CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Nueces County Jail is making progress towards freeing up space.
The jail's capacity was at 104% during the COVID-19 pandemic, causing a need to move inmates to other Texas counties. Nueces County Sheriff J.C. Hooper said the capacity is now between 89-90 percent, but that's not including those other inmates.
The maximum capacity of the Nueces County Jail is 1,164 inmates. Hooper said we need to get the inmates back that are being housed in other counties because of the seven figure cost they bring.
"The county has had to spend over a million dollars to house our inmates elsewhere and so that's an ongoing issue that we're still dealing with," he said.
That cost is something J.C. Hooper said can be avoided if inmates can remain in the Nueces County Jail. But if the 40 inmates between Aransas and Victoria Counties were brought back today, capacity would rise to 94%--above the recommended amount to safely move inmates around.
"There's one inmate that's been in this jail almost six years, in a county jail, waiting for his day in court and there are significant violent offenders in this jail who have been here a long time," he said.
Sandra Watts is a retired judge from the 117th District Court. The senior judge was assigned by 347th District Court Judge Missy Medary to preside over the auxiliary docket, a rolling docket of 30 trial-ready cases between eight district courts. She said it is helping with an overflow of cases filling the jail.
"There has been a definite reduction as far as the cases going to trial and I think that with the help, the other courts are moving as well. So, everybody's gearing up," she said.
Watts said 130 cases were referred to her since she was appointed on October 1 last year. With each inmate costing at least $80 a day to house in the jail, her court is helping speed up the process to limit the costs to taxpayers.
"It moves them off the other judges' dockets so that they can tend to other cases in there. It's, it's just like having an, I'm an assistant to the other judges," she said.
Hooper said defense attorneys are now moving their clients through faster, since they know they will not have as much time before their case is heard.
"Their ability to spend, to do time served in the county jail is not going to, going to be there for them much longer cause the courts are moving again," he said.
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