Low level offenders contribute to overcrowding in Texas jails

By Preston Sabetpour, Preston.Sabetpour@ttu.edu

The Lone Star State’s prison system has been growing at an alarming rate, with West Texas and Panhandle counties experiencing the brunt of the overcrowding crisis.

According to the Justice Policy Institute, since 1990, Texas has consistently led the U.S. in prison population growth, adding more inmates than any other state. 

With an annual growth rate of 11.8%, Texas has seen its inmate population expand at nearly twice the national average of 6.1%. In fact, nearly 18% of all new prisoners in the United States have been incarcerated in Texas, a trend that has fueled overcrowding in state-run facilities, county jails, and detention centers across the state.

According to the Texas Crime Analysis, 86.4% of criminals in the Texas prison system were nonviolent offenders as of 2016. Many are serving time for low-level offenses, such as drug-related crimes, theft, and probation violations. With limited efforts to address the root causes of these offenses, like addiction or poverty, these individuals often cycle in and out of the system, exacerbating the strain on local jails.

This growing prison population has placed immense pressure on already limited resources. The Texas Commission on Jail Standards reports that it costs $60.12 per day to house an inmate in a county jail. In smaller, rural counties such as those in West Texas and the Panhandle, housing pretrial misdemeanor offenders, the total number of prisoners means an escalated cost of $69,000 per day or over $25 million annually. These figures don't even account for the rising felony offenders, who also add to the strain on local budgets.

West Texas counties with smaller budgets than their metropolitan counterparts are feeling this pressure most, with the economic cost of incarceration weighing heavily on local communities. 

The combined budget between the Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office and Detention Center is $63.1 million. Instead of restricting the influx of nonviolent offenders and reducing an overflowing population, Sheriff Kelly Rowe has proposed a $464 million expansion to the jail – which will only exacerbate the increasing tax burden on the community.

This comes after Lubbock County already spent $94.5 million in taxpayer bonds building a new jail in 2010, according to Prison Policy Initiative. 

The county’s precious prison space is 76% occupied by pretrial detainees, as of January 2024, and exactly one-tenth of those in jail are being held pretrial for misdemeanor charges.

Since the construction of the new jail in 2010, the total amount spent on jail construction and expansion has surpassed $550 million, an almost 400% increase, according to Prison Policy Initiative.

As Texas grapples with the growing crisis, the question remains: How much longer can these counties sustain a system that is bursting at the seams, both in cost and capacity?