Houston PD property room failing at customer satisfaction

Houston PD continues to either lose evidence from its property room or sometimes sell or destroy without consent from the owner, including crime victims and their families, reported the Houston Chronicle. The article ("HPD track record with seized property takes another  hit," April 30) focuses on the stuggle of a drowned woman's family who was shocked to learn HPD had auctioned off her personal effects a year and a half before the trial date of her boyfriend who was accused of killing her (he was acquitted). Said her mother, "They stole from my deceased daughter. They're doing the same things they arrest people for." Here's reporter James Pinkerton's overview of the problem:

Houston police have a long history of mishandling property in their control, including a case resulting in a landmark 1990 federal appeals court ruling that held lax HPD policies made it easy to violate a citizen's constitutional rights against unlawful seizure of their property.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a jury's award of $147,779 to a Houston couple whose stereo equipment, video recorder, cameras, jewels, gold coins, hunting rifles and other property had been seized by Houston police. When the couple obtained a court order for the property's return, they learned most of it had been sold in two auctions and the rest was converted to police use. 

In 2007, two HPD property room supervisors were suspended after 35 firearms turned up missing from the property room, including two that had resurfaced in the possession of criminal suspects. In 2004, HPD acknowledged that evidence from 8,000 criminal cases, going back to the 1960s, had been found in 280 boxes that were improperly labeled and stored. 

Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland ,,, said employees of the department's $13 million property room are not perfect. But he noted the 59,000-square-foot property room, which opened in June 2009, earned certification from the International Organization for Standardization in October, the only police property room given that certification. 

"We have human beings working in the property room," McClellend said. "People make mistakes. People in your business make mistakes. No one's perfect, and when you're dealing with that type of inventory of property and evidence, something can go to the wrong place, get mislabeled." ... 

Capt. Charles Vazquez, who heads the HPD property room, said there are 380,000 separate items currently in storage, and employees know where the "overwhelming majority" are located. "I'm not saying we could get every single item," he said.

Grits was particularly interested to learn that only a fraction of evidence released from the property room actually makes its way back to it rightful owners. "Last year, police checked in 65,000 items and disposed of another 24,000 items, including 8,200 returned to their owners. The other items were either auctioned off, donated to charity, converted to police use, destroyed or returned to the HPD division that checked them in." Some of that is because of drug evidence destroyed, but I'll bet a  more detailed investigation or audit into what happened to the rest of the evidence, particularly that which was "converted to police use ... or returned to the HPD division that checked them in," would be instructive.

It's difficult to accept the "nobody's perfect" excuse from management for such a recurring problem. This isn't a one off. When you're dealing with processes involving that much property and data (especially when it's other people's property), the system needs adequate checks and redundancies to make sure evidence isn't lost or improperly disposed of.  Ask inventory trackers at Walmart, or for that matter UPS. With technologies and processes available in the 21st century, the only reason these systems aren't more professionalized is that management and budget writers haven't prioritized their upgrade.

Too often police property rooms are an employment backwater within law enforcement agencies, frequently a place where officers are assigned when they have disciplinary problems or have been deemed unfit for field duty. (Charley Wilkinson of CLEAT boasts that many police union locals have been organized by disgruntled employees assigned to the property room as punishment.) I've no knowledge of specific staffing patterns at HPD, but frequently professionalism in this area is diminished by the (often accurate) perception among officers and management that property room duty amounts to second-class status, contributing to sloppy evidence retention practices. Grits would prefer to see property rooms run by dedicated, civilian professionals instead of sworn officers. Managing inventory is something big companies do all the time with far lower error rates and superior customer satisfaction.

See related Grits posts:

• Dallas DNA exonerations expose evidence retention flaws
• Senate bills encourage retention, testing of old DNA evidence
• 'The DNA's over there ... right next to the jelly': Problems with evidence preservation in Texas
• Using DNA in nonviolent offenses would swamp crime labs, evidence rooms
• 'Missing evidence among military crime labs new problems'
• Big D: Shopping Mecca
• Sex toys, guns walk away from Houston evidence room
• Nueces County cleaning up evidence room mess; how many others are just as bad?
• Police evidence rooms are 'red-headed stepchildren' of law enforcement, Integrity Unit told
• Galveston, Brazoria Counties react wisely by dismissing cases after evidence thefts
• Evidence retention failures thwart pursuit of innocence claims
• Enough weapons missing from Houston's property room for a 21-gun salute
• 500 guns missing from TX police evidence room in 'illegal firearms trafficking scheme'

Texas jail populations down 9.5% since 2008, declining faster than nationally

The Sentencing Project issued a press release today on a topic Grits has recently remarked upon: The decline in county jail populations, which have lowered significantly more quickly than prison populations. Says the Sentencing Project:

JAIL POPULATIONS DECLINING MORE RAPIDLY THAN PRISONS

Washington, D.C. - An analysis of new data on jail populations in the U.S. shows that the number of people confined in local jails is declining at a more rapid rate than in state and federal prisons. The Sentencing Project finds that from 2007-2010 the incarceration rate in jails declined by more than three times the rate of prisons, 6.6% compared to 1.8%.

“The sustained decline in both prison and jail populations has produced no adverse effects on public safety,” stated Marc Mauer, Executive Director of The Sentencing Project. “We now have the opportunity to free up resources for public safety initiatives that do not depend on record rates of incarceration.”

The analysis is based on data released today by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in its annual report of individuals in jail, Jail Inmates at Midyear 2011. The report shows a decline in the number of inmates for the third consecutive year. In its reports, BJS provides figures for jail populations at midyear and for prison populations at the year’s end. Jails are local facilities that generally house persons awaiting trial or serving short sentences, while prisons are run by state and federal governments to confine persons sentenced to one year or more of incarceration.

The BJS report also documents a sharp 23.4% reduction in the number of juveniles housed in adult jails between 2008-2011. The practice of housing juveniles with adults has come under criticism from a broad range of organizations because of increased exposure to violence and abuse.

The Sentencing Project is a national non-profit organization engaged in research and advocacy on criminal justice policy.

See the DOJ report (pdf), which notes that: "Local jails admitted an estimated 11.8 million persons during the 12 months ending midyear 2011, down from 12.9 million persons admitted during the same period in 2010 and 13.6 million in 2008. The number of persons admitted in 2011 was about 16 times the size of the inmate population (735,601) at midyear 2011."

Surprisingly, the reduction does NOT stem from expanded diversion programs. Nationwide, 62,816 defendants were "supervised outside of a jail facility" at mid-year 2011, down from 72,852 at the same point in 2008.

Inmates held on immigration detainers were one of the few countervailing trends: ICE detainers accounted for 3.3% of local jail inmates in 2011 nationwide, compared to 1.7% in 2005 (the 21st century floor).

Exceeding the national trend, Texas jail populations have reduced 9.5% overall since 2008, according to the Commission on Jail Standards, with Harris and Bexar Counties registering especially significant declines. Grits compiled this data (which includes prisoners housed out of county) from TCJS reports from the last five Aprils:



By arbitrarily picking April as the measuring stick, these data likely understate Texas' true jail population decline since jail populations max out in the summer. According to press reports, e.g., Harris County's jail population topped out at more than 12,000, including out of county inmates.

I'm curious: Why do readers think jail population declines (and smaller reductions in the prison incarceration rate) took so long to materialize after crime began to go down 20 years ago? Does it have more to do with crime trends or how localities are processing cases pretrial (personal bonds, GPS monitoring, etc.)? Are recent reductions sustainable or a mere blip on the radar?

Grits' sense is that these reductions represent just the beginning of what's possible. IMO there's a lot more slack in the system to take up, and a lot more county budget savings to be had from jail population reductions if local officials - particularly those concerned with high taxes - will embrace the meme. 

See related, recent Grits posts:

• Dallas jail population dropping as crime declines
• Harris County crime reduction undeterred by 31% drop in inmates

Harris criminal courthouse called "Grand Central Station for Houston's misery"

Patti Hart at the Houston Chronicle has a column today describing the central dilemma behind a real source of innocents convicted of petty offenses as well as overcrowded jails. It opens:

I've come to think of the Harris County Criminal Justice Center as Grand Central Station for Houston's misery, an opinion that was only hardened when I recently spent a few mornings observing our courts handle jail inmates charged with misdemeanors.

