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John,
In case you missed it, today we released our latest report, Care Not Cages: Stop Racist Policing and Jailing in Harris County. The learnings from this report are something our communities have known: there are significant racial disparities in jails across the country, and Harris County is no exception.
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According to the report, in 2017 1 out of 5 people in Houston were Black , yet from March 2015 through March 2018, over 45% of the Harris County population was Black and served 51% of the nights in jail —that's over 3.9 million combined nights.
We also learned that the lead charge driving the most nights spent in the Harris County jail was possession of less than one gram of a controlled substance —the equivalent of a sugar packet.
Of the top charges involved in arrests and bookings into the Harris County Jail, two are associated with driving without proper documentation. Combined, Failure to Maintain Financial Responsibility (No insurance) and No Driver’s License charges were the most common charges among Harris County bookings over the studied period.
Based on these findings, we are calling on Houston and Harris County elected officials to immediately act on the following:
1.
Houston
Police
Department
eliminate
racial
profiling
and
unnecessary
searches.


2.
Harris
County
Commissioners
Court
immediately
prioritize
funding
pre-arrest
alternatives
to
incarceration
for
drug
possession.


3.
Harris
County
Criminal
Court
Judges
implement
a
policy
to
grant
automatic
personal
recognizance
bonds
to
all
defendants
charged
with
POCS
less than 1g.


4.
Harris
County
District
Attorney
stop
prosecuting
POCS less than 1g
cases.


5.
Harris
County
Sheriff’s
Office
increase
data
transparency,
accuracy
and
community
accessibility.


It's time for Harris County to stop wasting tax dollars arresting, incarcerating, and funneling people through the criminal court system. What we need instead is investment in community-based response to substance use and recovery rather than punishment. Our communities deserve better than this.At our press conference today, one of our community members and native Houstonian Darren Joseph shared his experience of being a student at Texas Southern University and being sent to jail for three days after his traffic ticket (failure to signal) led to a warrant for his arrest.
“When I got pulled over, the police officer told me that the car would be impounded—I asked if someone could take it, they told me no. After the three days I was in jail, the cost to get my car out was around $600. The warrant and traffic ticket in combination was close to another $400. I could not afford all of that along with my rent, my car note, paying for school out of pocket, and then on top of that, sitting in jail for three days. It felt like a violation. I felt like no one cared, especially those that have the power. It felt like they didn’t care about my life at all, and this happening more than once throughout my life has really been a burden. I really think something needs to change.”
It's stories like Darren's and stories like my own that ground me in this fight. People should not be targeted for the color of their skin, and elected officials must be held accountable by the people they represent.
If you're interested in getting involved, let me know. Together, we can continue fighting for a Houston that invests in our communities instead of incarcerating them.
To read the report, click on the image below or go to grassrootsleadership.org/carenotcages.
grassrootsleadership.org/carenotcages [grassrootsleadership.org/carenotcages]
In solidarity,
[[link removed]]
Dianna Williams
Houston Lead Field Organizer, Texas Advocates for Justice
Grassroots Leadership
3121 E 12th St.
Austin, TX 78702
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