Travis County Commissioners Court
October 3, 2006
Item 31
Let's call up item number 31. Which is to receive a report from innovate ig jail di version programs funded by Commissioners court during the last two years and take appropriate action. Good afternoon.
>> we appreciate the opportunity to let us come in to give the court an up update on some of the our jail diversion and overcrud overcruding issues. In your back moment over overcrowding issues. In the backup that I procedure to you is the powerpoint presentation that indicates the program with the funding and current status. Allow me a few seconds to go over the history of the jail overcrowding task force. It was formed in 2002 when the jail population reached 2800 inmates. We immediately began meeting to reduce our population by 600 inmates in a couple of months, mainly due to rocket missile docket. In the spring of this year we began to see our population increase. In July it reached 2800 inmates once again. We identified that more people are being arrested than released, for more serious offenses, and we're having some issues with apd apd's drug lab as well. Now, on the fourth slide, this indicates moment.
>> specifically the problem with the drug lab is that it's taking longer for the results to get to our courts courts. So judges relying on the lab results are waiting until those results get there so it's taking longer?
>> yes, sir, it was taking around 2-3 weeks and now up wards of two months which is impacting our rocket docket, the number of folks able to go through that at one time.
>> we have been trying to work with the city on that. They have had some vacancies and they are trying to work through ut also.
>> absolutely. On slide 4, this is the number of people booked into the county jailon an annual, monthly, and again our average daily population. In 2002 when the task force was formed we had 53,000 a year, at less than 4500 a month booked in our average daily population 2724. That's when the jail over overcrowding task force first began to meet. In 2003 you can start to see how the population started to decrease. Since that time, you will notice that more people are being arrested, for instance in fiscal year 2006, last week, we are a little bit less than 50,000 inmates booked into the county jail, 5,000 a month. You can see that even though the population again is at 2737 as it is today, we are booking a whole lot more into the county jail. I wanted to point that out. The purpose of today's work session is to allow department heads to update the court on the jail over overcruding initiative. They are going to talk to you about the budget that has been approved by the court, the number of ft e's, what the performance measure measures are and the current status. While some of programs have been funded, the number of arrested have been at record high over the last five months. When this happens each department in the criminal justice arena is impacted by thisby. The seven key decisions point that we continue to go back and look at is who are we arresting and why, who are we booking in the county jail and why. Specifically who are we releasing on pretrial, what charges have been filed against these people, what is the amount of time it's taking to add jude indicate the charges, exactly what is the sentence . And if those persons have been given probation are we bringing them back to modify probation on violations. Some of the concerns that I have heard from the court as well as some members of the justice system coordinating committee are the programs that have been funded, are they working. We want to look back at that that. Some of these pilot programs are they giving us the expected results. Two things that our department looks at very closely almost daily is are we diverting as many people out of the county jail, specifically those folks with a mental illness, divert them from the criminal justice system all together. Is the data being collected. Are the stakeholders at the table and are we all working together. Those are some of the concerns that we want to identify. I'll turn it over now to the sheriff's department. I think that it's important for the court and for those persons that may have a lack of an understanding on what is exactly the average length of stay, what is a jail bed day, and what is the difference between those two. Specifically as it relates to classification because oftentimes folks think that if we have 2700 inmates in the county jail, we have more than 27 had00 buds, what is the problem. When you classify those inmates into different categories, that's where a lot of the problems come from. I'll turn it over to the major.
>> real quickly, the average length of stay and the bed day are basically the same thing but it can be very misleading in the manner in which you review those numbers. As an example, we have already run the numbers for the end of fiscal year because, of course, our fiscal year just ended a couple of days ago. If you took the entire population of every single person that was arrested and brought to us in the last fiscal year, the average length of stay is 16 days. That seems very, very short. It is, but what that includes is, of course, the first three days. About 60 percent of our entire population that's arrested is released within the first thee days because they are either in on a very low misdemeanor where they can pay a fine and be discharged, or they qualify for personal bond, or their bond is low enough to where they can either hire an attorney or bonding company to secure release. If you discount the first thee days, however, our average length of stay jumps up to about 70 days. Now, why is it important to look at bed days? It's important to look at bed days because we put certain people into categories as an example of the charges that they are in jail on. And if we track the bed days we can see who is going to have the demand for our beds beds. As an example, if we see that somebody that comes in on a drug charge only stays for relatively short period of time, then the bed days are relatively low. If we see that people come in on persons crimes, they are on the other end of the spectrum. They are very, very high. They take up all the jail bed days, actually. So convertly their average length of stay is longer also . So we try to put those two things in perspective and put them in like categories so we can track and know that when a certain population comes into our jail, what to then expect. We also, of course, try to pick up on trends. Because we to have, as you all are well aware, you know anomalies throughout the area, our population has a lot of peaks and valleys and some can be explained and some really can't, but if you went back a couple of slides, kimberly talked about data. And in my opinion, when we do these type of exercises, when we get all the stakeholders together in the room in the cured nating committeerb that's the one moment coordinating committee, that's the one important thing that we have to have, good clean data, so we can analyze and see what's driving the jail populationlve and what we see happening kim lerly has already touched on. We had 50,000 arrested this last fiscal year, an all- all-time record. Prior to this year, there had only been four times that we exceeded 5,000 arrests in one month. And we have done that five months in a row, to end this fiscal year. Will October be another month where we see 5,000 arrested? I don't know. But it's clear from the a moment if clara from the da da's office were here, it's clear that she is going to set records on cases file. If you look at what type of cases those are, you can determine, are those people going to take up our bed days or not. And that's the impact, and that's how we try to look at it. Our average daily population that ended this fiscal year was 2,582 compared to last fiscal year, 2,535. We had a pretty consistent last two years, and we did see a population peak about the same time this year as it did last year. So we hope, actually, that there will be a little change because we had a very very busy October last year. We did 2800 for the month. We're hoping we're not there there. Today's count, I believe, is 2744, something like that. But we are are setting records on the people coming in. So what our analysis is showing us right now, there's just more people. There's just absolutely more people. And the county and district attorney will have their chance to come up here and talk about what they are doing. From my look at the data that we have now been keep keeping in this format for quite some time, I truly believe that they are doing absolutely the best job they k they are moving their case cases just as quick as they can. And they are maintaining the stap us quo moment status quo. Had they not been doing such a good job, the population would not be as high. I believe it would be higher higher. I believe on this date areas year we were l?l exactly 100 more inmates this time last year. I think they are keeping up with the demand but it's becoming more difficult, like I say. We last five months in a row we have done 5,000, had 5 5,000 arrests, and that's staggering when previous to this year we only had four months. And that goes all the way back, we started keeping those statistics when we took over the central book booking facility at the Austin police department in 1988. So it's pretty staggering. The report is a good report. It's the report that nic said we should format it that way to look at bed days and put them into specific charge categories to track our population. That's what we have been doing and it's been very helpful. We're able to then go back to the county attorney and district attorney and say these are the trends we see. It's usually always the da, though, our population for misdemeanors is always around 20 percent. That doesn't vary very much. And when the county attorney does report, they are going to show that they are di posing their cases very, very quickly. I don't think I followed the powerpoint. I don't know where I am.
