While Bexar County jail officials have been hard at work to reduce the number of inmates at the jail, a new directive from the Executive Director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice may throw a wrench in that.
On Monday, Sheriff Javier Salazar, along with other sheriffs across the state, received a letter from the agency stating, in part, TDCJ would no longer accept inmates from county jails. The move, leaving inmates in a holding pattern — unable to be released and unable to be transferred to prison.
“At present there are 174 inmates sitting here at the Bexar County Jail who are ready to go to TDC,” Salazar said. “Those inmates have been sentenced, and they’re languishing here. The problem is we don’t know how long before they’er picked up and how many more will be added.”
Salazar and his administration have reduced jail population by more than 1,000 inmates in comparison to numbers reported to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards in early March. On Monday, of the some 3,000 inmates at the jail, the number of inmates awaiting transfer was 161. By Tuesday, the figure rose by more than a dozen inmates. Salazar said on any given week, between 50 and 80 inmates will leave the facility.
While TDCJ said it had stopped accepting inmates from the Bexar County late last week when the first inmate there tested positive for COVID-19, Salazar said the move could create a backup of inmates.
The letter from TDCJ, dated April 11, states, in part, that the agency will temporarily stop accepting inmates from county jails across the state to “limit the spread of the Coronavirus.” The virus has already infiltrated the TDCJ system. On Tuesday, the agency reported 236 inmates and 97 TDCJ employees had tested positive for COVID-19.
In response to the letter, County Judge Nelson Wolff on Monday fired off his own letter to the agency asking them to reconsider their intake policy.
“The state needs to step up and do what they're supposed to do and take them when they're eligible to be taken to the Texas Department of Corrections,” Wolff said during a daily briefing Monday.
In his letter, Wolff said he understands TDCJ’s concerns and efforts to mitigate further spread of the virus, but that the move had implications for the Bexar County Jail.
“Our inability to move out inmates also greatly hinders our ability to implement proven tactics to combat COVID-19,” Wolff wrote in his letter.
TDCJ’s executive director, Bryan Collier, told sheriffs across the state that they would “begin taking jail inmates when this situation stabilizes, and it is safe to do so.”
As of Tuesday night, the Bexar County Jail reported eight inmates had tested positive for COVID-19. Online records show Dallas County has 34 inmates positive for COVID-19, while Harris County has 48.