Full opinion text
MEMORANDUM AND OPINION CARL O. BUE, Jr., District Judge. I. INTRODUCTION Severe and inhumane overcrowding of inmates presently exists at Harris County detention facilities. This overcrowding occurs in violation of the law and according to the record costs the taxpayers of Harris County over $1,500,000 annually in unnecessary detention. The Court here takes an initial step to stimulate efforts to remedy overcrowding by promulgating in this Order broad guidelines within which defendants are to maintain an administrative mechanism designed to reduce the inmate population at these facilities. Such maintenance will be coordinated with efforts to streamline the criminal justice system and will be conducted in consonance with the following adjustments to the administration of the Harris County Pre-Trial Release Program: operational control of the Harris County Pre-Trial Release Agency will be transferred to the state District Judges of Harris County; an objective point system of evaluation designed by the District Judges will be utilized in determining eligibility for pretrial release; and coordination efforts will be made with City of Houston officials to install a branch office of the Pre-Trial Release Agency in the Houston Municipal Courts Building and interview space for the agency in the Houston City Jail. Defendants will additionally take appropriate steps immediately to improve living conditions for those who must remain incarcerated in county detention facilities. The factors which prompted this Court to order the above changes are hereafter set out in detail. To provide the necessary perspective, the Court prefaces its statement of findings with a brief recitation of the background of this lawsuit and the evidence upon which the findings are based. II. BACKGROUND OF THIS ORDER Plaintiffs filed suit in this Court on August 14, 1972, against members of the Harris County Commissioners Court (“Commissioners Court”) and the Harris County Sheriff’s Department, alleging numerous violations of their constitutional and statutory rights as the result of defendants’ operation and maintenance of county detention facilities. A. The Consent Judgment and the May 1 Plan On February 4, 1975, counsel signed, and this Court approved, a Consent Judgment by which defendants generally agreed to bring presently existing facilities and operations into compliance with federal and state standards. See U.S. Const. Amends. I, V, VI, VIII, XIV; Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5115. Pursuant to the requirements of the Consent Judgment, the defendants have submitted periodic reports on current conditions and future proposals for improvement of the county detention facilities, including a plan submitted on May 1, 1975, (“May 1 Plan”) by the defendant Harris County Commissioners Court for construction and renovation of those facilities. To implement this plan, the Commissioners Court scheduled a bond election to be held on Saturday, September 27, 1975, and included a proposal on the ballot to approve the raising of bond revenues in the amount of $15,000,000, the figure projected by the Commissioners Court to represent the total dollar expenditure necessary for the Plan. B. The September 16 Hearing and Jail Tour In August, 1975, plaintiffs filed a motion for supplemental relief under the Consent Judgment contending that defendants’ submitted proposals were not satisfying the tenor or substance of the Consent Judgment. Plaintiffs seriously challenged the integrity of both the total cost estimate and architectural soundness of the May 1 Plan. From the skeletal outline of jail administration provided in information then available, the Court recognized that multiple, interrelated factors contributed to overcrowding and substandard conditions at the jail, and that defendants’ efforts should be measured with full appreciation of these factors. However, the Court realized that its ability to evaluate the appropriate breadth and depth of these factors was hampered by lack of data. The Court did not have sufficient evidence to ascertain whether defendants were complying fully with the mandate of the Consent Judgment. Accordingly, on August 29, 1975, the Court ordered a hearing to be held on September 16, 1975, to permit the Court: to assess existing conditions at county detention facilities and the causes for those conditions, and to assess defendants’ efforts to remedy those conditions since the entry of the Consent Judgment. See Order of the Court (August 29, 1975). Commencing September 16, the Court heard extensive testimony on a variety of related subjects for six days. Then, on September 24, 1975, the Court toured the subject detention facilities, as well as the downtown detention facility of the City of Houston. C. Results of the September 16 Hearing: The Need to Correct Problems in “Stages” As this Court recognized in its August 29 Order, complex interrelated factors combine to affect adversely the quality of life for jail inmates. Only an integrated, stage-by-stage approach can combat effectively this combined force and reverse the present trend of deterioration. The Court will therefore address the focal problem of overcrowding in “stages”. Defendants’ efforts at each stage will establish a base upon which to administer those programs in a continuing fashion while providing the foundation for efforts at the next higher stage. The stage-by-stage approach is also the most feasible alternative from an economic standpoint. Stated simply, it does not make good business sense to build or renovate a detention facility at this stage until it is known how many inmates necessarily must be housed. This cannot be intelligently known until a sound Pre-Trial Release Program and related operational procedures have been fashioned, placed in operation and then accurately evaluated in terms of projected jail population. As local government officials in other metropolitan areas have discovered, spending additional money on pre-trial release procedures to reduce the jail population during these early stages produces substantial savings in construction and maintenance costs for physical facilities and in housing costs for the inmate population. D. The First Judicial Stage: Propriety of the May 1 Plan Because of the impending September 27 bond election, the first such judicial “stage” — whether defendants properly evaluated the construction and renovation needs of the detention facilities— was quickly reached by the Court after the conclusion of the hearing. On September 25, 1975, this Court entered an Order which described the shortcomings and overall unacceptability of the May 1 Plan: the Plan did not comport with the Consent Judgment nor the requirements of applicable law; the Plan was incomplete, and many proposed changes lacked definitive architectural design; the Plan’s cost estimate did not properly reflect the impact of inflation on such an estimate over the life of the building project, approximately four to five years; and even adopting the most optimistic view of inflationary trends, the estimated total cost of the Plan — $15,-000,000 — was inadequate to fund construction of a facility capable of fulfilling the bare essential needs of the projected number of inmates and those charged with the responsibility for housing them. Thus, to ensure that Harris County voters were adequately informed in advance of the Plan’s shortcomings, this Court ruled that the Plan was inadequate both as to estimated total cost and overall design. A