>> (laughter.)
>> I guess you all can ask me questions. You see the number of intakes and number of releases. It's just kind of basic math math. 59,000 total arrests in fy '06, and then the releases, and it seems like a pretty simple proposition. If you're taking in more than you're releasing, then yes, the population is going to go up. Why are we releasing more? Because I'm telling you it's those cases that are the most difficult to process and get out of your jail. We do snapshot our population and we put it into specific categories. Eight to 30 days, 31-90, 91- 91-plus days. And as an example, in September we had 528 inmates in the 91-plus days and you think, well, that's not horrible. But the average length of stay of those 520 people is 187 days. Moment 197 days. That's a loft of days. They have been here quite a long time. But it is those type of case cases that are the absolute most difficult to dispose of.
>> I want to be sure I heard that rate. You moment heard that raid, you said if in [to-erplgs] of folks, 80 percent are on felony?
>> that's correct.
>> I think there may be a perception, myself included, that it's a lot closer to 50 50-50, just because so much of what we have heard from the county court of law judges about the sheer volume of folks coming in on misdemeanor charges.
>> and there have been. There have been huge numbers of misdemeanors. But that again just goes to, at least for me, it just proofs that the county attorney moment proves that the county attorney is doing a good job of moving those cases. But we have a little bit of peak and valley. There were a couple of months where it jumped up to 23 percent. Typically misdemeanors never hardly go over 20 percent of when I talk about those, we're talking about everyone that the in jailcious whether sentenced or not. Those are pretail and sentence. We have a great deal of sentenced misdemeanors serving sentences but it still makes up 20 percent.
>> Commissioner, it could also be that it's number of people being arrested, you're thinking more of that percentage than the actual number of people staying in the county jail. See the difference there? I think that's where it's kind of misleading at times.
>> that the true.
>> that leads us onto slide number 14. This goes into the amount of money that has been allocat allocated or funded for fy '07 for these initiatives. It brings us to the updated spreadsheet from our presentation in January. I think we'll start off with the district attorney's office on page 1 of the spreadsheet, indicates a rocket and missile docket, and the current status of each of those initiatives. I think buddy is here.
>> thank you, claire brown apologizes for not being able to be here. She is orienting two new grand juries and she asked me to come over and visit with you about the rocket and missile docket. What I'd like to tell you about those two initiatives, they are working in terms of being able to move the low level property crimes, felony property crimes and also low level drug cases. However, recently we have been having a slowdown in terms of the rocket docket dispositions because of our inability to obtain lab reports on the drug cases being filed, and that's a result of the reduction in force in term . Chemists at the crime lab being able to process the drugs and produce a lab report. The dispositions on the rocket docket have slowed down as a result of that. They have hired a chemist that is in training, and should be up to full speed shortly. And we should be able to get back to where we were in terms of the disposition on the rocket dockets in the not too distant future.
>> is that the only place that we can have that service provided, is apd? I mean, anybody else doing that kind of work?
>> prior to the Austin police department lab creating a lab and having the work done there, the dps was doing the lab work. But their time frame is not nearly as quickly as we need it to be in terms of resolving these cases quickly.
>> have we ever done any kind of a study that would show what it would take for us to do that? Have we ever run any numbers on us doing that? Nos, not no my knowledge.
>> does anybody know, would it be cost efficient to do that?
>> we can take a look at that. One of the problems or concerns that we have heard is the amount of add administrative time being spent at apd to get test results over here. If it's the chemist taking time or is it add administrative work that's the bag lock. I think we all need to sit down at the table and make that determination. We can look at that to see if it would be, you know, better for us to do it or allow it to continue to stay with apd.
>> looks like we might be looking at a farm sit, they are pretty good with chemistry, maybe we can get two for one here.
>> (laughter.)
>> questions?
>> anything that you want to say about the intake?
