Harris County’s Justice Administration Department analyzes data to identify and develop recommendations to solve issues in the county’s criminal justice system. SOURCES: RESTORING JUSTICE, HARRIS COUNTY JUSTICE ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENTCOMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
SCRUTINIZING THE SYSTEM
Dashboard
Recent improvements
KEY
TRAFFIC STOP DEMOGRAPHICS
CASE BACKLOG
things that address issues that people are curious about, but in this world right now, it’s been about damage con- trol, about supporting Commissioners Court, helping as many players as pos- sible to get through some of these chal- lenges,” Correa said. Still, data from the JAD has high- lighted challenges, including racial proling in law enforcement agencies across the county. A June report found Hispanic drivers were more likely to receive citations andBlack driverswere more likely to experience bodily injury because of the use of force than other racial and ethnic groups. “I think it’s been proven over and over again through research and data that there is a racial injustice problem in Harris County,” Wiley said. “I think things like that is what JAD is pulling together to hopefully convince more people ... to start acting to change In addition to investing in jury operations, Commissioners Court has taken steps to help reduce crime and alleviate system challenges. In 2021, the court approved a $50 million neighborhood cleanup initiative in high-crime areas and 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 things for individuals.” Addressingpublic safety PROBLEM Public defenders are only appointed in 11.93% of cases. ATTORNEY APPOINTMENTS SOLUTIONS The JAD created a dashboard to better track who is getting court- appointed attorneys by judge. Commissioners Court approved the JAD’s advisory model U visa policy, which helps noncitizen survivors of crime come forward without fear of deportation.
JAIL OVERCROWDING
PROBLEM As of Jan. 30, the Harris County Jail had 9,159 of its 9,369 beds lled, raising
PROBLEM Courts have been operating at 25% in-person capacity
PROBLEM Men were twice as likely as women to be pulled over. More citations were issued in lieu of verbal warnings to Hispanic drivers . Force that results in bodily injury was used against Black drivers more frequently than other groups. created a dashboard with trac stop data from law enforcement agencies statewide. Some local law enforcement agencies disseminate a card at trac stops which drivers can use to relay complaints. JAD recommended agencies add a racial proling complaint form on their websites in English and Spanish. The JAD is creating a use-of-force policy tool kit for county law enforcement agencies. SOLUTIONS The JAD
concerns about overcrowding.
97.8% of beds
when Harris County is in coronavirus threat level red, making it more dicult to hold jury trials and causing case backlogs. SOLUTIONS Commissioners Court investments in jury operations helped reduce case backlog from 95,000 in June Attorney’s Oce added resources to the sheri’s oce to assist with the discovery process. Commissioners Court approved the expansion of emergency response dockets that make use of visiting judges. county public defender’s oce takes on more indigent cases. But Wiley said there is still much work to be done. “The hardest thing is that the people in the jail are not feeling the eects of anything that’s been done by system actors,” he said. “It’s always Commis- sioners Court, in response to George Floyd protests—they want to issue these studies and these narratives. And that’s ne, [but] showme one person in jail that has been positively impacted by the action you want to do.” Challenges in thesystem JAD Special Projects Administra- tor Stephanie Armand said a series of disasters in recent years—from Hurri- cane Harvey to the pandemic—has put the county at a disadvantage. Ineciencies, such as judges shar- ing courtroom spaces and courts shift- ing to remote operations for several months, meant case backlogs grew sig- nicantly, Armand said. Recommenda- tions from the JAD to help chip away at that backlog included providing addi- tional spaces for jury trials and bring- ing in resources to assist with logging evidence at the sheri’s oce. Armand said the case backlog declined from 95,000 in June to 89,000 in November, crediting the Commissioners Court’s investments in jury operations as the most signif- icant factor. “In a dierent world, [the JAD] would be an agency that can proac- tively look at reports and do a lot of to 89,000 in November. The Harris County District
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. Harris County Precinct 3 Commis- sioner Tom Ramsey announced in January the launch of a new crime task force to reduce violent crime. Accord- ing 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 Angeles, Kings and Cook counties during that time. Harris County Precinct 4 Consta- ble Mark Herman said he believes too many criminal cases are being “arbi- trarily dismissed.” In late 2021, he began reling cases that had been dis- missed 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 make them victimize more people,” Herman said. Truong said Beacon Law received a $50,000 JAD grant last year to look at legal services from an equity stand- point. The grant allowed Beacon Law to reach more clients by expanding the income eligibility for services. The organization works with cli- ents who are chronically homeless, but it also serves clients living pay- check to paycheck who may be on the verge of homelessness. “It’s a daily struggle for some people who have tried to scrape by and have done their best with the resources they have, but there denitely is a lack of support and resources for people out there to break the cycle and move for- ward with their life,” Truong said. SOLUTIONS The JAD’s website houses a dashboard created to understand the jail population, including inmate demographics and oenses.
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Since its inception, the JAD has cre- ated public dashboards presenting data on the jail population, county trac stop demographics, caseload data for private indigent defense attorneys, and crime trends comparing Harris County to other major counties across the state and country. This data and collaboration with other criminal justice agencies help JAD ocials develop recommenda- tions for potential improvements. “Our clients falling through the cracks happens so much because we’re working with this system that is constantly inundated and stretched. People get lost in the system, and if we’re able to look at those trends and identify where those gaps are and address them, I think we would be much better o,” said Stephanie Truong, program director of Beacon Law, a program of Houston-based nonprot The Beacon, which serves local individuals facinghomelessness. Drew Wiley, CEO and founder of Restoring Justice, another Houston- area nonprot, said when he started the organization in 2016, 97% of indigent cases were appointed to private attorneys who were juggling up to 10 times the state-researched maximum caseload. Six years later, that number has decreased as the
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