Committees to address jail overcrowding, border security

The House County Affairs Committee will meet Thursday in El Paso, and one of items addressed will be their interim charge to "Conduct a general study of issues facing county jails. The study should include innovative ways to address overcrowding, the impact homelessness has on the county jail population, and recommendations for handling inmates undergoing detoxification and withdrawal from drugs and alcohol."

Grits can't attend, but I'm curious: What recommendations would readers offer to address crowded jails, homelessness, and "inmates undergoing detoxification"?

In another away-from-the-capitol hearing, the House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee meets this morning in Copperas Cove to:

Examine the extent of interstate coordination concerning border security and intelligence sharing and determine whether any changes to state law are needed to enhance that coordination and cooperation.

Examine state and federal law to determine whether existing provisions adequately address security and efficiency concerns for steamship agencies and land ports of entry along the Texas-Mexico border.  Evaluate whether the state and the federal government have provided sufficient manpower, infrastructure, and technology to personnel in the border region.

Regrettably, neither of these events will be broadcast live.

The legacy of Otis Campbell and Houston's proposed 'sobering center'

Following up on a suggestion from Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos, Houston officials plan to create a "sobering center," reports the Houston Chronicle's Chris Moran ("Houston plans 'sobering center' at shelter instead of jail," Feb. 29), where police can take drunks instead of booking them into jail. The story opens:

City officials plan to open a "sobering center" at the Star of Hope Mission downtown later this year. It would be an 84-bed facility that would allow people whose only offense is being drunk to bypass jail.

Houston police arrest 19,000 people a year for public intoxication, racking up $4 million to $6 million in jail costs. A sobering center aims to divert drunks from jail and free up cells for more dangerous offenders. Dropping off a person at the center, instead of booking him into jail, also would let officers to return to patrol more quickly.

A person brought to the sobering center would have to stay at least four hours, until he sobers up, and would not have an arrest put on his record.

"Jail should be for violent people that we need to get off the street," not a place to merely sober up, said Councilman Ed Gonzalez, a former city police officer who has championed the sobering center idea.

The center also may do a better job than jail at addressing chronic substance abusers, Gonzalez said.

"I don't think jail is a deterrent" to chronic abuse, he said. "They consume or abuse because they have abuse issues. Punishment isn't a substantial stick anymore."

In a statement, Mayor Annise Parker declared that "Incarcerating individuals whose only criminal behavior is public intoxication diverts law enforcement from more serious or life-threatening crimes," adding that "Sobering centers in other cities have proven to be time savers for patrol officers, allowing them to quickly return to their assigned duties to deal with more serious crimes."

When Lykos first suggested the idea, Grits quipped that "In my mind's eye, I think they should call it the Otis Campbell Detox Center," comparing the tactic to "giving Mayberry's town drunk a safe place to dry out."

Every effort to divert low-level cases from the justice system is a worthy experiment, in this writer's view, but it remains to be seen how well the idea works in practice, whether HPD uses it, not to mention what criteria will be used to decide that the "sobering center" is more appropriate than the jail. For homeless frequent flyers in particular I can see it becoming a tremendous boon. And it's good to see city leaders spending on diversion programs first instead of automatically sinking more money into the city jail. According to Moran, "The city stands to save millions a year if it can offload a substantial portion of its public drunkenness cases to a facility where the detainees do not have to be fed nor as closely monitored as they would be in jail."

Kuff points to a press release on the topic, adding that "The city jails, and ways to reduce costs on them, were a subject of the Mayor’s inaugural speech." More from Hair Balls.

Turf wars may thwart justice solutions in Harris County

Turf wars may scuttle the idea of an independent crime lab in Houston separate and apart from law enforcement, to judge by the response to the mayor's inaugural address ("Parker wants HPD to give up control of crime lab," Houston Chronicle, Jan. 5):

Two of Mayor Annise Parker's goals for her second term, as outlined in her inaugural address this week, may hinge on the cooperation of Harris County.

Parker said she intends to take the city's long-troubled crime lab from the Houston Police Department and make it independent; she also wants to phase out the city jail and house offenders in the county jail instead.

The HPD crime lab has been a headache for city leaders since 2002, when an audit noted unqualified  personnel, lax protocols and shoddy facilities. Last month, HPD said its backlog of untested rape kits could be as high as 7,000. To date, six Houston men have left prison after retesting of evidence indicated they were convicted of crimes they did not commit.

Parker wants to make the lab independent of HPD and the city, overseen instead by a local government board similar to the Port of Houston Authority, whose members are jointly appointed by the city, county and other local municipalities. Mayoral spokeswoman Janice Evans said a proposal may come before City Council this spring.