>> yes, I'd like the point out to you that since the court has funded additional positions in the grand jury division, we have been able the reduce the time, the average days between the da receiving the case and the date of indictment. From January to August of 2005, before we had the intake section that you all funded, the average number of days between da receiving the case and the date of indictment was 58 days. The average number of days indicted per month during that time period was 674 cases and average cases filed per month was 895. Since the positions have been funded, that is between September of 2005 and August 2006, the average days between the da receiving the case and an indictment is 47 days, which has gone down from the 58. The average number of cases indicted per month has gone up him 200--almost 200. 843. And average new cases filed per month has gone up to 919 919. Any questions? Thank you all.
>> thank you guys.
>> randy, are you here to talk about the county attorney's office?
>> I guess one other question about the intake team. We were told that if we had a group of lawyers dedicated to intake, that would free up the lawyers who historic historically have had to leave court rooms to go to the grand jury, and that once we funded the intake team, the lawyers prosecuting cases and, I ge, doing trial work, would remain in the court rooms.
>> that's correct, judge.
>> and has that been the case?
>> absolutely. The trial teams that are assigned to the six district courts from the trial division consist of four assistant district attorneys attorneys. . Prior to you all funding the additional position for grand jury, the grand jury function in terms of preparing case and present presenting to the grand juri juries was conducted by the four assistant da's on the trial team. Since the funding for those positions, we have lawyers, attorneys in grand jury that are preparing and presenting the cases to the grand jury and then the four lawyers on the trail team are working on the case after it's been indicted, to resolve and dispose of those cases, most of them by negotiated plea.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> randy.
>> good afternoon, I'm randy eleven from the county attorney's office. I'm here to talk to you about two teams on your spreadsheet that were implemented for fy '06. The jail overcrowding team as you know we started a reduction docket back in 2002. The county attorney's office supported that jail reduction docket with internal resources, taste drawing lawyers from--that is drawing lawyers from the trial courts off to go do the jail reduction docket every afternoon from 1:30 to 3:30, four, five o'clock. We came to the court and asked for a team that consists of one lawyer, one paralegal and one secretary to focus primarily on the jail reduction docket that occurs every day Monday through Friday in front of the county court of law judges. It lo takes other lawyers from our office to man that jury docket but we're only pulling two from the trial court now rather than it used to be three or four to go over there and take care of it. We have started trying to track performance measures to see what impact we're having on the jail. We know that one of the impacts we having does show up on these statistics, the amount of time that lawyers are able to prepare for the case that were lagging back in the trial court. We now have those lawyers back at the office getting ready for the next day's trials rather than being stuck over at jail reduction docket. But we are disposing of what was expected in our package when we presented to you that we could get rid of, about 69 percent of those cases set every day Monday through Friday, and that number varies from 40 to 60 or 70 defendants depending on how many were arrested over the weekend and how many have stacked up on the docket. The other 31 percent are people that have asked for trials. We can't dispose of them at that setting. That's a plea setting, a setting in which we work out cases on pleas. And if they ask for a trial that the their, certainly, their right, and those cases then get transferred over to whatever court the case has been assigned to. One of the county courts at law for trial. Of those people that we dispose of, jail reduction docket, there's an average length of about a half a day which means that we are disposing nearly of all of them on the day that they are first set. The reason that it's a point 59 is that you will have sometimes some reason to reset the case for a day, two days, three days to gather up victim information restitution information. Maybe we need a blood test result or breath test result that we don't have in the file that day, and that brings the average up to a little less than a day. By and large, when you go to the jail reduction docket, whether you have been in jail for one or two or three days, however long it takes for court administration to set the case, get it on the jail reduction docket for transportation to sheriff's office to be able to transport to the county courts, we are generally disposing, 69 percent of those, on the day they are set for triallve they may get a sentence that requires them to stay in jail for a few days or a sentence of probation. By and large I can tell you most of them it's back time and they are released from jail that evening or the neck day. And that is all this team works on on a full-time basis. There are other numbers there that you can look through, the percentage of cases versus percentage of inmates . Oftentimes, as you know, one defendant, one I mate, will have--inmate, will have several cases. We broke those down for you. We do not have item number 6 data available to tell you how many cases we have to reset for incidental things like I discusseded. We have to reset the case for a couple days to gather information. We think we will have that for new time, wux the county attorneys office goes live with pims, which is now scheduled for November 13, and hopefully it will go life then. We believe that system will better enable us to be able to give you that data. We can track that to see if it's our fault that the case is being reset, I don't mean fault, but if it's a problem we're encountering or is there some reason maybe the defendant doesn't want the plead the case on that day or the defense lawyer doesn't want to and he just resets for a couple more days and we get it disposed of . Then we have listed out the number of those defendants that get probation and those that get sentenced to [skwra-eult] time. I wanted to clarify one thing. I don't know if it shows on your spreadsheet or not. Under number 1, the point 59 595 days, I want to tell you how we calculated that number. We had a number, judge, when we met with you last week that was an average of 1.98 days. But what that number includ included was defendants that had been in jail for some, in some instances, anomaly, but sometimes 90, 120 days or something. What happened, they had gone to the jail reduction docket and asked for a trial and been put over to the trial court's docket. Two or three months down the road they had a change of heart or the plea bargain change or whatever and they work out a plea and got put back on the jail reduction docket and that case was disposed of. So we had them rerun [thao-els] nulce by exclude exclude--these numbers by e excluding any defendants whose case is older than nine days. That the why that went down . For some reason we're having trouble with the spreadsheet spreadsheet. The one I printed out this morning didn't have the explanation. I wanted to make sure that you know that's what that is is. Overall it would be 1.98 but if you exclude the few, that would run the number up high high. Again, the county attorneys office doesn't have any control over that if they choose to accept a plea bargain and ask for trial and decide to stay on jail. Oftentimes they are in on other charges. They may have felony charges pending and they don't want to dispose of the miss at the meaner. They are waiting to see what happens to the felony. By and large I can see this team has done wonders for the office and efficiency in term of how we are able to operate, how our trial courts now can spend more time getting cases ready for trial that need to be tried rather than having to go over and do this kind of mass volume jury docket or jail reduction docket. We think we'll be able to show you numbers. We just did a snapshot. I believe that the neck time we come back here I can show you on that 31 percent that I talked about that asked for a trial, we did a snapshot in April. I just got these numbers. So bear with me. But we showed that the average length of stay in jail for those defendants back in April on misdemeanors that were asking for trailer that is they got taken off the plea docket, jail reduction docket, and they asked for a trial, that the average date to dispose of those cases was 137 days. That was in April of '05. We ran that number. Now that we have the team fully implemented as of April of '06 the number is down to 53 dayslve I think the reason for that--days. I think the reason for that is the lawyers on the trial courts now are able to focus on those cases of people that have asked for trial, work those cases up, do what you have to do to get a defendant to plead or defense attorney to agree to the deal, you get the witnesses in, call them up, tell them we're going to trial next week, and the case is usually plea. If they didn't, the whole system would break down. We think we have reduced that number, this is a--that number, this is a preliminary number, just today, down to 53 days from 17, which I think--from 137, which think is good impact.
