Victoria paper examines jail suicides

The Victoria Advocate yesterday published an informative item ("Victoria County Jail takes steps to stop suicides by inmates," May 7) on Texas jail suicides which opened:

At a time when suicides are the leading cause of death in county jails, Texas jails are following tougher standards to bring down those numbers.

Authorities agree the application of the state's suicide prevention program at the Victoria County Jail helps keep the number of suicides and inmate uprisings to a minimum.

Of the five deaths in the county jail since the Texas Commission on Jail Standards began regulating them in 2009, two were suicides. The other three were listed as natural causes.

Texas once led the nation in jail suicides, but a state suicide prevention program has helped the state shake that stigma.

The statewide rate dropped from 31 in 1986 to 17 in 1994, according to an article by Graham Baker in Texas County Magazine.

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards reported 19 county jail inmate suicides last year.

See the rest of the story for details of strategies being pursued in Victoria in the wake of two recent jail suicides. It should be mentioned there have been some questions about undercounting suicides, but not enough to mitigate the downward trend described in the story compared to the '80s. In any event, as the leading cause of inmate deaths the issue has to remain a central focus of risk management at county jails.

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

Mexico, Central American prison and jail problems make ours look petty

Just to keep Texas' prison and jail problems in perspective, in Honduras 358 or more inmates died last week in a prison fire, while yesterday in Monterrey, an affluent-business oriented town a two-hour drive from the Rio Grande, at least 44 were killed and guards were taken hostage during feuds between rival cartel members housed in the same facility. (According to the Austin Statesman, Los Zetas forces massacred prisoners associated with the Gulf Cartel "then staged a mass escape.") Indeed, for those keeping score at home, it's worth adding to the tally that in December 2010, prison officials helped 140 inmates escape through the front gate of a prison in Nuevo Laredo.

Texas prisons face much different challenges than Mexican or Central American ones. Ours mostly involve paying for the Legislature's mass-incarceration policies and preventing even more expensive prison building, with a little contraband-related corruption around the edges. But unlike in Mexico or, say, California, Texas has enough prison capacity (barely) to house the prisoners it incarcerates. By contrast, the facility which endured yesterday's riot in Monterrey was horribly overcrowded: "The prison, built to house some 1,700 inmates is jammed full with some 2,700 prisoners."

Meanwhile, the escape in Nuevo Laredo assisted by prison officials shows how corruption problems complicate all these other challenges. I don't know what prison-guard pay is in Mexico, but if it's anything like what Mexican cops receive, it isn't much. Mexican prison corruption, though, typically goes much deeper than just line staff.

As for the fire in Honduras, I've heard many a Texas Sheriff grouse about the Commission on Jail Standards flunking their facility's inspection over faulty sprinkler systems and fire alarms, which some (especially rural) jail administrators consider relatively petty violations. But when 358 people die locked up in jail as a fire consumes them, it doesn't seem so petty. And overcrowding played a role as well. Paul Kennedy picked up on the fact that "At the time of the fire there were 856 inmates in a facility designed to hold but 500. Even more appalling is the fact that more than half the inmates at the prison were either awaiting trial or being held as suspected gang members."

This blog focuses on criminal-justice reform in Texas because I live here. But it's important to recognize things could be much, much worse and some of these annoying bureaucratic dicta and inefficiencies that prison and jail administrators complain about actually serve to make everybody much safer. Just look south to see what happens without them.

Dallas jail population dropping as crime declines

The Dallas County Jail right now houses roughly 7,800 inmates, according to comments by the Dallas County Sheriff's Office to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards this morning, down from more than 10,000 at its height. That's more than a 22% reduction, but even that may be low-balled. According to the most recent TCJS jail population report (pdf), as of Jan. 1 the Dallas Jail had just 5,741 inmates, which would amount to more than a 40% reduction, from the 10,000+ max.

This news comes on the heels of reports that Harris County (Houston) has 31% fewer inmates than their maximum just a few years ago, while the Bexar County Jail population is down 22% from its height. In all three counties, crime has dropped significantly throughout the period that jail populations went down.

