poor or rich is what’s driving jus- tice over there,” Wiley said. Other ongoing areas of study deal with addressing inequalities in the system; supporting survivors of crime; andaddressing the root causes of crime

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KATY EDITION • FEBRUARY 2022