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Adjunct professor presents data on rising pretrial rates; prosecutor says law changes are driving jail growth
Summary
Claudia Estravato presented data showing Potter County's share of pretrial inmates rose from 53% to 69%; the elected prosecutor responded that recent state law changes will increase pretrial holds and said the county is not detaining people solely because they are poor.
Claudia Estravato, an adjunct professor at West Texas A&M University, told the Potter County Commissioners Court the county's share of pretrial detainees has risen sharply and urged officials to consider risk-assessment tools to reduce low-risk pretrial detention.
"You will note that the Potter County percentages of pretrial inmates to total inmates has increased significantly from 53% ... to 69 percent," Estravato said, summarizing statistics prepared by her students for Potter, Randall and Lubbock counties. She said the data indicate pretrial detention is the primary driver of jail growth and urged the court and judges to study time-in-jail and consider validated risk-assessment tools for release decisions.
Later in the meeting the elected prosecutor for Potter County (role self-identified in the record) responded to the public comment. He acknowledged pressures on the jail and said recent legislative changes — including "Senate Bill 9 and SJR 5" — will increase the number of defendants held pretrial. He said the office processes roughly 3,500 felony cases a year and that the number of people held pretrial in any given day remains a small fraction of cases filed. "We're going to have a significant increase in jail population," the prosecutor said, adding the new statutes will require additional bond-review procedures and written findings in some cases.
The exchange combined an academic presentation of comparative county statistics and a legal/policy explanation from the prosecutor about why the county expects jail populations to rise. The court did not take a formal action on the public comment during the meeting; staff offered to provide additional breakdowns (for example, counts of assistant district attorneys across counties) to interested commissioners.
