Not quite drivers licenses, exactly, but close enough. A Dallas Democrat has teamed up with two powerful Republicans to craft a compromise version of a bill that would give immigrants here illegally the ability to drive legally in Texas and obtain insurance – but only after they submit to a criminal background check, fingerprinting and [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Adrian Garcia’
The next step to closing the city jail
The sobering center was Step 1. Step 2 is a joint processing center with the county, and that is now closer to happening. With backing from the city of Houston, Harris County is reviving a long-discussed plan to build a facility to process inmates into the county jail, and to offer the mental health services [...]
Treating rather than jailing the mentally ill
Very good news. Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia and his medical staff wholeheartedly support a bill filed this week to reduce recidivism by the mentally ill who wind up in the county jail, a $5 million pilot program to transition them into community treatment facilities. “These individuals are principally in our custody because they are [...]
Report recommends against privatizing the Harris County jail
Very good news. Privatizing the Harris County jail would be risky and may not result in savings, according to an internal county memo recommending that Commissioners Court keep the state’s largest lockup in Sheriff Adrian Garcia’s hands. The confidential Feb. 11 memo, obtained by the Houston Chronicle, comes after more than a year of study [...]
Jail privatization update
Grits, from about two weeks ago: In a conference call last week with investors (see the transcript), Corrections Corporation of America said it expects to find out by next spring whether they will receive a contract to operate the Harris County Jail. Said President and CEO David Hininger: The final update I wanted to give [...]
Precinct data: County Commissioner precincts
I wish they called County Commissioner precincts by some other name, because it’s confusing to refer to them as such when one is discussing canvass data, which is data from the thousand-plus voting precincts in Harris County. But that’s the name we’re stuck with, so make sure the clutch on your context-shifter is in good [...]
What I’ll be looking for tonight
Just a reminder that I’ll be on KPFT tonight starting at 7 PM to talk about the elections. Here’s a preview of the things I’ll be looking for: 1. SD10 – Sen. Wendy Davis vs Mark Shelton: Easily the most important race on the ballot in Texas. Davis has been a progressive champion and a [...]
Strip club cash in the Sheriff’s race
The waning days of a campaign always have the greatest potential for hijinx. A $25,000 political contribution from the owner of a strip club being sued by Harris County lawyers found its way, via the Harris County Deputies Organization, into the campaign coffers of the man challenging Sheriff Adrian Garcia in November, according to campaign [...]
All the interviews for 2012
As we begin early voting for the November election, here are all the interviews I conducted for candidates who are on the ballot as well as for the referenda. These include interviews that were done for the primary as well as the ones done after the primary. I hope you found them useful. Senate: Paul [...]
30 Day finance reports, Harris County candidates
Here’s a look at the 30 day campaign finance reports for Harris County candidates. All reports can be found by going to the Harris County Clerk campaign finance reports page. Candidate Office Raised Spent Loans Cash ========================================================== Garcia Sheriff 192,670 120,957 0 388,197 Guthrie Sheriff 158,700 48,633 171,000 98,152 Alessi Sheriff 1,019 2,007 700 1,719 [...]
Endorsement watch: The other easy call
The Chron makes a ringing endorsement of Sheriff Adrian Garcia for re-election. In the 2008 elections, Adrian Garcia received more votes than any other candidate in Harris County. His record in office merits a similar outcome in 2012. With Garcia as sheriff, a $56 million budget overrun has become a $3 million surplus, overcrowded jails [...]
The Sheriff’s Crisis Intervention team
It’s a really good idea. Crisis intervention teams, tagged to respond to calls involving mentally disturbed subjects, reflect a new wave of law enforcement thinking pioneered by the Memphis, Tenn., Police Department in the 1980s. Such efforts have received renewed attention after a Houston police officer last week fatally shot a mentally ill double-amputee who [...]
Fall interview season begins tomorrow
I know that we just finished the primary runoffs, but we’re also now more than halfway through August, so it’s time to start doing interviews with candidates for the fall. I’ll be up candid, I don’t know exactly how many interviews I plan to do. For the most part, I don’t anticipate re-interviewing candidates that [...]
Democratic results, Harris County
The good: – Lane Lewis won a full term as HCDP Chair by a 55-45 margin. If you heard a whizzing noise this evening, it was the bullet we all dodged in this race. – Sheriff Adrian Garcia easily won renomination with over 70% of the vote. – State Reps. Garnet Coleman and Borris Miles [...]
Endorsement watch: Sheriffs
The Chron endorses Sheriff Adrian Garcia for renomination. When the incumbent took over four years ago, he faced a particularly daunting job. The sheriff’s office had been plagued by a series of controversies ranging from federal investigation of prisoner deaths in Harris County jails to legal battles about unjustified arrests. Newly elected Sheriff Adrian Garcia [...]
