The Dallas County jail is at 97% capacity, prompting county officials to release inmates early amid rising murders, auto thefts, and drug-related crime in Dallas.
Dallas has seen a significant uptick in drug-related offenses this year, as reported by The Dallas Express. Dallas is also seeing sharp increases in murders, auto thefts, and shoplifting.
Jail population manager LaShonda Jefferson said the jail currently has 6,631 inmates, as county officials blame the nearly overflowing jail on dysfunctional case management software.
During a Jail Population Committee meeting last week, officials cited the county criminal justice system’s new case management software as the source of ongoing dysfunction.
The jail population has been rising since the county switched to a new case management system called Odyssey, with inmates waiting longer to go before a judge, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Jefferson claimed that before the Odyssey system was adopted in May, the jail population was on the decline.
“Our book-in totals have remained fairly consistent over the last three years, yet the jail population has skyrocketed,” she said, per The Dallas Morning News. “So this appears to be indicative of internal processing shifts.”
Jefferson said the new software has had a “negative impact on our current business processes, and the reports that we’re used to utilizing to navigate the jail population are no longer accurate.”
County Clerk John Warren, who managed the transition to the new system, claimed that if stakeholders had been more involved in the process earlier on, these issues could have been resolved sooner.
The jail is now reportedly releasing inmates because prosecutors have not been able to bring cases before a grand jury by the state deadline of 90 days. If that deadline passes, inmates must be released on bond, per Texas law.
Dallas City Council Member Cara Mendelsohn, newly appointed chair of the Public Safety Committee, said she plans to request a briefing on this issue at the committee’s first meeting, scheduled for September 11.
Jefferson said that at least 25 inmates in the county jail had been incarcerated for more than 90 days without being indicted.
During a recent Commissioners Court meeting, Commissioner John Wiley Price said staff are searching for other locations to house inmates when the jail reaches capacity but have struggled to find available space.
The county spends an average of $12 million of taxpayer money per month running the jail. This July, the county spent $13.2 million on the jail’s operation — $585,000 more than last July. Contracting additional jail beds from another county would cost an additional $18 million, per the DMN.
Texas Commission on Jail Standards Executive Director Brandon Wood told the DMN that county jails throughout the state are reaching capacity and suffering from staffing shortages.
“You could have 100 empty beds, but if you don’t have the proper number of staff then they’re not actually operational,” he said, per the DMN. “It’s becoming much more difficult.”
Dallas County Administrator Darryl Martin suggested that commissioners prepare to sign a contract for additional beds at a second location. Tarrant and Harris counties already have such contracts in place.
“We’ll hold them so we have beds ready if we need it,” Martin said. “I’d hate to not have the beds in a crisis situation.”
Wood told the DMN he has convinced the state to take more Dallas inmates to alleviate the burden of the rising jail population. He said Dallas County is preparing these inmates to be “paper-ready” as soon as possible.
The Dallas Express contacted the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department for further information but received no response by press time.