Bexar commissioners wonder why 1,000 fewer prisoners in jail brings no budget savings

Grits wrote on Sunday that it's "almost becoming the norm in Texas jails to understaff them considerably and make up the difference paying overtime at time-and-a-half." I was writing about the jail in Midland, but the same thing's going on, reports the SA Express News ("Disputes over jail staffing may move closer to resolution," Dec. 20) at the Bexar County Jail in San Antonio, much to the commissioners court's consternation. The story opens:

Guards are being forced to work excessive overtime and will continue to steadily quit as their morale hits all-time lows, the consequence of cutting 100 positions at the Bexar County Jail through attrition, warns Sheriff Amadeo Ortiz.

But ask county commissioners and County Manager David Smith, and they'll tell you the mandatory overtime is unnecessary, the jail is mismanaged and wastes money, and the 2012 budget cuts reflect the actual needs at the facility.

Conflicting views of the jail aren't new in Bexar County, but a new staffing analysis by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, the state jail oversight agency, is expected next month and could bring the two sides closer.

“We have no vested interest as a third party,” said TCJS Executive Director Adan Muñoz. “Our only concern is: Can you get enough people to show up when you need them to? We do this routinely for jails, and it usually amounts to a difference of opinion between commissioners courts and sheriffs' offices.”

The commissioners court is frustrated that reducing the jail population hasn't resulted in tangible savings for the county budget:

“Obviously we don't agree with the way that they're running the jail,” said County Judge Nelson Wolff. “They refuse to recognize the fact that we have 500 less prisoners, and they still want the same number of people. It doesn't make sense to us.”

In January 2009, when Ortiz took the helm, there were 932 detention officers and the average daily inmate population was around 4,300, according to Smith. That summer, population peaked at around 4,600. Last week, it dipped to less than 3,600, a level not seen in a decade.

Staffing wasn't cut until the 2012 budget, passed in September. Exactly how many guards remain depends on whom you ask.

“We've used tons of money on drug courts, on mental health courts, on trying to treat people instead of incarcerate them,” Wolff said. “We've brought the population way down, but there's no savings on running the jail.”

For starters, kudos to Bexar County (and it could only result from a collective effort by many people) for reducing the jail population 22% in a year-and-a-half. That's a remarkable accomplishment. And indeed, it does seem queer that overtime costs haven't declined as a result.

At a staffing ratio of 48-1 (mandated by the Commission on Jail Standards), in theory a reduction of 1,000 inmates would allow the jail to have 20 fewer guards on duty at any give time. Other jails that have reduced populations were able to commensurately reduce jail expenditures. So I can understand commissioners' frustration. But classification issues and other complications aren't taken into account in such back-of-the-napkin calculations, so it's good they've turned to TCJS as a neutral arbiter.

Such conflicts between sheriffs, who run county jails, and commissioners courts, who hold the purse strings, are a fundamental, structural feature of jail oversight in Texas. While providing additional checks and balances, it also frequently results in gridlock and needless conflict over rather routine  management decisions, particularly when commissioners and the sheriff come from different political parties or indulge in personal feuds. I don't know who's right about the jail staffing question in Bexar County, but it seems to me a factual dispute, not an ideological one.

Munoz to retire, Jail Standards Commission to reevaluate lockup rules

Texas Commission on Jail Standards executive director Adan Munoz announced at the agency's November meeting, and in its most recent newsletter (pdf) that he will retire at the end of September 2012. Buena suerte, amigo!

Another notable change at TCJS:

In an effort to provide greater access to our quarterly workshops and Commission meetings, we are excited to inform you that you are now able to watch us via webcast. Simply log on to Texas Legislature Online (www.legis.state.tx.us) and click on House Video Broadcasts under the Legislative Activity section. You can view the November Commission meeting by visiting the Archived Capitol Events section. Future workshops and meetings will be broadcast live, or may be viewed at a later time by visiting this section.

Munoz's #2, Brandon Wood, wrote in the newsletter that TCJS is for the first time now collecting two new pieces of information related to jail staff turnover and the number and cost of illegal immigrants in jails. On staff turnover, "It will require several months’ worth of data before any trends are identified, possibly even a year’s worth."

