Exceeding the maximum number of inmates raises the possibility of Dallas paying to house people accused of crimes in other counties \u2014 or even neighboring states.<\/p>\n
DALLAS \u2014 The Dallas County jail has more inmates than it is authorized to hold for the first time in nearly two decades, county leaders said Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hitting 100% capacity at the detention center raises the possibility that Dallas County will have to join other large urban counties in paying for other municipalities to house Dallas inmates at an increased cost to taxpayers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We are in crisis,” said Dallas County Criminal Justice Department Director Charlene Randolph on Tuesday. \u00a0“We are at 100 %. Our book-ins are at record levels.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
The midnight count was 7,124 inmates \u2014 20 more than the jail is currently authorized for, said Commissioner John Wiley Price during a public meeting.<\/p>\n
“We need to get those numbers down, and we\u2019re doing everything we can to do that,” County Judge Clay Jenkins told WFAA. “It\u2019s a very, very serious issue.” \u00a0<\/p>\n
While the county jail has frequently neared capacity levels, Jenkins said it has never been 100% full since he took office 15 years ago. He said Price told him it had not happened for nearly two decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jenkins said multiple factors are to blame \u2014 including hundreds of inmates languishing in the county jail while awaiting transfer to state custody and issues with the county’s jail management software.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re working with our judges and our clerks and everyone in the system to try to move people through the system faster,” he said. “What you don\u2019t want to do is turn away dangerous criminals; we\u2019re not going to do that. But we\u2019ve got to find a way to process out our misdemeanor cases faster.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said paying for other county jails in Texas \u2014 or perhaps even in other states \u2014 to house Dallas inmates will cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars a month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re the last ones, so there\u2019s not a lot of great options if we have to do that,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot said his office is monitoring jail capacity daily and is working with police agencies across the county to see if officers will ticket people for some offenses rather than bring them to be booked into jail.<\/p>\n
The Dallas County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to an after-hours inquiry about the capacity issues on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n