TX House County Affairs Committee to take up racial profiling, bail reform

In the wake of the Austin Statesman's revelations regarding DPS racial profiling data (see Grits' earlier discussion, the House County Affairs Committee will hold a hearing next week on "racial disparities during traffic stops within Texas Department of Public Safety, the constitutionality of equal protection claims and concerns that arise from DPS racial disparities, de-escalation tactics, and diversion before booking." (The Statesman has a preview story.)

The same committee will take up topics related to bail and pretrial detention as part of its interim work. The following day, the committee will review "pretrial service and bonding practices throughout the state. Examine factors considered in bail and pre-trial confinement decisions, including the use of risk assessments; assess the effectiveness and efficiency of different systems in terms of cost to local governments and taxpayers, community safety, pretrial absconding rates and rights of the accused." The litigation Grits discussed recently with Becky Bernhardt should be on the front burner in that conversation.

County Affairs is an interesting committee to be taking up these issues: chaired by a liberal, containing one of the few former prosecutors in the Lege (Democrat Gene Wu), but numerically dominated by Tea Party conservatives, several of whom have in the past sided with conservative criminal-justice reformers. If the committee's membership stays relatively constant heading into next session, some interesting bills might come out of that particular mix of people.

Jail suicides, traffic stop data, on deck at TX House hearing next week

The Texas House County Affairs Committee is having another Sandra-Bland related hearing next week will also address errors in DPS racial profiling data. Here's the agenda. In particular:

• The Committee will meet to discuss how Texas Department of Public Safety codes race during traffic stops, problems with their current method, and ways to correct coding moving forward. 
• Additionally, Texas Commission on Jail Standards will present the new inmate intake screening form to the Committee and discuss recent jail suicides. 

The Dallas News previewed the jail suicide part. (See also the Texas Tribune.) And Grits' own Jennifer Laurin wrote this about the traffic data.
 
Too much has been made about this new Jail Standards Commission form, IMO. That's a fine, bureaucratic change but it's not the end-all-be-all of jail-suicide prevention; it barely scratches the surface. (Grits' new contributing writer Michele Deitch offered these more probative suggestions to the Senate Criminal Justice Committee in September, arguing for a much more comprehensive approach.)

On the racial profiling data at traffic stops, to me this would be a missed opportunity if all they look at are the codes for Hispanic vs. white. Nobody has revisited the fields on traffic stop data collected under Texas' anti-racial profiling law in 14 years, so this might be an opportunity to revisit the question. Some of the Tier II data fields, like whether contraband was found during a search, really ought to be made mandatory, even for departments with dashcams, who are now exempted.

This may be an opportunity to improve the stop data, which really can't be used to prove racist intentions but which has many other uses for police accountability advocates. What we got back in 2001 was a compromise; requiring more/better data fields could make the information a lot more probative.

Recommendations from Sandra Bland legislative hearing

Check out this compilation of legislative recommendations submitted to the Texas House County Affairs Committee during their July 30 hearing regarding the Sandra Bland episode. Via the Texas Association of Counties. My own suggestions were recorded here.

The entire hearing lasted more than seven hours; you can watch it online here. Find written testimony submitted to the committee here.