County officials introduce new bail strategy
System recommends that low-risk individuals should be let out of jail on personal bonds
County officials tout their revamped strategy for deciding whether tens of thousands of individuals should be jailed before their criminal trials.
Harris County officials on Tuesday touted their revamped strategy for deciding whether tens-of-thousands of individuals should be jailed before their criminal trials, a process that critics and a federal judge say disproportionately affects the poor who are unable to come up with the money to make bail.
On July 29, the county plans to implement the “public safety assessment,” to grade individuals arrested in Harris County each year on their risk of re-offending, committing a violent crime or failing to show up for court.
The tool is intended to recommend to judges and hearing officers that low-risk individuals — both felony and misdemeanor — be let out of jail on personal bonds. Higher-risk individuals would be required to post bail according to an established bail schedule, as well as face additional supervision such as roundthe-clock monitoring or regular check-ins with probation officers.
“This is the biggest change in criminal justice reform that Harris County has ever seen,” said Kelvin Banks, the county’s director of pretrial services.
County officials made a presentation about the new initiative at Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law on Tuesday night.
The risk assessment tool targets a process that has become a lightning rod for controversy in recent months after a federal judge ruled in April that the county unconstitutionally jails those
arrested for misdemeanor crimes and are unable to pay money bail, a period when individuals still are legally presumed innocent.
Those with means can make bail and are let out of jail ahead of their trials, while the poor are kept behind bars, increasing chances of recidivism, disrupting family life and employment and costing taxpayers millions of dollars every year, according to studies.
Chief U.S. District Court Judge Lee Rosenthal directed the county in April to release misdemeanor defendants who do not have federal detainers, other holds or pending mental health competency hearings after 24 hours if they swear they cannot come up with money for bail.
According to county estimates, more than 2,000 people have been released under Rosenthal’s order.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court nixed an emergency county appeal to block Rosenthal’s order, which has been met with outcry from local officials who say the blanket release of nearly all misdemeanor defendants could threaten public safety.
The county is appealing the ruling.
The order stems from a federal civil rights lawsuit filed on behalf of Maranda ODonnell, a young mother who was held in the Harris County Jail because she could not afford to post $2,500 bail after being arrested for driving with a suspended license.
Rosenthal weighed in on the county’s new risk assessment tool earlier this month, writing that the new rules “do not change much.”
The system imposes a fee schedule ranging from $500 to $5,000 for misdemeanors and recommends up-front payment from most people.
“Like the old schedule … secured money bail is the standard recommendation for most categories of misdemeanor arrestees,” the judge wrote. “The approved changes are hardly different.”
Elizabeth Rossi, an attorney with Civil Rights Corps, said the risk assessment does not eliminate the use of a bail schedule, and despite its goal, will continue to ensure that those without means will be routinely jailed.
“It doesn’t solve the constitutional problem,” Rossi said.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis, who spoke at Tuesday’s presentation at TSU, called the risk assessment process a “positive step” but said judges and hearing officers rejected the old risk-assessment recommendations two thirds of the time.
The new risk assessment comes in conjunction with other initiatives by the county. Earlier this year, the county began placing public defenders at bail hearings, to provide information on defendants’ financial situations to hearing officers who set bail, with the goal of releasing those who cannot make bail, pose a low risk to society and have not been convicted of a crime. The county also has funded more than a dozen new positions for its pretrial services department.