Man accused of multiple child sex crimes in Travis County gets probation instead of prison<\/a><\/p>\nHooper said the jail\u2019s population recently dropped below 90% capacity for the first time in a long time \u2014 a benchmark he considers healthy for operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIdeally we want to be below 90% because we need that much free space in the jail where we can move inmates around based on their classification or behavior,\u201d Hooper said. \u201cSo anytime we’re at 90 or below, that’s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
On average, between 30 and 35 people are booked into the jail each day, with roughly the same number released on bail, bond or transferred to state facilities. That balance keeps the jail population steady \u2014 but it typically shifts during the holidays.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always see a surge during the holiday season, a surge in population during the holiday season, and also in the first part of summer because everybody’s out of school \u2014 and they’re on vacation,\u201d Hooper said.<\/p>\n
He added that the increase has less to do with a spike in crime and more to do with the criminal justice system slowing down. Court schedules, jury availability and staff vacations often lead to delays in processing cases, causing the jail population to rise temporarily.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s important for the citizens to know what goes on in their county jail,\u201d Hooper said. \u201cIt costs about $20 million a year to run this jail, and the citizens deserve to know how that money\u2019s being spent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hooper said the inmate count directly affects staffing and overtime, which ultimately impacts the county\u2019s budget. The Texas Commission on Jail Standards requires at least one correctional officer for every 48 inmates, so as the population fluctuates, so does staffing.<\/p>\n
He said keeping the population below 90% not only improves safety but also helps the jail operate more efficiently and reduce costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’d like to see zero. I wish there was no crime,\u201d Hooper said. \u201cThe only reason this county jail exists is to maintain order in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nueces County Jail sees its lowest inmate numbers in months, but holiday season may disrupt this trend, notes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-45852","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45852","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=45852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}