Cry me a river: Weaning time for Harris County bail bondsmen

Reports KHOU in Houston:

Bail bonding agencies and bounty hunters are in the midst of a business downturn in Harris County, and the reasons could stem from efforts to ease overcrowding at the Harris County Jail.

“No one’s getting paid and no money is coming in,” said Randy Kubosh, of Kubosh Bail Bonds in Houston.

Kubosh said the phones at his Lubbock Street office have nearly stopped ringing in recent months and he blames a spike in the issuance of personal recognizance, or PR bonds, for killing a lot of business.

This is not only no cause for concern, it's actually evidence at least some Harris County judges are finally taking seriously their share of responsibility for overcrowding at the Harris County Jail. The development reverses a long-term trend of reduced access to personal bonds for defendants. From 1994-2004, according to a consultant hired by the county to analyze the process, the number of misdemeanor defendants who were ordered to pay bail instead of being released on "personal bond" increased more than 30,000%. (Not a typo: That's thirty thousand percent!) Personal bonds for felony defendants declined over the same period by more than 94%.

The consultant in 2005 criticized, "the existence of [a] large block of apparently low risk defendants in detention ... who pose no significant risk of nonappearance or of danger to public safety [but] remain in pretrial detention because of inability to post bond." In that context, it's welcome news that, "According to figures obtained by KHOU, the number of PR bonds given to felony offenders has significantly increased in Harris County, climbing by nearly 90 percent over the last three years."

That figure surprises me, but I'd want to see the underlying data before making too much of that statistic. The reality is, because the rate of personal bonds granted had plummeted so low, there's a lot of room for increasing that number. Let's say for simplicity's sake (not the actual numbers) that in 1994, 1,000 felons were given personal bonds. If as the consultant found, that number reduced by 94% over the next decade, it would mean 60 felons got personal bonds in 2004. So starting from that low number, increasing the number of personal bonds by 90% would mean just 114 felons received personal bonds - still far lower than in the past. A 90% increase AFTER a 94% reduction doesn't remotely get you back to where you started. In that context, the figure wouldn't be such a shock.

Still, just a few years ago, officials said it would require expanding jail capacity to solve the Harris Jail's overcrowding problem, but if this trend continues it should relieve pressure on the jail. According to the latest jail population report (pdf) from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, as of Sept 1 Harris County incarcerated 8,843 inmates in the county jail, with a total capacity of 10,162. Another 769 inmates were housed elsewhere (in other counties or in a private prison in Louisiana).

That said, it's clear not all judges are doing what they can to reduce jail overcrowding, particularly as it regards sentencing low-level drug offenders with less-than-a-gram possession cases. In 2003, Texas changed the law to mandate such offenders receive probation on the first offense instead of incarcerating them in TDCJ state jails. But judges in Harris County - uniquely among Texas counties - began sentencing those offenders to serve up to six months in the county jail as a "condition" of probation, creating extra pressure on the jail population. Those sentenced thusly have reduced somewhat, but as of Sept. 1 around 6.5% of inmates incarcerated in the Harris County Jail were probationers serving such sentences, or 576 inmates (down from nearly a thousand just a few years ago). By comparison, here are the numbers for other large Texas counties on state jail felons sentenced to county jail as a probation condition:

Dallas: 70

Travis: 44

Tarrant: 77

Bexar: 0

El Paso: 40

Simply ending this one practice would free up enough beds to allow Harris to stop paying other counties to house their inmates. Without having seen court-by-court-data, I'd guess the reduction stems from some judges having discontinued the practice (or being replaced at the ballot box), but clearly some Harris judges still rely more heavily on this sentencing tactic than other jurisdictions.

In any event, don't weep for Harris County bail bondsmen, who've profited immensely over the years as judges subsidized their business by requiring bonds for low-risk offenders, filling up the jail with folks who in other counties would be released on personal bonds.  For bail bondsmen, as with cattle, "Weaning time is a very traumatic experience." But that doesn't mean the day won't come when it's time to join the rest of the planet in detaching their lips from the public teat, even if, as with a persistent calf, it requires a swift kick or two before they finally get the message.