However, they did get some preliminary findings on immigration numbers: Based on self-reported costs, Texas counties spent just over $7 million in the month of September to house 5,799 inmates with an immigration detainer for a total of 117,700 inmate days. Most of that amount (more than $84 million per year, annualized) historically has been reimbursed by the feds. However, between budget constraints and new accountability measures, that money may not be flowing quite as freely in the near future:

Even if the Federal reimbursement program survives, it is expected to be funded at a rate less than this most recent fiscal year. The initial funding request for the program was $194 million dollars less than the previous year and is expected to no longer allow for reimbursement of unverified inmates and focus more on removal of criminal aliens. In order to receive reimbursement, inmates will have to be verified, which can be accomplished through programs such as Secure Communities.

This is an important change, since in the past, unknown inmate days were allowed to be submitted for reimbursement.

A report on the most recent Commission meeting mentioned that, "the Commission voted to approve Harris County’s application for 720 variance beds, an application that was opposed by two Texas legislators."

Lots of jails are still getting built: At the time the newsletter was published, "Eight jails are in the planning stages and 19 jails are under construction." Several jails just completed new construction, including 200 new beds in Harrison County (Marshall), 219 in Midland County, and 356 beds in Cameron.

Finally, the Commission will be comprehensively reviewing minimum Texas jail standards over the coming months at workshops preceding each of their next three meetings. (The next workshop and meeting are Feb. 2 and 3, respectively.) Here are the deadlines for commenting on minimum jail standards for anyone who'd like to contribute to the review:

Jail commission will webcast discussion on new standards

Another item from the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition newsletter that will be welcome news for those outside of Austin with an interest in the Commission on Jail Standards, which is more than a few folks:

Meeting on Jail Standards Revisions to Be Webcast

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards (Commission) will re-engage its initiative to update minimum jail standards.  To encourage ongoing interaction with key stakeholders throughout the process, the Commission will meet in a workshop session on November 2, 2011, at 2pm, in the John Reagan building, Room 120, to outline proposed changes.  The initial workshop session will discuss procedures and process, but NO action will be taken on these proposed changes at this workshop.

• Click here for a list of the proposed changes. 

Since not everyone with a vested interest can attend the meeting, comments on any of the proposed changes should be sent to info@tcjs.state.tx.us or faxed to 512-463-3185.

In addition, the Commission will be launching its first-ever webcast of the meeting.  It will be available online here!  Once you open the link, go to "Video Broadcasts" (right-hand column in gray, under "Legislative Activity") and open the "House" link.

In addition to viewing the workshop session through this link, you can also view the Commission's quarterly meeting on November 3, 2011, at 9am.

TCJS will continue to broadcast both workshop and regular quarterly meetings as its budget allows.

Some of the proposed changes (pdf) are interesting, including a provision to find jails non-compliant if they don't promptly respond to public information requests. Excellent suggestion! Another provision would "allow sheriffs to utilize peace officers in addition to jailers when inmates are outside the security perimeter." Many are technical changes holding little interest for reformers or jailers either one, but some are substantive so if you're professionally interested read the whole thing (pdf). Here's the agenda (pdf) for that meeting, which incidentally includes variances requested by the Harris County Jail among "new business," possibly related to the volume of inmates in pretrial detention who must be transported to court everyday. A webcast, particularly if they'll archive them, will make TCJS activities a lot easier to follow.

Harris jail noncompliance caused by using pretrial detention to coerce plea deals

The Harris County Jail has been cited again by the Commission on Jail Standards for overcrowding, but as has long been the case really their problem is understaffing. Reported James Pinkerton at the Houston Chronicle (Oct. 11):

The state jail commission cited Harris County for having 355 prisoners more than authorized in 19 cells in the basements of two criminal justice buildings on Monday, the latest setback in a chronically overcrowded jail system that costs taxpayers $18 million a year in overtime alone.

The citations were issued by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, after inspectors made a surprise inspection at 5 a.m. Monday of holding cells beneath court facilities at 1201 Franklin and an adjacent building at 1301 Franklin, which are connected by tunnels to the county jail.

