By Brian Rogers
Houston Chronicle
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson unveiled a sweeping plan Wednesday for criminal justice reform aimed a keeping low-level, nonviolent offenders out of the crowded jail and reducing the burden on poor and minority defendants.
The $5.3 million plan-with the boost of a $2 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation -includes a diversion court to handle about 8,000 non-violent felonies and a new system to make it easier for defendants to gain release without posting bail.
Harris County has been the target of state and federal allegations of excessive pretrial detention of non-violent and mentally ill offenders that has fueled jail overcrowding and alleged civil rights abuses, including inmate deaths.
The county was the target of a U.S. Department of Justice probe in 2009 and has been warned since by state and federal experts that its practices are unconstitutional.
Anderson said the plan will reduce the jail population and address racial and ethnic disparities in the local justice system.
“As research continues to mount on the negative impact that jail and prison can have on low-level offenders, the mentally ill, and communities of color, [Harris County] can no longer afford to operate with a ‘business-as-usual’ mentality,” Anderson said. “As in most jurisdictions, people of color are over-represented in the Harris County jail.”
Anderson was joined by Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, Interim Police Chief Martha Montalvo, Sheriff Ron Hickman and more than a dozen other community leaders in announcing the plan and the grant from one of the nation’s largest philanthropic organizations.
The proposal - which must be approved by Harris County commissioners - drew praise from community leaders and criminal justice experts.
“There is standing racism in this nation, not just in Texas, not just Harris County, but the nation,’ said the Rev. William “Bill” Lawson, a longtime leader in the black community. “And we are right now beginning to work on setting up systems to be more fair.”
University of Houston law professor Sandra Guerra Thompson said the proposals could change lives.
“They’re historic for Harris County,” Thompson said. “We’re going to see dramatic change. There’s still more work to be done, but it’s a huge leap forward.”
Lock-Up Rate High
The Harris County Jail, a sprawling downtown complex that is one of the nation’s largest county detention facilities, has a higher pretrial lock-up rate than other urban counties across Texas.
A Houston Chronicle investigation last year found that at any given time, as many as 75 percent of the jail’s 9,000 inmates have not been convicted of any crime but remain behind bars awaiting trial because they can’t afford to get out.
County judges use an inflexible bond schedule to keep defendants in jail, even though about half face non-violent felony or misdemeanor charges. County bond hearings are conducted via videolink and no defense attorneys are provided.
Those who can’t afford to pay for their freedom often end up jailed for days or months. The Chronicle found that assaults were frequent and that more than 75 inmates had died in custody since 2009, some from illnesses that could have been treated.
The announcement Wednesday came one day after the sheriff’s office revealed that a 46-year-old inmate who had been jailed for misdemeanor theft died after being kicked and punched by two other inmates in a crowded holding cell. The man was being held on $3,000 bond for allegedly stealing a guitar.
The new court-a key element in the plan-is designed to help suspected felons, even repeat offenders, get help for their problems rather than racking up convictions that keep them from getting jobs. It will give first-time offenders hope for avoiding a cycle of crime, Anderson said.
“For many first-time offenders, if they complete this specialized diversion program, their criminal record will be wiped clean,” Anderson said. “A sober person with a job is someone we are not going to see again in the system.”
She said the goal of the court, which will be presided over by a visiting judge and cost about $1.9 million for staff and resources, is to reduce the jail population and increase diversion - moves that should also reduce disparities for communities of color.
The court and a new county coordinator will work to involve minority communities in shaping criminal justice policies. The efforts should lower the average daily jail population by 885 people and bring cultural awareness to the criminal justice system, she said.
“With this $2 million commitment and another $3.3 million from Harris County, our main goals are to safely reduce our jail population by 21 percent in three years, that’s 1,800 people,” Anderson said, “and to reduce the glaring problem of racial and ethnic disparity within our jail.”
Blacks, who make up 18 percent of Harris County’s population, account for 48 percent of the jail population, according to charts distributed by the county.
The new bail system would mean a profound shift in the way defendants are held while awaiting trial.
Anderson and state District Judge Susan Brown, the administrative judge over the felony courts, said the judges are “on board” with easing restrictions on pretrial release after a new screening process can be found.
Jurisdictions all over the country, including federal judges, have screening processes that have proven to be successful, they said.
The looser bail restrictions could lead to a reduction of another 850 people from the daily jail, they said.
Plan Praised by Critics
Even some of the criminal justice system’s harshest critics praised the plan.
State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, commended county officials for working for months before submitting the grant application earlier this year to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
“Harris County’s overreliance on the inefficient and ineffective use of mass incarceration as a means of dealing with low-level and non-violent offenses has resulted in one of the highest jailing and incarceration rates in the U.S. and the world,” Ellis said in a statement.
“It wastes countless taxpayer dollars, has been ineffective at making our communities safer, and had a particularly a devastating effect on communities of color and the poor,” he said.
Lawson said many of the people who remain in jail are black because they are low-income and cannot afford to get out.
He also said there has been a “standing picture of black people as people who are guilty or will be guilty of crime.”
“You don’t put a kid in jail because he’s black and has a spoonful of marijuana,” he said. “If it’s possible to divert him from jail, you divert him.”
Harris County was one of 11 jurisdictions to receive funding from the foundation.
The MacArthur Foundation, the 10th largest private foundation in the U.S., pledged nearly $25 million in support Wednesday of “ambitious plans to create fairer, more effective local justice systems across the country.”
The organization awarded grants between $1.5 million and $3.5 million over two years, and announced it would give nine other jurisdictions $150,000 each to continue reform work.
Copyright 2016 the Houston Chronicle