Travis County Commssioners Court
February 10, 2004
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Item 38
We have the county sheriff here and others so let's call up item no. 38. 38. Consider and take appropriate action on request for approval of memorandum of agreement between council of sex offender treatment and Travis County sheriff's office.
>> good afternoon. As the court will recall, I have an agreement already with the [indiscernible] division of the Texas department of criminal justice wherein we house some sex offenders because it's difficult and perhaps on unappropriate for them to place them in the community. We were approached by the Texas council on sex offenders and asked for a similar agreement and I'm -- in favor of this I think it really enhances public safety. Unfortunately there is no secure environment other than the jail for them to -- to place these types of offenders. And so -- so it is limited to -- I have discretion to refuse any offender because of security issues on or behavioral issues. It is limited to -- to persons that are from Travis County so quite frankly otherwise particularly this type of offender they would be out in some sort of halfway house or apartment. If you -- if you refuse, based on what you said earlier, persons with behavior problems or whatever the reason [indiscernible]
>> well, particularly when you are talking about the ones from the -- from the council on sex offenders, they don't have a lot of options. We have in Texas a process where somebody has what they call a civil commitment or a civil determination of being a -- being a violent dangerous sex offender, but there's no sort of secure facility. The state has never built one. So I quite frankly don't see us in the situation where we would -- where we would be able to build one like this. We haven't yet. When we have difficulty with parolees in the past that we are holding under a contract for tdcj, they have used as a basis to revoke their supervision, they have sent them back to prison. These folks may or may not be on parole when we get them. What we most likely do, we attempt to house them in the least restrictive environment and if need be we would move them to more secured environment such as a security lock down. Quite frankly the alternative to the jail is out there with the rest of us, which is not a very good alternative.
>> yes.
>> has the other contract worked really well, I haven't heard any complaints.
>> the other contract worked extremely well. As you will recall, Commissioner Gomez, I think that you probably were more involved in this, the other member of the court's time because it was in your area. What we had at first was we had all of these offenders were being used in what was then called the comstock facility, which is right across from the alternative school in del valle right next to the public bus stop. Then when there's furor raised about that they were moved up the street to guadalupe which is also close to schools. So we made an arrangement with tdcj, the parole division, where we would house them within the secure confines of the jail. We know they checked them out during the day, take them to look for jobs and we really have had very few problems. Some of the offenders aren't happy about being there because they hoped to be without restrictions. But we really haven't had very many problems at all.
>> no.
>> what [indiscernible] sex offender.
>> it's a state agency that's actually part of the department of health. One of their Texas department of health. And it's a state agency that is charged by law with the supervision of these sort of offenders.
>> okay.
>> so in my backup, there is a contract in place now, so what is the court asked to do, to ratify the contract? We have executed the agreement. I think what happened was that we attempted to deposit some of the money that we got in the auditor's office -- and the auditor's office said take this before the court and get the court to say okay you can take the money. So I guess that's the action that's being asked for today.
>> too bad we can't jack it up to $148 per day.
>> the fact of the matter it really does cover our costs. If there were a person that had some extensive medical needs or other needs we could do some adjustment.
>> so basically this is for us to approve the -- the strategy of the agreement between you and the state agency and to extent necessary authorize the county auditor to receive these as county funds.
>> yes, sir.
>> that's the motion.
>> second.
>> [indiscernible] sheriff, is what we are being asked to do here is to take sex offenders and are we being asked to incarcerate them.
>> yes, house them at our del valle facility?
>> is your issue that you didn't really have a place where you can house.
>> I have a place where I can house them. They don't have a place to house them that's a secure facility.
>> state agency.
>> what happens often is that when sex offenders return to Travis County, particularly when they get out on parole from prison, or in this case may return from a state mental institution, that -- that they -- their alternative is to place them in -- in what I would call very crudely halfway houses, although they are not really halfway houses. They are facilities in which these folks will live and, you know, basically kind of group homes and there's not a lot of security. What we had before was that comstock facility, which is a preparole release facility, we had -- we had sex offenders in that facility and they literally were going down the street to the convenience store at 71 and 973 and buying beer and other sorts of things, we had all sorts of behaviors that were going on.
>> we are not really I incarcerating them.
>> we house them. They live -- they are locked up in the jail. Some of them are locked up 24/7, such as the -- most of the folks that we get from the council on sex offenders, or at least this particular one. Some are in the jail and they are taken out by the parole board or the Texas council on sex offenders who take them out to look for jobs, to look for housing, it's meant to be an interim step for most of these people.
>> when they do that, we are not responsible for -- so we really are just looking to take -- to house them.
>> we house them because that way the community knows where they are at night.
>> the community knows where they are when they are not in the custody of of the state.
>> do we cover our costs, put thea by themselves, put them with someone.
>> most of them are able to be housed in actually part of the work release facility. So some of our least expensive housing. If need be, we can move them what we call inside the fence to a more secure area, either if they have psychiatric or physical problems into the health services building or if it's a security issue over into building two in a lock down status. I think really one of only case where we had to do that with an individual in the state.
>> how many of the sex offenders do we think that we have in our facilities today? In this ram?
>> under that program we have one. So you expect that number to be small.
>> > that problem actually will be a very small number. We average anywhere from seven to 12 or so under the parole program.
>> we hate to use the word worst when we refer to individual, but this would be the worst of the sex offenders.
>> the -- the idea behind this finding they are saying they are a sex offenders and they feel that they are a danger to the society, unable to or unwilling to control their behavior.
>> the housing has been so problematic this is really sort of a last resort unless they go back to some state prison really.
>> I'm sorry, sir.
>> Travis County is sort of a last resort for these offenders in our community.