One holding cell at 1301 Franklin with an approved capacity of five inmates was packed with 25. In cellsbeneath 1201 Franklin, only five jailers were supervising 409 prisoners, fewer than the nine required by state law. Inmates housed in the holding cells await court proceedings.

The jail commission's executive director, Adan Munoz, said the "blatant overcrowding" his inspectors found in the holding facilities Monday will not be tolerated. He added the situation posed not only a potential health danger to inmates, but an opportunity for a riot, an attack on inmates, or an escape attempt.

"That's dangerous, when you put that many inmates in a cell," Munoz said. "One had 76 in a 23-person cell. My God, that's a danger in itself. It could be a health issue."

Munoz said Harris County has 30 days to submit a plan to correct the deficiencies and must be able to show the remedy is working for 30 days to avoid state sanctions.

"My inspector there this morning mentioned the cells were not only overcrowded but they smelled, it was filthy,'' Munoz said.

County Sheriff Adrian Garcia said overcrowding in holding cells is due to a shortage of jailers, adding he has repeatedly asked for authorization to replace some of the 300 full-time jailers who have left. The jail operates on a $220 million annual budget and employs 2,274 employees.

There's a sense in which this issue is being falsely framed: The immediate problem is not "overcrowding' per se but understaffing. When Grits visited the jail in 2010, there were 600 empty beds on the upper floors that could only be staffed with overtime. This was a key reason Grits opposed Harris County's jail expansion plan a few years back: What good does it do to add extra cell capacity if there aren't enough guards to staff the facility now?

One welcome difference from similar debates in the past, "District Attorney Pat Lykos  released a statement saying her office is 'committed to working with all relevant officials to resolve the situation to ensure compliance' with state jail standards." If that's true, then the problem can perhaps be mitigated. Sheriff Garcia alone can't reduce the number of prisoners in the jail or manufacture extra staff out of thin air. He needs assistance from other players in the system, and the largest share of responsibility lies with judges and the DA's office.

You can see that reading between the lines at the end of Pinkerton's story. Though Judge Belinda Hill disputed it, the Sheriff's Office says that half of inmates brought to court - those in the holding cells criticized for understaffing - never made it into the courtroom, usually because prosecutors and defense attorneys reached a plea deal. This brings up the real issue: Prosecutors routinely request and judges routinely require bail for low-risk, low-income defendants primarily for the purposes of pressuring them for a plea bargain, not because they're a serious public safety risk if released awaiting trial. For many if not most jail inmates, the main incarceration they'll experience will be during pretrial detention, not serving a post-conviction punishment. At its endgame, the purpose for incarcerating so many low-risk defendants pretrial isn't so much to protect the public - nearly all of those who aren't sent to prison will get out soon, anyway - as to lower the workload of already overwhelmed courts, which would be completely swamped if more defendants exercised their right to trial.

So judges would rather create problems for the Sheriff than reduce overcrowding because reducing pretrial detention would lower incentives for defendants to take plea deals. These practices have grown the system to the point where the commissioners court can no longer afford to adequately staff the jail without significant tax increases that are not politically palpable. As a result, the system flounders.

Whatever solutions are proposed to the immediate problem, we're dealing with symptoms rather than the underlying pathogen. Ultimately the volume of cases piped through the system is unsustainable, and squeezing the balloon in one area, like the jail, causes it to bulge in other places like the courts. As Grits has lamented many times, we live in an era when the criminal justice system is treated as the go-to solution to every social problem from addiction to homelessness to immigration to mental illness: That's a situation the courts and sheriff didn't create, but which in the short to medium term they must manage. In the long run, the better solution is for the Legislature and local government to create alternative mechanisms besides cops, courts and jails to deal with those in society who're perhaps troublesome but not especially dangerous.

Bexar court used bureaucratic ruse to keep suicide off jail stats

While preparing a post the other day on staffing at the Bexar County Jail, I ran across a brief story from the SA Express-News about a jail inmate who hung himself in a detoxification cell at the jail in June. "Adrian Rodriguez, 31, was pronounced dead at University Hospital  on Saturday. He had been found hanging in a detoxification cell at the jail Thursday, the Bexar County medical examiner's office said. He died of complications of a hanging; his death was ruled a suicide."