County leaders say their Institute of Forensic Sciences already is independent, free from law enforcement influence. They point to its respected work and lack of a case backlog. Parker, however, said the city lab's future is not with Harris County.

"The area that I'm in control of is to have an independent crime lab," the mayor said Wednesday. "If that can become a regional crime lab where the county is a full participant, I'd love to see that happen. Sending all our work over to Harris County simply substitutes one government master for another government master."

County officials, by contrast, vowed to move ahead independently with rhetoric that smacks less of partisanship than old-school turf-war bickering, spiced with a smattering of juvenalia. (E.g., "Precinct 3 Commissioner Steve Radack said that if Parker thinks she has a better model than the county, she should pursue it on her own.") That said, I'm not sure how any entity with a taxpayer-funded budget can avoid a "government master," so short of creating some new taxing district or some such, your correspondent has difficulty imagining a solution which might please the mayor. Both sides seem entrenched, intractable, perhaps allowing soured personal relationships and partisan spite to interfere with their good sense and the public weal. It wouldn't be the first time, but it's not a great sign.

Meanwhile, Parker suggested phasing out city jails by creating a "sobering center," which sounds not unlike a suggestion from Harris DA Pat Lykos for "detox centers," as a front-end jail alternative:

Parker said the city jails could be phased out even without the type of joint processing center that bond voters rejected in 2007.

The city is negotiating to buy a property that would be used a "sobering center" to divert some inmates from the jail.

"If someone just needs a place to sleep it off, sober up, maybe get connected to some social-service help, we think we can accommodate that," Parker said.

Services, Evans said, could include help for the mentally ill, whom Parker said also must be diverted from jail.

Such steps could reduce the city jail population enough to allow the remaining inmates to be handed to the county, the mayor said.

The second idea makes sense to try, at least. On the crime lab, though, both sides sound needlessly obstructionist, driven more by the motive of defending political turf than improving science at the lab and in the courtroom.

Making crime labs independent is as important to unbiased sciences as "blinding" administrators of suspect lineups and photo arrays in witness identifications. You want crime lab administrators, much less line staff, outside the command and control of law enforcement because you don't want them to have a stake in the outcome. They're scientists; they're not (or shouldn't be) on one or another "side." Grits predicted a couple of years ago independent crime labs would become a political flash point, and it may remain so for the immediate future in Houston until the electorate changes some of the players and compiles a group capable of working together. Until then, without some pay-to-play beneficiary driving the train, an independent crime lab for now remains a good idea without a political constituency, and one that flies in the face of historic jurisdictional turf lines, to boot.

Never is the importance of money and self-interest in politics so apparent as when its absence hinders what everyone agrees are necessary and proper improvements.

Harris DA Pat Lykos describes detox center idea

In response to a query from Grits, Harris County DA Pat Lykos emailed me today with a little more detail on the idea she proposed at the House Corrections Committee hearing last month to create detox centers where police could take intoxicated people instead of jail. She writes:

Detoxification Centers:  
When a person is intoxicated in public, that individual is vulnerable and endangered and can be a danger to others; it is also a quality of life issue in our neighborhoods.  The offense is under 49.02 PC.  Currently, such individuals are subject to arrest and jail.  This consumes enormous resources in arresting, transporting, booking, jailing and releasing them.  Officer time out of service leaves our communities unprotected.  Leaving such person on the streets where they can come to harm often engenders ambulance calls and emergency room treatment.
 
I propose a center, where an officer can transport such individuals, where EMTs monitor them until they are sober and free of symptoms.   Personnel can work with those with  more serious problems and assist in moving them into recovery and treatment programs or facilities.  
 
This is a cost-effective, humane remedy that will increase public safety and health, and perhaps transform lives in a positive way.
 
Please be advised that the persons described above are not operating a motor vehicle.  DWIs are specifically excluded. 

It'd be interesting to get a count of how many such offenders are presently arrested and taken to jail each day, but I'll bet on Saturday night in Houston it's a not insignificant number. (In my mind's eye, I think they should call it the Otis Campbell Detox Center - giving Mayberry's town drunk a safe place to dry out seems to be sort of the model.) It's a good idea, keeping petty cases out of the courts and giving officers an option to take folks someplace besides jail that won't result in their prosecution.

I wonder: What besides funding are the barriers to such an idea? Clearly the commissioners court would be required to pay for such a center and related health services, though that'd likely be cheaper than adding a new jail wing. Are there any legal barriers to police taking someone into custody if they're not arrested pending adjudication? I don't know the answer to that, though at the hearing Chairman Jim McReynolds told Lykos the Corrections Committee would work her on the suggestion.

I'd link to other press coverage on this, but besides earlier Grits posts here and here, there hasn't been any. The idea deserves wider discussion.