Mano Amiga voices frustrations with new commission

On behalf of Mano Amiga, we are encouraged to see so many local officials embracing the rising push for criminal-justice reform – but a partisan vote on Tuesday to weaken those efforts was positively shameful.

As reported by the Daily Record, our county population has risen 16% over the past four years, yet our incarceration rate has needlessly soared by a shocking 82%.

Over that period, a body called the Hays County Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee was tasked with tackling the inefficiencies and injustices in our penal system, but in the words of Commissioner Debbie Gonzales Ingalsbe, who served on the committee, those efforts “went stale.”