Notably, the Bexar County Jail has been criticized for having far more inmates commit suicide than national averages, and for failing to adequately screen inmates for suicide risks. In this case, "A screening at the City Magistrate's office and again at the jail, where [Rodriguez] saw a psychologist, found 'no indication that he was suicidal,'" A consultant hired last year to analyze jail suicides found that the jail exhibited "an unexplained tolerance for potentially suicidal behavior."

What drew my attention, though, was the bureaucratic sleight of hand used to keep from counting this event in the jail's overall suicide tally. Reported the Express News, "While in the hospital, he was given a personal recognizance bond Friday, so 'he was technically not in custody,' said Adan Munoz, executive director of Texas Commission on Jail Standards. 'We are going to follow up, if there's anything there, but it's not being handled as an in-custody death.'" So they found the guy hanging in his cell, he died from injuries sustained in the hanging, but it's not officially an "in-custody death." Really?

The inmate had been arrested on a robbery charge and had " a lengthy criminal record," according to the paper, so it's pretty clear the personal recognizance bond was merely a ruse to keep another suicide from going on the jail's record. Jailers can't issue personal bonds on their own, though: They'd have needed the cooperation of the District Attorney's office and a local judge to push the bond through, and they'd need to do so in an extraordinarily expedited fashion to get it done between the time the inmate was found hanging in his cell and when he was declared deceased.

One wonders how many other jail suicides have been whitewashed off the books in Bexar County in this fashion?

Cameron jail fails inspection over understaffing, inmates sleeping on floor

The Cameron County Jail failed an inspection because inmates were sleeping on the floor - not because beds weren't available but because the jail was understaffed and couldn't monitor an additional wing. Reported the Brownsville Herald:

The Cameron County jail division has been reprimanded by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards for having inmates sleep on the jail floors, which violates TCJS rules.

An annual inspection of the county jails this week found the county in violation of Section 259.134 of the Texas Administrative Code that deals with multiple occupancy cells, said Adan Muñoz, executive director of the TCJS.

“We did find some noncompliance issues, but mostly they were in regards that they were operating above the approved capacity and the inmates were on the floor, which is in violation of standards,” Muñoz said.

The code specifically states that the floor space in the jail cells should be clear. In Cameron County’s case, inmates were found sleeping on the floors during the inspection, said Shannon Herkoltz, assistant executive director.

“They had available beds, but their deal was they said ‘We are not going to put them in the beds because we don’t have eyes to watch them,’” Herkoltz said. “So in their opinion, it was better to put them on the floor where they had officers stationed.”

Part of Cameron's problem is that, when they built their jail, they built beyond capacity in order to accept contract inmates from the US Marshals Service. For a while they were paying more to house their own inmates elsewhere than the Marshal's Service was paying them for the beds they rent.

The Sheriff's Office tried to spin the news, falsely claiming that this was an "emergency" inspection brought on by media reports, when really it was their usual annual inspection (which as of last session are now performed unannounced). Reported the Herald:

Chief Jail Administrator Mike Leinart told Commissioners Court that TCJS conducted an emergency inspection because of the media reports and “wrote us up.”

“The jail standards was in another county, and when they read that we were losing six jailers in the newspaper, they did an emergency inspection on us. ... They wrote us up and I have to send 60 inmates out today (Thursday).”

County Judge Carlos H. Cascos countered that the reprimand could not have come because of the media reports, because the changes in jailers won’t occur until October.

“They did not come and find the jail not in compliance (because of the number of jailers), because we had not done anything yet,” Cascos said.

Leinart later conceded that TCJS’s action had nothing to do with what action the county was to take Oct. 1.

Cascos said Friday that county commissioners were not given the full story at their meeting Thursday.

“We were not told that last night that (inmates) were sleeping on the floor. What we were told that the prisoners were moved out because we did not have adequate staffing,” he said.

“It’s disturbing and we need to make every effort to comply with the law and rules set forth by the jail commission,” Cascos said.

Sheriffs pretty routinely treat TCJS like the bogeyman, blaming them in the press for problems of their own creation. I find it rather humorous to see them getting caught in a fib over it.