Travis County Commissioners Court
November 3, 2009,
Item 20
Now, where is that 10:30 item?
are we ready with the jail and then we'll go to -- we'll go to the health care changes.
item 20, receive update on jail population management initiative with urban institute.
>> roger jeffries, executive manager with public safety.
i'm going to ask kathy to come hit this computer now, if you will.
first I want to thank sheriff hamilton and county attorney david escamilla for joining me today.
we want to give you an update on the urban institute's jail population management initiative that was begun last may.
as you'll recall, I believe it was in February we applied to the urban institute for free technical assistance to help us better manage our jail population.
we were awarded in March.
we began our kickoff in may with our stakeholders.
at that time urban institute laid out a work plan, what this is going to look like over the summer we provided data for them.
they analyzed our data and came back with the draft report that's in your backup.
and what we would like to do is kind of give you a brief update on where we are and what the next steps are and I'll defer to the sheriff and county attorney at this point to give their thoughts about this.
we do have a very quick power point that highlights some of those next steps, but would you all like to speak before?
>> david escamilla, Travis County attorney.
just want to pretty much add -- say that I'm thankful, I guess, for this county being picked one of three and my participation and our office's participation so far with the other stakeholders as a result just of this beginning part, I'm very hopeful that we might actually be able to find those next harder results.
i mean, I think we've benefited in this county from maybe the lower hanging fruit in trying to address jail population.
this next effort is going to be more difficult, but so far from what I'm seeing in the model, I'm hopeful.
so thank you for this support in this initiative.
>> and I too would like to echo what the county attorney said.
this is an exciting time for Travis County sheriff's office.
i really believe that we're on the cutting edge of individuals around the country looking at what we're doing.
this project is going to help us go to another level, and I can tell you that in those meetings there are hard questions being asked, especially when you have the county attorney in there.
and other attorneys.
but we're excited about this project and I think that it's going to help us get to the next level and be the model around the country.
>> we very much appreciate david escamilla and rosemary agreeing to this and the sheriff's participation.
he's been helpful and present in all the meetings and we really appreciate it.
if we found it --
>> we found it.
>> I don't know it's small and I'll go through this quickly.
it's a brief highlights from the report that you have in your backup.
again, we are one of the three counties.
the other two were alachua county in florida which is gainsville and pittsburgh, which is allegheny county.
the highlights from the report, the urban institute identified three drivers of the jail population in Travis County.
none of this is a surprise, but it's interesting to see it fed back in a different way.
pretrial detainees make up over 80% of the jail population.
and they -- pretrial detainees make up approximately 63% of the jail population on average.
part of that pre-trial detainee, and really it's an unsentenced detainee is made up of felony undetermined.
and that's a group that includes parolees, probationers and low level drug offenders.
they make up 30% of the jail population and consume about 26% of the jail bed days.
it's kind of an artificial category.
it's a data system catch-all for some of those categories of charges and offenders, but the urban institute thought it was a significant driver of the jail population so they've asked us to look at that and maybe develop some strategies around those subcategories.
another interesting highlight from their report, they identified frequent -- what they call frequent residents, but we know those are the guys that come back time after time.
they make up about 33% of the jail population and consume almost 70% of the jail bed days so they are a significant driver of the jail population.
and not surprisingly this group includes disproportionate numbers of homeless and mentally ill.
and within this group older offenders are generally charged with public order offenses, and we know that's an issue here in Travis County.
and younger offenders are charged with drug offenses.
now, what -- where we are in the process is we gathered this data.
there's a lot of it in your report.
perhaps we could come back at some time in a work session and walk you through some of the more detailed data because it is very formative, but we have hired a professional facilitator that comes -- we've got a series of five strategy planning sessions.
the first one kicked off a couple weeks ago which all of our stakeholders participated.
in that session, we determined what the mission was.
pretty much the mission is given by the urban institute and that's to develop a strategy to better manage our jail population.
