Roundup: Jails, crime stats and disputed statutes

Here are a number of stories this week which merit Grits readers' attention, even if I don't have time at the moment to elaborate on them:

Jail suicides
See coverage here and here of legislative initiatives on jail suicide in the wake of Sandra Bland's death. And here's coverage of another, earlier jail suicide which received far less attention. MORE: Here's another.

Sheriff values profit over pot busts
In Hudspeth County, the Sheriff will stop arresting people for low-level pot possession at the Sierra Blanc Border Patrol checkpoint because he "he rents that jail-space for profit to other paying counties" and so doesn't want a bunch of marijuana arrestees to take up space and drive down profits. The checkpoint has famously busted celebrities from Snoop Dogg to Willie Nelson.

Sometimes crime pays
At least it does when you're a corporation accused of medical fraud. Johnson and Johnson marketed the drug Risperdal for ailments beyond what it could cure and, in the process, "also turned to corporate welfare: It paid doctors and others consulting fees and successfully lobbied for Texas to adopt Risperdal in place of generics. This meant that the state paid $3,000 a year for each Medicaid patient taking it, rather than $250 a year for each."

Fudging camera data
In Dallas, police are overstating the effectiveness of surveillance cameras by conflating data reported about them with license plate readers. The latter are used to hunt for drivers with warrants in a day and age when more than 10 percent of Texas drivers have outstanding warrants. So of course those generate arrests (if not necessarily any real public safety benefit). But that doesn't speak to the usefulness of stationary cameras, which numerous studies have shown generate few arrests and have little demonstrable effect on crime.

Judge laments demise of key-man system for grand juries
A judge in Waller County issued strident criticisms of Texas' new statute eliminating the key man system and moving toward random selection of grand jurors. Ironically, he thinks the new system leaves judges with too much discretion. See Texas Tribune coverage and the judge's exchange of letters with Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire. These critiques offhand seemed strained and odd to me; they may have applied to an earlier version of the bill, but not so much to the version that finally passed.

Civil commitment program unraveling
A judge refused to order five sex offenders into the state's revamped civil commitment program, reported the Houston Chronilce. It's possible the state will "have to operate two separate treatment programs for offenders in the civil commitment program," and it's unclear "what authority does the state have to continue to confine the five men?" The five were "were among 97 who were sent to court for hearings because they refused to sign waivers agreeing to voluntarily enter the new program. Another 85 civil-commitment offenders signed the waivers."

A (soon to be dead) fool for a client
A capital murder case in Smith County where the defendant has been representing himself sounds like a complete zoo. Unlike Scott Panetti, James Calvert has not been diagnosed as mentally ill. But it all sounds pretty out there. Judge Jack Skeen ultimately terminated his self-representation after zapping the guy with a shock belt.

Cleaning up crime reporting
In an underreported change, "House Bill 11 will require all local law enforcement agencies to switch from the old system of Uniform Crime Reporting, which categorizes eight index crimes and 21 other offenses, to the new National Incident-Based Reporting System, which includes eight index crimes and 49 other offenses." Some jurisdictions made the switch more than 15 years ago. Once everyone does, crime stats will be reported in more of an apples-to-apples fashion around the state, which is a good thing.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post mistakenly reported that a judge declared Texas' new online solicitation of a minor statute unconstitutional. My bad, he was ruling on the old version of the law. Grits regrets the error.