With its jail population reaching 85% capacity, the Potter County Commissioners' Court unanimously approved a contract to house inmates with Deaf Smith County during its regular meeting Monday.
The agreement calls for Potter County to supply two personnel for each eight-hour shift and eight personnel per day when inmates are housed in Deaf Smith County. The county will also pay $60 per day for each inmate to the receiving county. The commissioners also agreed to similar arrangements with any other county they may arrange to house inmates in the future.
Potter County Sheriff Brian Thomas spoke about the agreement and the need for additional space for jail inmates.
“The jail is full and it has been for quite some time,” he said. “Texas Jail Standards says that we need to start looking for solutions when we hit 80% capacity, and we hit that number several months ago. We are at 85% now, and that counts the felonies and misdemeanors. That does not account for those in jail waiting to go to TDCJ (Texas Department of Criminal Justice).”
Thomas emphasized that reaching this occupancy level means Potter County must look for ways to ease jail overcrowding.
“We must stay on top of this, because a permanent solution is not imminent,” he said. “Even if we started building on the expansion of the jail today, it would still be two years down the road. This is not just a Potter County thing; every county in the state faces this issue. There is a detention center down by Garza that is completely full of only Tarrant and Harris County inmates."
He said that every county in Texas is being forced to farm out its inmates due to overcrowding and jail standards. Potter County already has a contract with Childress County to house inmates.
“We are just trying to get this set up, and this has to be approved by the Deaf Smith County Commissioners' Court,” Thomas said. “We are looking at inmates that are TDCJ bound to farm out. That way we do not have to bring them back to court, and when we move them, we want to make sure we do not have to bring them back. If we send inmates down awaiting trial, then we have to bring them back and forth.”
Thomas also stressed that they want to send inmates without health conditions, so there would not be a constant need to take them back and forth to the hospital. The department is also calling other counties to see where more space might be available. Death Smith County has two empty pods, but to use the empty pods, the Potter County Sheriff would have to staff both pods, which would create a strain on the department's personnel.
When asked about the county's progress on a long-term solution, Thomas said that he is in talks with the commissioners' court to add to the Potter County Jail, which would have space for 144 beds.
“If we can do that, we will have a lot of room to breathe,” he said. “Everybody says, why are you full? Well, it is not because we are just sitting there holding them, but because many are violent criminals. We have 47 people sitting in jail for murder, with the district attorney already moving 36. Each of those cases goes through weeks at a time. It is not that they are not moving cases; we are just having too much violent crime.”
Potter County Judge Nancy Tanner spoke about the jail situation that the county is faced with.
“The jail situation is dire at this moment,” she said. “We currently have 602 people in our jail with 47 currently charged with murder. We are overcrowded right now, so we have to facilitate agreements with other counties to alleviate that.”
Tanner said that while the district attorney's office is working as hard as it can, each of these trials takes time.
“I really do not understand what is going on with our city, county and country when it comes to crime,” she said. “When you have 47 people awaiting trial for murder with only five judges, it will take time."
According to Tanner, expanding the jail is one solution on the horizon that will have to be considered.
“We have the land available for a new jail pod, but the cost will be about $30 million,” Tanner said. “What do we do next is hard. We just got finished with the new court building with taxpayers' money, and to build a pod right now would be a bit of a stretch for the county. All counties are having this issue across the state.”
