SAN ANTONIO — Editor's note: The above video was originally published on May 6.
While the Bexar County Adult Detention Center continues to rein in an outbreak of coronavirus among its inmate population, the jail is contending with another issue: holding onto convicted offenders who should have vacated their cells by now.
At his daily briefing on the local coronavirus impact alongside Mayor Ron Nirenberg, County Judge Nelson Wolff said that, as of Monday, there were 216 "paper-ready inmates" that, in normal circumstances, would have been transferred to a prison by now, or else would be in the transfer.
But these aren't normal circumstances. About a month ago, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice told county jails it would put a hold on taking new inmates in order to limit the spread of the coronavirus, which had already gotten into the state prison system.
At the time, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said there were 174 inmates at the county jail waiting to head to prison, amid efforts by the county to reduce its inmate population. Now, that number is up to 216, and the total inmate population, according to Wolff, has reached 3,178 in a facility with a capacity of just over 5,100.
"That puts an additional burden on us that we shouldn't have," Wolff said Monday evening. "But it's typical of what the state does from time to time."
For context, the jail had more than 4,200 inmates at one point this year, according to a March report from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. A month later, as local stay-home orders were going into effect, that number had decreased by about 1,000.
It's unclear at this point when state prisons will resume processing new inmates from county jails.
Meanwhile, there have been only 13 newly confirmed cases of the coronavirus among the jail's inmates since May 5, after the first four days of the month saw officials report 165 diagnoses. In total, 307 inmates have tested positive for the virus.