properly constituted and administered bond election was thereafter conducted on September 27, 1975, and the electorate authorized the expenditure of $15,000,000 for jail construction and renovation. This money is currently viewed as a downpayment for facilities to be built from plans to be drawn up and submitted by defendants to this Court for approval at a later stage. III. PRESENT AND FUTURE JUDICIAL STAGES A. The Second Judicial Stage This second Order in a series of orders about the jails will concentrate upon improving the operation of the Pre-Trial Release Program,. streamlining other criminal justice procedures and improving the deplorable conditions in county detention facilities, especially at the downtown jail. In this second judicial stage, the Court will recite hereafter in this Opinion findings of fact based on evidence introduced at the September 16 hearing and then state conclusions of law as to: (a) the standards to which defendants’ remedial efforts must conform; and (b) the duties and responsibilities the defendants have for proper maintenance and operation of county detention facilities. Finally, the Court will order defendants to remedy certain problems and institute procedures to decrease the jail population while improving the quality of jail life. Thereafter, in appendices which follow the Order, the Court will point up as a consequence of the evidence forthcoming at the September 16 hearing several means of implementing these guidelines to illustrate potential alternative approaches aimed at alleviating the multiple problems at the jails. B. The Third Judicial Stage The third judicial stage for bringing operation of the jails into compliance with the law will be considered at an appropriate time after six months have elapsed from the date of this Order, thereby giving this Court the benefit of the total results achieved by defendants during the second judicial stage. During this third stage, a second hearing will be conducted at which this Court will hear evidence on the following subjects: (a) the level of performance of the Pre-Trial Release Agency in reducing the jail population; (b) the extent to which' changes in the criminal justice system have shortened the average time of disposition of cases involving incarcerated defendants, thereby decreasing population levels in the jails; (c) whether defendants have improved living conditions in county detention facilities to an acceptable level; and (d) changes in state and federal law, including revisions proposed by the newly-created Texas Commission on Jail Standards. Based upon the evidence adduced at this hearing, the Court will then determine the following: (a) whether the jail population has been reduced successfully so as to require only renovation of existing facilities and construction of additional housing capacity on the same site; (b) whether, if the jail population has not been significantly reduced, renovation and additional construction must take place including construction or purchase of additional facilities elsewhere in the county; (c) whether, once an appropriate renovation and construction plan for completion of such project is ascertainable from the evidence, a definitive timetable can be set up promptly for designing and constructing such installations including a consideration of all factors bearing on maximum use of public funds, such as competitive bidding, etc.; (d) whether, regardless of population reductions achieved, jail conditions have been improved in strict compliance with the instant Order. Should the jails be found to be operated in continued violation of state and federal law and the Consent Judgment, the Court will not hesitate to give serious consideration to adopting an entirely different course of action previously employed by other federal district courts whereby local jails have been ordered closed as of a fixed future date. See Rhem v. Malcolm, 377 F.Supp. 995, 999-1000 (S.D.N.Y), aff’d, 507 F.2d 333 (2d Cir. 1974); Inmates of Suffolk County v. Eisenstadt, 360 F.Supp. 676, 691 (D.Mass.1973), aff’d, 494 F.2d 1196 (1st Cir. 1974). IV. FINDINGS OF FACT A. Introduction: Jail Population 1. Jail conditions in Harris County, which all concerned concede have long been deplorable and inhumane, have now deteriorated to such a degree that a massive crisis exists. Presently existing facilities are designed to hold approximately 1,150 inmates; over 2,500 inmates were incarcerated as of the commencement of the September 16 hearing. 2. In September of 1974, the Harris County Jail and Rehabilitation Center, with a population of 2,039, represented some of the most dire and inhumane conditions in correction facilities across the United States. 3. With the jail population at this level, the National Clearinghouse for Criminal Justice Planning and Architecture for the Federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) in late 1974 studied the corrections problem in Harris County in detail and, in early 1975, submitted a study which is entitled Harris County Corrections Plan (“Clearinghouse Study”). The Commissioners Court indicated to this Court that this study was to form the nucleus of plans to bring jail facilities into compliance with state and federal constitutional standards. 4. The Clearinghouse Study accurately analyzed the problem of corrections in Harris County as one which exists on three levels: (1) physical conditions at the jail, (2) movement of an inmate through the criminal justice system and (3) fiscal resources of the criminal justice system. The physical environment was described generally as deteriorated, overcrowded and poorly designed. The criminal justice system was criticized for incarcerating pre-trial detainees for up to six months prior to trial and for failing to utilize effectively alternatives to pretrial detention such as release on recognizance programs (ROR). Finally the Study emphasized that many of the problems associated with the shortcomings described above resulted directly from failure to finance adequately those agencies involved in criminal justice in Harris County. 5. The jail population is exploding. Four hundred more persons, or an increase of 19 percent from 2,104 to 2,506, have been incarcerated in the first eight months of 1975 as of the date of the September 16 hearing, and the population is expected to exceed 2,650 inmates by the end of the year. By 1980, the population is projected to exceed 6,400 inmates if current factors remain constant. Of the over 2,500 inmates currently incarcerated, more than 1,700 are pre-trial detainees not yet convicted of any crime. The remaining 800 inmates are a combination of federal prisoners being held for federal trial or transfer to a federal prison, state prisoners convicted of a crime and pending appeal or awaiting transfer to the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC), and various other detainees serving county sentences or being held at the request of other authorities, such as the military or hospital authorities. B. Jail Conditions 6. • Average living space per inmate is 20 square feet. As of September 16, more than 500 inmates had no bed on which to sleep. Other inmates slept on “beds” such as table tops and attached benches. Many inmates occupy cells in numbers that are twice the intended capacity. An intolerable stench pervades the atmosphere at the downtown detention facility. No adequate ventilation or heating exists, nor is there a sufficient number of fans to circulate air properly. As a result, the air is stagnant and geometrically magnifies existing outside temperature conditions: in summer, the heat and humidity are stifling; in winter, the cold is all-pervasive, especially since many inmates must sleep on floor mattresses or on the concrete floor itself. 