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Senate committee advances SJR5 amid split testimony on preventive detention and jail impacts
Summary
The Senate Committee on Criminal Justice voted to report Senate Joint Resolution 5 to the full Senate after witnesses debated whether expanding preventive detention would improve public safety or lead to overdetention, higher county costs and increased custody deaths.
The Senate Committee on Criminal Justice voted to report Senate Joint Resolution 5 to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation after about three hours of testimony that split between public-safety advocates supporting the measure and civil-rights and jail-monitoring groups opposing it.
Nikki Presley, representing the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Right on Crime, urged support, saying the state’s pretrial system currently allows “high risk defendants who can afford bail [to] buy their freedom despite the public safety threat they pose,” and argued that judges should have discretion to detain dangerous defendants prior to trial.
Opponents — including staff from the ACLU of Texas, the Texas Civil Rights Project, the Texas Jail Project…
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