An example of conflict - or miscommunication - between the state and county governments.
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The state does not track the prevalence or provide guidance on the issue, leaving inmates to languish in jail and eventually sue counties for damages.
. . . It’s unknown exactly how many Texans in county jails are kept well past the time they’re supposed to be released. That’s because no state agency tracks the number of so-called post-conviction over-detentions, and no state law prevents or punishes it. State agencies, including the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, also do not formally track the number of over-detention cases.
Multiple attorneys told The Texas Tribune that delays in “pen packets” are often the reason why people are overstaying their sentences, including in about a dozen cases in the last five years that the Tribune reviewed. These packets are a collection of documents about an inmate’s impending release that counties must send to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to be processed before release.
State law outlines deadlines for TDCJ to process pen packets, but does not require counties to send the documents to TDCJ on time. Counties have attributed delays to a variety of reasons including difficulties with technology or calculating an inmate’s sentence, but all result in late releases.
. . . Without state oversight, over-detention victims have resorted to private lawsuits to get compensation, which can be a time-consuming way of getting reparations and expensive for counties. In February, 102 inmates settled a $1.5 million lawsuit against Smith County for pen packet delays that kept them confined beyond the end of their sentence, the largest settlement in Texas for victims of over-detention.
The settlement payouts lead to taxpayers having to “foot the bill twice” in many cases, said Nick Hudson, a policy and advocacy strategist with ACLU Texas: paying for the resources to house people for additional days in jail, then again for any resulting lawsuits.