1. The mentally ill are incarcerated without access to any special facilities or treatment or even to dayrooms. They are never properly treated. Trained personnel are not available, nor are any trained to care for mentally ill inmates. Inmates who are in withdrawal from narcotics or alcohol also lack proper care and treatment. According to one of the supervisors in the Sheriff’s Department, incarceration of these inmates at the County Jail contributes to substantial medical and security problems within the jail and is counter-productive to their proper rehabilitation. 8. An insufficient number of guards and staff work in the jails. The present ratio is one jail guard for every thirty inmates. Violent attacks consistently occur between inmates because the lack of an adequate staff has fostered the growth of inmate “goon squads”. Frequently, inmates are tortured by fellow inmates through the use of electric razors and other devices, as well as by sheer physical force. Homosexual assaults and rapes are not uncommon. Training of guards and staff is grossly inadequate to provide for the security, protection and safe treatment of the inmates. The impact of inadequately trained, understaffed personnel is also reflected in other ways. Classification of inmates is haphazardly, and often inaccurately, accomplished. Frequently, proper classification is not possible because a lack of adequate funding precludes using more than one officer for interviewing inmates. Thus, such inmates as those with a history of criminal activity, mental illness or homosexuality are often not properly segregated from other inmates. 9. No sufficient recreation time is available either to male or female inmates at the downtown jail. Male inmates are not allowed any outdoor recreation time at all, while female inmates are permitted only one hour of outdoor activity per week. This activity takes place on the roof of the downtown facility. It is conducted at such a time of day and upon such a reflective surface that an inmate must spend most of the one hour’s time adjusting to the extreme glare. Only one hour per week recreation time is afforded to inmates housed at the Rehabilitation Center. Funding for the expansion of the outdoor recreation program there has been refused. 10. Vocational training and the availability of educational programs have been shown to be highly productive, at least as sources of daytime activity. However, funding for existing vocation and education programs has been denied. Financial assistance for teaching tools and equipment to permit volunteer teachers from local educational institutions to continue programs established by private initiative has been refused. 11. Proper housing and feeding of inmates are not possible because of overcrowded and deteriorated facilities. Proper sanitation is not observed because of the infrequency of thorough cleaning of cells and dayroom areas and the failure to provide a sufficient amount of clean clothing. Inmates are required to eat in their cells, or wherever they sleep, and the introduction of food into the living quarters enhances introduction of bacteria and other unsanitary elements such as roaches and rats into such quarters. 12. Insufficient space is available at the detention facilities for visitation of an inmate by counsel, family or friends. No weekday visitation by family and friends is permitted at the downtown facility because of space limitation. 13. There are no fire escapes at either facility. 14. Adequate medical treatment is not available at the jails, especially at the downtown facility. No screening process presently exists which promptly detects and dictates the need for isolation of those inmates with communicable diseases. Insufficient facilities and personnel are available for the treatment of common ailments or relatively minor ills. C. Overcrowding 1. Introduction 15. The above recitation of jail conditions merely highlights and does not exhaustively catalog the many and varied conditions at the detention facilities which degrade and dehumanize even those persons who voluntarily tour the facilities briefly, as did this Court. Service for almost every basic human need is at a premium, and no description of conditions by this Court can adequately describe the unavoidable combined sensations of fear, insecurity and tension that overwhelm an inmate. Attending to one’s basic needs as an inmate in the County Jail is a constant struggle day and night, unabated by those infrequent periods when one is able to attempt to sleep. The Court emphasizes the humiliating aspects of an inmate’s existence to demonstrate that no one factor produces these conditions. Nevertheless, a primary source is readily recognized: overcrowding. This factor must be carefully analyzed because it too has many intertwined component parts. The Court will focus on two main components: length of time to trial; and administration in keeping track of an inmate before trial. 2. The Criminal Justice System a. Incarceration — Length of Stay 16. From the time of his first incarceration, an accused felon is likely to spend an average of at least four months in jail before his case comes to trial. The evidence adduced at the hearing establishes the following general timetable in the state district courts during a pretrial detainee’s average 120-day stay in jail: Length Event Cycle of Time (a) Time from arrest to 40 days Indictment (b) Transmission of indictment to courts for docketing 3 days (c) Time from receipt of indictment to docketing date for arraignment and appointment of counsel 7 days (d) Total time from arrest to appointment of counsel 50 days (e) Time from appointment of counsel to disposition of case 69 days TOTAL TIME FROM ARREST TO DISPOSITION 119 days 17. Defendants against whom charges are filed and whose cases are later dismissed remain in jail longer than those persons who are tried and convicted because of the length of time now required to process the paperwork once the case is dismissed. 18. The defendant Commissioners Court is responsible for funding the agencies which comprise the criminal justice system. 19. The daily cost to the taxpayers of Harris County of operating and maintaining county detention facilities and feeding, clothing and keeping track of inmates housed therein is $7.27 per inmate. 20. The above table shows that cases are disposed of within 69 days after counsel is appointed. This interval is very close to the 60-day minimum amount of time necessary to process a criminal case judiciously and fairly once counsel is appointed. Sixty days represents a break-even point between prompt disposition and fair disposition. The achievement of any time saving which accrues before this deadline is outweighed by the danger to the public interest which might occur if persons were convicted or acquitted for lack of adequate preparation. The evidence adduced at the hearing from participants in the criminal justice system who represent differing points of view demonstrates that sound judicial economies and the interests of justice for all parties concerned therefore compel acceptance of 60 days as the absolute minimum time after arraignment before trial can be had. 21. However, no compelling reasons support the pendency of the 50-day average delay from arrest to date of arraignment. Rather, this first delay, which comprises 42 percent (50 days out of 120) of all time that a pre-trial detainee must spend in jail before coming to trial, results solely from the delays encountered by the District Attorney’s Office in processing and presenting to a grand jury for indictment the enormous number of criminal cases filed in Harris County criminal courts every year. In processing these cases during the indictment stage, the District Attorney shows no preference for “jail” cases, i. e., those cases in which the accused is incarcerated until trial. As of now, counsel is not appointed until the date of arraignment. 