The Sheriff’s office is hiring
Good. Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia says by balancing his department’s $392 million budget, he’ll be able to transfer 100 deputies from jail duties to crime-fighting jobs in the next year while hiring hundreds of new civilian jailers. During a news conference Monday, Garcia said when he took office in January 2009 the department was [...]
Better budget news
For the city. The city of Houston may have $21 million more in income in the coming fiscal year than it had planned on before Wednesday. That’s when it got the news that the Harris County Appraisal District projects that taxable values in the city — and by extension, the amount of taxes it collects [...]
Interview with Sheriff Adrian Garcia
Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia was elected in 2008 with the highest vote total of any candidate on the ballot. He inherited an office that was tainted by the scandals of his long-term predecessor, a jail system that was overcrowded, understaffed, unsafe, unsanitary, and under the spotlight of federal and state inspectors, a hiring freeze [...]
More on disciplining deputies
Here’s another long Chron story about disciplinary statistics for Harris County Sheriff’s deputies. Reading through it, I felt like there was some context missing. A Houston Chronicle review of disciplinary records indicates that from 2008 through 2010, more than 200 jail employees were disciplined for various offenses, some serious and others minor. Last year, the [...]
January finance reports: Harris County
January is a very busy month for campaign finance reports, since they are due for all levels of government. I’ve been busy updating the 2012 Primary Election pages for Harris County and elsewhere in Texas with reports as I can find them. Here’s an overview of some races of interest in Harris County. I’ll have [...]
Sullivan says he’ll step down if he wins primary
He’s hoping to defuse a campaign issue. Houston City Councilman Mike Sullivan will submit his resignation in July if he wins the Republican nomination for Harris County tax assessor-collector in April’s primary, he said. The resignation would not be effective until January, when he would be sworn in as tax assessor if he wins the [...]
Fewer inmate deaths
More good news for the Sheriff’s office. The number of inmates who have died while in Harris County detention has plummeted during the last three years, a decline that Sheriff Adrian Garcia described as “deeply satisfying” but could not explain. Three county prisoners died last year, down from 11 in 2010, and 16 in 2009, [...]
Inmate outsourcing on the way out
This is unequivocally good news. Dropping inmate numbers at the Harris County Jail will let the county end its nearly 5-year-old practice of shipping overflow inmates to Louisiana and other Texas counties within days, Sheriff Adrian Garcia said this week. The jail population has fallen 31 percent since 2008, to 8,573 inmates. The jail has [...]
Murder by numbers
There were a lot fewer murders committed in Houston last year than in recent years. HPD recorded 195 murders for the year as of Friday, a 27.5 percent decrease from the previous year’s total of 269. The preliminary figure doesn’t yet include the death of a 27-year-old woman who police believe was killed in her [...]
More on Lykos versus the cops
Here’s another Chron story about the recent dust-up between Harris County DA Pat Lykos and six Harris County police groups that don’t like her policy that trace amounts of crack will not be prosecuted as felonies. Two points that are worth highlighting from the story: State District Judge Michael McSpadden has presided over Houston’s criminal [...]
Disciplining deputies
The Chron has a long story about the disciplinary issues at the Sheriff’s Department. A Houston Chronicle review of Sheriff’s Office discipline reports from 2007 to August provides a sobering look into a department plagued by deputies, jailers and civilians accused of violating laws they are charged to enforce and breaking department policies more than [...]
Still cleaning up Tommy Thomas’ mess
Some stains take a long time to scrub out. The U.S. Justice Department is proceeding with an investigation of Harris County sheriff’s operations, after county leaders refused to enter into a civil rights settlement with the government or hire an independent monitor. The investigation was sparked by the discovery of emails from sheriff’s commanders – [...]
There’s an app for reporting crimes
From the Chron’s Newswatch blog: The Harris County Sheriff’s Office and Sheriff Adrian Garcia has launched a series of free smartphone apps that will allow residents to report any crime tips or suspicious activities by sending text messages, emails, photos and video attachments. It’s called iWatchHarrisCounty and is part of the department’s “If You See [...]
A better way for law enforcement to deal with the mentally ill
Good. Three Harris County Sheriff’s deputies will have new partners riding shotgun soon, if county officials approve a pilot program pairing them with mental health workers to deal with mentally disturbed suspects. Sheriff Adrian Garcia said he wants to treat the mentally ill, not jail them. “This will help keep those in crisis from becoming [...]
More ankle monitors
Harris County will try using ankle monitors on some inmates as a way of reducing the jail population. The program, approved unanimously by Commissioners Court last week, is the county’s latest stab at thinning the jail population. As of Wednesday, the county had 9,850 inmates, including 978 being held in other Texas counties or in [...]