>> often that's true. I mean some of these people are folks that the state is required to release under mandatory supervision. Or their sentence is up and they are trying to -- to have a transition of them. Some folks, particularly these people that are judged by the council on sex offenders are really kind of caught in a -- it's kind of a no man's land sort of thing in that they are too dangerous to live among us, but there are some restrictions in the law as to where they can be. They can't be in a mental institution, they can't be in a state school, so there's some limits as to where they can be. My judgment is that the safest place for the community and for them, quite frankly, is to be housed at del valle.
>> okay.
>> I have a question I guess for the county attorney. Do we have the legal authority to enter into this agreement?
>> it's not a simple yes or no answer. Frankly. There's no explicit authority in the statutes or either the council on sex offender treatment or Travis County to enter into this agreement. However, there is some authority in the statutes for -- for the -- all of these people from the -- they have been civilly committed in a district court from montgomery county and they have to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt to fit the criteria of this sexually violent predator. Once that occurs either through a jury or judge trial, the judge has jurisdiction over that person and can enter orders with regard to the treatment program and the supervision and the judge has authority to -- to specify where that person is to reside and what kind of supervision to have and I think that it's -- it's -- you know, if we had to hang our hat somewhere with regard to the authority to enter into this kind of an arrangement, it would be pursuant to the authority of that court to order a person, where that person, the best place for that person to reside and what kind of supervision and so -- so --
>> we require in this case the court to actually order this individual to reside in the Travis County --
>> yes, these people who come, the council on sex offender treatment which is charged with the responsibility of -- of preparing the treatment plan and the program and any supervised housing for all of those arrangements, will provide to the -- will propose to the district court that this person be housed at del valle. As parts of a plan and usually like the sheriff said this is not a permanent, it's sort of a transition thing. The ultimate destination is going to be somewhere else ultimately. But the court has to approve that and enter an order that that occur and in this case we have just entered into this agreement with them about what the conditions will be when that person comes to stay with us. And what they are going to pay and who is responsible for medical care and that kind of a thing.
>> so we have the district court order in this case or we will get that.
>> we have it.
>> in the future we will get just the court on --
>> yes, we have asked them to --
>> these are Travis County residents basically.
>> yes, sir. We were real careful to ask all of those questions last time before we got into this, there was a huge public outcry about it. I think we even got a letter from the senator asking about the comstock center and the problems that that created for the children in del valle who were waiting for the buses at that time. The sheriff offered a good solution to this huge challenge. Thank you again.
>> you're welcome.
>> do we think that our -- a copy, a certified copy of this, of today's minutes, assuming this passes, will take care of the auditor's concerns?
>> I believe so.
>> I hope so.
>> if not we will just stick it back on. Basically what we are saying is we basically ratify the sheriff's agreement with this agency which basically agrees to accept Travis County sex offenders pursuant to a district court's order and basically our position is that revenue received under this contract would be treated as any other county moneys. The motion was intended to capture that.
>> is the own that we are considering this because we feel an obligation, because these are Travis County folks?
>> two issues, Commissioner. One is I do feel that there's an obligation because they are Travis County folks. The other obligation is that if they are not with us in the jail then they are out in the community.
>> out with us.
>> these --
>> they are out with us. The difficulty is particularly when you are talking about the ones that come through the Texas council on sex offenders, that for example I don't want to -- I don't want to delve too much into it because I don't want -- there's some privacy issues, but often the difficulty with these people is that they do not control their behavior. Now, we can have the whole discussion of whether or not they can control their behavior, that's -- that's, you know, philosophical discussion to have. But they do -- the fact is they do not control their behavior and they are -- unlike the parolees even that if they -- if they don't control the behavior, they can send them to prison these people, what happens is these offenders is if they don't control their behavior, that's actually a criminal law violation. If they can be charged with failure to abide by this -- by the requirements of their -- of their civil commitment and -- but the difficulty is, in some cases, is that the person's incomp sent so they -- incompetent. The criminal courts say they can't try them. They send them to -- off to a mental institution, who says we couldn't hold them because the law says, this is what I'm talking about being stuck in this no man's land. We can't hold them because the law says you can't put these types of offenders in a mental health hospital. So then they sent them back to the community, so just continues this sort of circle. So the community is safer for the fact that we do hold it.
>> we know precisely where they are.
>> that's right.
>> this is a huge public safety issue. What I have been advised is that this is probably the worst of the sex offenders, it's kinds of frightening to have them out in this community, to have these issues that are not being dealt with.
>> all right.
>> some of them quite frankly are incompetent to deal with the issues. Because iq levels are, some -- you wish that there were other facilities available, but the fact of the matter is today these other facilities don't exist.
>> they do not exist.
>> kind of like the other deal before I support that. What was clear was sex offenders had to go somewhere.
>> uh-huh.
>> and no matter where you tried to put them, residents in that neighborhood didn't want them.
>> right.
>> were fearful and fright full and probably right themselves. So -- but that number has stayed relatively low, too, right.
>> it has.
>> okay. Because the -- particularly those offenders, they are just coming out of prison and one of of the difficulties is that often they have been involved in -- in offenses involving children and they can't return home and so it takes a while to transition them back into the community. But most of them have -- have transitioned back in because he wants to get a job, they have undergone some treatment and some other issues.
>> but it still pays for everybody to be careful. Wherever you are.
>> certainly does.
>> you know.
>> well, let us know if this state agency runs out of money or if this number is getting so large that it's unmanageable for us.
>> I will, I will.
>> any more discussion?
>> all in favor?
>> that passes by unanimous vote. Thank you very much.
>> thank you.
Last Modified: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 6:44 PM