Texas\u2019 new tool to help with jail releases is a welcome step toward fixing a costly and frustrating process in the Dallas County jail and other lockups across the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Our newsroom colleague Tracey McManus reported recently<\/a> that\u00a0the Texas Department of Criminal\u00a0Justice\u00a0launched\u00a0an electronic\u00a0platform\u00a0designed to streamline the transfer of sentenced inmates to state prisons\u00a0or\u00a0initiate\u00a0a release from jail.\u00a0Dallas\u00a0County is\u00a0partnering with TDCJ to test the technology.<\/p>\n At the center of the process are \u201cpen packets,\u201d or documents that county jails must send to the state after inmates are sentenced to state confinement. These packets are typically emailed, and in some cases even hand delivered, which can cause delays and increase the chance that paperwork gets lost in the shuffle.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Texas Tribune<\/a>\u00a0reported that TDCJ receives about 1,250 pen packets from counties across the state each week. With that kind of volume, it makes sense to have a\u00a0program\u00a0track where each file is and\u00a0keep tabs on\u00a0its progress. The shared portal should make the process faster and make it harder for agencies to shift blame if transfers stall.\u00a0<\/p>\n People who\u00a0remain\u00a0in jail beyond their\u00a0expected\u00a0release or transfer dates can sue for over-detention, and those settlements can add up.\u00a0McManus reported\u00a0that Dallas County has paid more than a quarter-million dollars since 2023 to settle at least six over-detention claims.<\/p>\n Not only does the county have to pay to compensate people held longer than they are supposed to be, but the county also bears the day-to-day cost of housing inmates who should no longer be there. According to a county budget brief, operating the Dallas County jail costs roughly $95 per inmate per day.\u00a0<\/p>\n The new portal is a welcome initiative to improve how\u00a0communications work between county jails and the state prison system, but for it to succeed, Dallas County still needs to fix\u00a0its own house. As McManus has previously reported, the county jail has\u00a0gotten in trouble\u00a0before\u00a0for\u00a0its failure to\u00a0send\u00a0the pen packet\u00a0to the state\u00a0in a timely manner, sometimes\u00a0delayed\u00a0for weeks or months after inmates\u2019 sentencing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fixing paperwork confusion should be the bare minimum for a county trying to improve how its jail operates. \u00a0<\/p>\n Have\u00a0thoughts\u00a0about this?\u00a0Send a letter to the editor\u00a0using our letters form<\/a>\u00a0or email\u00a0letters@dallasnews.com<\/a>. Letters should be no more than 200 words and include the first and last name of the writer and city of residence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas\u2019 new tool to help with jail releases is a welcome step toward fixing a costly and frustrating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,90221,89138],"class_list":["post-290851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-editorials","tag-tp-dallas-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}