Harris County to Move More Jail Detainees to Private Facilities in Louisiana

The local ABC affiliate in Houston reported this morning that the Harris County Commissioners Court will approve a measure to send more Harris County Jail detainees across state lines. The detainees will be housed in a private lockup in Louisiana.

The county already pays out millions of dollars a year to the center in Louisiana. Some 600 inmates were moved there because of overcrowding issues in the past.

We have reported recently why this is a bad public policy and negatively impacts communities in the Houston area.

It is clear that Harris County leadership focuses on expanding capacity, rather than alternatives to incarceration that would decrease the jail population. The Houston Chronicle is also reporting that the Commissioners Court will send as many as 1,130 jail detainees out of the state.

The choice of county officials to send jail detainees out of state is in response to chronic overcrowding. Voters did not approve bonding authority last Novemer that would expand the jail, in no doubt because of negative publicity that has surrounded the jail including escapes and horrible amount of deaths.

Yet, the county continues to rely on expanding capacity as a solution to jail crowding rather than alternatives. Harris County officials have received recommendations from multiple sources including our friend Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast and Mark Levin with the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation to no avail.

Grits states in his post today that the in order to change way the county does it's business there needs to a leadership change. Harris County residents will have an opportunity later this year to change leaders who contribute to those who enter the jail and for how long they stay.

But there is another issue in Harris County as well. Currently, there is no capacity in the area to counter jail officials and other leaders in their drive to increase jail capacity. Opposition to such policies has been found in the Chronicle editorials and the blog posts of criminal justice policy watchers - including this one.

But I know of no organized effort, currently underway, to engage public officials in a dialogue around jail capacity that would reduce their reliance on incarceration. Until one emerges, public officials -- old ones and new - will more likely to continue to rely on expanding capacity to solve crowding issues.