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Harris County Sheriff’s Office<\/p>\n
FILE \u2014 A detention officer walks up steps inside the Harris County Jail.<\/p>\n
Harris County officials on Thursday said they fear new state legislation and gaps in the county\u2019s budget could hinder their strides to significantly reduce the population of the Harris County Jail \u2014 which has dipped about 14% since January. <\/p>\n
They\u2019re crediting the use of emergency court dockets for a dwindling jail population this year. The approach is called emerging issues dockets \u2014 a retooled version of post-COVID era emergency dockets, which were used to address an inflated court case backlog.<\/p>\n
Though the first iteration of the fast-tracked case schedules were funded through the federal American Rescue Plan Act, emerging issues dockets were moved into the county\u2019s general fund this fiscal year. <\/p>\n
Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n Tonya Mills, Harris County\u2019s managing director of justice innovation, touted faster case dispositions during a quarterly update on the jail\u2019s population during Thursday\u2019s commissioners court meeting. She said the county identified a large swath of defendants who had been in jail long enough that their cases should\u2019ve been adjudicated, and officials implemented a stronger focus on getting specific low-level felony charges into the emergency dockets. The results, she said, showed a significantly boosted case disposition compared to the same time frame last year \u2014 about a 179% increase in cases disposed from the makeshift dockets. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have managed to have this steady chip at the [average daily population] and it\u2019s by way of we\u2019re moving cases faster and moving more cases,\u201d Mills said. \u201cThe progress over the last 12 months with all the justice stakeholders has been pretty significant and it\u2019s showing in the numbers.\u201d <\/p>\n Harris County leaders last month ended a contract to outsource jail inmates<\/a> to a private facility in Mississippi, shaving millions of dollars off the county’s outsourcing costs. On Thursday, commissioners unanimously passed a motion for the county to provide an estimation and updates on the Harris County Sheriff\u2019s Office\u2019s efforts to end jail outsourcing contracts by the court\u2019s Feb. 26 meeting.<\/p>\n RELATED: State jail commission commends Harris County for outsourcing, staffing improvements<\/a><\/p>\n Though cases are getting disposed quicker, the county will still need to hire more detention officers to meet a state-mandated ratio of one officer for every 48 inmates in order to bring more than 1,000 outsourced jail inmates back to Harris County. On Thursday, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said it\u2019s still unclear where they might find money in the budget to hire more detention officers after commissioners passed a budget<\/a> with a multi-million-dollar deficit this year. <\/p>\n “The chief was saying we need additional incentives for detention officers,\u201d Hidalgo said. \u201cWell we have no money. We already had to cut programs, so that’s my concern. This sort of tape and glue budgeting, hoping for the best.”<\/p>\n In the Thursday presentation, Mills said that new legislation passed by Texas lawmakers this year, including Senate Bill 9<\/a> and Proposition 3<\/a>, could also have the potential to exacerbate the jail population by preventing more defendants from getting out on bail.<\/p>\n