Like many inmate facilities across Texas, the Hockley County Jail is dealing with a continued increase in numbers of inmate housing.
Hockley County currently has contracts with Hale, Yoakum, Garza, Lubbock and Terry County. One housing contract that has not been renewed recently is Bailey County, which was one of the highest rates Hockley was having to pay at the time.
Hale County is currently housing one inmate for Hockley which is Omar Soto-Chavira. Hockley County Sheriff Ray Scifres explained that Hale County’s sheriff reached out to house Soto-Chavira as Hockley or Lubbock County could not house him.
“Really we got together worked out the basic details and they sent their contracts over and the commission did their stuff,” said Scifres. “That’s basically how sheriff’s do their business, it is how can we help each other.”
The contract with Terry County has been in place since roughly 2009.The Yoakum County contract was put together around the same time as well.
“All of the contracts we have in place are all scheduled to be renewed in the coming months and they basically dictate what their rates are,” explained Scifres. “When they are calculating their rates there is a formula that we all have to go by.”
Scifres added they costs of housing inmates has increased everywhere. In addition to that, the longer an inmate stays in jail, the higher the price increases.
“We try to utilize bed spaces to the best of our ability to minimize costs, but a lot of it comes down to case movements and how quickly or slowly things are moving. Length of stay is everything for us,” said Scifres. “I have said this for years, but we have to battle that length of stay. We have the worst cases where you have capital murders that are going to be there for a while all the way down to a guy with class c misdemeanor who is in there for six to eight hours.”
Scifres explained that they want to hover near or under the 20 count, but they are currently twice that amount. That results in those contracts being signed by other counties being essential to Hockley County since inmates are staying longer.
“It is a space challenge,” said Scifres. “We have an old facility with limited space and we have outgrown that space. We need those partnerships to continue.”
Scifres praised his staff on the jail side for being efficient in working and communicating with the other jails. Additionally, the county tries to keep all inmates with special needs whether it be behavioral or in terms of medications.
“We try our best to have those accommodations here,” said Scifres. “There have been times where we have had to reach out to other jails because we have a case that we cannot handle. Possibly its because of the detainee’s mental health, medication or medical related or behavioral, it is just more than we can handle because we do not have the staff or facility to handle them.”
Currently, Lubbock County is housing one inmate for Hockley County in which they did a onefor one swap. That was done because Lubbock has the medical staff on site and number on staff for a behavioral issue which makes it safer for everyone.
Minus the one-for-one inmate swap, the country does not house for other counties.
When it comes to budget, Scifres explained that the detention side of the budget is the highest portion.
For most, payroll is the highest line item in any budget and Scifres added that out of county housing is the second biggest item.
Budgeting roughly $90,000 to feed inmates in house could be 150 to 180 meals a day. When Scifres entered his position, the estimated amount budgeted was $70,000.
“The cost of meals continues to go up with everything else and the number of population increasing adds to that count,” said Scifres.
The standard budget was $250,000 a year on out of county housing at one point, but that has jumped to roughly $538,000 on a $400,000 budget last year.
When the department came together and put together the budget, Scifres quickly noticed they were going to blow past that budgeted amount going into that next fiscal year.
“There comes a point where we have to look at costs and figure out how we are going to balance that out and make up the money that is not there,” explained Scifres. “We went into the budget hearings knowing that prices were going up and ended up exceeding the amount we projected that we thought was high enough to cover rising costs.”
Scifres is well aware that busting budgets is not an option with tax payers money.
“I have always been responsible with our income and try to do the best we can with what we have,” said Scifres. “This out of county housing line is the most we have every spent.”
There are outliers currently for Hockley County as multiple capitol murder inmates are awaiting trial. Scifres explained that those individuals will have to stay for a long period of time while cases are built and moving parts have to finalized.
“There are other instances such as someone sitting in jail for 180 days for less than a gram of a controlled substance is what I am more concerned about,” said Scifres.
Currently, the jail is housing a parole violator who has been sitting for roughly 180 days.
High inmate counts do not always remain high, but that can change quickly. Scifres has continued to work within his department to create a efficient process to aid the other departments.
“We work with everyone well,” said Scifres. “I just think there are some issues that are out of my control that we have to contend with. The out of county housing item is one of those.”
“I have never advocated for just opening the doors and letting people out of jail. That has never been a solution in my mind,” explained Scifres. “We are a holding facility and hold these detainees. We will assist in every way possible to ensure that justice is done.”