Group coalescing despite discontent

After discussions and decisions regarding its name, its utility and its makeup, the Hays County Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission is still the focus of some discontent. 

Last week, the grassroots group Mano Amiga voiced concerns about the removal of Immigrant Legal Resource Center attorney Anita Gupta and former chief prosecutor Gary Cobb from the body. Gupta and Cobb were part of Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra’s criminal justice reform task force, which became the commission after a vote in commissioners court. This week, Hays County resident Dan Lyon spoke up about another aspect of the commission’s membership.

Lyon called the decision making behind approving the commission’s voting membership “appallingly bad judgment.” 

For two years, he said, he had spoken to the Hays County Commissioners Court about the inmate outsourcing and spending issues at the county jail, and after Becerra got elected, he said, “I thought that I was home free and that something of substance would finally be done.”

Instead, Lyon said, the officials who either caused or denied the problems at the jail are on the commission.

The commission’s voting membership comprises representatives chosen by the following agencies and organizations: Hays County Sheriff’s Office (both a law enforcement representative and a corrections representative), District Court, County Courts-at-Law, District Attorney, Community Supervision and Corrections Department (adult probation), District Clerk, County Clerk, Justices of the Peace, Constables, Information Technology, Juvenile Probation, Municipal Judges, the Hays County Bar Association, the local police departments (one representative for the collective group of departments operating in Hays County), Hill Country MHDD Center, the Central Texas Dispute Resolution Center, and one representative selected from social services agencies operating in Hays County (the task force had included a representative from the Hays Caldwell Women’s Center). In addition, Countywide Operations Criminal Justice Analyst Samantha Jones was named to the commission as a voting member. 

“I do have a novel idea: Judge Becerra, I believe you should appoint me to the task force. Because I am a citizen of Hays County, and a taxpayer, with no economic ties to county government or close personal relationships or friendships with anyone who works for the county,” he said. “This should be the standard for voting members of your task force.”

Putting county officials in charge of the commission is “quite frankly the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse,” he said, arguing that only Hays County residents should be allowed to have voting positions on the commission.

Inmate outsourcing is one of the issues that is being explored as the county moves to make criminal justice reforms. Each week in commissioners court, Becerra reads aloud a report from the Hays County Sheriff’s Office about the jail population, inmate outsourcing and the cost of that outsourcing. For the week of April 7-13, the jail’s daily average population was 513, with a peak of 529. That same week, the county outsourced an average of 186 male inmates and three female inmates at a cost of $64,428. The inmates were sent to Bell, Burnet, Caldwell, McLennan, Limestone and Walker counties.