Corpus Christi Caller-Times
SINTON, Texas — A shortage of jailers at the San Patricio County Jail is resulting in shorter stays for non-violent offenders.
The 236-bed facility is having trouble meeting the state standard of one jailer for every 48 prisoners and must either move prisoners to other counties or turn prisoners away following a directive Thursday from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.
Sheriff Leroy Moody told San Patricio County commissioners during a meeting Monday that he had dropped the jail numbers to 186, though the facility routinely has 230 prisoners, which is near capacity. To manage the population, he won’t house non-violent Class C misdemeanor cases, such as public intoxication or traffic violations, unless he has room based on the number of staff he has on hand.
“I will take assault and family violence and I can put a drunk in the tank for four hours to sober up,” Moody said. “But I can’t take anything else. I will take them (Class C misdemeanors) until the maximum count, then we will magistrate them and get them out on bond. Cs are what cities put in jail for traffic fines and stuff like that. They need to be punished, but the major crimes have to come first.”
The remedial order from the jail commission mandates that the county keep its inmate population in line with its staffing, said Texas Commission on Jail Standards executive director Adan Muñoz.
“The issue in San Pat is not overcrowding, it’s understaffing,” Muñoz said. “They don’t have enough officers to match their inmate population so we asked the sheriff and (County Judge Terry Simpson) to respond with a plan of action. They indicated that they cannot hire enough people, because as they hire them they lose them to neighboring counties.”
For the next 90 days, the commission on jail standards will monitor daily and monthly population versus staffing performance, Muñoz said.
“They will have to show a consistency of compliance either by reducing population or increasing staffing,” Muñoz said.
The problem for the county lies in the paychecks it offers, Moody said. Newly hired jailers in San Patricio County make about $10 an hour or a little more than $20,796 annually, Moody said.
Aransas County pays new jailers $12.65 an hour and Nueces County pays a starting salary of $12.08 an hour.
Those that the county manages to hire and train figure out quickly that there is more money to be made in one of the surrounding counties, Moody said. This year, 17 of Moody’s jailers have quit and gone to other facilities.
“We need to get the pay up,” he said. “If you don’t pay you don’t hire.”
San Patricio County has 27 jailers, not counting the chief jailer and assistant chief jailer. Moody is in the process of hiring two jailers and ideally needs another nine or 10, he said.
“We should have 39 total,” he said.
On Monday, Moody and Simpson told the Commissioners Court that the county must come up with a plan to hire jailers. Because the item was not on Monday’s agenda, Simpson said the matter will appear on the Nov. 17 commissioners court agenda as a special item for discussion and potential action.
Adding to the problem is the large number of federal, state, county and private detention facilities in South Texas drawing from the same small pool of applicants in order to staff, Moody said.
“The problem is you get six (applicants) and two can’t pass the drug test, two can’t pass the psychological screening and the two you hire, you have a year to certify them, which means sending them off for two weeks of training.”
Copyright 2008 SCRIPPS Howard Publications