Report Highlights Travis County Jail Racial Disparities

AUSTIN, TX — A local civil rights organization unveiled a study on Thursday showing dramatic racial disparities in the Travis County Jail in terms of booking and length of confinement.

Grassroots Leadership, a criminal justice and immigrant rights group in Austin, released its new report while calling on local officials to reduce incarceration rates and racial disparities. Drawn from 2015 jail data, the study shows "significant and persistent discrepancies" in booking and in the number of days spent in the Travis County Jail by people of color, particularly African Americans, as compared to whites. The data show African Americans experienced significantly longer periods of confinement in jail and were jailed at a much higher rate than white people, officials said.

Titled "Travis County Jail in 2015: Data points to racism and longer confinement of African Americans," the study was unveiled at a noon press conference staged Thursday in front of the Blackwell Thurmond Criminal Justice Center at 509th W. 11th St. The study's release was timed to coincide with the second anniversary of the death of Sandra Bland at the Waller County Jail in what began as a simple traffic stop.

The study's author, Chris Harris, said the data show African Americans spent an average of nearly two weeks more in jail compared to whites for bookings that included a felony charge. Findings also showed wide discrepancies for misdemeanor charges and when the disposition resulted in a personal recognizance bond.

The findings showed that African Americans experienced longer periods of confinement at the Travis County Jail despite representing less than 10 percent of the Travis County population in 2015. That year, the group represented just 8 percent of the Travis County population yet represented 22 percent of individuals booked into the Travis County Jail, the study found.

Black women booked into the Travis County Jail didn't far much better in terms of such disparity. Though black men face more disparate jail time, the disparity between black women and white women "...underscores the discriminatory treatment faced by blacks in Travis County," the study found.

The study also looked at jail time depending on the severity of crimes. In short, African American inmates spent more days in jail on average than whites when charged with offenses on the same level of severity, according to the study. For this analysis, the report focused on comparisons between bookings based on the "lead charge," or the most severe charge per booking.

Another section of the study centered on the holding of inmates prior to trial. Some of those detainees are held on Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers rather than being released until trial by a magistrate judge, according to the study.

"While local jails do incarcerate people convicted of crimes, as well as those with parole violations, bench warrants and Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers, the vast majority of people held in jails, including the Travis County Jail, are pre-trial defendants that have not been convicted of any charge for which they’re detained," the study reads. "In fact, from 1999 to 2014, 99% of the growth in jail populations nationally was due to jails housing more pre-trial “unconvicted” defendants. Despite this, the average time individuals were locked up in local jails rose by about 9 days between 1983 and 2013. Therefore, jails are holding people for longer lengths of time even though more of the jail population has not been convicted of a crime."

The specter of Senate Bill 4 signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott seeking to root out undocumented immigrants in readying them for deportation raises further concern among civil rights advocates as it relates to mass incarceration. Set to take effect Sept. 1, the new law allows police to check immigration status of those they encounter (during traffic stops, for instance), including campus police.

In a prepared statement, Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt reacted to the study while outlining a number of previous recommendations made by her office to mitigate the disproportionate aftermath in the meting out of justice.

"Travis County prides itself on being a progressive community, but we absolutely must explore the root causes of institutional racism when we seek to bring our community values to bear within our criminal justice system," Eckhardt said in an email to Patch. "We appreciate the work of Grassroots Leadership on this study and have been collaborating with the group throughout its process," she noted, ticking off the various actions taken by the county based on the group's recommendations:

• Providing alternatives to arrest via mobile crisis and homeless outreach and the new sobriety center, as well as use of cite-and-release for eligible offenses.
• Speeding up adjudication processes to reduce the jail population and ensure that people on the felony and mental health dockets are promptly brought before a magistrate.
• Expanding the capacity of Travis County’s pretrial diversion programs, which are already among the most robust in the state.

"Travis County welcomes and will continue to seek the aid and assistance of experts to help better understand and respond to the disparities that continue to exist within our criminal justice system," Eckhardt said.

Others involved in the areas of civil rights and immigrant advocacy responded to the study as well, as highlighted below.

Elizabeth Henneke, partner at Elizabeth A. Henneke Law: "The Grassroots report has revealed an underlying imbalance in our criminal justice system that every Austinite should be aware of and work to remedy. I look forward to working with criminal justice stakeholders in Travis County to address the issues raised by this report and hope that the rest of Texas will undertake similar reviews of their own system."

Fatima Mann, executive director at Counter Balance ATX: "Unfortunately, the data also clearly reflects that law enforcement, pre-trial services, and magistrates in Travis County genuinely believe its acceptable for people with more melanin than others to be detained at higher rates than their Euro-centric counterparts. If not then the numbers would reflect people off all races being detained for an equivalent amount of time for the same criminal charge.”

Alonzo Mendoza, United We Dream: “The root causes of arrest found in this report will be made worse by the racist SB 4 law passed during the legislative session, a law that forces local police to work as Donald Trump’s deportation agents and that enables racial profiling of all people of color by allowing police to ask for our papers. Now is a moment where we need bold action from our city and county officials to protect all their residents while resisting SB 4. It starts by reducing the criminalization and arrests in our communities.”

Douglas Smith, policy analyst at Texas Criminal Justice Coalition: “There are no good outcomes when people are held in jail awaiting trial. People receive no meaningful programming during the pretrial phase, leaving them worse off and more likely to be arrested again when they are released. Our current policies harm communities without improving public safety. Travis County must create more pretrial intervention programs with access to treatment and programming, recognizing that nearly everyone Travis County detains in jail will eventually be released back to the community.”

Meme Styles, president of Measure Austin: "There is no time better than now to act upon and to facilitate a change of policy and process. I am thankful for organizations like Grassroots Leadership who have the guts to shine a light on a sore that has infected our justice system and Measure Austin requests that this report is evaluated by the Mayors’ Task Force for its role in institutionalized racism in Austin."

The Travis County Jail at the time of the study was run under the stewardship of since-retired sheriff Greg Hamilton, who distinguished himself as an enthusiastic partner with ICE in detaining undocumented immigrants. Current Sheriff Sally Hernandez was elected to the position following Hamilton's decision not to run for another term.

To view the full Grassroots Leadership report, click here.

>>> Image credit: kazan.vperemen.com via Wikimedia Commons