Amid a rising dialog on diversion, Bexar County officers say conserving individuals out of jail will take greater than any single resolution — as a wide-ranging dialogue this week made clear there isn’t any single “silver bullet” for the area’s rising psychological well being and legal justice challenges.
Throughout a prolonged Commissioners Court docket briefing on Tuesday, county leaders pointed to years of funding in diversion and deflection applications designed to steer individuals away from jail and into remedy.
However in addition they highlighted persistent gaps — from expiring federal funding and underused remedy beds to delays within the reserving course of that proceed to restrict how far these methods can go.
“There is no such thing as a one constructing, nobody program. There is no such thing as a one shot silver bullet resolution. This can be a sophisticated multifaceted downside,” stated County Decide Peter Sakai. “It’s going to take collaboration, a coverage program, services … and a very good dialogue about the place can we go.”
The system in place
Diversion and deflection are sometimes used interchangeably, however county officers spent a lot of the briefing drawing a distinction.
By definition, deflection occurs earlier than an arrest, when regulation enforcement directs somebody in disaster to companies as a substitute of jail. Diversion occurs after an arrest, providing options like remedy or supervision as a substitute of continued incarceration.
Each are supposed to scale back jail populations and join individuals with care, significantly these scuffling with psychological sickness or substance use. County officers say these efforts are working, no less than partially.
Packages just like the Specialised Multidisciplinary Alternate Response Workforce, generally known as SMART — which pairs sheriff’s deputies with paramedics and psychological well being clinicians — responded to roughly 2,500 psychological well being calls final yr with out making arrests, stated Eric Epley, CEO of the Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council (STRAC), which leads the initiative.
Different initiatives, together with cite-and-release insurance policies and treatment-based applications, which have helped divert a whole lot of individuals from jail yearly.
Officers say these efforts have had a measurable impression, stopping the jail inhabitants from rising even bigger. In fiscal yr 2025, knowledge offered by county officers exhibits a mean jail inhabitants of 5,132 inmates, however officers say with out diversion and deflection initiatives the typical inhabitants might have reached 6,121 inmates that yr.
One of the crucial vital points is the county’s twin magistration system, the place some people are first processed by the town earlier than being transferred to the county jail to bear processing once more — a delay that may take six to eight hours in line with a research commissioned by the county.
Throughout that point, officers say, alternatives to divert people into remedy will be missed. A proposal for a joint city-county advert hoc committee to handle the necessity for a diversion middle and an answer to twin magistration has been shifting ahead via authorities channels in current months.
A feasibility research led by the area’s psychological well being authority, the Middle for Well being Care Providers, is underway forward of upcoming price range discussions for fiscal yr 2027.
Elsewhere within the county, on the Applewhite Restoration Middle, a campus designed to host a dual-diagnosis residential program that diverts individuals with substance use and psychological well being wants out of jail, there’s a newly-opened wing with 130 beds, however these beds have but to be stuffed.
A spot in funding for drugs has slowed the method and has left about 105 people who’re eligible for launch to Applewhite for remedy ready within the county jail, in line with Jarvis Anderson, director of the Bexar County Group Supervision and Corrections Division, who oversees the power.
County employees stated resolving the difficulty might price roughly $60,000 for the subsequent three months and would permit these people at present in jail to be transferred into remedy whereas a everlasting funding resolution with the state performs out. The ability is funded by the state however was constructed utilizing pandemic-era federal funding from the county.
That funding request is predicted to return to the commissioners courtroom in a future assembly from the county’s public well being division via its opioid settlement funds — roughly $14.5 million as part of nationwide authorized settlements with drug producers, distributors and retailers for his or her position within the decades-long opioid disaster throughout the U.S..
However the public well being division can even face its personal set of challenges within the coming years as a lot of the county’s funding in diversion and behavioral well being applications are within the division’s price range — roughly $45 million — and have been funded via federal American Rescue Plan Act {dollars} and opioid settlement funds. These funding streams are short-term, and officers acknowledged there isn’t any clear plan but to interchange them as soon as they’ve sundown.
“That’s at present underneath analysis,” Thomas Guerva, deputy county supervisor advised commissioners on Tuesday.
Mounting Pressures within the jail
Whereas officers centered closely on an outline of diversion, the dialogue was pushed by mounting strain contained in the jail system itself.
Bexar County has more and more relied on contracts with different counties to deal with inmates when native capability is strained. Final fiscal yr, the county spent $4 million housing inmates out of county and budgeted $4.5 million for the observe this yr.
Final month, sheriff’s workplace officers introduced ahead a request to launch a few of that funding out of the non-departmental budgetary funds, as Kerr County moved to extend its every day fee from $65 a day to $85 a day per inmate.
In Bexar County, what’s known as “paper-ready” inmates — these convicted and awaiting switch to the Texas Division of Legal Justice — are sometimes housed out of county whereas they wait, a course of that may take as much as 45 days with out state reimbursement.
Officers say the observe is changing into costlier and more durable to maintain as extra counties compete for restricted mattress house.
“We see counties get into bidding wars towards one another for these accessible beds,” stated Brandon Wooden, former government director of the Texas Fee on Jail Requirements. “The discount in extra capability throughout the state has lastly reached the purpose that you just can not merely simply decide up the cellphone and safe 500 beds with none subject.”
Precinct 3 Commissioner Grant Moody, who has criticized the observe, warned that reliance on exterior beds comes with a rising price ticket and dangers.
“In case you do discover them, there’s gonna be sufficient competitors that the value is gonna go up, which we simply noticed with Kerr County, “ he stated. “That’s should you’re fortunate, if not, and you’ll’t discover these beds after which you’ve a much bigger downside.”
Wooden cautions that these diversion methods alone is not going to be sufficient to offset long-term demand on the jail system. With Bexar County’s inhabitants projected to proceed rising within the coming many years, jail capability wants are anticipated to rise as properly — even when incarceration charges decline.
“Even if you’re doing all the pieces that it is advisable to do, you do should have a plan sooner or later sooner or later to offer that extra capability,” Wooden stated. “Guaranteeing that you’ve got correct house for these people that you just can not safely launch again out within the public is one thing that we’re burdened with.”
