Sierra Martin | Managing Editor

On Monday, March 22 Hays County held a virtual press conference to introduce the new Hays County jail dashboard. The dashboard features visual representations of data outlining jail population trends, bond amounts, charges, pretrial population, length of stay and more.

The county was prompted to create the dashboard in order to enhance the ability to look at the criminal justice system and monitor the growth or decline in the jail population. The dashboard is the result of a partnership between Hays County and the Vera Institute of Justice’s In Our Backyards initiative as part of their innovative Jail Population Project, which makes granular, real-time data about local jail populations more widely accessible, particularly in smaller cities and rural counties that are often left out of the national conversation about criminal justice reform.

The dashboard reveals data that speaks to racial and socioeconomic inequities in the justice system. Like most places across the country, the Hays County legal system disproportionately impacts Black people, who make up just 4.6% of the county population but 15.8% of the Hays County Jail population. While there is no information about the socioeconomic status of the people in jail, the impact of money bail speaks to the poverty of most justice system-involved people: 80% of people in the county jail are being held pretrial, most on bonds that are $25,000 or less.

Research shows that being detained for even a few days in jail has severe consequences and can undermine public safety since the experience of incarceration is so profoundly destabilizing for employment, housing, and families, and increases a person’s likelihood of future contact with the justice system.

Criminal Justice Analyst Samantha Jones talked about the collaborative effort it took to compile the data necessary to create the dashboard.

“The Hays County dashboard will enable a timely granular analysis of the Hays County jail population, furthering government accountability and transparency of the local justice system,” said Jones. “We now have the most accurate and reliable information that we can use to highlight important trends and expand our understanding of what’s happening, what’s possible, and how to incorporate best practices here in Hays County.”

According to the dashboard, as of March 21 the current jail population is 499, with 94% being held for a felony and 80% being held pretrial.

“Behind this data is a human cost,” said Commissioner Debbie Ingalsbe, Precinct 1. “We’ve only just started collecting the data, but it’s already raised important questions, and revealed opportunities for intervention. The dashboard enables us to view and analyze all available data so we can act faster, do better, and implement policy changes that ensure that individuals who shouldn’t be in jail, aren’t in jail. Unfortunately, in many of these cases, individuals require a different kind of support and services, and we need to make sure that’s available to them in the community. We will continue to work together to ensure that we are safeguarding people’s civil liberties and ensuring true public safety, for everyone in our community.”

The Policy Director for Mano Amiga, Eric Martinez, spoke about the recent improvements Hays County has made towards criminal justice reform.

“We’ve made significant progress, and I’m proud to say we are leaders in the state of Texas in many respects: being home to the first city to pass a cite-and-release ordinance, providing vital access to counsel for immigrants, and now partnering with Veera to create a publicly accessible jail dashboard to increased transparency, good governance and community engagement,” said Martinez.

According to Martinez, Mano Amiga has collaborated with The Bail Project to launch a community bail fund, which has helped post bail for more than 70 people in the past year. The bail fund focuses on helping people post bail who may not have the money, such as homeless people and college students. 

The dashboard further reveals that nearly eight percent of the jail population is being held on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), illustrating the overlap of the criminal legal and immigration systems. These data points highlight important questions about inequities in the justice system and opportunities for reform.

Cite-and-release is when a citation is issued to the defendant by the arresting officer stating that they must appear in court on a specific day. By following this ordinance, San Marcos is able to reduce the jail population and ultimately save money by not spending tax dollars on incarcerating individuals with minor offenses.

Commissioner Lon Shell discussed how understanding jail trends and interpreting the dashboard can help the county save money.

“We think the data is going to be extremely important to monitor some of those improvements that we’re making to our criminal justice system, we’ve made several improvements over the last year, I believe it’s going to be important to be able to look back and see trends to see if we are affecting things in the way that we want,” said Shell. “Our jail population is just one variable, but it’s a very important variable. It’s very expensive.”

The dashboard is refreshed every two weeks and will include Latinx incarceration data in the near future. As of March 21, the majority of the jail population is made up of white men aged 25 to 34 with a length of stay averaging from one to six months. The three most frequent charges include driving while intoxicated (DWI), assault and possession of a substance. 

The dashboard includes data from Oct. 29, 2020, to the present day. The county has published a guide to learn how to navigate the dashboard. 

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