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: Grits for Breakfast

Pretrial detention, unnecessary incarceration driving Texas jail overcrowding

By Gritsforbreakfast

The topic of the panel I presented on at yesterday's jail overcrowding symposium in San Antonio was "Who are in county jails and why?," and a significant part of my own presentation focused on excessive pretrial detention. I'm in the process of expanding this research into a longer, footnoted paper, but for now here are some excerpts on the subject:The biggest single reason for jail overcrowding: Put simply, more Texans are incarcerated pending trial, i.e., before they're convicted, than at any time in history. An analysis by Grits of data from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards found that despite declining crime over the same period, county jail populations increased 27% between 1995 and 2005. Almost all of that increase stemmed from more frequent detention of defendants before trial...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on February 08, 2008 (boomark / email).