>> so the defendant that asked for a say jury trial today will likely be given a trial date of when?
>> within a couple of weeks. We have to have time to get the witnesses subpoenaed so we try to give them a day.
>> every day (inaudible)
>> typically our office can be ready within, you know, it takes at least ten days to get the subpoenas out and served and get our witnesses there, particularly when they are nonlaw enforcement witnesses that we need. We typically ask for two weeks minimum. And if we can get it tried on that date we do.
>> okay.
>> randy, some of the folks reject the plea do so because they think they can get a better deal at a trial trial. Have we been able to pull together information, or could we, related to what somebody who chose that path of what they were offered and what they wound up getting if they didn't plead out? Because if we can be showing people that, you know, that's an interesting risk, but doesn't really work out that way, because it may be that they take the first offer that they get or they understand that the offer is not going to get any better the closer you get to trial, but we're not inclined to make it better to make it go away, that the best, you know, your best offer.
>> I understand what you're saying and I think yes, we probably could with enough time and data track that information. Persuading the jail house lawyers that that's actually the fact is more difficult task to do because there are a lot of people with a lot of good information, they think, inside the jail from other inmates. That's just something have you to deal with in prosecution. I tell you where it helps is when you have the defense bar that understands thatlve when they understand that and they are being honest with the client and they say the deal is not going to get better and it may get worse, think we try to have that rapport and relationship with the defense bar. They understand we are going to give them the best deal they can at the jail reduction docket. If they go beyond that they have to really show the [pro-gs] accuse something, I i--prosecution something, something that we didn't know about at jail reduction docket to for us to reduce the offer.
>> I think the opposite would be true, and that is that they are getting a better deal by taking their chance before a judge or a jury as opposed to taking what the last offer was. It works both ways.
>> I understand that. In misdemeanor cases I don't think it is because by the time they get to trial they usually have spent more days in jail than they would have on the sentence. So that's a factor in there too.
>> you can be serving your time after you have been found guilty and not before.
>> that's right.
>> that's a real problem on what is justice.
>> I agree. And more questions on the jail reduction team? If not I'll move to the mental health team. Mental health team was implemented last year. Also consists of one lawyer, one paralegal, and a legal secretary. . This was a pilot program that we began sometime in early 2004. Once again we did it with internal resources and we came back after it had been up and running for a year and asked the court for this team. You all were grash uce enough to give--gracious enough to give it to us. This team, as we said in our package presentation when we asked for the team, and I continually have reminded folks that we did not represent to the court that we would actually be able to impact the overcrowded jail situation necessarily. We would hope that would be an impact of somewhat. But the most important reason for this team was to make sure that we're focusing in on those people in jail with mental illnesses and getting them the type of justice they de deserve and the type of treatment they deserve and be able to take a closer look at how we are handling those cases. That's what this team does. The numbers are there for you, the number of cases that they have reviewed over the past year, past 11 months, the number of cases that we have staffed and our staffing includes lawyer, usually somebody from the mental health, court lianiso lianison, sigh cy thrifts, attorneys, review of medical records, and basically looking for resources for this case, this defendant. Some, hopefully, somewhere outside the criminal justice system if it's warranted in that particular situation. That's what this team does on a daily basis. And they have the staffings once a week. You can see the number of [sta-fgs] they have done-- done--staffings they have done . I think it was estimated at the time that the average length of stay for a person that's given a psych code from the sheriff's office was 55-61 days. At the time that this number was generated, we were unable with the current system that we had, and that is anybody in the county, sheriff's office, its, could not just break out the difference between the average length of stay for the misdemeanor mental health department and the felony mental health defendant. We now have that and are able to do it. And on the misdemeanors it's an average of 35 days. That 35 days also, though, includes time spent, on some of the cases they have been declared imcompetent and there is not a hospital bed ready for them. And so they sit in our jail until that hospital bed opens up. So that day is included in that 35 days average length of stay. Those cases take a little bit longer to try to come up with the best solution for society and that individual defendant. Sometimes you are going to see them a little bit longer unfortunately. Our idea, and we have done that, the percentage of people that we have diverted from the system is, I think, 26 percent of those cases we're diverting completely from the criminal justice system. We're able to take a look at them early on, concentrate, and decide there's some other remedy for the case than criminal justice and we move those through as quickly as we can.
