In 2019, the annual cost of jailing in Hays County had skyrocketed 7,000% in just five years, and today the Sheriff’s office wants at least an additional $10 million –– let’s consider why there’s no money to address our unethical and terribly expensive mass-incarceration infatuation.
In the past six years, our county’s population has only increased roughly 25% while our jail population has exploded at closer to a 55% climb. We have invested in incarceration rather than representation, and we have gotten what we paid for.
For years, “indigent defense” spending for Texas counties –– the average amount spent on legal defense for the poor –– has been $10 per person. In 2017 and 2018, Hays spent only $5 per person. In 2019, we spent $7 per person; meanwhile the national average was $17 per person.
