Lower jail population provides budget relief in Wichita County

In Wichita County, reducing the county jail population has resulted in substantial, welcome savings in the county budget. The Wichita Falls Times Record News has a story by Matt Ledesma with the bland title "County jail has fewer inmates" which documents Wichita County's remarkable, concerted effort this year among the sheriff, judges and prosecutors to reduce the local jail population quite dramatically: The story opened:

Wichita County Jail officials faced a big problem to start 2011 — concerning a record-setting number of inmates.

The large jail population — which reached a high of 653 in January — put a significant strain on staff and the county's budget to maintain the downtown and Sprague Annex jails.

That burden has been lifted somewhat recently through the efforts of several entities at the Wichita County Courthouse, according to Wichita County Sheriff David Duke.

"Our jail population has slowed down quite a bit, and it's an accumulation of several factors," Duke said. "A lower jail population means there's been a substantial savings to Wichita County. We've had an excess of more than $600,000 to $700,000 we're not using that we've been able to turn back in to the budget."

Population numbers in November have averaged about 420. That's a significant decrease from an average of about 613 in January.

That average has dropped steadily since February, though that's not due to a lack of law enforcement activity, Duke said. Daily book-ins have remained nearly the same throughout the year, hovering at about 24.

Instead, Duke credited several groups at the courthouse for the stretch of desirable population numbers.

"One of those factors is our staff being able to process faster, inmates that are ready to be sent to (Texas Department of Corrections) or state jail," Duke said. "We've also gotten help from the District Attorney's Office. We have more people being convicted and sent to prison now than we ever have that I can remember in the last 29 years of my service to Wichita County. That's because of the new district attorney and her staff that have changed a lot of the ways they do business up there."

Duke also touted the efforts of the district court and county court at law judges in dealing with plea arrangements on felony and misdemeanor cases. He said the judges are also able to handle many of those cases at the same time, further expediting the process.

The savings to the county, brought on by that streamlined process, have also helped out in other problem areas. Funds once earmarked for the crowded conditions are now being put toward a large amount of amassed overtime pay for county employees, Duke said.

He said the low numbers have also meant a cutback on overtime pay for jail staff requirements based on the daily inmate population.

That's an impressive 31.5% reduction in the local jail population in less than a year. Not many other counties could make that claim. This example highlights how addressing jail crowding problems really requires cooperation across an array of entities from the police to the DA, the Sheriff, judges and even the defense bar  - there are too many cooks in the kitchen, many of them elected officials, and as the proverb says, it's difficult for them all to work together without spoiling the broth. Maybe such cooperation is easier in a mid-size county like Wichita than in larger cities like San Antonio and Houston.  In any event, if they can sustain it, their example shows such problems are not insoluble, or rather there are more solutions to be had than simply ever-expanding jail construction.

Tragic accident should spur evaluation of police pursuit, speeding policies

Yikes! Reports Matt Ledesma at the Wichita Falls Times Record News, "a Wichita Falls police officer was driving nearly twice the posted speed limit before a wreck that killed two teenagers June 30." Further, "The report indicates [Officer Teddy] Whitefield made no attempt to brake or avoid hitting the victims' Pontiac Grand Am." And "Sgt. Joe Snyder, police spokesman, said in the days following the wreck he did not believe Whitefield was responding to a police call at the time of the wreck. Whitefield, 29, a six-year veteran with the department, was still recovering Thursday from an arm injury suffered in the collision."

According to a preliminary report (pdf) on the incident obtained by the Times Record News under the Public Information Act, "Evidence at the scene also showed that the driver of (the police car) took no evasive action when a reasonable person would have." The driver of the other vehicle - an 18-year old pregnant girl with a 13 year old passenger - didn't have a driver's license, but it sounds like she's not the one who caused the accident.

Wichita Falls ain't that big a town. Like it or not, this heartbreaking accident will haunt the department and  help shape the public's opinion of WFPD officers for a decade or more. Town officials should ask themselves, when the episode is over, how will residents think about the city's response? Will they remember the chief or even the mayor blaming the dead girls, or will they remember officials who took responsibility and did everything in their power to make sure something like this never happens again? You don't get a second chance at a first impression and how officials respond in the next few weeks will shape how the public thinks about this tragedy for years to come.

As such, if I were the Wichita Falls police chief I'd be scrubbing departmental policies and penalties on dangerous driving and upgrading them if they aren't already strong enough to forcefully discipline the officer in this instance. For starters, WFPD needs to create or enforce, as the case may be, a policy that all officers wear seatbelts. Neither Officer Whitefield or the deceased teenagers were wearing them, the paper reported. And we know this is a common contributor to officer deaths.

What's more, especially if Officer Whitefield wasn't in pursuit but even if he was, there should be policies in place limiting speed, disobedience of signage, etc., to situations where it's objectively safe to do so. There are plenty of examples from other departments which have confronted the same issues if WFPD decided to improve theirs.

Should the officer be fired? I'm interested in readers' views. I don't myself have a strong opinion either way without a lot more facts than were presented in this article. But it's sure a horrifying tragedy and a cautionary tale for other agencies which may not have modernized their policies on high-speed chases and officers' responsibility to safely operate city vehicles.