>> so does your team collaborate with the mental health liaison that's in the jail?
>> yes, sir, we talk to them on a daily basis. Most Tuesdays, if not every Tuesday, they have a representative at our staffings.
>> okay.
>> they have been very help helpful. We appreciate the court funding those requests. Those guys can get in there and get the medical records and they understand the diagnoses better than we lawyers do and can give us a lot of insight in what is the best possible treatment plan to try to get this person not only out of the system this time but hopefully not to reoffend. As you will see, we have not been keeping data long enough but we intend to report back to you data a these individuals that we staff at every one, two and three year interval and we will compare that against the generally population and see how it does.
>> .
>> we added two contract fte on the liaison, correct? And we were going to have three?
>> that's my an understanding.
>> do we have three working?
>> we have three. (inaudible)
>> but do we have three on site doing what they need to be doing? On a daily basis? I have gotten information contrary to that. Can somebody clear that up for me, please. About whether the one became our two and whether that third person is indeed being utilized as we had thought.
>> hi asked abraham to come. I'm deborah hale with criminal courts. We did get a contract in October of last year for two liaisons with the an understanding that they already had one who was pretty much assigned to work with the courts. And so with our estimates of the number of inmates who had mental health issues, we thought that three would be sufficient. At least to start out with. And when we did get the position started, which wasn't m?l this year, I think like March or April of this year, then the one position that had been within had hmr, I asked abraham to be here so he could explain all bit more about it since he is within hmr. But that person was assigned I guess to do other things. So therefore, only two lie a asons, the two that we funded, were actually assigned to be doing these assessments for the courts. So.
>> that wasn't the deal. We had one. We were going to add two at the county's expense. It wasn't that we would have one and swap out the funding for one and add one. We meant for there to be three, not two. And swapping out the funding funding. What happened?
>> abraham with you a still tracthm r. Initially we started out with the only one liaison. The primary job duties for that position were going to the courts and the jails and doing the assessments. That was in place. So when I think your staff came to you and said we have one already, let's go ahead and fund two more, we can really use them, that was the actual duties. Shortly thereafter what happened was ticumi who funds that position 100 percent and the whole unit that position works at wanted that position to focus more on diverting individuals that were part of the new program that were being rearrested. So as we started to track the data and we were able to get these two new liaisons, what we started to see is the liaison's assessments and reports were going up whereas the other position funded by ticomi was going in the opposite direction. Still the same duties but not after this particular list generated from the jails that was come to go hm r. Subsequently we had a discussion about that and what we were able to do is with ticomi's an understanding have the position move away from following those cases that were being in new program and focus on this particular list. What they did with that program, they required the case managers that would see these individuals on a day-to-day basis follow them in jail as they got re rearrested. We have remedied the situation but that's basically what the scenario was.
>> are you satisfied that it's been remedied, mishale, that we have three mental health court liaisons?
>> I would say we're working and going in the right direction. We, I don't, I'm in the aware if you received the backup from kimberly on the rye ason's--liaison's work. We had hoped they would be doing about 90 assessments a month, 30 each of the this is a statutory requirement when the courts refer these people they have to do an assessment within a period of time. And for August they had done 72, the month before 74. That went all the way from in March 42. So they are definitely going in the right direction and we feel better about it. Whee started having monthly meetings with them just to be sure that we are getting what we need. And the judges are aware of this situation also.
>> we had a contract with hm hmr and I don't think that was our expectation that we add on two and the one person that was there that we thought would be there, so you would have three, would get diverted to doing something else. Because in terms of my vote, I don't know if I would have voted for two if one of them was being a swap out on duties. It was meant to be three. And this is a difficult kind of job. We meant to keep those, the caseload down. There's a contractual relationship here. It seems like on that scenario you just listed there, that the county, the contract ee, is kind of left off in terms of somebody being reassigned to other duties and we weren't really I mean, I had to hear about it through a back door in terms of this had happened as opposed to this was up front told to us. Oh, by the way. Now that your two are here one is being diverted to something else. I don't think that was the deal.
>> again, let me speak to that. I don't think the intent was to try to swap out. Now that we have the two, let's reassign. Unfortunately, ticomi as the contractor had the ability just as the account would, to say, we wan the duties the change. Again we were able to convince them that the end result by continuing to have this particular position do what they were doing originally, would benefit them, we were successful this doing that. The intent was never to try to kind of switch and bait on this particular contract. Initially when this all started, anthony was doing exact what the positions are required to do right now which is follow those individuals in the jail regardless of whether they were coming from the new program or not.
>> I wonder outloud if we had only approved one fte funding for one person whether they would have yank yanked that person. I'm a little disappointed to hear that we were left out of those conversations.
>> what is ticomi is this.
>> that is a state agency that is now housed under the Texas department of criminal justice and they focus primarily on, now it's a medical, medical and mental health initiatives within the prison system. So they have funding. They fund programs through throughout the state. And the nu program is one of the programs they fund. And they focus primarily on individuals that are on probation and parole.
>> thank you. So where do these three individuals report to work? All three of them report to the same place?
>> yes, they do. They are all actually physically located in the nu program, all judge hohengarten has offered a [ko-fs] in her court where the liaisons will reside to be close to the jail and the courts.
>> where do the individuals report to work?
>> the nu program at our east second come [phra-ebgs]
>> okay. In--complex.
>> okay. In the hmr facilityyes.
>> okay. If our goal is 90 and we are 50 percent short of that, that's a big difference. And it's in in the like we don't have mental health clients, defendants, that need to be assessed. Right?