Every day about mid-morning in Harris County's 15 Criminal Courts-at-law, a door swings open and six to 10 men wearing orange jail jumpsuits, usually shackled together in a long train, are directed by a sheriff's deputy to march in front of the judge's bench. (Women are handled separately, and often appear alone.)

Responding to a (frequently bored-sounding) judge who appears to be reading from a script, they all plead guilty. The question-"How do you plead?" - is a rhetorical one, of course. The judge, the prosecutors, the court-appointed lawyers, in fact, everyone in the courthouse knows that these criminal defendants have been offered a Hobson's choice. That is, no choice at all: Take a guilty plea, or sit in jail until you can have a trial and plead not guilty. When that time rolls around, you'll have spent more time in the slammer than if you pled guilty.

She points to a report published last year from Houston Ministers Against Crime which:

concluded that expediency seems to dominate equity. Instead of taking into account a defendant's economic circumstances, as required by the state "Harris County rarely deviates from its predetermined bail schedules." Jailing people who have not yet been convicted of even a petty crime is unjust - and costly to taxpayers, the report said. "The rigidity of these rules contributes to high pre-trial detention rates in Harris County and exacerbates the County's budget woes."

See the full report (pdf).

See also related Grits posts:

• Harris jail noncompliance caused by use of pretrial detention to coerce plea deals
• Bail bondsmen not hurting for business in Harris County
• Bail bond industry seeks to retain monopoly
• Reduce Harris County Jail costs through smarter policies
• Increased Harris County Jail costs, inmate numbers third highest in nation over last decade
• Reduce pretrial detention to stave off overcrowding
• Elected Officials Guide to Jail Population Management
• Judges have tools to reduce Harris jail overcrowding if they'll use them
• Counties that rejected new jails must now get serious about diversion
• Pretrial detention, unnecessary incarceration driving Texas jail overcrowding
• Bail blunders boost bulging Harris jail population
• Extra bail conditions: When tough on crime means tough on taxpayers
• Should county government subsidize bail bond companies?
• Lack of counsel, information are bail barriers

The half-empty glass: Reporting on juvie crime accentuates the negative

In a bit of a glass-half-empty story, the Houston Chronicle reported yesterday that sexual assaults are the only major juvenile crime category in Harris County which has not declined since 2007 ("Sex crimes by juvenile offenders are on the rise in Harris County," April 21):

In the last five years, the number of juveniles committing sexual assaults has increased 17 percent in Harris County while most other major juvenile crimes have shown significant declines, probation records show.

Sex offenses climbed from 121 to 142 during that period, while other violent juvenile crimes declined such as murder and robbery, dropping by 28 percent and 24 percent.

Here's a chart accompanying the story which graphically displays the data:

Writes reporter Cindy Horswell, "The U.S. Justice Department says 36 percent of sex crimes against children are committed by other children. Five percent of all sex offenders are younger than nine, and 16 percent are younger than 12, records show."

Certainly it's curious that sexual assaults alone continue to increase, with all other juvenile crime in Harris County seemingly in decline. But when the reporter jumps directly to the suggestion that we now have a new problem thanks to rising access to pornography, we've abandoned reasonable discussion for the kind of hype that sells papers but does little else. That we're dealing with very small numbers and countervailing overall trends encourages particular caution in over-interpreting the data. (That also goes for numerical declines in categories with small totals, including murder data.) In a jurisdiction the size of Harris County, a delta of 21 cases over five years is still small enough that any number of factors could affect it, from reporting rates by victims to charging decisions to changes in investigative focus by police.

Indeed, the same data could have been used to emphasize how far juvenile crime overall has fallen, a trend that's not limited to Houston. A recent report from the Juvenile Probation Commission (large pdf, p. 16) offered a statewide assessment that mostly jibes with Harris County's juvie crime drop: "In fiscal year 2011, there were 79,732 formal referrals to juvenile probation departments throughout the state. This represented an 11% decrease in referrals from the previous year (89,419 formal referrals in fiscal year 2010)." In 2001, according TJPC (see this report [pdf]), statewide juvenile referrals totaled more than 113,000, so we're talking about a significant drop in juvie crime over the last decade, even as the state's population ballooned.

The really good news, statewide even sexual offenses may be on the decline. The TJPC last year reported a slight drop in 2011 of juveniles in sex offender treatment programs, to 1,065 from 1,164 the year before. They also reported a drop in those receiving "residential placements" as sex offenders, from 368 to 310. While Grits can't immediately locate comparable data back to 2007, those numbers further recommend caution when interpreting Harris' situation. If expanded access to porn really caused an increase in Harris County sex assaults by juveniles, why hasn't it done so statewide?

Overall, juvenile crime trends in Texas are quite encouraging. But unfortunately good news on crime doesn't sell papers, hence the media focus on the single Harris County category with a worse outcome.

Grits continues to believe larger macro trends having little to do with the justice system account for much of the recent crime decline for both juveniles and adults. After all, even if you believe that keeping adults in prison longer (and for lessor offenses) has contributed to the overall, long-term crime reduction, that doesn't explain why juvie crime is declining even more rapidly. I often wonder if one of the biggest factors may be the rise of the internet, cell phones and video games, which occupy an extraordinary amount of youths' time that in my day would have been spent running the streets with much more potential for getting into trouble. The kid playing Grand Theft Auto IV for hours (or for that matter watching porn) is at home staring at a screen, not out jacking my car, spraying graffiti, burglarizing my house, etc.

Whatever the cause, with regards to juvie crime the glass is more than half full, scary headlines aside. It may sell newspapers, but hyping juvenile crime during this period of historic decline makes it harder to do more of what we are doing right and risks repeating old mistakes if the trend really does turn around.

Jail dominates Harris County Sheriff budget whether candidates acknowledge reality or not

Big Jolly has posted a hagiography candidate interview featuring Louis Guthrie, the GOP frontrunner to challenge Adrian Garcia for Harris County Sheriff, who Jolly declares is "a natural born leader," adding that he "couldn’t blame [Guthrie] if he thought I had a man-crush on him."

With Jolly temporarily blinded by his love-goggles, Grits wanted to hone in particularly on the utterly unrealistic discussion of the budget from the challenger. Ironically, his stances mirror positions taken and promises made by Garcia when he first ran for Sheriff, most of which crashed upon the rocky shores of economic reality almost immediately after he took office. Here's the segment (in full) of BJ's post on the budget:

About the budget, I’ve mentioned before (here and here) that most of the primary candidates think that the budget must be increased. Mr. Guthrie was a bit more nuanced in our discussion than he was in the forums – during the forums, he stated that his relationship with Harris County Commissioners Court would result in a larger budget. I asked him point blank if that meant that the Court was playing partisan politics and not giving Sheriff Garcia the resources he needed. His answer was no, that the budget under Garcia had grown and would continue to grow. What he meant was that the Court would see that he was prioritizing the resources better than Garcia and they would be more apt to give him what he asked for versus them seeing that Garcia was building up his command staff and not boots on the ground.

A glaring example of what Sheriff Garcia has done was noted in the Houston Chronicle today in a report by Anita Hassan:

Also, county budget cuts have suspended testing in the auto theft division for now. But overall, testing can help to solve more crimes as well as prevent them, Wilson said.

“If you catch one of those guys (car burglars), you can prevent dozens of them over a period of months,” he said. “They are out there every single day driving those parking lots in every part of this city and county looking for targets. If you get one of them off the streets, there’s no telling how many you may have prevented.”

