An inmate stands to the side as deputies walk by at the Bexar County Detention Center in May 2019. Texas policymakers should do more to reduce unnecessary incarceration while improving jail safety and accountability, a reader says.
Bob Owen/Staff photographer
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones speaks with community members at a town hall at Thomas Edison High School on July 29. Readers are split on Jones’ effort to seek a new election regarding the city’s contribution to a new Spurs arena. Some say it undermines Jones’ effort for economic development, while others say another vote is necessary.
Blaine Young/For the Express-News
Protect the vulnerable
Re: “When school officer got ‘riled up’ over defiant teen,” Front Page, Aug. 9:
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Thanks to the Express-News for the in-depth reporting on school policing and the need for jail reform (“County and city must partner to end crisis at jail,” Opinion, Aug. 9).
As a longtime reader, I found the article and editorial absorbing but also horrifying in the depictions of so much harm.
Each story represents the failure to protect the most vulnerable in our community and the critical need for compassionate reform.
As readers become more enlightened and knowledgeable about necessary reforms, hopefully, community leaders will recommend and implement important changes.
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Then the Express-News will report on the positive outcomes that result.
System reform overdue
Re: “Jailed to Death,” Editorial series:
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The recent spate of deaths in the Bexar County jail highlights major problems in Texas’ criminal justice system and the need for sweeping reform.
Tough-on-crime rhetoric is often misleading.
The state’s zeal for locking up people — including for nonviolent, low-level crimes like cannabis possession and consensual adult sex work — overcrowds jails and creates more problems than it solves. No democratic country on Earth incarcerates a larger percentage of its own residents than Texas, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.
Texas’ mass incarceration policies fall disproportionately and unfairly on men and minorities, often forcing prisoners to labor without pay in brutal heat. The system perpetuates cycles of poverty and costs Texas taxpayers billions of dollars annually.
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The Bexar County jail reforms under consideration are a start, but Texas policymakers should do more to reduce unnecessary incarceration while improving jail safety and accountability.
Steven Prohaska, Richmond
Change takes questioning
What if those who run and legislate our local jails embraced the Socratic spirit?
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Unexamined policies are not worth perpetuating. Real leadership requires the courage to challenge assumptions, scrutinize data and confront actual human consequences.
Above all, it requires a commitment to do no harm to those entrusted to public care. Also, to keep our institutions humane, those who hold power must cultivate a lifelong habit of self-scrutiny.
Wisdom in public service begins when we dare to question what we think we know.
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Undermining own efforts
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones campaigned on economic security, and she has governed on it visibly — a delegation of Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturers at the Pearl last August, a trade mission to Mexico City in December and a March trip to Taiwan, where her Economic Security Advisory Group met with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
So a fair question, as she campaigns to reopen the Spurs arena deal: Does she realize the audiences overlap?
The executives she pitched in Taipei and Mexico City can read San Antonio news. When a company weighs a nine-figure commitment to a city, it asks one question above all: When this city makes a deal, does the deal hold?
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San Antonio already has the deal every trade mission on Earth is chasing: a homegrown organization committing $500 million-plus in private capital downtown, covering cost overruns and negotiating a community benefits agreement.
The Spurs are not a prospect the mayor must court over dinners abroad. They put it in writing. The county voted. The City Council approved the term sheet.
Every week the mayor spends trying to unwind that deal answers that question in the worst possible way. She is undermining her own trade missions.
When the City Council meets Monday, it should decline her ballot proposal, finish the negotiations and ask the mayor’s office for a progress report on Taiwan.
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We would genuinely like to be impressed.
Charles Fuhrmann, Terrell Hills
Where is the confidence?
Re: “Time for Jones to go,” Your Turn, Wednesday:
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The letter writer says San Antonio has lost confidence in Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, but she’s only asking for issues to be put to a vote in San Antonio.
Those who oppose her effort say we don’t need a vote, which tells me that they have lost confidence in San Antonio.
So the solution is simple: Put the issues on the ballot and let San Antonio say who they have confidence in.
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Hold on to CPS Energy
It was with great dismay that I learned Gov. Greg Abbott hopes to get the Republican-led Texas Legislature in 2027 to make it possible for the state to destroy our publicly owned utilities.
Houston and Dallas have significantly higher rates with privately owned utilities.
We are a compassionate city with many individuals living in the lower middle class or poor range. We have the ability to help these individuals by giving extra when we pay our bills.
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We have no need for entrepreneurs to get rich off our need for energy and water.
Have a response? Send us a letter to the editor.