by Anita Miller

Hays County will no longer be housing some of its inmates in the Travis County Jail.

County Judge Ruben Becerra posted a letter to “Dear Hays County Law Enforcement” on Facebook April 15 saying he had received word from Travis Sheriff Sally Hernandez that the agreement between the two counties would end effective the end of April, in accordance with that county’s efforts to reduce the jail population.

Jails across the state and country have been trying to shed low-level offenders because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the risk of inmates contracting the virus as well as taxpayers being responsibilities for the cost of their treatment. 

Hays County has been outsourcing inmates for more than a decade and the cost of that rose to $4.3 million in 2018, spread out over a handful of counties, some more than 150 miles away.

Here and elsewhere, that’s all played out alongside a push to cut jail populations in favor of cite & release programs, whereby police would write a citation for a specific handful of low-level offenses including theft, criminal mischief and possession of marijuana. The person cited would still have to appear in court and pay fines and fees, but would not spend time in jail. 

Incarceration, even for one night, can lead to job loss that results in financial strain on both the family and social service agencies, according to a series of articles in the ANNALS  of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in late 2016 and other studies of the affects of incarceration can have on families and society.

When he first took office, Becerra pledged to overhaul the county’s criminal justice system but commissioners did not approve his plan for a newly-formed committee, noting that there was an existing county group formed for just that purpose. That existing group has since made reforms including the formation of a Magistration Department with its own judge and clerks, theoretically to speed up the process of getting people before a judge who have been arrested. The creation of the department was also intended to take some strain off the county’s justices of the peace, who had traditionally performed magistration and set bond.

Hays County began outsourcing to Travis County last year. On Sept. 3, 2019, commissioners approved an agreement for the Travis County Jail to house up to 50 Hays County inmates per day for a maximum of $3,500. That came on an unanimous vote after Hays originally had offered $40 per day to a maximum of $2,000.

At the time, General Counsel Mark Kennedy called Hays County’s initial offer “probably a loser.”

Roughly one third of the Hays County jail population was released in late March after district judges signed a letter canceling most district court proceedings because of the novel coronavirus. Earlier, the Texas Supreme Court had instructed justice of the peace to do the same. Since then, the number of daily bookings into the jail has decreased from more than a dozen to a handful.

Cities have been pressured to adopt cite & release policies as well. The San Marcos City Council is to hold its second vote April 21. Kyle has said its citation writing software will not allow citations to be directed to a specific court, though Police Chief Jeff Barnett told the Hays Free Press that when county and Kyle dispatchers occupy a new “co-location” in San Marcos, the software would likely be able to accommodate cite & release. 

Hays County still has outsourcing agreements with Burnett, Caldwell, Fort Bend, Guadalupe and Walker counties.

In his weekly jail population report this week, Becerra said $57,530 was spent on outsourcing April 5-11. One hundred and forty two men were taken to other lockups, but for the first time, no female inmates.