A Jeffersonian In East Texas

Smith County 2008 Jail Proposal Facts

The following list is a list of facts concerning the Smith county jail proposal.

• Commissioners decided to build a jail and offer two separate proposals on the same ballot. Both were soundly defeated.

• A third proposal was put before the public a year later, and is defeated even more soundly.

• A fourth proposal for an expandable version of the same facility is placed on the ballot for November 2008.

• During all of this time, the public has been told that the cost of housing an inmate in another county is a certain amount, when in fact, the amount only exceeded the cost of housing them in the current Smith county facility by a very small amount.

• The figures for projected needs are so skewed as to be unintelligible. We have been given two differing sets.

• In the years following the initial proposals, alternative programs have been so successful that a continuation of such programs will undoubtedly reduce the jails population to levels lower than the ordered mandate.

• Commissioners have stopped funding one such program, before it had time to succeed.

• Other programs of this type have been suggested, but not funded.

• The need for additional courts, to speed up the terminally slow pretrial process has been ignored.

• A state law allowing for ticketing for minor offenses has been systematically ignored.

• The cost to build such a facility will far exceed the cost presented to the public.

• The cost to run the facility will be an albatross around the collective necks of Smith citizens far into the future.

• These combined costs will exceed the current cost of shipping detainees to other counties far into the future.

• Building the jail will not solve the underlying problems.