From the Houston Press: Gonzalez Unseats Hickman to Become Harris County Sheriff

State and national races aside, Democrats did well in Harrow County

- Click here for the article.

Democratic challenger Ed Gonzalez defeated incumbent Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman by nearly 64,000 votes Tuesday. Hickman conceded to Gonzalez shortly after 10 p.m., with roughly 81 percent of the votes counted.

Since Hickman's appointment by the Harris County Commissioners Court in May 2015, his administration had been plagued by continuing problems at the Harris County Jail — poor conditions that Hickman blamed largely on his predecessor, Adrian Garcia. (Garcia stepped down to run for mayor).

In a September interview with Houston Public Media, Gonzalez, a former Houston Police Department homicide detective and three-time city councilman, called Hickman's administration "stagnant" and "almost going backwards."

Gonzalez told the radio station “There’s three things that we’re addressing in law enforcement that do not have a law enforcement response, and that’s mental illness, poverty, and addiction. We’ve got to find community-based solutions to that."

Hickman's campaign had centered largely on the fact that Gonzalez was no longer a licensed peace officer, while stressing the incumbent's law enforcement bona fides. This earned him endorsements by the Houston Police Officers Union, the Harris County Deputies Organization and the Mexican-American Sheriffs Organization. (Perhaps even more importantly, he had the blessing of Gallery Furniture founder Jim "Mattress Mac" McIngvale).

But Gonzalez was endorsed by the Houston Chronicle, saying that the former homicide detective and three-term city councilman "built a record as a policymaker dedicated to diverting people from our jail — one of the major challenges facing the sheriff's office."

For background on problems with the Harris County jail:

- Jailhouse jeopardy: Guards often brutalize and neglect inmates in Harris County Jail, records show.

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Sheriffs, Jails on Immigration Front Line

A good example of federalism - unintended perhaps. The national government has authority over immigration policy, but the practical reality is that local governments have to deal with immigrants more often than state or national officers.

- Clck here for the article.

The success of federal deportation policy in Texas and nationwide depends for the most part on a heads up from county sheriffs. They run the jails where people are taken when arrested and where the culling of criminal immigrants begins.

Being at the bottom of the enforcement pyramid places tremendous pressure on them — political, legal and otherwise — sheriffs say, and with federal policy increasingly targeting serious, repeat criminal offenders, their role in the process has grown.

“When some of these sheriffs talk about bringing in an undocumented, it may be one a month,” said Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez. “With us, it’s several a day.”
The legal tool federal authorities use to take custody of immigrants they want is the detainer. Around in some form or fashion since the 1950s, detainers are notices sent to jails asking them to hold on to an immigrant once local authorities are done with them so federal agents can come by and get them.

In its latest incarnation, the detainer is reserved for the most serious convicted immigrant criminals. This new, narrower restriction, imposed in November 2014, has caused the number of detainers to drop. As of October 2015, the latest monthly figure available, 7,117 detainers were issued. That's down from an all-time monthly high of 27,755 in August 2011, according to voluminous Freedom of Information Act requests made by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Texas is central to the federal agency’s deportation efforts. Nationwide, only eight jails received more than 1,000 detainer requests in the last year, according to clearinghouse data. Four were in Texas — Harris, Travis, Dallas and Hidalgo counties.

From The Dish: Prison Has Replaced Psychiatric Hospitals

For 2306 as we conclude our look at at criminal justice policy, and wind out way toward health and human service policy. This is also an example of interest group activity. The study described below is intended to spur reforms in our mental health system. Whether it does - following a previous story - might depend on whether elites support these suggestions.

Increasingly people with mental disabilities - who sometimes act out and find themselves in the criminal justice system - are treated there instead of hospitals.

- Click here for the story.

- And here for the report from the Treatment Advocacy Center that highlights the issue.

From the executive summary:

Prisons and jails have become America’s “new asylums”: The number of individuals with serious mental illness in prisons and jails now exceeds the number in state psychiatric hospitals tenfold. Most of the mentally ill individuals in prisons and jails would have been treated in state psychiatric hospitals in the years before the deinstitutionalization movement led to closing the hospitals, a trend that continues even today.
The treatment of mentally ill individuals in prisons and jails is critical, especially since such individuals are vulnerable and often abused while incarcerated. Untreated, their psychiatric illness often gets worse, and they leave prison or jail sicker than when they entered. Individuals in prison and jails have a right to receive medical care, and this right pertains to serious mental illness just as it pertains to tuberculosis, diabetes, or hypertension. This right to treatment has been affirmed by the US Supreme Court.

And a few items from their summary of findings:

• From 1770 to 1820 in the United States, mentally ill persons were routinely confined in prisons and jails. Because this practice was regarded as inhumane and problematic, such persons were routinely confined in hospitals until 1970. Since 1970, we have returned to the earlier practice of routinely confining such persons in prisons and jails.
• In 2012, there were estimated to be 356,268 inmates with severe mental illness in prisons and jails. There were also approximately 35,000 patients with severe mental illness in state psychiatric hospitals. Thus, the number of mentally ill persons in prisons and jails was 10 times the number remaining in state hospitals.
• In 44 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, a prison or jail in that state holds more individuals with serious mental illness than the largest remaining state psychiatric hospital. For example, in Ohio, 10 state prisons and two county jails each hold more mentally ill inmates than does the largest remaining state hospital

The Harris County Jail has been described as the largest mental health facility in the state. I can't find confirmation of that right now, but here are stores related to it:

- In Harris County, New Efforts to Treat Mental Illness In and Out of Jail.
- Harris County jail not the place to treat mental illness.
- County moving forward on jail diversion program for mentally ill.

From the Houston Chornicle:State: Harris County has not done enough to cut jail population

For 2306 when we start looking at criminal justice. This also fits with county government and state - local conflict.

- Click here for the article.

State officials have rejected a request from Sheriff Adrian Garcia to increase the capacity of the Harris County Jail and said local leaders have not done enough in recent years to reduce the inmate population.

The inmate population at the state's largest lockup has fallen in recent months after exceeding building capacity for the first time in two years last September, but the Sheriff's Office says it is too close for comfort. The population is known to swell in the summer months by as much as 1,000 inmates, said spokesman Alan Bernstein, noting that Garcia's request was intended to create some "flexibility" as county leaders work to reduce the jail population.
The building capacity of the county jail system is 9,434; the population on Monday was 8,814.

Garcia last week asked the Texas Commission on Jail Standards for permission to increase the number of supplemental beds used when the population swells, replacing 680 hard plastic cots with 1,064 metal bunk beds. He also asked that the jail still be able to use up to 100 mobile cots known as "boats" or "low-riders."

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards agreed only to let Garcia replace the 680 cots with bunk beds to save 5,000 square feet of floor space, keeping the inmate capacity the same.

Commission Executive Director Brandon Wood said Harris County has "made some great strides in regard to being able to reduce their inmate population." Asked if the county has done enough, though, he said the commission was "not provided definite, specific programs" by the county that "they've actually had up and running for any period of time."