Texas lawmakers plan to address a number of criminal justice issues this year. One of the issues on their agenda is reforming the state’s bail system. Pretrial detention is intended to serve the purpose of ensuring that defendants who are at risk for harming others or failing to show up to court. Unfortunately, the current system detains thousands of people each day who do not create either of those risks for the simple reason that they cannot post the bond or pay a bail bondsman to post it for them.

The statistics are staggering. Three out of every four people incarcerated in county jails in Texas have not yet been convicted of a crime. This means that only one in four Texas county jail inmates is in jail because they were convicted of a crime. Texas taxpayers spend about a billion dollars per year keeping people in jail who do not need to be there.

While pretrial detention is vital for individuals who are likely to harm people or flee while they await trial, unnecessary detention has harsh consequences for those who are detained, and for their families. Employers cannot wait indefinitely for their employees to return to work, so many people who are detained eventually lose their jobs. Without income from employment, these individuals often face other hardships like loss of their housing. Their families struggle to stay afloat financially while they are behind bars, and even more importantly, their families struggle to function as they wait for them to come home. The stress and strain that come with trying to free an incarcerated family member without adequate financial resources take a huge toll on families, and some marriages and families crumble under the pressure.

Bail reform in Texas is likely to involve developing more accurate risk assessment procedures aimed at accurately predicting which arrestees pose a threat to public safety or a flight risk and assigning bail accordingly. While it is not expected that the state will do away with cash bail entirely like California and New Jersey have, it is possible that bail reform could eliminate the need for a cash payment by low-risk arrestees. A bill containing better risk assessment measures and a reformed cash bail strategy passed in the Texas House last year, but it failed in the Senate. Lawmakers do not plan to let that defeat end their efforts to rework the state’s pretrial detention system. Instead, they plan to try again and keep on trying until Texas’s badly broken bail system receives the repairs that it needs.

When you are charged with a crime in Texas, time is of the essence. Locate a skilled Texas criminal law attorney right away because your rights are at stake. Your attorney can develop a strong defense strategy that will address your charges and pursue an outcome that protects the things that are most important to you. Call Texas Criminal Defense Attorney Alex Tyra today, at (903) 753-7499, or fill out a contact form on our website.