Monday, August 27, 2012

Most larger counties fulfilled Governor's data entry requirement on case dispositions, won't lose grant money

Earlier this year, Grits mentioned that the Governor's Criminal Justice Division would cut off federal grant funds to Texas counties that failed to report at least 90% of their historic arrest and case disposition data to the state system. As of January, 191 of Texas' 254 counties were not in compliance with that standard, by my count, though many of those were fairly close. Now the Austin Statesman reports that all but 27 counties have performed sufficient data input since then to meet the 90% standard. See this list of still-non-compliant counties, compiled by the Statesman, below the jump:


Grits is surprised so many counties were able to update their data, which makes me think this was merely a matter or prioritization and want-to and not the tremendously difficult task so many counties whined that it would be when the requirement was first announced. Most counties were inputting arrests but many weren't inputting all the case dispositions before the Governor's office added teeth to the requirement, meaning often case dismissals, acquittals and reduced charges wouldn't show up in the state database.

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