Commissioners to vote on new pretrial office May 4

If you’re ever arrested in El Paso County, the process of getting you out of jail might become a lot easier and faster, and taxpayers won’t have to foot the bill for your unexpected stay if they approve the idea in just 10 days.

On May 4, El Paso County Commissioners will vote on what’s been called the “pretrial services department.” It would officially be called the Office of Criminal Justice Coordination.

Those in favor of creating it say it’ll save you money by getting low risk offenders out of jail faster and making the entire arrest process more efficient.

“This program has not been reformed in over 40 years,” said County Commissioner Vince Perez, who came up with the idea to create a pretrial services department. “it’s long overdue. We have waited long enough. The time for action is now.”

But some, including attorney Stephanie Townsend Allala, representing the professional bondsmen of El Paso, believe they need more time to consider the costs.

“I worry about a governmental entity that wants to move forward without data, without knowledge and without knowing how it’s really going to affect people,” Allala said.

County Commissioner Andrew Haggerty said: “It’s past due, we need to do it. My fear is we don’t have the numbers yet. We don’t know how much a director is going to cost. We don’t know where we’re going to set up the department.”

Perez said 72 percent of the people who were in jail in El Paso County last year were awaiting their first court appearance. The average wait was about 45 days and that can cost up to $100 a day per prisoner. Pretrial services would separate them into low-risk and high-risk. Low-risk would be released more quickly and it would allow the judge to have much more information about high-risk offenders before they are released.

“Many of the individuals who are sitting in jail are low risk offenders and we just need to improve the way we process them in and out of the jail,” Perez said.

District Attorney Jaime Esparza added: “We make those decisions now, but I think with pretrial services we’re going to be able to make those decisions in a more systematic way.”

Esparza said he’s seen pretrial services work well in other counties.

“I’ve been to travis county to see what they do and they have pretrial services and they have a 24-7 magistrate and it works.”

In his presentation, Perez outlined a tight timeline to get this program established before budget hearings in the summer. Most employees would come from other departments, but a director would need to be hired.