but what our community did do, our criminal justice community, came up with a preferred vision for the jail population in Travis County.
i would like to read through these real quickly if you don't mind.
the first investigation that the Travis County jail population is reduced by implementing pro-active law enforcement strategies as a alternative to arrest consist even I want with public safety and justice t Travis County jail population is reduced by maximumizing -- it is reduced by -- it's reduced consists of individuals who should truly be incarcerated and charged.
the Travis County jail population moves through consistent with public safety and justice.
the Travis County jail population will be effectively prepared for reentry by assessing needs and risks and linking them to programs and services within the jail and community.
and finally, the Travis County jail population will consist of reduced numbers of repeat offenders.
the -- in the analysis that urban institute did, they came back with recommendations about what we should be looking at.
we're going to throw that in the mix of strategic planning that we are doing as a group.
in fact, our next session, this is Thursday, will include identifying goals stakeholders thought was important.
we thought you should see some of the examples the urban institute afforded in their report.
they looked at the arrest processes in Travis County.
i thought one of the interesting ones was to create an alternative to jail for chronic I believe nobody reants.
pre-trial is in the process of developing a risk assessment tool so they can better assess who is eligible for bond.
case processing, very interesting idea that urban institute brought up that I've never heard is making pre-release reentry planning component of expedited case processing.
we often think people leaving prison or leaving sentenced facilities, but they are asking us to look at pre-trail detainees and particularly around that group, that repeat offender group.
and doing some reentry planning for that group to help them not come back.
sentencing is determine specific goals for diversion courts and programs.
that's one of the things we had asked them to do is helpes better evaluate the programs we have to determine if they are making an impact.
finally, there's an emphasis like we mentioned before on reentry.
strengthening, referral protocols and followup care procedures for released jail detainees.
there's a lot more in your report and I would encourage you to go back if you can, and we will be throwing these in the mix that we're going to develop among our stakeholders again on Thursday.
finally the next steps is we have three more -- four more strategic planning sessions through the middle of December.
what we would like to do if this is all right is come back to you at the end of that process and we will have identified specific goals and specific strategies to achieve those goals in calendar year 10.
and that's basically where we are.
if you have any questions or if david or the sheriff have any followup.
>> I just have a comment much we've seen in the newspaper some other urban counties that have a real disconnect between their prosecution and law enforcement and corrections, this is an example -- our example here working with the urban institute just highlights the incredible and very fortunate relationship we have between courts, law enforcement, prosecution, corrections, pre-trial, probation, this is really a -- this is a special thing that Travis County has.
that the urban institute is helping us maximize.
it's not every urban county in Texas or even the united states that has this level of camaraderie between these despair rate groups working on this very hard thing.
>> I want to thank these two folks, but all of the stakeholders who have really stepped up and are participating and very vested in this process and I think that's what's going to make it successful.
>> and I think it very important that the public knows that it's not just Travis County government.
that Austin police department and the downtown Austin alliance have been at these meetings.
>> thank you so much for bringing that up.
my apologies for having been so myopic.
you are absolutely right.
it's really an effort of the entire region, not Travis County government.
>> and while I agree with you, Commissioner, I think we have a unique county.
our stakeholders do communicate with each other.
it is a benefit to have a group like the urban institute here that can bring their resources to the table to help us being efficient and focus us on being able to be productive in those discussions.
>> so for the listening public, what's the urban institute?
>> urban institute is basically a think tank and they have an area that specializes in criminal justice issues.
they are based in washington, d.c.
i think it was begun, if I understand the history, back in the johnson administration to help urban areas look at issues to make quality of life better, and weaver fortunate to have them as partners.
they are very smart people who have national experience and they've been great partners.
>> and they are assisting us free of charge.
>> free of charge.
>> okay.
we eagerly anticipate the next briefing.
>> thank you.
>> thank you very much.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 1:40 PM