I asked Mr. Guthrie about this report and he replied:

“Touch DNA is just one of many exciting new techniques now used to help solve crimes that were previously relegated to the “closed with no investigation” file.  While the current Sheriff has created most of his own budgeting problems, cutting funding for programs that help put burglars behind bars is a poor choice for the taxpayers.  Garcia could easily trim fat from his bloated command staff and instead put dollars to work solving crimes and putting more boots on the ground.  That would have a real impact of improving public safety in Harris County.” Louis Guthrie

We talked about the budget for quite some time. I was impressed with his detailed knowledge of how the department works, down to the supplies issued each deputy. I was a bit surprised by this because his highest rank in the department had been Lieutenant and budgeting is typically done by the Captains. He told me that he took it upon himself as a Lt. to break down the numbers passed down by his Captain because he wanted to be certain that taxpayer money was being utilized efficiently.

Two things jump out at Grits here. First is Guthrie's utterly unrealistic portrayal of the budget, pretending that demoting a few senior commanders will allow him to put more "boots on the ground" at a time when the county is paying millions annually in overtime to staff the jail (which is the 800 lbs. gorilla dominating the Sheriff's budget). I replied thusly in the comments:

Hey Big Spender!! So Garcia’s budget is too big, says Guthrie, but he would increase it more? I call BS.

In reality (i.e, outside the campaign trail), the Sheriff’s Office is primarily about running the jail. Garcia cited all the same data and made all the same promises about more patrols when he first ran, then once elected he had to confront reality and had to spend all his budget cushion on overtime for jailers to meet minimum state standards. What “efficiencies” will Guthrie install to change that situation? Nada. Command salaries are a drop in the bucket compared to overtime. If you or anybody believe Guthrie won’t be subject to PRECISELY the same budget dynamic, you’ve got another think coming. Such campaign promises are completely detached from reality.

Voters may not recall, but Sheriff Garcia rode into office four years ago promising to boost patrols in unincorporated parts of the county, then discovered after ascending to the job that his main responsibility is managing the jail and every extra dollar he could lay his hands on had to go to pay jailers' overtime. If Guthrie replaces him, four years from now he'll face a challenger making the same BS criticisms and promises because what he's suggesting is not real and cannot happen given current budget realities. These are not partisan issues, nor even ideological ones. They are difficult, practical economic and management questions on which neither Guthrie nor any other candidate may legitimately claim higher ground. Like Garcia when he made the same promises in 2008, either Guthrie doesn't understand the big picture or he's just blowing smoke up voters' collective ass.

Finally, BJ references an interesting story out of the Houston Chronicle on using "touch DNA" to solve property crimes, criticizing Garcia for not using the technology for car burglaries after the Commissioners Court cut the program's budget. I understand identifying something voters don't like (car burglaries) and blaming one's opponent for it is a typical campaign tactic, but the critique misunderstands who controls the budget strings at the Sheriff's office. The county commissioners court makes that call, not him. Besides, it's difficult to overstate the extent to which using touch DNA in nonviolent offenses would quickly overwhelm crime labs and property rooms. As Grits wrote in January, "The advent of 'touch DNA' and the expansion of DNA evidence to nonviolent offenses like burglary mean the near-term growth potential for DNA examiners may be limited only by how much state and local governments are willing to pay for them." In Harris County, for the foreseeable future, those demands for funds must get in line behind overtime spending for jailers. Changing the party designation of the Sheriff from D to R wouldn't alter that dynamic in the slightest.

RELATED: Here's Charles Kuffner's interview with incumbent Sheriff Adrian Garcia.

'The Harris County Jail: The Largest Mental Health Provider in Texas'

Via press release, Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia tomorrow morning will address a subject I think few Texans are aware of: That the Harris County Jail is "The Largest Mental Health Provider in Texas." Media are invited to the event.

The legacy of Otis Campbell and Houston's proposed 'sobering center'

Following up on a suggestion from Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos, Houston officials plan to create a "sobering center," reports the Houston Chronicle's Chris Moran ("Houston plans 'sobering center' at shelter instead of jail," Feb. 29), where police can take drunks instead of booking them into jail. The story opens:

City officials plan to open a "sobering center" at the Star of Hope Mission downtown later this year. It would be an 84-bed facility that would allow people whose only offense is being drunk to bypass jail.

Houston police arrest 19,000 people a year for public intoxication, racking up $4 million to $6 million in jail costs. A sobering center aims to divert drunks from jail and free up cells for more dangerous offenders. Dropping off a person at the center, instead of booking him into jail, also would let officers to return to patrol more quickly.

A person brought to the sobering center would have to stay at least four hours, until he sobers up, and would not have an arrest put on his record.

"Jail should be for violent people that we need to get off the street," not a place to merely sober up, said Councilman Ed Gonzalez, a former city police officer who has championed the sobering center idea.

The center also may do a better job than jail at addressing chronic substance abusers, Gonzalez said.

"I don't think jail is a deterrent" to chronic abuse, he said. "They consume or abuse because they have abuse issues. Punishment isn't a substantial stick anymore."

In a statement, Mayor Annise Parker declared that "Incarcerating individuals whose only criminal behavior is public intoxication diverts law enforcement from more serious or life-threatening crimes," adding that "Sobering centers in other cities have proven to be time savers for patrol officers, allowing them to quickly return to their assigned duties to deal with more serious crimes."

When Lykos first suggested the idea, Grits quipped that "In my mind's eye, I think they should call it the Otis Campbell Detox Center," comparing the tactic to "giving Mayberry's town drunk a safe place to dry out."

Every effort to divert low-level cases from the justice system is a worthy experiment, in this writer's view, but it remains to be seen how well the idea works in practice, whether HPD uses it, not to mention what criteria will be used to decide that the "sobering center" is more appropriate than the jail. For homeless frequent flyers in particular I can see it becoming a tremendous boon. And it's good to see city leaders spending on diversion programs first instead of automatically sinking more money into the city jail. According to Moran, "The city stands to save millions a year if it can offload a substantial portion of its public drunkenness cases to a facility where the detainees do not have to be fed nor as closely monitored as they would be in jail."

Kuff points to a press release on the topic, adding that "The city jails, and ways to reduce costs on them, were a subject of the Mayor’s inaugural speech." More from Hair Balls.

Don't politicize 'independent' Houston crime lab

In an incredibly frustrating development, Houston Mayor Annise Parker has decided to ignore Harris County's offer to partner on a joint, regional crime lab, instead suggesting the city create its own "independent" lab governed by a board of political appointees. Reported Chris Moran at the Houston Chronicle, "Under the mayor's plan, the crime lab would take the form of a local government corporation, a combination of nonprofit and government agency similar to the organizations that run the city's convention business, Parks Board and zoo."

What a waste from duplicated resources if they go this route! A regional lab operated jointly with the county would make far more sense, but the big barrier is the city and county politicians cannot work together on a personal level. Councilman C.O. Bradford, a former Houston police chief, expressed that sentiment: "It would be a sad day if we were to go and renovate some existing facility or acquire a new facility and the county were to continue building a new facility," he told the Chron. "To the extent that we can save public tax dollars and not duplicate equipment and not duplicate a facility, I think we will have scored a perfect score."

But that ship appears to have sailed and Mayor Parker now says a concrete proposal for a separate, independent lab may come before the council as soon as next month. She even suggested that one of the Innocence Project groups have a representative on the crime lab board (in the interest of full disclosure, your correspondent works for the Innocence Project of Texas), but this immediately turned the discussion to suggestions that would dramatically politicize the new entity.

District K Councilman Larry Green called for a place on the board for community groups such as the NAACP or the League of United Latin American Citizens.

District E Councilman Mike Sullivan said suggestions to have defense bar or civil rights representatives on the board "all sound like what I'll term, and I mean this with all due respect, kind of politically correct perspectives and points of view. I think that we need to be sure to have some representation by law enforcement, pro-victims' rights groups, Parents of Murdered Children, groups like that."

This are TERRIBLE suggestions, all the way around. If you're going to create an independent board, scientists, not political appointees, should run the lab, based on the interests of science and not the NAACP, victim's rights groups, etc.. For God's sake don't turn the friggin' crime lab into just another opportunity to feud over the culture wars! I could see designating one slot for a prosecutor and one for the defense bar - so that those with professional interest in the crime lab's functioning would have an avenue to express concerns. But most of the board should be chosen for their scientific chops and independence from the system. It would be a catastrophe if the board packed with a cadre of culture warriors.

