Basic Facts

  
  • Texas counties pay approximately 85% of the costs to provide indigent defense services to local defendants in need, while the state pays the remaining 15%1– a heavy burden on counties. Texas is one of only 18 states that requires counties to provide the majority of funding for such services; on the other hand, 32 states’ public defense systems are either 100% state-funded (26 states) or majority state-funded (6 states).2
  • On average, urban counties spend approximately 14% of their budgets on jails; rural counties spend roughly 11%.3
  • Texas has 241 county jails and 5 for-profit privately operated detention facilities.4
  • More than half of the men and women imprisoned in Texas’ county jails have not been convicted of the offense for which they were arrested.5 These 35,000 individuals are still awaiting trial. At an average cost of $63 per person per day,6 our current system is costing taxpayers more than $2 million daily.

1 “Overview,” 2010, p. 2; available at http://www.courts.state.tx.us/tfi d/ebookhousecrim051310/Overview.pdf [“Texas Expenditures”]: “In FY 2009 county indigent defense expenses totaled $186,382,932.” See also: “The state provided funding for $28,453,983” (15% of expenditures).

2 “Overview,” 2010, p. 5; available at http://www.courts.state.tx.us/tfi d/ebookhousecrim051310/Overview.pdf [“Texas Expenditures”]: “In FY 2009 county indigent defense expenses totaled $186,382,932.” See also: “The state provided funding for $28,453,983” (15% of expenditures).

3 Brandon Wood, Assistant Director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) and Diana Spiller, Research Specialist for TCJS, in email correspondence to Sarah V. Carswell, Policy Researcher for TCJC, Nov. 30, 2011. Data available upon request.

4 Brandon Wood, Assistant Director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS), in email correspondence to Sarah V. Carswell, Policy Researcher for TCJC, Apr. 19, 2012. Data available upon request.

5 Texas Commission on Jail Standards, “Texas County Jail Population,” June 1, 2012; see pretrial data across categories, totaling 36,796 of 64,366 inmates (57%).

6 Brandon Wood, Assistant Director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS), and Diana Spiller, Research Specialist for TCJS, in email correspondence to Sarah V. Carswell, Policy Researcher for TCJC, Nov. 2011. Data available upon request.