Leblanc-Jamison:\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s an alternative to jail for people who live with mental health or substance use issues, who get engaged with law enforcement and they have violated low-level events like criminal trespassing, and our laws have rules about that. And so, you lead law enforcement with no other option, but to bring them to jail.\u00a0<\/p>\n Other communities have options like diversion centers and they are therapeutic alternatives to jail, so that these individuals can voluntarily choose to go to them. They can make a choice: jail or diversion, and begin treatment at the right time. It avoids our sheriff having to run the largest mental health hospital in South Texas, that\u2019s what it will do.<\/p>\n Salazar:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m a fan of the concept. I can tell you at any given time we\u2019ve got several hundred people that don\u2019t need to be here. I\u2019m of the opinion that we don\u2019t necessarily need a new jail, we need to make better use of the jail space we have, and it starts with getting people out of here that don\u2019t need to be here.<\/p>\n Where is the current system breaking down and why are so many people with behavioral health needs still ending up in jail instead of care?<\/strong><\/p>\n Leblanc-Jamison:\u00a0<\/strong>Bexar County recently made decisions to remove CHCS from the assessment process at jail intake. We had an opportunity in the jail\u00a0 for us to assess individuals and authorize them for services in an outpatient setting. But Bexar County Commissioner\u2019s Court recently made that decision to stop that activity. Basically making the decision to keep everyone in jail.<\/p>\n One would really have to question their values at that point. Prior to Oct. 1, CHCS was present and we would make hundreds of recommendations for diversions and less than 100 would be approved, so it was already a broken system before Oct. 1. It\u2019s even more broken today, because no one is being diverted for treatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Very few individuals receive diversion. If you are eligible for a personal recognizance bond, you might get out. If not, you\u2019re kept in jail. It adds to the anxiety of those individuals living with mental health disorders while adding to the pressures that the sheriff\u2019s department has to manage, given the jail population.<\/p>\n What would a diversion center change inside the jail in terms of population pressure, medical strain and safety for staff and inmates?<\/strong><\/p>\n Salazar:\u00a0<\/strong>Once somebody enters the system and has been through the magistrate process, they\u2019re stuck in jail. And if we don\u2019t find out about their mental health needs until several days, weeks, maybe even months into their stay, it\u2019s a problem.<\/p>\n It\u2019s harder to undo what has already been done at that point. It just stands to reason that if you get a diversion point very early in that process, someone can say, \u2018This person doesn\u2019t have any business even being magistrated. Let\u2019s figure out a way to get them elsewhere.\u2019 Then they never enter the system in the first place\u00a0and we\u2019re able to make better use of that jail space that they would have occupied. Not only that but from a human rights perspective, we get these folks diverted off to something that\u2019s more appropriate to whatever their needs are.<\/p>\n For people who believe the answer to public safety is more arrests and longer jail time, what\u2019s your response?<\/strong><\/p>\n Leblanc-Jamison:\u00a0<\/strong>As a country, we have forced law enforcement to solve all of our issues every time there is someone out of sorts or not following the norms, we put it on law enforcement to solve it. That\u2019s unfair and they don\u2019t have all the resources to do that and locking them up in prison is not the answer, look at the state prison system. They have taken over our state hospital system because they\u2019re moving individuals out of our prisons into a hospital setting to try to restore their mental health.<\/p>\n Just the data alone shows that this has not worked for us, and we need to assist law enforcement by identifying those individuals that need treatment and get them into treatment and not relying on law enforcement to solve all of it. Which they are not hired or trained to solve it\u2019s not fair. It\u2019s time for us to embrace it and get over the stigma and create systems and access to care so people can get the treatment that they deserve.<\/p>\n Salazar:<\/strong> The people that say, \u2018I want to be tough on crime,\u2019 forget that this is not a prison. This is a jail. It\u2019s temporary housing, a temporary stop off point.<\/p>\n Bexar County has been accused of being soft on crime for some time but if that were the case, our jail wouldn\u2019t be busting at the seams right now. We wouldn\u2019t be housing out in two additional county jails in the state while looking for a third and probably a fourth at some point if we don\u2019t change the way we\u2019re doing things.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a matter of being tough or not tough on crime, It\u2019s working smarter with the resources we have in front of us. If the only tool you have in your toolbox is a hammer, then pretty soon the entire world begins to look like a nail.<\/p>\n I know, that sounds very kitschy to say, but it\u2019s the truth. You\u2019ve got to have more than one approach, locking everybody up and throwing away the key doesn\u2019t work.\u00a0<\/p>\n For example, getting to the root of why a person is doing what they do? Oh maybe, they\u2019re a veteran with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and they\u2019re off their meds. Well, then there\u2019s a better way of handling that individual than just locking them up and throwing the key away. <\/p>\n If we keep warehousing human beings, like we\u2019re forced to do, because there\u2019s few options then, yeah, bad things are going to happen. Your suicides are going to go up, your medical incidents are gonna go up or you can get smarter on things and realize that jail is not the most appropriate setting for everybody and better outcomes will start happening for us.<\/p>\n What would be the biggest challenge, risk or mistake you could see with this approach?<\/strong><\/p>\n Leblanc-Jamison:\u00a0<\/strong>Not investing in it would be the biggest mistake.<\/p>\n Salazar:<\/strong> The risk is to keep doing what we\u2019re doing and not changing anything. We got a jail again that\u2019s bursting at the seams. Every commissioner\u2019s court meeting there\u2019s always talk of either overtime or the cost to house out inmates in other jails, and I\u2019m sitting here saying, \u2018both of those things would go away if we would stop relying on the jail to fix all of society\u2019s issues.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Bexar County\u2019s jail population continues to strain under the weight of untreated mental illness and substance use,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":575300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,7288,130190,5310,4219,151921,249765,210,176886,517,32921,7202,7203,97974,49502,358,3187,7815,7593,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7594],"class_list":["post-575299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-america","tag-bexar-county","tag-center-for-health-care-services","tag-city-council","tag-crime","tag-diversion","tag-diversion-center","tag-health","tag-jelynne-leblanc-jamison","tag-mental-health","tag-qa","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-sheriff-javier-salazar","tag-teri-castillo","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-typedaily","tag-typefeature","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-wc-1000-1500"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Jelynne_LeBlanc-_Jamison_Terri_Castillo_Misty_Spears_Diversion_CCR_1.20.2026_Diego_Medel-2.jpg\")
The Center for Health Care Services President and CEO Jelynne LeBlanc-Jamison speaks at a press conference following the City Council Public Safety Committee meeting Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. Credit: Diego Medel \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sheriff_Javier_Salazar_BCSO_09.09.2025_Diego-Medel-2.jpg\")
Sheriff Javier Salazar speaks a press conferece at the Bexar County Sheriffs Office headquarters on Sept. 9, 2025. Credit: Diego Medel \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n