To her credit, Mayor Parker said, "I clearly prefer to have our forensics sciences not under the influence of police, prosecution or politics," but designating spots on the board for special interest groups would run contrary to that goal.

BSG (broke state government) seeking forensic mental health beds

Found in the want ads in the Houston Chronicle:

UT Health Science Center is hiring for positions including a psychiatrist, psychologists, nurses, hospital aides (psyc techs), social workers, nurse practitioners, physicians assistants, recreational therapists and a chaplain for two units they are opening in March 2012.

1. Adult Forensic Detention Unit at The University of Texas Harris County Psychiatric Center (UTHCPC): The forensic unit will treat mentally ill individuals with medicine, psychiatric and psychological treatment who have committed a criminal offense and are in jail awaiting trial.

Didn't know that was happening, but perhaps it will contribute to short-term relief with the shortage of "forensic beds" at state hospitals designated for competency restoration. Relatedly, at the Dallas News Somer Ingram had a story published February 6 discussing Judge Orlinda Naranjo's yet-to-be finalized ruling (pdf) on timely admission of inmates needing competency restoration into state hospitals, discussed on Grits here and here. The story ("State may be forced to find room for mentally ill inmates," behind paywall) opened:

The state could be scrambling to make room in medical facilities for hundreds of mentally incompetent prisoners after a judge ordered that they can no longer be housed long-term in county jails.

State District Judge Orlinda Naranjo of Austin is expected to soon finalize her ruling, requiring that inmates whose mental illness prohibits them from standing trial be moved to state psychiatric hospitals within 21 days of receiving the order to be committed. The ruling will force the already-underfunded Department of State Health Services to find room and money for these inmates.

The inmates have typically been ordered to get treatment at a state hospital to restore competency and be able to stand trial. But because there is a perpetual wait for the 800 hospital beds set aside for patients from jails, inmates are put on a “Clearinghouse List” and confined to county jails until space opens up in a state hospital.

Prisoners spent about six months in jail waiting for a bed in a psychiatric facility over the past two years, their mental states deteriorating even further without proper psychiatric care. In Dallas County, 77 inmates are waiting to be admitted to a state hospital. All have been waiting longer than the 21 days the new rules would require.

“Keeping incompetent pretrial criminal defendants confined in county jail for unreasonable periods of time prior to being admitted to a state mental health facility or residential health facility violates the incompetent detainees’ due process rights as guaranteed by the Texas Constitution,” Naranjo wrote last month, ruling against the state in a civil case.

Naranjo’s ruling comes as something of a wakeup call for the state, which has underfunded state hospitals for years and made jails de facto care facilities for the mentally ill. But finding space in the hospitals remains a challenge.

Experts worry that changing the rules with no additional funding will mean a greater share of hospital slots dedicated as “forensic beds” for inmates, and no room in state hospitals for patients who don’t come from the jail system.

Department of State Health Services spokeswoman Carrie Williams said the department is already looking at how it would logistically comply with the final order but hasn’t gotten far yet.

“The problem is that forensic beds don’t turn over very quickly because the lengths of stays can be quite long,” Williams said. “We are evaluating right now what resources we have, what options are available and what changes we might need to make. We’ll of course have to look at space and staff as well.”

The attorney general, representing the state, has not yet decided whether to appeal the decision.

This court ruling has been years in the making and is potentially a game changer, but it may also turn out to be a temporary "check" in a much larger chess match. How will the state comply? What happens if they don't? Will appellate courts (or for that matter judges in other jurisdictions) back Naranjo's order, which has statewide implications? (For that matter, I'm unclear whether the Court of Criminal Appeals would get the case or the Texas Supreme Court - I suspect the latter.) How many new forensic beds are needed to comply with the terms of her order¿Quien sabe? 

Though Naranjo enjoys the reputation in Austin as a moderately liberal judge, in many ways this is a classically small-government ruling, as borne out by the critical passage in which she concluded that "the nature and duration of commitment of the Incompetent Detainees bears no rational relationship to the purpose for which those detainees are committed and the relevant state interests do not outweigh the Incompetent Detainees' liberty interest." (Emphasis added.) In other words, the state can't hold an individual just out of convenience. Individuals' incarceration in the county jail must bear some "rational relationship to the purpose for which those detainees are committed." It's almost the kind of thing Barry Goldwater might have said.

Yet the state does have a rational interest in prosecuting crimes and ensuring, to the extent possible, that mentally ill defendants don't go on to harm others. But if the state wants to perform that function, says Naranjo, it must invest sufficiently in competency restoration infrastructure not to violate mentally ill defendants' constitutional rights, which in her view kick in after 21 days. Notably, the attorney for Disabilty Rights Texas, Beth Mitchell, told Grits she'd have preferred that the ruling require state hospitals to accept defendants immediately when courts declare them incompetent, which she said may typically happen within 7-8 days, but Judge Naranjo decided to give the state more leeway.

A table at the end of the Dallas News story shows Harris County with remarkably fewer inmates waiting long-term for beds than Dallas and some other large jurisdictions. Though unstated in the article, I'm told this is because of one simple, critical fact: Harris County doesn't wait to treat incompetent inmates until they're sent to the state hospital! They screen, identify and assess mentally ill defendants quite rapidly on the front end - as they're entering the jail. In particular, wherever possible, the jail identifies mentally ill inmates' medications through past jail records, prescription-drug databases, from their personal physicians, local clinics, etc., particularly for frequent flyers. Often the first steps toward competency restoration begin well before anyone issues a court order to that effect. The result: Harris has a lot fewer backlogged inmates awaiting competency restoration for long stretches, and those Harris sends to state hospitals tend to have shorter lengths of stay compared to other jurisdictions. (Harris, the state's largest county, had 9 inmates who'd waited longer than 60 days for a bed, according to the Dallas News, compared to 66 in Dallas who'd waited longer than 70 days.)

Replicating Harris' approach requires devoting resources on the front end, which was well worth it in Houston because they're such a carceral Goliath. Necessity so often finding itself the Mother of Invention, Harris County's example lights the path for other counties facing the same problem, which is basically all of them so long as state hospitals are full: Implement early screening and diagnosis soon after entry into the jail along with an aggressive effort to identify patients' current prescriptions to minimize lapses and help prevent further de-compensation.

Similarly, Nueces County recently launched a pilot, grant-funded Competency Restoration Program, the Caller-Times reported Jan. 27, under which inmates "would wait days, not weeks, to begin state-ordered treatment to be get competent for trial." That's exactly the approach counties should be taking, big and small. If Harris and Nueces can both do it, size isn't so much a factor as funding and want-to. (If counties update all their case dispositions, perhaps the Governor's Criminal Justice Division would look favorably on funding startup costs for such efforts.)

It's Grits perception, though, that most counties haven't been nearly that proactive in addressing the problem. They may have to be. The Lege couldn't even authorize new beds for at least a year, and even then I'm not sure where they'd find them. (Maybe there are contractors willing to run a secure facility, but the state could also have to build more beds to comply. Who knows?) Or the state and/or counties could invest in quicker processing on the front end like in Harris and Nueces to resolve the problem before defendants get to the state hospital.

It'll be fascinating to see how Judge Naranjo's court ruling plays out because, judicial good intentions aside, state hospitals can no more manufacture extra hospital beds to comply with this mandate than the miser can squeeze coins from a stone. And there are so many unanswered questions: If they comply by reducing the number of non-forensic beds, what would be the unintended consequences? Might the Governor's Criminal Justice Division or some other source (heaven knows who) step up with grants to plug the gap? For that matter, given current budget circumstances, what happens if May 2013 comes and goes and the Lege hasn't ponied up money to resolve the situation? Most critically, what leverage will Naranjo have to enforce the order, and what modifications might be sought by the state? I'm proud of the judge for issuing that ruling, but for the moment it raises more questions than it answers.

MORE: From the Texas Tribune.

