Harris County Da says that changes in the admission division will relieve the case portfolio, ‘humanitarian crisis’ in jail – Houston Public Media

Lucio Vasquez / Houston Public Media

Harris County District Prosecutor, Sean Teare, says that the admission division in his office is fully attended by line prosecutors for the first time in eight years, a measure aimed at relieving a massive accumulation of judicial cases and addressing a “humanitarian crisis” in Harris County prison.

The changes in the admission division were part of Teare’s campaign promises in an effort to address a system in conflict in which prosecutors receive calls from police officers at the scene before presenting criminal charges.

“We are going to have real prosecutors to accept charges, advising the officers in the street what we most need so that we can shorten the provision of cases,” Teare said at a meeting last week.

Staff all the shifts of the admission division will help to ensure that the district prosecutor’s office is pursuing the appropriate charges against the alleged criminals, Teare said. It is also the first step to repair a relationship with the application of the law damaged by a process that continuously caused delays in the County Criminal Justice System, Teare argues.

He said that the admission unit staff with experienced prosecutors represents a marked gust, and arrives eight years after the restructuring of former Kim OG District prosecutor of the admission division.

Together with persistent personnel problems, the persistent persistent case portfolio is largely at the center of overcrowding within the Harris County prison. Addressing the personnel problems of the admission division, said Teare, will help release space in jail and relieve county expenses.

In an interview with Houston public media Last year, Teare said the OGG Division Restructuring effectively created a “call center”, where employees with little or no prosecution experience attributed police calls and presented charges.

“The system is effectively broken, it’s just a terrible model,” Teare said at that time.

The admission system began in 1972 as a result of the bad cases presented by the Police Department that was subsequently requested 30-90 days later, he said.

A seemingly soft cutting system stopped after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the problems in 2021. According to the case board of the District Prosecutor’s Office, more than 107,000 cases remain pending in the county.

OGG in 2022 pointed to the finger to the judges that, according to her, could do more to accelerate the completion of the cases and police departments that could deliver evidence, such as the cameras used in the body, more quickly to relieve the request for orders.

Murray Newman, a Houston -based criminal lawyer, said OGG also seemed more reluctant to dismiss or eliminate cases.

“It ends up being a problem that is aggravated because the more a firm negative to get rid of bad cases or be willing to reduce them in a way that can really make them work, the more they accumulate,” said Newman. “The more they accumulate, the more and more fiscal they are supported.”

Teare has adopted another approach, he said, referring to several positions that the district prosecutor has dismissed due to lack of evidence this year.

Last week, Teare promoted the case authorization rate of 180% of the office, which measures office efficiency by comparing the number of cases presented with the amount of cases deleted. That compares with the 82% rate under the previous administration at the beginning of last year.

“When you are less than 100 percent, you will continue arrears,” he said. “When you have more than 100 percent, you start cleaning cases. One of the reasons why that really matters is because we have a humanitarian crisis in jail. We have people who die in jail at a higher rate than any other county jail in the United States of America.”

‘A humanitarian crisis’

The Harris County prison has repeatedly failed the State Security Inspections as the installation dealt with persistent personnel problems and overcrowding. The County has invested millions of dollars in detainees of subcontracting of private facilities outside Harris County to relieve problems.

The county is on the way to spending more than $ 58 million in subcontracting of around 1,400 inmates this year, probably the most expensive invoice than the county continues.

Krishnaveni Gundu, executive director of the Texas prison project, said that the problem with jail is not the lack of beds: it is breach of the county with the mandatory relationship of the state of a detention officer for every 48 prisoners. Instead, the county has chosen to send the prisoners outside the State.

“The most surprising thing about its focus is that you are recognizing that there is a humanitarian crisis in jail,” Gundu said. “They are recognizing that the prosecutor’s office has a role in it is a big step forward.”

There were 9,178 prisoners in Harris County prison as of Monday. A total of 1,527 have been subcontracted to other prisons. The Harris County Sheriff’s office has reported five deaths in custody this year.

Devin Williams, a 55 -year -old man who faces a position of DWI, He died hours after entering the Joint Processing Center Earlier this month. It was reported three days after the Sheriff’s office confirmed The 23 -year -old inmate Eric JacksonHe was waiting for his acceptance at a drug treatment center, he died in Harris County prison. Dennis Brandl, an 83 -year -old man accused of shooting a person in Pasadena Memorial High School, died from natural causes After a medical emergency in jail, with the prosecutors who left the charges against him hours before his death.

“Many of these deaths are preventable, they would not happen in the free world,” Gundu said.

Newman said the county movement to outsource hundreds of prisoners outside the State also creates a significant communication barrier between imprisoned persons and their lawyers hired to represent them.

“Drawing communication between defense lawyers and their clients, which means that there is no free flow of information on how to get rid of these cases,” said Newman. “It’s a crisis. But I think it’s a crisis in which several agencies have to do their share to really relieve it.”

Harris County Commissioners earlier this month approved $ 3 million in expenses to hire 150 detention officers more and 25 deputies in a movement to relieve the requirements of mandatory extra hours in the chronically crowded jail and with little personal.

At the other end of the request for the request, county officials approved last year a comprehensive $ 10 million plan to maintain funds for the associated judge program. The commissioners expected the approval to rationalize the case management and expand the competition restoration program of the county prison.