22. All persons who testified criticized this delay in the appointment of counsel. The District Court Manager, a Justice of the Peace, a state District Judge and a professional bail bondsman all agreed that prompt appointment of counsel within 24 hours of arrest is essential to speeding the judicial process. Representation by counsel is the determining factor to a bail bondsman who analyzes the risk of forfeiture posed by a defendant. This representation is what assures a court that a defendant has proper notice of the time to appear. 23. Prompt appointment of counsel has the following salutary effects which can produce significant reductions in the rate and length of incarceration. First, counsel’s critical evaluation of the charges pending against an accused can lead to a waiver of indictment, if appropriate. Second, if counsel can review and cogently represent his incarcerated client, a court might reduce or eliminate a money bond, permitting the client to be released from incarceration pending trial. Third, a realistic appraisal by counsel of charges pending against his client enhances the possibility that no trial (and no intermediate incarceration) will be necessary. That is, counsel may suggest that his client plead guilty, if appropriate; or, counsel may be able to convince the prosecution that no case should be brought. Fourth, counsel may request an examining trial before a magistrate so that a determination can be made as to whether probable cause exists to merit further prosecution of the case. A case lacking in probable cause can possibly be screened out by this process, resulting in a dismissal within a relatively short time after arrest. Regardless of which of these variables pertains in a particular case, a basic fact acknowledged by all participants in the criminal justice system, especially the members of the judiciary in Harris County, is that the prompt entrance of counsel in a case significantly increases movement of the case forward to ultimate disposition. The accused are frequently ignorant of their legal rights and unaware of the steps which must be taken to trigger prompt processing of the case pending against them. It must also be recognized that courts are more readily able to communicate with attorneys than prisoners and are more likely to rely upon the representations of an attorney in deciding whether to release a defendant pending trial or to dismiss the charges against him. 24. The courts in Harris County presently are working at maximum capacity to try “jail” cases. Jail cases are being given preferential settings and treatment at the time of arraignment and thereafter. Additional courts can be especially effective in reducing the backlog of cases now waiting to be tried, thus diminishing the average time from arrest to trial. 25. In Harris County, this maxim has proved true through prior experience with so-called “annex courts”. These courts are special temporary creatures of the Texas Criminal Justice Council, a state agency to which first resort is had for their creation and funding. Annex courts may be utilized with two different kinds of dockets — a “trial docket” consisting of cases which cannot be tried in the originating court and a “jail docket” consisting only of cases involving those incarcerated persons awaiting trial. 26. Of the two docket formats, use of annex courts as “jail docket” courts works more effectively to reduce the average length of time from arrest to disposition. Annex courts are currently needed in Harris County to alleviate the backlog under which regular district courts must now function. Such courts must carry “jail dockets” to have immediate effect on the level of the inmate population. 27. Even with the creation of these annex courts, their potential for reducing the average length of time to disposition will not be translated into an actual reduction unless cases are ready for disposition in a shorter period of time. That is, unless counsel is appointed immediately and the case is placed on a docket, all expected gains from an increase in the number of courts will not be forthcoming. b. Keeping Track of an Inmate 28. Eighty percent of all persons who become inmates at the Harris County Jail are arrested by a City of Houston police officer for a crime allegedly committed within the Houston city limits. Such persons are first taken to the City Jail at 61 Riesner Street for booking. The remaining inmates housed in Harris County are either county prisoners, county detainees, or prisoners being held over at the request of other jurisdictions. There are five different municipal police jurisdictions within the City of Houston. A recitation of the many administrative tasks which are now being performed to keep track of an inmate while he or she is incarcerated illustrates several of the factors which affect the length of a pre-trial detainee’s stay in jail. (1) Booking and Processing at the City Jail 29. Upon arrival at the City Jail, an arrested person is taken to the booking area. Charges are filed by the arresting officer, the person is placed in custody, and a cursory check is made to ascertain whether the person needs emergency medical treatment. While the arrestee is at the booking area, various information about him is recorded in the police “blotter”. The person is then photographed, searched, and his property is checked and placed in a safe. 30. The person, now an inmate, is then taken to the fourth floor for further processing unless an investigation is to be conducted. At the fourth floor, the inmate is officially booked, i. e., his photograph is taken for a “mug shot”, and he is fingerprinted. Much of the same information previously recorded at the booking area is transcribed again on various forms used by city police officials. A check is made with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to determine whether the inmate has a prior criminal record or whether any charges or detainers are presently outstanding against him. The inmate is then taken to a cell to await further processing. He has free access to a telephone to make telephone calls while he is in “hold”. Posted prominently next to each telephone unit is a listing of telephone numbers of numerous commercial bail bondsmen but no such listing for the Pre-Trial Release Agency. If the inmate is not needed for interrogation as part of an investigation, he will complete processing within forty-five minutes to one hour after first arriving at the City Jail. (2) Processing at the District Attorney’s Intake Office 31. Simultaneously with the booking procedure, processing is taking place in another building. The arresting officer goes to the Intake Office at the City Jail established for the District Attorney. At that office, which is now located in a warehouse a few yards from the City Jail and which is scheduled to move into the new Municipal Courts Building soon to open, a decision is made whether the case should be prosecuted. The arresting officer fills out forms describing the nature of the offense and the subject’s participation in committing that offense. The officer then discusses the case with an Assistant District Attorney who decides whether to file charges. The Intake Office is open 24 hours a day. At times interns from area law schools are employed by the prosecutor to assist in the administration of the office. 