See prior, related Grits posts:

• Grits commenter played role initiating lawsuit over timely competency restoration
• Judge: State mental hospitals must take incompetent inmates within 21 days
• 'Neither punished nor treated, just jailed'
• Growth in forensic commitments exacerbates shortage of state mental hospital beds
• Judge orders state hospital to take more competency restoration patients
• Competency restoration process sounds crazy to columnist
• Few bills proposed at Lege to remedy statewide crisis in competency restoration
• Harris County pleads case for mental health, probation/diversion funds in state budget
• Jail deaths implicate state oversight, competency restoration funding
• Mental health cuts by state would shift costs to local jails, emergency rooms
• 'Harris County jail not the place to treat mental illness'
• The making of an unfunded mandate: Cuts to mental health would dump costs on county jails
• Cuts to state mental hospitals would be massive unfunded mandate for county jails
• Mentally ill languish in Bexar jail awaiting assessment, competency restoration
• Cuts to state mental health treatment would shift costs to local jails
• Cutting state psych hospital budgets could backfire
• Legislature's underspending on competency restoration beds creates havoc
• Priorities: Mentally incompetent inmates languishing in Texas county jails
• 75-year old mentally incompetent grandmother stranded in Lufkin jail most of 2006
• Legislature should prioritize mental health funding that relieves local jails
• Chincy state hospital funding leaves mentally incompetent defendants stranded
• Unfunded mandate: Counties struggle to pay for mentally incompetent defendants' care
• More counties grumbling at backlog of incompetent defendants in county jails

No indictments from Houston BAT van probe

A grand jury investigating misconduct at the Harris County District Attorney's Office declined to issue indictments, but put out a stinging public statement critical of the DA's Office's handling of the affair. Reports Brian Rogers at the Houston Chronicle:

A Harris County grand jury ended its session Tuesday, ending a months-long investigation into the district attorney's office and the Houston Police Department's DWI testing vehicles with a blistering report, but no indictments.

"There was no evidence of a crime," said grand jury foreman Trisha Pollard.

Pollard signed off on a one-page report blasting the DA's office for "unexpected resistance" and accusing the office of launching an investigation into the grand jurors, the special prosecutors and judges.

The grand jury also harshly criticized Rachel Palmer, a prosecutor who invoked her fifth amendment right to refuse to testify.

"The stain upon the HCDAO will remain regardless of any media statements issued or press conferences issued by anyone," according to the statement.

Certainly, the spectacle of a prosecutor taking the 5th Amendment to avoid testifying was an almost absurdist display, and Grits cannot recall another DA called to testify before a grand jury in the fashion that occurred here. I'm not sure what if anything has been resolved, or what conclusions to draw. I'll look forward to reading a copy of the grand jury's report.

MORE: Big Jolly, who sees this as vindication for Pat Lykos, has posted the grand jury statement and Lykos' official  response. Lykos portrays the grand jury proceedings as a witch hunt by her political enemies, and there is something to that assessment. But I also think the DA's Office and especially Houston PD bear responsibility in the matter. One of Lykos' prosecutors, Rachel Palmer, notoriously took the 5th (the right against self-incrimination) instead of testifying about activities performed on the job. That's a highly unusual development, and it's hard not to wonder if the outcome of the investigation might have been different if the ADA had testified. Lykos likely deflated the matter as a campaign issue, though, by testifying herself.

The DA's public statement declares, "Despite repeated public insinuations to the contrary, there was no criminal conduct in the operation of HPD BAT vans, nor was  there suppression of evidence." "No criminal conduct" I'll accept, but the truth is Houston PD knew about problems with BAT vans in fall 2010 when the issues were raised by their own analysts, two of whom later resigned rather than participate in flawed forensics. It was only after defense attorneys found those ex-analysts and brought one of them to court that anyone in officialdom publicly acknowledged potential problems with BAT vans' accuracy. So while this may be the end of the runaway grand jury story (and HPD BAT vans generally, which are being phased out later this year), your correspondent sees little vindication for anyone coming from this episode, just an enormous politicized mess that pretty much tarnished everyone remotely associated with the process.

AND MORE: From Mark Bennett, who thinks the DA's Office may have improperly used a secure database in violation of federal law.

Houston Chron surveys employee discipline at county jail

At the Houston Chronicle, James Pinkerton has a story today ("Discipline problems persist behind bars," Jan. 30) describing employee misconduct that spawned disciplinary actions and terminations at the Harris County Jail from 2008 to 2010. The article opens:

A female jailer ordered, without authorization, an entire cellblock of women prisoners to strip naked during a July 2010 search. She's still on the job.

Another jailer punched a seriously ill inmate as he lay in the infirmary in May 2010. The inmate died the next day, and the jailer's punishment: one day in jail.

Last year, a sergeant slugged an inmate so hard it took 14 staples to close a gash over his eye. The sergeant said the inmate raised his hands to hit him, but other jailers swore the inmate didn't. The sergeant was fired but not charged with a crime. He's fighting to return.

These incidents and dozens of others highlight how the Harris County Jail, one of the busiest in the nation, continues to experience problems similar to those cited in a 2009 U.S. Department of Justice report critical of the use of excessive force against inmates.

A Houston Chronicle review of disciplinary records indicates that from 2008 through 2010, more than 200 jail employees were disciplined for various offenses, some serious and others minor. Last year, the Sheriff's Office disciplined 88 employees working in detention, including jailers, deputies and civilians.

Their offenses included excessive use of force, having sex with inmates, mistakenly releasing dangerous prisoners including suspected drug dealers, sleeping on the job, and even leaving their post to have a 90-minute-long domino game. One jailer destroyed mail sent to prisoners, and another ruined a picture of an inmate's son by spraying it with cleaning solvent. 

Read the whole thing; it's an interesting snapshot of an HCSO disciplinary process rarely glimpsed by the public.

Indeed, Grits' pitch in light of this coverage goes out to TV and print editors and local criminal-justice beat reporters across Texas and beyond: Pinkerton's story could be replicated via open-records requests for any county jail in the state. In fact, information requests about misconduct by Sheriff's deputies get MORE information than comparable requests in many larger police departments (at least those in municipalities which have adopted civil service under Chapter 143 of the Local Government Code) because their activities are governed by the much-more transparent Public Information Act (Chapter 552 of the Government Code). So it's more difficult under that statute (though by no means impossible) for agencies to conceal embarrassing documents. Without reporters like Pinkerton digging into public records, in most cases these stories would remain forever secret. Notably, spokesman Alan Bernstein told the Chron, "families are not told of incidents that happen in jail unless they cause death."

Of course, as is always the case, such anecdotes do not speak to the character or professionalism of every HCSO employee. In most law-enforcement and correctional settings, a minority of officers are responsible for a disproportionate share of misconduct allegations, and that's surely the case at HCSO. Still, the story gives outsiders an idea of the range of disciplinary challenges facing managers at one of the nation's largest jails. And it's certain they're not unique.

It's great that a city the size of Houston gets this sort of in-depth, research-based coverage, but there's no reason Pinkerton's methodology couldn't be reproduced by media in other jurisdictions. You never know what you'll find until you look.

Nuther challenge to Harris Co. ME: Called administrative and judicial officers by county at different times

A second attorney has filed claims that Harris County medical examiner reports are invalid based on researcher and occasional Grits commenter David Fisher's findings that most of them had not signed constitutionally required oaths of office or bribery statements which are seemingly required for them to perform their duties. Michael Reed at Houston Community Newspapers proivides a good overview of the issues at stake based on recent court filings ("Legal standing of Harris County medical examiner at issue," Jan. 13):

In a Sept. 15, 2011 opinion, ... Glen Van Slyke, assistant county attorney, wrote that the medical examiner is not an appointed public “officer,” but rather an “administrative employee” of the Commissioners Court. As such, holding the position does not require taking an oath of office or providing any written statements.

Oddly, in 2009, Harris County went before the 1st Court of Appeals to argue that Sanchez was a judicial officer and as such could not be barred from performing an autopsy opposed by the deceased’s family for religious reasons.

