by BRAD ROLLINS
More than a month ago, a majority of the Hays County Commissioners Court welcomed a landmark study that found the county won’t need nearly as many jail beds in the next decade as once thought.
MGT of America, a consulting firm that specializes in criminal justice system planning, said its comprehensive assessment examined every aspect of the county’s law enforcement and courts system including tracking each person who entered and exited the system for a two year period. It recommended reforms ranging from an increase in pretrial diversion programs to a standardized bail rate schedule to electronic monitoring for people on probation.
The upshot was simpler: The county won’t have to put up many more prisoners than it already does, the firm’s forecasters said, with a projected average daily jail population of 323 in 2020. In practical terms, that means the county can renovate and expand its existing 362-bed Uhland Road jail and avoid building a costly new facility.
But when the court considered voting to accept the consultants’ report last week, County Judge Elizabeth Sumter and Pct. 4 Commissioner Karen Ford had a message: Not so fast.
“I think the report is incomplete,” Sumter said. “I think the statistics they used were not standard … and I think the assumption that the crime rate is going to decline is not an assumption based on fact.”
Sumter and Ford indicated they could not get over the wide gap between MGT’s jail population projects and those in a 2007 assessment conducted by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. That study, often cited by Sumter and Sheriff Tommy Ratliff in arguing for a new jail, said Hays County would need 720 beds by 2020 and 956 by 2026.
“The numbers still do not make sense to me,” Ford said in the ensuing discussion.
Alan Pollock, an MGT senior partner, said the TCJS study used an anticipated 40 percent population growth rate in its projections, which far exceeds the upper range of expectations from the Texas Data Center and other demographers. In addition, the TCJS study found in 2006 the county had an incarceration rate of 2.16 inmates for every 1,000 residents, well below the state average at the time of 2.63 inmates per 1,000 people. Yet the agency used higher incarceration rates ranging to 2.4 inmates per 1,000 in figuring the county’s future jail bed needs.
Pct. 2 Commissioner Jeff Barton, who initiated the MGT assessment and oversaw its completion, said the newer study is a more thorough examination of the criminal justice system and should be given more weight by decision makers because of its scope. The TCJS report topped out at six pages in length compared to the voluminous MGT study.
“For me, this is a case of being afraid of good news,” Barton said. When Ford said she wanted to delay approval of the MGT report for further study, Barton said, “When you don’t get an answer that you want, you want another report.”
Ford eventually voted to accept the MGT study, joining a 4-1 majority with Sumter voting in opposition. Barton, Ford and commissioners Will Conley and Debbie Gonzales Ingalsbe voted to accept the report’s findings although they all added that acceptance does not mean the county is locked into accepting any of its recommendations.