32. If the decision is made not to prosecute, the charges are dropped, the case is dismissed, and the inmate is released shortly thereafter. 33. If the decision is made to prosecute, the charge will be prepared on a multi-part form from the offense report and from other information which is similar in many respects to what has already been gathered by the city at the booking area. A court docket number, a justice-of-the-peace number and a criminal case number are all assigned so that the inmate is immediately categorized on a judicial docket. The prosecutor will also include a recommendation as to money bond for the benefit of the magistrate, typically a Justice of the Peace, based on a printed form bail schedule utilized in criminal cases. 34. Recent technological innovations are used to keep track of a prisoner arrested in an outlying area of the county such as Tomball, Baytown, or Clear Lake. That prisoner will have been brought to an area sub-station, booked and presented to a Justice of the Peace. The information gathered about that prisoner and a report of the circumstances of his arrest are transmitted via teletype machine to the District Attorney’s Intake Office. A decision is made upon a review of these data in a fashion similar to that which is made by the prosecutor after a live interview with an arresting officer of the Houston Police Department. If the prosecutor decides that the case should be tried, the multi-part form is prepared with the same assignment of the inmate within the judiciary. The form is then sent by telecopier to the field sub-station from which the case originated. (3) Entry Into the County Jail 35. Once the decision is made to prosecute and an amount has been set as the amount of bail in the case, an inmate who is unable to make bond is scheduled for transfer from the City Jail to the downtown County Jail. 36. Harris County sheriffs transfer prisoners from the City Jail to the County Jail three times each day via police van. Upon his arrival at the County Jail, a prisoner is brought to the booking area for the downtown detention facility. This booking area is identical in design and purpose to the one at the City Jail. The information taken about the prisoner here requires five hours of “booking” time and is practically identical to the information previously transcribed at the City Jail. A central record is maintained for each prisoner and the prisoner’s location is also logged on the “IN-OUT” book, a manually prepared record of the inventory of all inmates at the downtown facility. 37. Once an inmate has been booked, he is taken to the “ID” room where he receives jail clothing and checks his personal property. He is then taken to a cell. Assuming an interview takes place, the inmate is interviewed by the Classification Officer within a few days to determine whether he requires special classification and placement. A different procedure is utilized for “weekenders,” i. e., those persons who are required to serve sentences only on weekends. A different inventory is maintained for them because of their status and the brief duration of their stay, but formal recordation is required nevertheless. Every time a weekender arrives, the entire intake procedure must be repeated. 38. An inmate is allowed one telephone call per week. Posted prominently next to each telephone unit is a listing of the telephone numbers of numerous commercial bail bondsmen but no such listing for the Pre-Trial Release Agency. 39. The duplicative recordation of prisoner data recurs at almost every stop an inmate makes while he or she is incarcerated. According to a systems analyst employed by the Harris County Sheriff’s Department, the same data may be collected up to 43 times as each governmental entity — for example, the District Clerk, the Sheriff, the City Jail and the District Attorney — strives to satisfy its need for information. There currently exists a computer system— SIPS (subject-in-process) — recently designed to assist the state judiciary in keeping track of all prisoners who are awaiting trial. But this system is not designed to assist other county agencies involved in the criminal justice system such as the District Clerk’s office, the Sheriff’s Department, or the District Attorney’s office and is therefore of no aid in reducing duplicative record keeping. (4) Appearances in Court; Attorney-Client Consultation 40. Attorneys have access to their clients at two different locations within the county downtown facility depending on whether the client is set for a court hearing. During the period before the case is set, two rooms are available for attorney-client consultation. On the morning of an inmate’s trial setting, he is transferred at 4 a. m. to a holding cell located adjacent to an enclosed walkway which connects the jail with the criminal courts. This holding cell has bench capacity for 30 persons, but frequently more than 80 persons are placed there. The inmates then wait in their cell from 4 a. m. until the time their cases are called. Court sessions do not begin until 9 a. m. While an inmate is in a holding cell awaiting the call of his case, the attorney is permitted to see him to consult and advise him. 41. Those county inmates who are transferred to the Rehabilitation Center are booked via computer hookup with the downtown facility. Consultation with counsel is as difficult to accomplish at the Rehabilitation Center as at the downtown facility. Only two booths exist for attorney-client interviews. Frequently, consultation takes place in the total absence of privacy at any available open space such as a bench in the central lobby of a floor adjacent to a cell wing. 3. Pre-Trial Release Agency a. Origins 42. In 1972, a committee of the Houston Junior Bar Association chaired by James Greenwood, a local attorney, established the Pre-Trial Release Agency (“Agency”). The agency, which received wide support from county officials at its inception, was originally designed to maintain contact with persons who had been released pending trial. The person selected to head the agency was Walter Williford, a man who had many years of experience dealing with prisoners while working for the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. 43. Though conceived with a strong fundamental premise and great expectations, the agency has never lived up to these expectations. 44. The agency has never been able to operate at the City Jail. Since 80 percent of all arrested persons at the County Jail enter the system through the City Jail, the agency has had no opportunity to interview most of these persons, many of whom were otherwise eligible for release on recognizance. 