Harris County was joined in its position by Tarrant, Dallas, Bexar, El Paso and other medical examiner counties. When challenged later, each of these, unlike Harris County, executed the oath and statement as required by the state Constitutional.

Sanchez, through a spokesman, declined to comment Friday.

In the 2009 case, Harris County vs. Afsaneh Saghian, the court ruled “the Medical Examiner of Harris County is a judicial officer and that it is manifestly improper for a district court to enjoin him from performing duties which he deems — in a valid exercise of his discretion — to be necessary and required of him by statute.”

That may be for the best from the county’s vantage point. If the medical examiner is not a judicial officer, according to the defense attorneys, an even bigger problem arises — one that could result in criminal charges, rather than constitutional violations.

Unlike in many other states, physicians in Texas are prohibited by state law from taking part in “corporate practice of medicine.” In other words, doctors cannot practice medicine that is “any way controlled or directed” by a non-physician. This, according to Bollinger, includes partnerships and employee relationships.

“A non-physician cannot hire a physician to be a physician except in very limited exceptions,” Bollinger’s motion said. “None of those circumstances or exceptions apply to the claimed relationship between the Commissioner's Court and the Harris County Medical Examiner.”

Possible penalties for practicing corporate medicine include $1,000 fine for each violation with each day a separate infraction, and the possibility of third-degree felony changes for each violation against the doctor in question.

“Each of these penalties could be applied to both Sanchez and the employer, who the county attorney claims is the Harris County Commissioner's Court,” the motion said.

That would entail roughly 1,750 civil violations and criminal offenses on the part of the both parties since Sanchez took office, January 2003.

The underlying issues may seem like bureaucratic trivialities, but at the same time, the county clearly is in a bind, having argued to an appellate court in 2009 that the ME is a judicial officer (when they wanted to maximize the office's authority to override family religious prerogatives), but now contradicting themselves to say the ME is an administrative employee in order to wiggle out of the Catch-22 they're caught in.

Other counties faced the same dilemma and most went ahead and had their ME file the relevant oath and bribery statement, but it's an open question what the implications would be if a court found MEs work in past cases was invalid, and it's not just Fisher and a few defense attorneys who suspect that may be the case. As Grits noted last year when this came up, "The Webb County Attorney had declared that 'Until such time as she has taken the oath with the appointment as medical examiner then everything she did prior to that is void.' Which raises the question, what happens to older cases that the medical examiner evaluated without the oath and bribery statement? Are they 'void' as well?"

I can't speak to which legal position is correct, but even if Fisher and Co. are right, it would take great courage for a judge to side with them, raising questions about dozens if not hundreds of inquests in murder and manslaughter cases performed while documentation was inadequate, not just in Harris County but potentially in many jurisdictions, if a single judge cracks the door open. Scott Durfee at the DA's office told Reed that they're paying little attention to the issue at the moment (perhaps distracted by proceedings at the grand jury), but "that would change, if an adverse ruling were reached." Indeed, if that happens, a lot of things could change. For want of a nail, the shoe was lost ...

Good blogging by others

Several posts from other Texas blogs related to topics sometimes discussed on Grits deserve readers' attention:

Some Harris County grand juries runaway, some never leave the station
I haven't written much about the "runaway" grand jury in Harris County evaluating potential misconduct by the District Attorney, nor the apparent failure to timely empanel grand juries in the new year, mainly because the process is secret and at this distance I can't make hide nor hair of what's happening amidst all the campaign-driven allegations and counter-allegations. Some folks closer to the action, though, are attempting to divine the true circumstances, most notably Mark Bennett, who analyzes the imbroglio here, and Murray Newman, who sees the delay in empaneling grand juries as nigh-on the end of the world.  Paul Kennedy, by contrast, can't understand what all the fuss is about. Much more serious, clearly, is the grand jury's subpoena of DA Pat Lykos, which seems like a late Christmas present to Newman. Bennett considers it "unprecedented for a Texas grand jury to subpoena a sitting District Attorney. Getting subpoenaed is bad. Taking the Fifth would be political suicide. Others might take the Fifth as an obstruction or delay tactic, but if Pat Lykos takes the Fifth, it’s because she really means it." Good stuff all around. The Houston legal blogosphere is working through these issues more quickly and deftly than the MSM.

Kuff: Still "too many" inmates after Harris jail pop reduction
Charles Kuffner reacts to good news that murders are down nearly as much as the local jail population, a development discussed in this Grits post. Kuff suggests that "We have patched this problem, for which the county’s multiple-year hiring freeze is an exacerbating factor, by squeezing a lot of overtime out of the guards, a solution that is both unfair to them and expensive to us. Now that we’re not paying Louisiana to house some of our prisoners, maybe we can take some of the money we’d been spending on that and use it to hire a few more guards. The Sheriff will make that request at the Tuesday Commissioners Court meeting. I can’t wait to hear what their excuse to turn him down will be this time."

Cart before horse: Implications of possible innocence in Lake Waco murders
The Texas Moratorium Network has a pair of posts discussing the possible implications if DNA testing in the 30 year old Lake Waco murders comes back exonerating the men convicted of the crime, which could prove for the first time that the state has actually executed an innocent man:

• New development in seeking DNA testing in Lake Waco murders for sole surviving defendant (other defendant David Spence already executed)
• Did George W. Bush execute an innocent person: David Wayne Spence?

While I'm interested in this case, regular readers know Grits doesn't believe "proving" an innocent person was executed will be the silver bullet many death-penalty abolitionists hope. Moreover, I've learned from harsh experience that one never knows what the results of DNA testing will be until it comes back from the lab. If the two men convicted are actually innocent, for the sake of the remaining fellow I hope the DNA can prove it; if they were guilty, I hope that's proven, too. The worst outcome where a past execution is involved would be if the tests came back inconclusive (as happens, I'm told, about a third of the time) or if DA Abel Reyna were to succeed (as seems unlikely) in his effort to suppress DNA testing. You don't want more cases hanging out there like Todd Willingham's where unresolved doubts linger forever, undermining public confidence almost more than if the execution of an innocent had been definitively proven.

Bias, the judiciary and the death penalty
Another post from the Texas Moratorium Network chides the Texas judiciary for only being intolerant of bias in one direction: If Teresa Hawthorne Must Recuse Herself From Death Penalty Case, Then Sharon Keller Must Recuse Herself From All Cases. The post opens, "In Texas it is apparently ok for a Republican judge to say that they are “pro prosecution”, as Judge Sharon Keller has done, and not have to recuse herself from any cases, but if a Democratic judge expresses any doubts about the constitutionality of the death penalty, then she must recuse herself. If Teresa Hawthorne must recuse herself from the current death penalty case because of “bias”, then Judge Sharon Keller should recuse herself from all cases before her court." Mike Hashimoto at the Dallas News was less kind to Judge Hawthorne, calling her opinion "goofy." See more from the Dallas Observer blog.

Harris County crime reduction undeterred by 31% fewer jail inmates

News of Houston's lowest murder rate in decades coincides with a seemingly a counter-intuitive report that the Harris County Jail population has declined 31% in the last three years.

Long-time readers will recall that, in a 2007 plebiscite, despite overcrowding and hundreds of prisoners housed in contract facilities as far away as Louisiana, Harris County voters rejected the issuance of debt for new jail construction. Writers like Grits and the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Marc Levin argued that policy changes by elected officials - particularly the District Attorney and judges - could resolve the problem a) without expensive new jail construction and b) without crime increasing, and it turned out that's exactly what's happened. Reports the Houston Chronicle's Mike Morris this morning ("Thanks to less crowding, overflow inmates staying in Harris"):

Dropping inmate numbers at the Harris County Jail will let the county end its nearly 5-year-old practice of shipping overflow inmates to Louisiana and other Texas counties within days, Sheriff Adrian Garcia said this week.

The jail population has fallen 31 percent since 2008, to 8,573 inmates. The jail has a capacity of 9,434, but has at times held more than 12,000. Garcia hopes the expense of contracts with far-flung jails - totaling $31 million in the last two years - has ceased for the foreseeable future.