>> no, we do not have a shortage of clients that need to be assessed.
>> right. And the assessment occurs toward the front end. I mean if the assessment shows mental health, a mental health condition, then we would know what track to point that person down. Right?
>> usually what's happening, when they are getting booked they are getting flagged for a mental health illness issue. And that's kind of what triggers the mental health assessment from the liaison to go and do a more thorough assessment and evaluation of that mental illness and how and if mhmr can assist in either services that we have in the system or referrals to other resources with an effort to try to get them out of the system if that's the more appropriate thing to do.
>> okay. I guess what we need to do is just a commitment that this person will remain on this assignment for as long as you can. And if that changes, will you give us notice of that fact and the reason why.
>> yeah. And again--
>> that way we will know what to do.
>> I that Commissioner Sonleitner made the issue that we didn't come back and inform the court. Unfortunately we were also kind of caught offguard with the change in roles with the contractor . We will definitely come back to you if for some reason ti ticomi were to come back to us with something that we have not already agreed on. We'll come back to you and let you know that.
>> okay. At one point, since you are there, a big issue for us was that if defendants were diagnosed with some, as having some mental illness issue, and we expedited their release, it was difficult to get services in the free world. And I know that there were efforts underway to try to address that. So how is that coming?
>> it's coming good. Whether we decided to do was that--what we decided to do, as you all might know, we had to unfortunately go to a waiting list this last year for the first time in hmr's history. What we decided to do with the blessing of our executive director and the director for behavioral health services, was if somebody was coming out of jail within 30 days, they would get assessed at our psychiatric emergency services and get placed into services if they met the criteria for our services mete immediately rather than having to go on a waiting list. So that they are not waiting on a waiting list, and not getting very, they do get to go into treatment.
>> generally speaking, what are those criteria?
>> the criteria in order for individuals to be able to receive services from us through the generally revenue that's given to us by the state is that they meet one of three diagnoses, diagnose d?tch. Even if they had some funds there would be a sliding scale. If they meet the three diagnosed criteria, they would get into services. Assessment is done when they first come in that determines what level of service they receive and what services they receive. But again that is second to making sure that they are able to get services from mh mhmr.
>> okay. My financial question, does our assessment inside a jail facility cover these three? Do we try to figure out whether you are bi polar, manic depressive is this.
>> the assessment from the traffic county staffor jail liaison staff?
>> both.
>> they both do, they both look at the diagnosis. As a matter of fact, I know the tract sheriff's office staff are revamming the assessment process and looking to refer those that meet that criteria so that we can better serve them quicker.
>> okay. Any other questions of ms. Hale or abraham. What's your last name?
>> menhatis.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> deborah, do you want to go ahead and go through your other two?
>> yes.
>> give the county attorney a chance.
>> sorry, randy.
>> if the court has any questions?
>> overall we think these were good investments.
>> yes.
>> and are having a positive impact.
>> yes, sir.
>> how nice of you.
>> randy does a great job.
>> that's our assessment. Thank you.
>> thanks randy.
>> judge wanted me to let you know that he did come over and he was willing to come over to talk about some of our jail initiatives. But he had jail call had noon and he wanted to get-- get--this afternoon. He wanted to get back and get going on that. I do have judge crane and judge briland here.
>> in the spirit of jail di version, he thought it would be good to be there.
>> I have to agree with the county attorney's office, I think it is one of our most successful endeavors in the jail. I do. I think everybody that comes through, we set them on that docket. If they don't have a felony attached to it and they do get disposed of very quickly I think.
>> it makes a big difference on our trial dockets as well because as randy, mr. Levit was saying, they don't have to take the attorneys out of the trial courts to go over to jail call which disruns the whole rhythm if they have jail call. They can concentrate on working on or out the cases on the dockets for that day as well as the jury cases for the next we. To me I can see a big difference and I think it's been a good program, good investment.
>> judge, one thing I do want to talk about the other two issues I had were the auxiliary court, which a district issue, but also our tech team. You had asked me during the meeting last week to bring over the dwi numbers. I think you wanted to know how many dwi's were in jail with multiple cases pending. I think it was in relation to the court attorneys having staff spending time looking at those cases in the jail. The total number was 21. But there were some felons in there. So just on, that were misdemeanors, there were 16 that were total people who were in jail with multiple.
>> what happened apparently during the la is year or two two--last year or two, a lot of people out on a dwi case pick up a second one.
>> yes. And judge, the one, because we also ran a list of people out of jail who had, and I don't recall the number for multiple. But just out of jail were like 4500 people who were pending with dwi. So it was a large number.
>> okay.
>> that's multiple.
>> not the multiple. Just with one. That's not the multiple.
>> the real numbers are very scary by themselves but it's not that high.
>> out on bond.
>> out bond, multiple (inaudible)
>> that's right, that is right.
>> okay.
>> that brings me to our tech team. The reason we were able to get those dwi numbers, which I sent them over to the county attorney's office, and I spoke with dan hammery and he said they were very helpful because they could look over those lists, see how long they have been in jail. And I think that comes to what major b ilay just said is that you have to have the data in order to be able to work the case or know who is in the jail or now how long they have been there and why they been there that long. Since we have had the tech team, we got funded for that last December, and we have really just gotten them started this year. They have done a lot as far as being able to provide the courts with reports that they need to help them prioritize the jail cases. I think that's exactly what we had wanted for that team.