45. The initial refusal of city officials to permit the agency to have access to the City Jail resulted in part from their lack of understanding of the proper functioning of the agency and in part from the failure, or inability, of county officials to negotiate adequately with city officials to gain such access. It must also be recognized that the presence of multiple, overlapping government jurisdictions, each endowed with co-extensive, mutually exclusive political authority within the same geographical area, contributed to lack of communication and lack of motivation on the part of each jurisdictional entity to resolve joint problems through joint efforts. b. Impact of Bail Bondsmen 46. By far the most significant single factor influencing the agency’s lack of success was the organized effort of commercial bail bondsmen to sabotage the agency. The bondsmen see the agency as a potential economic threat to their “market” — those arrested persons who can afford money bonds but who at the same time are eligible for release on recognizance without having to compensate commercial bondsmen. Thus threatened, the bondsmen have admittedly brought considerable political pressure to bear on both city and county officials to hamper efficacious operation of the agency. Credible evidence demonstrates that the decision of City of Houston police officials in 1972 to deny access to the agency resulted, at least in part, from this political pressure. At the same time, the bondsmen pressed their attack on county officials to take steps to weaken the agency. For the most part, their efforts have been successful. c. Pre-Trial Release Today 47. Today, the agency is foundering. The Commissioners Court has established the agency, has designated certain office space for its operation and has allocated certain budget for its use. But the Commissioners Court has done little more than provide a brittle skeletal framework for the one agency which was intended to possess sufficient strength to blunt the force of a rapidly expanding jail population. No real support is offered to the agency to enhance its success because the agency is politically unattractive to the Commissioners Court. The result is an agency which has almost ceased to function as a viable component of the Harris County criminal justice system. 48. The agency’s decision to release a defendant on his recognizance lacks credibility with the judiciary, the final arbiters of its success or failure. To any Harris County District Judge, the ability of the agency to retrieve and return to the system any defendant who fails to appear is a significant factor in deciding whether to issue a personal bond. The agency’s current lack of credibility with the judiciary derives from the following deficiencies in agency resource allocation, policy and procedure: (a) the agency fails to notify a defendant released on recognizance of the time to appear in court; (b) the agency utilizes no system to check for an absentee before his scheduled court setting is called, such as requiring the defendant to appear in the agency office one hour before the scheduled appearance; (c) the agency makes no effort to locate an absentee prior to forfeiture of the bond; (d) after forfeiture, the agency does not authorize a priority effort to retrieve a defendant and bring him to custody; and (e) the agency does not maintain accurate records of the number or identity of all defendants released on personal bonds. 49. The Criminal Warrants Division of the Sheriff’s Department is responsible for serving bond forfeitures. Certain of thesé warrants, such as bench warrants and warrants for mental patients, are given priority under state law. Because of this priority arrangement and because the division does not have sufficient staff to serve even these priority warrants, the division has no available manpower or time allotted to serve personal bond forfeitures. Indeed, over 10,-000 arrest warrants five years old or older are currently outstanding because of lack of resources and manpower. These warrants are for the arrest of persons who are charged with having committed criminal offenses but who have never been brought to justice. Additional personnel on the division staff will be needed to serve personal bond warrants to provide proper support for pre-trial release efforts. 50. The failure of the agency to reach many of the detainees and not adequately process those whom it does reach is reflected in many ways: (a) the recorded number of defendants on personal bonds decreased by 466 in the first eight months of 1975 from a total of 1,580 to 1,114. This represents a decrease of 30 percent in those eight months, at a time when the jail population was increasing by more than 15 percent from a total of 2,104 inmates to 2,506; (b) an average of 241 persons per month were released on personal bond in each of the last three months of 1974. An average of 172 persons per month were released on personal recognizance during each of the summer months of 1975; (c) according to the testimony of Sam Alfano, a professional bondsman, a person who cannot afford to pay cash bondsmen or an attorney is a person who is married, has a child and earns $150 per week; and (d) a substantial number of those persons released on personal bond are indigents who would otherwise remain in jail if bail were not granted. 51. Coupled with the agency’s lack of credibility is its inability to interview and record promptly and accurately all of the incoming inmates. The current interview process is very time-consuming and cannot now be conducted in a suitable environment. The interview staff does not understand the data recorded by Sheriff’s Department officials when inmates are booked and does not know where to find many of the inmates. 52. The agency determines eligibility for release on recognizance, as it must, on a case-by-case basis. The largest impediment to prompt, efficacious operation of pre-trial release is the agency’s use of, and total reliance upon, a subjective standard of evaluation of each interviewee. That is, the “gut” reaction of the interviewer is used to determine whether a defendant is a good risk for release on recognizance. The Court recognizes that the interview process cannot be totally objective and must tolerate some flexibility in approach to account for individual differenees of defendants. However, the “subjective” approach has two fundamental weaknesses: (1) it cannot be communicated adequately to agency interviewer-trainees, each of whom must therefore be trained extensively before adapting properly to the system; and (2) it injects an interviewer’s own personality and values into an interview to such a degree as to override meaningful consideration of more pertinent criteria. For example, under the present system, a defendant who would otherwise be eligible for release because of strong family ties to the community, a reliable employer, or other such favorable criteria, may receive an unfavorable recommendation from the interviewer because of the presence of a personality conflict or other negative intangible between the interviewer and interviewee. 