Tulia-style mass drug bust in Wichita Falls perpetuates cycle instead of breaking it

Whenever I see reports of large drug stings like the one described this week in the Wichita Falls Times-Record News ("Sheriff expects more arrests," March 25), where 44 people so far have been arrested in a roundup following a long-term undercover operation, I always think of the infamous drug busts in Tulia and Hearne, where innocent people were caught up in similar drug stings netting dozens of convictions based on testimony from a lying cop and a coerced, mentally ill informant, respectively. Rather than track drug sources up the ladder looking for kingpins and cartel connections, in these sorts of "sweep" operations, agencies seek to maximize the number of penny-ante arrests by making small-time buy-busts using informants or undercover narcs, typically without ever disrupting the availability of drugs in the least. (Bail on the most serious offender was $175,000; we're not talking about Pablo Escobar here.)

Just as in Tulia and Hearne, the local media is already participating in the demonization of these defendants, including posting all their mug shots, helping sour the jury pool in a way that's actually not allowed in Britain and some other western countries. What's the journalistic value of publishing photos like this one in small-time drug possession cases?

A spokesperson from the Wichita DA's office said she "hoped the local law enforcement efforts would help break what she called a perpetual cycle of drug abuse and sales." But given the thousands upon thousands of low-level drug arrests over the past four decades, how can anyone think these 44 arrests will now, magically "break ... a perpetual cycle"? It's hard to believe people still say that sort of thing with a straight face.

There's a growing criticism among reformers that even drug courts and various criminal justice-driven treatment programs, while well intentioned, are doomed to fail by funneling treatment support through the justice system instead of treating addiction as a public health problem. When I've got more time, I have much more to say about those provocative critiques, whose insights are important and IMO partially correct, but too narrow and dismissive of evidence-based successes. Certainly, though, I agree that arresting low-level drug offenders en masse is among the least cost-effective ways to approach the problem. These type of throw-back tactics to the bad old days of Tulia-style drug task forces arguably combat drugs in the most expensive, least effective fashion, reducing neither drug addiction nor the availability of drugs in any meaningful way.

Overincarceration at local jail responsible for Wichita County tax hike

Higher county property taxes in Wichita Falls are entirely attributable to rising jail costs, the Times Record News reports today; their county commissioners court this week approved an 8% tax hike:

County Judge Woody Gossom said the extra revenue will all go to the county jail, with about half the increase dedicated to additional jail staffing and the rest toward the expense of housing inmates out of county due to overcrowding.

The 2011 budget contains no pay raises for county employees, except for hikes for two district court reporters, which commissioners are required by law to pass.

Gossom said the budget is designed to meet the requirements of the jail and the demands of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.

He said a “great deal” of effort has gone in to dealing with issues that plague both the jail in the courthouse and at the Sprague Annex, including leaking roofs. Gossom also said a committee of county officials and others will be formed to “look into things we can do to reduce the number of people in jail.” (emphasis added)

“We have to look at ways to reduce expenses,” he said.

Gossom said the county is paying nearly $750,000 a year to transfer inmates to jails in nearby counties because of overcrowding here.

The tax rate increase approved Monday is just below the level that could by law allow taxpayers to petition for a rollback..

Politicians in Wichita County aren't looking to "reduce the number of people in jail" because they're suddenly soft on crime. They face stark budget choices just like the Legislature does next year, and unlike the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, they recognize it isn't possible to put off forever policy changes that reduce incarceration rates instead of endlessly indulging the system's carceral appetites.

New Rule: Nobody making arrests for overdue library books gets to complain about jail overcrowding

In Wichita Falls, economic distress is boosting incarceration rates in the local jail because so many more petty defendants can't afford to post bond. According to the W-F Times-Record News ("Room scarce at jail," July 22)

The number of people coming into the jail every day essentially hasn’t changed, [Chief Deputy Derek] Meador said. What does seem to be different now, he and Sheriff David Duke said, is that in many cases, people are coming in and staying for longer periods.

People arrested for offenses such as unreturned library materials tend to post bond quickly and then leave.

“The persons who don’t fit in that group are staying longer,” Meador said. Some might take 10-12 days to gather the funds necessary to post bond when it might have taken a day or two before. In some other cases, people come in on felony charges and can’t make bond.

During the meeting, Duke gave the example of someone in jail on a drug-related charge — possession of certain chemicals with intent to manufacture a controlled substance — with bond set at $20,000.

A year ago, “They got out the next day,” he said. “Nowadays, they’re staying.”

First things first: Nobody who's arresting people for overdue library books gets to complain about jail overcrowding. Period. That part cracked me up. Tallying up the costs of using police and the jail that way, in short order it'd be cheaper to replace the books!

What's more, if there are large numbers of misdemeanants waiting 10-12 days to post bond, that's the fault of local judges for setting bails too high for petty offenses and not giving enough personal bonds where the offender is not a significant flight risk. At some point in a declining economy, elected officials must use some common sense and prioritize scarce resources based on public safety.

Regrettably, no mention was made of new tools given to law enforcement by the Legislature in 2007 to reduce jail overcrowding: Officers may now issue citations instead of making arrests, at their discretion, for a number of common, low-level nonviolent misdemeanors, though only a few agencies have used the new authority.

In the current budget environment, it wouldn't surprise me if that changed in the near term, as tight county budgets dominated by jail spending begin to trump the habitual "soft on crime" carping because it's too expensive to incarcerate every petty misdemeanant, and of course, recalcitrant local readers. At a minimum, it'd be nice to see local media making such options part of the conversation about jail overcrowding.