{"id":83916,"date":"2025-12-11T01:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T01:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/83916\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T01:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T01:51:09","slug":"how-texas-senate-bill-9-could-affect-amarillo-area-jail-populations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/83916\/","title":{"rendered":"How Texas Senate Bill 9 could affect Amarillo area jail populations"},"content":{"rendered":"

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) – Senate Bill 9 goes into effect April 4, preventing the pre-trial release of individuals charged with violent crimes, including aggravated assault and sexual assault.<\/p>\n

The bill will also prohibit the release of inmates with prior felonies.<\/p>\n

As of Dec. 8, the Potter County Jail had a headcount of 592 inmates, a number that could potentially spike when the bill goes into effect.<\/p>\n

While this bill focuses on keeping dangerous individuals off the street, jails must adapt or face overcrowding. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a significant, major net positive for public safety, but there is a cost associated with that. As it was discussed in commissioner\u2019s court in Potter County, like I think most other counties in the state of Texas, going through the throws of what do we do with our jail population, I think it\u2019s going to be fair to say that there will be a significant increase in jail population,\u201d said Jason Herring, 47th District Attorney, Potter and Armstrong Counties. <\/p>\n

Randall County expanded its jail<\/a> earlier this year, adding 96 additional beds. <\/p>\n

Potter County says it will continue to discuss expansion, or a new jail altogether, at its next commissioner\u2019s court meeting. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 KFDA. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) – Senate Bill 9 goes into effect April 4, preventing the pre-trial release of individuals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[40405,40403,40404,40402,40401,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-83916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-jason-herring","tag-potter-county-jail","tag-randall-county-jail","tag-sb-9","tag-senate-bill-9","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83916","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=83916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}