53. Below are listed a few of the many reasons for the agency’s ineffectiveness: (a) the agency is harassed by the professional bondsmen; (b) the agency has inadequate numbers of personnel, inadequate supervision, inadequate training for new personnel and inadequate internal procedures; (c) the agency has been inadequately supervised and managed; (d) the agency has inadequate and insufficient office space; (e) the agency’s budget is inadequate which results in high turnover of personnel because of inability to pay competitive salaries; (f) the agency has failed to maintain credibility with the judiciary because of its lack of success in ensuring timely appearance or securing prompt retrieval of a defendant who forfeits his PTR bond; (g) the agency cannot even begin to interview all persons incarcerated at the County Jail who could otherwise be eligible for release on recognizance; and (h) the agency fails to screen and interview properly all" incoming inmates because the agency uses a time-consuming interview process premised upon the need to make a subjective evaluation of an interviewee to determine his eligibility for release on recognizance. d. Cost of Inadequate Pre-Trial Release 54. The combination of bondsman harassment, a lack of credibility and utilization of a time-consuming technique, have taken their toll on the agency and on the taxpayers of Harris County as well. 55. As of the starting date of the September 16 hearing, there were more than 1,700 pre-trial detainees among the inmate population at the Harris County Jail. Thirty percent of these pre-trial detainees, or about 510 persons, were characterized by the Sheriff as inmates immediately eligible for release on recognizance under even the most stringent standards of review. 56. However, because of the inability of the agency to reach these persons, they remain incarcerated until the time of their trials, a period of time currently averaging 120 days. The cost to the taxpayer from this over-incarceration is obvious. Caring for each incarcerated person costs the county $7.27 a day, or $3,707.70 per day for the above 510 inmates. Since these inmates are incarcerated for about 120 days before trial, the cost to taxpayers of this incarceration is $444,924.00 over a 120-day period, or $1,334,772.00 per year. 57. There are other costs to be borne as well. According to the Project Director of the Sheriff’s Department, a reduction in time to trial of 25 percent, i. e., from 119 days to 90 days, would result in an annual saving to the county of $795,865.00. 58. Between 40 percent and 50 percent of all of those defendants who are released on personal bond are so released only after their first court appearance before a judge or only after an attorney has entered the case. As previously indicated, see Finding of Fact 16, supra, the average delay from time of arrest to time of first court appearance and appointment of counsel is 50 days. At the current release level on personal bond of 172 persons per month, roughly half of these persons, or 86 per month, are detained an average of 50 days at the county’s expense before being released on their own recognizance. 59. In any one month, therefore, 86 persons are being kept by the county for no reason, at a cost to the taxpayers of $625.22 per day, based on the daily cost figure of $7.27 per inmate. Ignoring any overlap in the length of detention of one set of detainees from one month to the next (to account for the total 50 days), and therefore presuming that only 86 persons per month are detained as described above, the cost to the taxpayers of detaining persons who are eventually recognized to have merited release on recognizance from the time of their arrest is $18,756.60 for 30 days, or $225,-079.20 per year. e. An Objective Approach to Pre-Trial Release: The Manhattan Bail Bond Project 60. At the behest of a philanthropist who established a charitable foundation — the Vera Institute of Justice — to fund its operation, the Manhattan Bail Bond Project (“Manhattan Project”) was created in New York City in 1961 to institute pre-trial release procedures there. Six or seven full-time staff members worked in the office, along with five or six law students who were employees of the Project paid to assist with the interviewing and perform other tasks in the office, such as verification. The creation and technical operation of the Project have been described elsewhere. See Botein, The Manhattan Bail Project: Its Impact on Criminology and the Criminal Law Processes, 43 Texas L.Rev. 319 (1965); Paulsen, Pre-Trial Release in the United States, 66 Colum.L.Rev. 109, 116-18 (1966). For purposes of this case, the Court focuses only on those principles of operation which are pertinent to an inquiry to determine an efficacious method of operation for a pretrial release agency. An alumnus of the Manhattan Project, David Hittner, testified at the hearing and described some of the underlying principles that guided the project’s operation. 61. Retrieval. The project focused heavily on retrieval. A concerted effort was made on the part of the staff to ensure prompt and reliable appearances by defendants at the appointed times. Notice of the hearing was sent by the staff; appearance in the Project office for check-off one hour before the time of the scheduled court setting was required; and concerted efforts were made by the staff to locate and notify those not present, even to the extent of a physical search. 62. Objective Evaluation of Defendants. The Project used objective criteria to evaluate a defendant’s eligibility for release on recognizance. To qualify for such release, the defendant had to be an area resident, had to have an address where he could be reached and had to amass at least five points on the objective point system checklist. Defendants who had committed certain categories of offenses were automatically excluded. No distinction was made on the basis of a defendant’s wealth. No defendant was excluded because he could afford a cash bond, and the Project did not interview only indigents. A form was devised onto which to transcribe information about the defendant’s background and his current residential and employment situation. The information was taken down during an interview with the subject by a staff member or volunteer interviewer (such as a night school law student) who merely recorded the information in the appropriate location on the form, assigned corresponding pre-established “point” values to the various criteria and tallied the total number of points. The interviewer would then verify the information and finalize the interview sheet for presentation to the judge. 63. Conclusion. The combination of an objective point system and reliable retrieval produced remarkable results for the Manhattan Project. The program was very successful: only 2.6 percent of all defendants released on recognizance failed to appear in court, a rate lower than that experienced with defendants who had been bonded out by professional bondsmen; of those who were initially released on recognizance, 48 percent were eventually found not guilty; 70 percent of the Project’s recommendations were accepted by the courts. V. CONCLUSIONS OF LAW A. Introduction 1. Jurisdiction is proper in this Court. 2. A Consent Judgment signed by all parties and approved by this Court on February 4, 1975, is currently in effect in this case. Under the Consent Judgment, the defendants have agreed to take steps to improve conditions in Harris County detention facilities so that operation and maintenance of the facilities is brought into full compliance with federal and state law. 3. “Massive precedent in the matter of state prison operation reflects the long maintained attitude of this Court to avoid unnecessary intervention in and interference with the internal administration of state penal institutions, subject to one paramount principle, the Court never hesitates to vindicate the federally guaranteed constitutional rights of those imprisoned therein”. Taylor v. Sterrett, 499 F.2d 367, 369 (5th Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 983, 95 S.Ct. 1414, 43 L.Ed.2d 665 (1975). 