As of Friday, the sheriff had no inmates in Louisiana and just 21 elsewhere in Texas; more than 1,600 inmates had been outsourced as recently as June 2010.

Grits finds this news downright incredible after being told time and time again by so many in offiicialdom how naive I was to oppose Harris County jail construction and how unrealistic it was to expect local officials to change. My position at the time was, "if you build it, they will come"; new jail construction, Grits argued, would accommodate bad policies while jail crowding forced the system's collective managers to confront them. So I'm particularly encouraged by indications that Harris County judges are now acknowledging their role in the problem and attempting to help resolve it. A defense attorney:

praised the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, and said judges are beginning to examine their pretrial and sentencing choices.

State District Judge Jan Krocker, who will be opening a court for mentally ill offenders within weeks, agreed.

"Making your community safe in terms of both violent crimes and property crimes involves not only pronouncing appropriately long sentences, but also in rehabilitating those people who can be rehabilitated," Krocker said. "A lot of us are working a lot harder at that."

Good news, indeed. A big chunk of the decline stems from the DA's new policy on how to charge drug paraphernalia, which has drawn heat from police unions but praise from nearly every other corner of the justice system. (Clearly the change hasn't spawned some great crime wave.) But the story also mentions other initiatives that contributed to the jail population decline:

The county has launched various diversion programs. In April 2010, Garcia began allowing nonviolent inmates who enroll in educational or work programs to earn three days' credit for each day served. As of mid-December, 3,661 inmates had been released early under the program, which can shave up to two months off the maximum county jail sentence.

Garcia also noted that 48 people have been diverted from jail by the county's Crisis Intervention Response Team. That program, approved in August, pairs police with mental health clinicians to respond to crises among the mentally ill, hoping to treat them rather than jail them. The sheriff also has tested a program allowing some low-level offenders to serve their sentences at home while wearing an ankle monitor.

For a county the size of Harris - whose jail at its largest was more populous than more than half the states' prison systems - a 31% incarceration reduction in three years is a remarkable achievement, made even more impressive when one realizes that crime rates have continued to plummet and the county has only scratched the surface of possible de-incarceration reforms.

There's still a great deal more to do. Local law enforcement agencies in Harris County don't use discretion granted them by the Legislature to issue summons instead of arresting for certain low-level misdemeanors. And to the extent a new mentality has caused judges to reduce pretrial detention, it's certainly only just begun, in only a few courtrooms. Bail is still the rule for most offenses and pretrial services remains the red-headed step-child of the county justice system, despite anguished cries from the bail industry over even marginal expansion in the use of personal bonds.

This impressive rate of de-incarceration shows that all the "can't get there from here" naysayers were blowing smoke, that the county could incarcerate a LOT fewer people without crime rates worsening. IMO there's still a lot of slack to take up. Now that the county is no longer outsourcing inmates, the next question becomes, how long till the county can reduce the jail population enough so the facility can be run without using substantial overtime? Counties can achieve significant budget relief through de-incarceration, just as overincarceration inevitably becomes a budget burden. Hopefully, Harris County will continue down this path, both for the benefit of its own citizenry and as an example inspiring other Texas counties to rethink their approaches. It's about time!

I don't think the county could possibly have reached this point if they'd expanded jail capacity; there'd have simply been no incentive for change.

On texting, driving, fact checking, murder rates, borderline competency and global security

A few, disparate tidbits:

Houston 2011 murder rate nearly as low as Mexico City
The murder rate in Houston is at its lowest since 1965,  (and nearly the lowest since data began to be recorded), with 198 murders last year compared to a high of 701 in 1981, reported KUHF radio. Still, the murder rate of 9.4 per 100,000 is substantially higher than the statewide murder rate of 5.0 in 2010, according to DPS data (pdf). To put that number into perspective, Mexico City's murder rate is 8.3 per 100,000, so in that light 9.4 perhaps isn't exactly being all you can be. Still, Less Murders = Good. MORE: From Kuff.

After death, inquiry finds most youth at Granbury juvie detention in isolation for unjustified reasons
Now that the new Texas Juvenile Justice Department is up and running, there's no time to lose in exercising its oversight function. Reports the Weatherford Democrat, "A state investigation of the Granbury Regional Juvenile Justice Center following the death of a 14-year-old Cleburne boy in October has raised questions about the role of the facility’s non-compliance with detention facility standards in the boy’s death." Said the paper, a TJJD "report released last week found several violations related to keeping the juveniles in isolation nearly all day on Oct. 10 outside of the physical presence of a juvenile supervision officer. The 11 residents of 'Alpha Pod' were kept locked in their rooms most of the day, not allowed to participate in educational and other activities as required and left without the supervision level required during daytime program hours, the TJJD investigation found." Further, "Investigators found that only one of the 11 residents of 'Alpha Pod' was 'confined for a reason justified by standards, namely the resident’s disciplinary seclusion status.'" In other words, 10 of the 11 kids in isolation at the time of the boys death shouldn't have even been there.

Borderline competency: Good question, no easy answers
Asks a prosecutor on the DA Association user forum, "What do you do with those VERY low functioning defendants who are already receiving services from MHMR and whose competency is borderline?... Seems they are getting more plentiful." While one wag replied, "Send them off to law school?," others including John Bradley noted there are no easy answers, particularly in the wake of budget cuts to mental health services in the most recent legislative session.

Constable resigns in lieu of prosecution
The DA in Lubbock won't pursue criminal charges against a local constable in exchange for his resignation and lifetime ban from serving as a peace officer.

H-Town burglar alarm fees don't pay for city services
In Houston, according to HPD's website, "The cost of responding to alarm calls for service in FY2007 was approximately $11.8 million dollars and exceeded the City's total annual revenues in that fiscal year ($7.99 million dollars) derived from permit fees and penalties associated with burglar, panic, holdup and similar alarm systems."

Balko: Anger vs. Lykos stems from 'efforts to change the culture'
Radley Balko suggests that in the Harris County District Attorney primary, "intra-party anger seems to stem mostly from [Pat Lykos'] efforts to change the culture in the Harris County DA’s office." Exactly. There's an odd nostalgia among her most ardent critics which Grits suspects can never be satisfied. It's a new century, and whatever happens in April or November, Johnny Holmes won't be walking through the door anytime soon.

Problem with texting while driving is the driving, not the texting
Fascinating. Fewer teens are driving and studies say cars are no longer the status symbol of freedom that they once were among young Americans, particularly in cities. Texting while driving is bad, argues Lisa Hymas at Grist, but more importantly, "we need to work urgently on making driving less necessary in the first place." Great line from Clive Thompson at Wired: "When we worry about driving and texting, we assume that the most important thing the person is doing is piloting the car. But what if the most important thing they're doing is texting? How do we free them up so they can text without needing to worry about driving?" How's that for reframing the question? I'm still rather amazed that Gov. Perry vetoed the texting while driving ban passed in Texas this year.

Iran, Pakistan, Mexico, None-Of-The-Above: Which is biggest threat to world stability?
This is nuts to me: From any rational American perspective - certainly for those of us living in border states - the biggest threat to stability in 2012 isn't Iran, surely it's from drug violence and instability in Mexico and Latin America, arguably followed by anti-western sentiment in already-nuclear Pakistan, where our troops are entrenched across the border for the foreseeable future. In Grits' book, I'd put high food prices (at least) third on the list. Why downplay instability in a nation that already has nukes, much less massive corruption and bloodshed on the US southern border, to proclaim Iran the ultimate threat? That's the sort of demagoguery that makes people vote for Ron Paul. Which is more dangerous for world security: A nuclear Iran or a starving Africa?

Fact check this
Greg Marx at the Columbia Journalism Review has an essay articulating numerous criticisms which have been gelling in Grits' own mind in recent months about so-called "fact checking" services like Politifact and the limits of the framework under which they operate, particularly regarding legal issues. I finished his piece and thought, "Damn, I wish I'd written that," which of course is the highest compliment one writer can pay to another. My biggest frustration with Politifact, et. al.: Grits despises the notion that fact checking should be somehow considered specialty work among journalists, implying that most journalists are mere mouthpieces for special interests who don't provide a significant truth filter between their sources and the public. That may be accurate as a practical, workaday matter, but it's not a model to aspire to.

