County leadership is aiming to expedite the transfer of inmates awaiting placement in a psychiatric hospital until fit to stand trial.
The longest a Bexar County inmate has had to wait for psychiatric placement as of Aug. 13 was 934 days — more than two and a half years.A sense of optimism was in the air earlier this month as Bexar County officialsThey estimated that the jail had about 250 vacancies as of August, causing the county to spend millions on overtime annually and leading to low morale among staff.
The jail, which has a capacity of 5,200, housed 4,154 people as of Aug. 13 — 230 of whom have been found incompetent for trial. Assuming the number of such inmates remains at about 230 for one year — though it spiked higher than 300 earlier this year — that additional burden would cost Bexar County nearly $21 million per year. Overtime expenses just for staffing in recent years have ranged from $2 million to $3.7 million.Nick Wagner / San Antonio Report
The new pay for deputies and policy adjustments won’t fix all the issues within the jail, Tooke said, but it’s a start. Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar enters the room for a press conference at the U.S. Attorney’s Office Western District of Texas in San Antonio in June.Inmates who have been found incompetent to stand trial are often the most vulnerable and also the most dangerous population, Sheriff Javier Salazar said“They’re not getting any better … they’re getting worse day by day,” Salazar said. “They’re assaulting deputies, assaulting each other and harming themselves.
If those inmates could more quickly be placed in a treatment facility, and if pay changes are successful in attracting and retaining deputies, Spangler said the county could eliminate forced overtime. That could also make working at the jail more attractive to job-seekers who desire some level of flexibility in their schedules.“They’re showing up to work and planning to go home for their anniversary dinner [or] take their daughter to volleyball practice,” Commissioner Grant Moody said.
“Regardless of what they’re there for, the fact of the matter is, they’re not being helped,” she said. “I think we’re very fortunate to have diversion programs, because if not, we would be in a worse situation.”been charged with violent felonies, according to numbers provided Greenfield-Laborde’s office.If all the jail beds are occupied by people accused of low-level nonviolent crimes, there wouldn’t be room for those accused of more serious violent crimes, he said.
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