4. This Court, in the exercise of its pendent jurisdiction, also has the constitutional power to order defendants to comply with the laws of Texas. Taylor v. Sterrett, supra. 5. When a Court of the United States finds numerous constitutional violations in the operation of a detention facility which have been conceded by defendants, the Court has the duty and obligation to fashion effective relief and is allowed wide discretion. Gates v. Collier, 501 F.2d 1291, 1320 (5th Cir. 1974). “Once a right and a violation have been shown, the scope of a district court’s equitable powers to remedy past wrongs is broad, for breadth and flexibility are inherent in equitable remedies”. Swann v. Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 15, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1276, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971). 6. There are two primary factors which determine the size of the jail population: number of persons arrested who are not released on bond; and average length of time from arrest to disposition in a “jail” case. A broad-based, integrated approach to combat the problem of overcrowding must be adopted. Such an approach necessarily incorporates requirements to be met which will affect the entire criminal justice system. B. Jail Conditions 7. Defendant Commissioners Court has a duty to maintain a safe and suitable jail. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5115. The Commissioners Court is required to keep the jails in repair. Tex. Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 2351. The defendants have breached their duty in violation of the above laws and the detailed mandate of the Consent Judgment. Despite the entry of the Consent Judgment, the jails, particularly the downtown facility, continue to be unsafe, unsanitary, understaffed, underfinanced and poorly supervised. 8. Defendants have a duty to comply fully with the principles of “safe and healthful provisions” established by the Texas State Department of Health for the proper maintenance of the County Jail. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5115. Agents or Inspectors of the Texas State Department of Health are charged with the responsibility of making periodic inspections of the jails. Id. 9. A person during his incarceration has the right to be secure in his person. U.S.Const. Amends. VIII, XIV; Finney v. Arkansas Bd. of Corrections, 505 F.2d 194 (8th Cir. 1974); Holt v. Sarver, 442 F.2d 304 (8th Cir. 1971). 10. The state lacks the authority to subject pre-trial detainees to the same punishing circumstances as convicted persons, since the imposition of punishment without conviction deprives the accused of due process. Stack v. Boyle, 342 U.S. 1, 72 S.Ct. 1, 96 L.Ed. 3 (1951); Anderson v. Nosser, 438 F.2d 183 (5th Cir. 1971), aff’d and modified en banc, 456 F.2d 835 (5th Cir. 1972) (en banc), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 848, 93 S.Ct. 53, 34 L.Ed.2d 89 (1973), aff’d after remand, 507 F.2d 929 (5th Cir. 1975); Rhem v. Malcolm, 507 F.2d 333, 336-38 (2d Cir. 1974); Taylor v. Sterrett, 344 F.Supp. 411, 413 (N.D.Tex.1972), aff’d and remanded for re-consideration of remedy, 499 F.2d 367 (5th Cir. 1974). See generally Note, Constitutional Limitations on the Conditions of Pretrial Detention, 79 Yale L.J. 941 (1970); Note, Preventive Detention Before Trial, 79 Harv.L.Rev. 1489 (1966). 11. The defendants must segregate inmates suitably by classification. As the relevant' state statute provides: “The term ‘safe and suitable jails,’ as used in this Act, shall be construed to mean jails which provide adequate segregation facilities by having separate enclosures, formed by solid masonry or solid metal walls, or solid walls of other comparable material, separating witnesses from all classifications of prisoners; and males from females; and juveniles from adults; and first offenders, awaiting trial, from all classifications of convicted prisoners; and prisoners with communicable or contagious diseases from all other classifications of prisoners.” See Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5115 (1975). 12. Lack of adequate economic resources does not excuse, nor does it lessen, the obligation of states and local governments to provide jail facilities which are constitutionally adequate. Finney v. Arkansas Bd. of Corrections, supra; Wyatt v. Aderholt, 503 F.2d 1305, 1315 (5th Cir. 1974); Gates v. Collier, 501 F.2d 1291, 1319-20 (5th Cir. 1974). 13. The Sheriff owes a duty to prisoners to keep safely a person committed to his custody. Tex.Code Crim. Proc.Ann. art. 16.21. The Commissioners Court must approve the number of jail guards when they become necessary for the safekeeping of prisoners and the security of jails. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 6871. 14. Inmates may not act in a supervisory or administrative capacity nor administer disciplinary action over other inmates. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 6184k-1. C. Criminal Justice System 15. The Commissioners Court has the duty to pay attorneys’ fees out of the general fund of the County to counsel appointed to defend a person accused of committing a felony or a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment. Tex.Code Crim.Proc.Ann. art. 26.05. The Commissioners Court is authorized to provide legal services in addition to such services required by Article 26.05. See Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 2372p-l. Under Article 2372p-l, the Commissioners Court may contract with a local entity, whether established by the bar association or otherwise, to assist the courts in providing timely and effective assistance of counsel. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 2372p-l, § 1. 16. Other efforts are required to be made by the Commissioners Court under subsequent sections of Article 2372p-l to ensure proper coordination of appointment of counsel with court appearances and release on personal bond. See §§ 2-5, Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 2372p — 1. 17. Whenever a district or county court determines that a person is too poor to employ counsel, the Court shall appoint counsel. Tex.Code Crim.Proc. Ann. art. 26.04. Magistrates may appoint counsel at examining trials, Tex. Code Crim.Proc.Ann. art. 16.01, and may release a defendant on his personal bond, in which case the bond may be transferred to any court wherein the case may be heard. Tex.Code Crim.Proc.Ann. art. 17.031. 18. As the term is defined in Article 2.09 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, “magistrate” includes District Judges, County Judges, Judges of the County Courts-at-Law and County Criminal Courts, Justices of the Peace and Judges of the Municipal Courts of incorporated cities. 19. A judge of a Municipal Court sitting as a magistrate has jurisdiction to accept complaints on cases which he cannot try on the merits, issue warrants of arrest, hold examining trials and transfer cases to other magistrates in the county for purposes of holding examining trials, in all cases which have occurred within the county. Atty. Gen.Op. C-718 (1966). 20. At the present time, counsel is not usually appointed for an indigent defendant until he has been in jail for an average of 50 days. Courts are usually reluctant to appoint counsel quickly because they do not wish to interfere with the defendant’s attempts to procure counsel. They therefore wait until the date of the first court appearance before appointing an attorney for an indigent defendant. Usually, however, the indigent defendant is ignorant of his right to appointed couns