>> I had an e-mail that you all had some concerns about the liaisons. I was watching the discussion. If you all have conclude the the discussion, I don't have anything to say about that other than you all are right what you are saying. We thought we were going to end up with 92 or 75-100, either 25 or 35 per person, which multiplies out to 75 to 105, or 35 or 35, which would be 90-105. We are not there yet but working on it and we think we're going to get there. That's about all I can say about that. Because it's a statutory requirement that we do that. And in terms of jail di version, we are having some success. We don't have a perfect program but we are working on getting better all the time. And the extent to which we can get the relevant information that pertains to getting that person better and getting that person back into the community, that helps. Every little bit helps. The more information we have the better job we're going to do about that. Down the line, getting them out in the beginning and hopefully keeping them out, which relates to the ones that come back, that keep them out and ups the jame number.
>> and we're start ago mental health docket in the county courts on Monday. Did you want to talk a little built--bit to that?
>> mental health docket is going to be in the morning, it's going to be kind of like a jail docket. It will be a jail docket, kind of like jail call in the afternoon except it will be in the morning and we will have at least one, possibly two of the liaisons there who can provide the reports to us so that we can all problem solve with those persons appearing in front of us as to how we get them released, if that's appropriate, how we keep them in jail if that's appropriate. And when we do solve that problem, how we get them out in the [kpha-upbt] and hopefully not coming--in the community and hopefully not coming back. Putting all the resources in the same place is a step forward we believe and we believe that will show further progress as we proceed on that initiative.
>> and the way we have been doing it, the lawyers, prosecutors and defense attorneys just had to be in whichever court the case was set. So the resources were spread pretty thin. The jail had to spread the mental health people through throughout the county courts courts. And we think this is going to be so much more efficient kind of like our jail reduction, regular jail reduction docket, much more efficient than rethink this is really going to help in processing those mental health cases better.
>> about six months ago a raised with me--a person raised with me an issue I had not thought of and that I was the code of ty of the mental health defendant they kind of wondered about it because it seems if you really try to get them together where you can provide the service efficiently, that sort of calls to the attention exactly who they are. It may be six of one half a dozen of the other but it is an issue that I really had not thought of that much. It may have come up in the context of the misdemeanor public defender's office. If you are a client of that public defender's office for mental health, that sort of makes you per se a mental health defendant. Just an issue, I guess. If you are that defendant, my guess is you would rather go ahead and receive the appropriate service, especially if there is the appropriate treatment available if you need it.
>> I agree it's a tricky issue. Can you go to conferences about mental health and they will have on whole session on that. At the end of it they will say that nobody really understands that law, but not too many people have been sued about it with regard to this particular caseload. I'm sure you all know if somebody gets arrested it's a public record. So everybody get to know about that. It can't be a secret process process. When they come to court you can't have a secret court. It's an open court all the way back to I think 1215, the year 1215, seg like that in the maa--magna carte. If you all all those things, sometimes people's problems, mental health problems get out in public, but we are following the law. And until some higher court or authority tells us that we can't do what we have been told to do by the law, you know, I'm not going to just throw my hands up and say I'm not doing that, you know, some information might get out. Just by the way, many people who are there have been well-known in the community to have mental health issues through the years and then, you know, it's not always a secret. And many times that they have had problems in their family and they are either left or have been abandoned by their families. And in the neighborhood where they grew up they knew there was a problem. So it's not particularly on many of those clients who are repeat offenders in the jail, a big secret that there's an issue there. The problem is how to solve it. There are other types of mental health issues that come to our attention. Part of the plea bargen process d?r bargain process or negotiating of probation or maybe even issues in the case that may come out, they may be more and may not see the public light of day but that's kind of a different issue than the jail population.
>> the law requires the assessment by an appropriate professional for a mental health condition.
>> right.
>> and then if the answer is yes, there's a mental health issue here, what additional responsibility does the law put on, say, tract? --say, Travis County?
>> that's a good question. I don't think, it basically is one of these things, I know you might be surprised. They make that law over there and cover a certain issue and when they get to the end of the issue, what next. I don't know. But I would infer from reading the law and taking the seriousness of the intent, they want us to say, I know this person has schizophrenia. They want us to go to the other step and say what do we do, get them out of jail, treat them humanly, make the public safer if that person is the kind that's acting out in the community. So you may not want it to be more specific in terms of, well, if that happens, then you have to send them to a facility or you have do this or that. There are provisions for that for persons who are incompetent and the other commitment type of processes where people spend time in institutions in the state. But it doesn't tell us everything we're supposed to do with that information. Does that answer your question?
>> all right.
>> I just have one last issue to discuss. And that is our auxiliary or the jail [kao-urt] room, which is really--courtroom, which is really a program that the district judges have benefitted from. This has been a very good program for they will. You funded visiting judges, substitute bailiffs and substitute court reporters. Each year since January of 2003 we have gotten about three days a week for 48 weeks for the year to use that court room. What it does is, I'll just give an example, let's say if judge flowers is having a jury week this week, on a rotating basis he would also have access to the auxiliary courtroom. Instead of having one case able to go on that day, he would have two. So the threat of having two jury trials that could possibly go on any given day would cause a lot of other cases to kind of move off their docket. That was what they had hoped would happen. And that is in fact what we have found that happened. And I have just a snapshot I want to tell you about . When we came and talked to but this in February 2002, the district judges had 402 cases on their jury docket. In this last September they had 152. That the had a 62 percent decrease in the cases. Of that, the inmates that they had in jail has gone down 58 percent. They used to have 136, down to 57 in September. The reason that's significant is it goes back to what major bilay just said, and it's not so much volume as it is the bed days days. The people who are on the district jury docket tend to stay in jail the longest. Back then we had a total of 98 inmate who had been in jail for over 180 days. We're down to 33 in September. That's a 66 percent decrease decrease. So when you consider the length of time that these people can stay in jail, that has really made a big difference. I mean, their dockets are way down on their jury dockets. So, and that we are going to be discontinued with funding for this program in January of 2007 when the 427th district court comes on line line. The only reason, I think, because pbo has been pretty supportive of this program also, is that we have run out of space. The auxiliary court now being used with the visiting judge will instead house judge koronado and the new district judge will go into the new cjc.