Turf wars may thwart justice solutions in Harris County

Turf wars may scuttle the idea of an independent crime lab in Houston separate and apart from law enforcement, to judge by the response to the mayor's inaugural address ("Parker wants HPD to give up control of crime lab," Houston Chronicle, Jan. 5):

Two of Mayor Annise Parker's goals for her second term, as outlined in her inaugural address this week, may hinge on the cooperation of Harris County.

Parker said she intends to take the city's long-troubled crime lab from the Houston Police Department and make it independent; she also wants to phase out the city jail and house offenders in the county jail instead.

The HPD crime lab has been a headache for city leaders since 2002, when an audit noted unqualified  personnel, lax protocols and shoddy facilities. Last month, HPD said its backlog of untested rape kits could be as high as 7,000. To date, six Houston men have left prison after retesting of evidence indicated they were convicted of crimes they did not commit.

Parker wants to make the lab independent of HPD and the city, overseen instead by a local government board similar to the Port of Houston Authority, whose members are jointly appointed by the city, county and other local municipalities. Mayoral spokeswoman Janice Evans said a proposal may come before City Council this spring.

County leaders say their Institute of Forensic Sciences already is independent, free from law enforcement influence. They point to its respected work and lack of a case backlog. Parker, however, said the city lab's future is not with Harris County.

"The area that I'm in control of is to have an independent crime lab," the mayor said Wednesday. "If that can become a regional crime lab where the county is a full participant, I'd love to see that happen. Sending all our work over to Harris County simply substitutes one government master for another government master."

County officials, by contrast, vowed to move ahead independently with rhetoric that smacks less of partisanship than old-school turf-war bickering, spiced with a smattering of juvenalia. (E.g., "Precinct 3 Commissioner Steve Radack said that if Parker thinks she has a better model than the county, she should pursue it on her own.") That said, I'm not sure how any entity with a taxpayer-funded budget can avoid a "government master," so short of creating some new taxing district or some such, your correspondent has difficulty imagining a solution which might please the mayor. Both sides seem entrenched, intractable, perhaps allowing soured personal relationships and partisan spite to interfere with their good sense and the public weal. It wouldn't be the first time, but it's not a great sign.

Meanwhile, Parker suggested phasing out city jails by creating a "sobering center," which sounds not unlike a suggestion from Harris DA Pat Lykos for "detox centers," as a front-end jail alternative:

Parker said the city jails could be phased out even without the type of joint processing center that bond voters rejected in 2007.

The city is negotiating to buy a property that would be used a "sobering center" to divert some inmates from the jail.

"If someone just needs a place to sleep it off, sober up, maybe get connected to some social-service help, we think we can accommodate that," Parker said.

Services, Evans said, could include help for the mentally ill, whom Parker said also must be diverted from jail.

Such steps could reduce the city jail population enough to allow the remaining inmates to be handed to the county, the mayor said.

The second idea makes sense to try, at least. On the crime lab, though, both sides sound needlessly obstructionist, driven more by the motive of defending political turf than improving science at the lab and in the courtroom.

Making crime labs independent is as important to unbiased sciences as "blinding" administrators of suspect lineups and photo arrays in witness identifications. You want crime lab administrators, much less line staff, outside the command and control of law enforcement because you don't want them to have a stake in the outcome. They're scientists; they're not (or shouldn't be) on one or another "side." Grits predicted a couple of years ago independent crime labs would become a political flash point, and it may remain so for the immediate future in Houston until the electorate changes some of the players and compiles a group capable of working together. Until then, without some pay-to-play beneficiary driving the train, an independent crime lab for now remains a good idea without a political constituency, and one that flies in the face of historic jurisdictional turf lines, to boot.

Never is the importance of money and self-interest in politics so apparent as when its absence hinders what everyone agrees are necessary and proper improvements.

Privatization push confirmed at Harris County jail

On Sunday, Grits broke the news that Corrections Corporation of America had submitted a bid to manage the Harris County Jail, citing information given to investors about a county-issued RFP which hadn't been reported in the local media. Last night, the local Fox TV affiliate confirmed it:

FOX 26 News obtained this news letter from Corrections Corporation of America, a private prison operation firm:

"We are also very excited about the opportunities that are before the industry and for which we feel well positioned. We're awaiting a decision from Arizona on its 5,000 bed request for proposal as well as a managed-only opportunity for approximately 9,000 beds in Harris County, Texas.”

County officials confirm private talks are underway to consider privatizing the county jail.

That's virtually the same wording cited in the Grits post from a Zacks.com analyst.

No one from the county would speak to the Fox reporter on the record. Commissioner Steve Radack "said the process is confidential and he won't know the full details until his staff finishes reviewing the proposal." Which ignores the larger questions: Why is the process "confidential" (read: secret) in the first place? Why are privatization schemes being hatched in private instead of in public discussions? Why do CCA investors know more about privatization plans for the Harris County Jail than local media and the taxpayers? The Harris County Jail is bigger than the prison systems in half the states; should something this big really be done in a back-room deal before the public even knows it's happening?

UPDATE: Here's a copy of the RFP issued by Harris County for privatizing jail services, obtained by your correspondent this a.m. under the Public Information Act.

Will Harris County soon privatize jail, let Corrections Corporation of America manage it?

Grits had noticed last month that the two largest private prison companies - the Geo Group and Corrections Corporation of America (CXW) - had been said to have "bearish technicals" by analysts at Market Investment Watch, which jibed with Grits' past assessments that both firms (but especially Geo) were excessively laden with debt. So I was surprised to see that a Zacks.com analyst had recently rated Corrections Corporation of America a "buy" stock. Since Grits mentioned the recent negative assessment, I decided I should report this positive one, as well.

Quite remarkably, an accompanying article from Zacks said part of the company's optimism stemmed from the fact that they're currently "awaiting the decision" on a  "managed-only opportunity for about 9,000 beds in [the] Harris County, Texas" jail. I knew Harris County had agreed to "study" privatization, but "awaiting the decision"? Does Corrections Corporation of America really believe they may soon manage the Harris County Jail under contract? Is that delusional, or do they know something the rest of us don't?

Perhaps they do. According to a knowledgeable source in Harris County, the Office of Purchasing and Management Services told county commissioners they couldn't assess potential savings without doing an actual request for proposals (RFP), so they did one. Bids are sealed, said my source, and nobody is supposed to know who submitted one. But clearly from the Zacks report, Corrections Corporation of America put in a bid and is telling investment analysts the contract might boost their bottom line in the near term. That seems a tad presumptuous.

Grits still thinks the two largest private-prison firms are risky investment bets for two reasons: Both are too overloaded with debt, and I think (perhaps wishfully) we may be on the cusp of seeing the "incarceration bubble" burst. That's particularly true in the industry's main growth area - immigration detention - so I wouldn't endorse a long-term favorable assessment for these stocks.

Certainly, of the two, CXW's situation appears far preferable to Geo's, which really is operating on an extremely over-leveraged basis (i.e., they issued way too much debt to gobble up competitors instead of winning new contracts through competitive bidding). If Geo didn't look like such a dog, I doubt CXW would look nearly as good to Zack's analysts except by comparison. But I question their long-term growth potential when crime rates are declining, states are de-incarcerating, both companies have spotty health and safety records, and folks like Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry are out on the campaign trail touting comprehensive immigration reform.

Even more specifically, I don't think Harris County is likely to privatize its jail anytime soon, to the extent that was cause for extra optimism by analysts. When it was discussed last, the votes didn't seem to be there. Plus any savings would come from cutting guard pay and benefits, and that won't happen without some sort of political rebellion/retaliation from the folks who currently staff the facility. I know Grits won't be the only one caught by surprise if Santa brings CXW a new contract anytime soon to run the jail in Harris County.