The number of inmates in the Dallas County Jail is reaching capacity, and prison wardens are blaming district court judges.
Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price gave a presentation Tuesday and reported that 88% of the jail's licensed beds are occupied (6,371 of 7,204 beds). As of August 16, the capacity for women is surprisingly close to full, with 73 beds left to reach 952 beds.
Almost half of these women are charged with non-violent crimes.
“I'm just sounding the alarm,” Price said during a regular committee meeting.
The county spends $12 million a month to run the jail, but if the county can't keep all the defendants in custody, Dallas County may have to pay for jail beds elsewhere.
The county says the jail bloat is due to longer wait times for criminal justice proceedings.
“At the end of the day, that's what everyone should focus on: How do we get people out of prison who don't need to be sitting in prison right now?” Commissioner J.J. Koch said in an interview. Ta.
Of the more than 6,000 inmates, 1,047 are still awaiting felony charges.
People charged with felonies wait an average of 26 days for a crime report to be filed with the Dallas County District Attorney's Office. Once the report is filed, it appears in the prosecutor's office system and the case can be scheduled for a grand jury. Still, it could take months to schedule a grand jury hearing, due in part to forensic testing, said Assistant County Commissioner Gordon Heikel.
Another bottleneck has arisen from a recent state law that limits when judges can issue bail during the first few days of a person's incarceration. When a person accused of a felony is arrested, they appear before a judge, who reads the charges against them and can set bail, unless the person has another felony case. limited
If a defendant is released on bail for a felony and is rearrested for another felony while on bail, the defendant cannot be granted bail by a magistrate or non-elected judge, according to the law enacted in Senate Bill 6. do not have. The defendant's first case has the power to grant a second bail. The defendant was ordered to wait in jail until his second offense was brought before a district judge's court.
District Attorney John Creuzot said this could take several days.
“We're going to help them get before a judge, but we don't necessarily agree that they need to be released,” he said in an interview. “But this bill could have some consequences, there's no question about that.”
Price would give county district judges the power to grant bail to magistrate judges in all cases, opening up the opportunity to release defendants earlier in the process, as was the case last year when Senate Bill 6 was introduced. He said he hopes so.
Jail Population Administrator Lashonda Jefferson told commissioners that officials have begun investigating whether the wait times for these inmates violate state law. The state caps the length of time a criminal suspect can be held in custody if the state or county prosecutor is “unprepared to try the criminal case in custody.” If the state is not ready to prosecute a person accused of a felony within 90 days, the person must be released on personal bail or have their bail reduced.
Clouzot said Dallas County typically meets the 90-day deadline.
Commissioners blame local judges for the bureaucratic backlog that keeps inmates in prison.
One of the biggest reasons people are waiting in prison is the sheer size of the backlog of felony cases. Hikel said more than three-quarters of people in prison are awaiting trial, plea deals or dismissal of their cases.
The number of active and pending felony cases in Dallas County has increased more than any other county this year, while most other urban counties have seen declines, according to data from the Office of Court Administration.
From January to June of this year, the number of active and pending felony cases in Harris County decreased by 3,572, Bexar County with 767 cases, Collin County with 751 cases, Tarrant County with 203 cases, and Denton County with 767 cases. decreased by 112 cases.
Dallas and Travis counties increased their pending and active felony cases by 2,415 and 935, respectively, by 2022.
State District Judge Stephanie Huff, the chief judge in Dallas' felony court, did not respond to a request for comment.
Price acknowledged that commissioners do not have the authority to implement policy changes regarding the criminal justice system.
“I’m just trying to manage it so they can manage the population,” he said.
Koch said the county can use its budget authority to make changes.
Koch, the only Republican on the committee, said he wanted to hold the county's share of district judges' salaries until progress is made on the backlog. The county will contribute $18,000 to the district judge's total salary. District judges in Dallas County earn between $158,000 and $194,000, depending on experience.
“They gave us everything they asked for and we didn't see any change. We need to at least show that we can significantly reduce these numbers in our prisons,” Koch said Tuesday. told. “I don’t think they’re working with us in a meaningful way until they understand that we’re serious about it.”
He and Price said they wanted to withhold the entire amount, but Koch said: dallas morning news This means that other committee members do not have the same motivation. Three out of five votes are needed to pass such a budget. Koch is currently asking that the county make all district judges' salaries just $20.23, still giving them salaries of $17,979.77, as a warning of further pay cuts if they don't hand over more cases in 2023. are fighting.
Commissioner Teresa Daniel could be the third vote.
“If you talk to a lot of criminal judges, some of them want accountability,” Daniel said. “We want to address this issue in a way that looks at managing the system but doesn’t punish the judges who are actually doing their jobs.”
Commissioner Elva Garcia said she was not interested in punishing the judge.
“Rather than identifying people, how can we use the system more efficiently to move them around?” Garcia said.