>> we chatted also if the news district judge is not available in January we would simply take that money and operating the auxiliary court as long as it's there and until the new judge comes.
>> I'm sure the judges would really appreciate that.
>> I agree. This is exactly the result we hope for, what we call the visiting judge ace ace-- ace--judge's courtroom, not as sophisticated back in those days. Okay.
>> I'd like to share one other thing. Commissioner Sonleitner had expressed some interest, and I'm sure the rest of you have some interest, in the s scrim program. We have scheduled a meeting with dr. Nagi to talk about use and funding through pretrial services and probation. I notice there are a couple of representatives from the scrim program here this afternoon.
>> three.
>> I'm going to get each of you some information about it. We're working on that.
>> we're ahead of you.
>> you're done.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thanks judge.
>> thank you all very much. A couple more reports.
>> last on the agenda today, judge, is pretrial services. Services..
>> good afternoon, eva magad magadro with Travis County pretrial services. You funded two initiatives to release individuals in cuss toe. The first initiative was on electronic monitoring and that was to il pack the jail population in terms of getting at least 2025 people out of--20-25 people out of jail in the fiscal year. One of the things is on September 27th we did an up update on our numbers and we did actually surpass the goal that we had set for the program. We released 36 individuals under the low risk electronic monitoring. As you all know, we do have a high risk electronic monitoring program but it turned out that there was some confusion at first in terms of having the high risk and the low risk. And so for the new fiscal year, fy '07, we decided to combine programs and try to get 70-75 people out of jail jail. The high risk program has been funded for many, many years, like over 16 years, in terms of to get at least 50 people out of jail under the high risk program. And with the new funding we're going to combine both programs and just try to exceed our numbers and at least attempt to get 70-75 people on a zero hi basis. We might--people on a yearly basis. We might be able to serve more. But on the em we really cannot close out a case or remove somebody from the electronic monitoring until there is a good history that the client will comply with electronic monitoring. Once certain information is obtained through the chronologies and the case history that this person is reporting, and complying with all the conditions, that we will look at it 90 days, 10 days down the road, and--120 days down the road, and if they are complying with every rule of the program we might shift them to intensive supervision and open up the door for another defendant ging out on-- on--getting out on electronic monitoring. The other program, oh, the e em, I did want to mention that part of the cost includ included two fte's, one pretrial officer 2 and an office sperbist, but also included--specialist, but also included the cost for the electronic monitoring service.
>> okay.
>> the high risk used to be state money.
>> no. It's always--
>> the program huh in place 16 years whorks funded that?
>> , who funded that?
>> it's the county.
>> tract.
>> tract. D?rb Travis County.
>> Travis County. We have always had a line item for that. And we go out on bids to get the vendor. Depending on the type of service and requirements that we specify, we select an electronic monitoring vendor. We have been fortunate that in the last few years, we have been able to get a good cost for electronic monitoring. Right now I think it's less than $3 a day.
>> high or low, it's all county money.
>> yes.
>> now I have more ownership of it than I had before.
>> we own it. No. The second program that got funded was the mental health case management program, and that program started as an initiative to try to divert the mentally ill from the jails. Not necessarily to reduce the jail population. It was more to try to diverse that population into either services that are out there in the community, and monitor their conditional bond release, and hopefully expedite the assessment process. We really with this program were able to surpass our goals of 70 people. We serviced up until now 155 individuals that we were able to get out of jail through this initiative. The other thing is that it's been mentioned before, the jail, the Travis County sheriff's office is looking at the assessment review in terms of pinpointing and identifying the appropriate population for this whole initiative. And the numbers were overwhelming even for us at pretrial services in that so many were being if I wanted as mentally ill. With the new initiative with the sheriff doing the second assessment, I think that it will basically put the individuals into the program that need the extra attention. I didn't know if there was any other questions. But those are the two initiatives that got refunded also for fy '07.
>> this 155 defendants are probably covered in some of the other initiatives that we have heard about today, right is this.
>> uh-huh.
>> this is just the recommend--today, right?
>> uh-huh.
>> this is the remedy end.
>> when the jail reports that they release so many individuals in fy '06 and when the court liaison says they have done so many assessments, that is part of those numbers also.
>> okay.
>> we are all tide together and we have collaboratively tried to work out a system that will work for everybody.
>> okay. We applaud that efforteffort efforteffort. Questions, comments. Thank you very much d?tch.
>> you're welcome.
>> we have heard about the various initiatives that we funded during the last two years. And if there were like bottom line generally impact statements or summaries, what would they be?
>> very right-hand column. The very right-hand column of the spreadsheet.
>> I had in mind two or three sentences to cover all of them.
>> that's what I had in mind too but some folks from other dents wanted to run-- run--departments wanted to write a little bit moreokay. In terms of the overall--
>> okay. In terms of the overall population, if we put all this information together, we are in fact expediting the release of a lot more defendants, identifying those with mental health issues, and I guess having proved how we address those issues, but a lot more are being arrested--more folk are being arrested monthly than last year.
>> most definitely. And arrested for more serious offenses. I think that has a huge impact on the adp as well, judge.
>> should I bring up the next item? That is 32.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, October 4, 2006 4:29 PM