At this moment, the Dallas County Jail population sits at 6,388. That’s about 500 more than this time last year and just before a summer spike sent county officials scrambling to look for other places to house inmates.
That costly move was averted, but this year the county may not be so lucky. As the thermometer rises so do inmate populations, and at this rate the jail could hit capacity by the end of the summer.
All of this would be troubling enough if it weren’t also largely preventable. What makes it worse is that some of those in the jail aren’t supposed to be there.
Big counties throughout Texas struggle with all sorts of unavoidable factors that drive up the jail population, like increases in mentally ill inmates and slow transfers to Texas prisons. But in Dallas County, a significant factor in the ongoing mayhem was one we should have avoided: the county’s bungled May 2023 conversion to new criminal case management software.
A recent newsroom investigation found that some inmates are essentially lost in the software system, lingering behind bars far longer than they should be, as a result of the poorly executed integration.
One inmate was recently awarded a $100,000 settlement from the county after he was kept locked up for nearly two months beyond his release date.
County officials have been saying for months that the software problems will soon be worked out. But many judges, lawyers and prosecutors who have been dealing with the chaos say they will believe it when they see it.
Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price’s frustration over the ongoing software mess was evident during the April 16 meeting of the Commissioners Court.
“Dadgummit, who is in charge?” asked Price, who was concerned about the county achieving a case clearance threshold by an Aug. 1 deadline or risk losing state funding. “Who’s driving this? We are in peril here.”
Commissioner Andrew Sommerman, who chairs the county’s Continuous Improvement Steering Committee, told us the software’s manufacturer has been pressed in the last week to provide much-needed, final tweaks. The county is now in the homestretch of solving its problems, he said.
“We’re almost around the corner and peeking out the other side,” he said.
Price, too, told us he’s now confident the glitches will soon be fixed. Still, there’s some hesitancy. Sommerman said “If this thing is not working by July 1, I will be losing my mind.”
That’s not all that would be lost. Too many inmates would continue to lose their freedom and Dallas County taxpayers could be on the hook for millions in fighting inmate lawsuits and securing outside jail beds. The time is up for the county to fix this mess.
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