$8 million contract approved to house Dallas county jail arrestees

A nearly $8 million contract to house people arrested in Dallas in the county jail sparked heated arguments between prison officials and council members on Wednesday.

For nearly 50 years, the Dallas County Jail held inmates from surrounding North Texas cities.

Most of the prison population is in Dallas, which does not have its own city jail.

Council members questioned the approval of the contract with the county jail.

County Commissioner John Wiley Price suggested an alternative.

“You know, build your own and then you don't have to worry about $8 million,” he said.

The city has reduced its contract payments to the county over the past three fiscal years.

After a long discussion and comments, the council members approved the contract.

City officials said delays in booking people into jail are leaving police officers unable to keep streets safe.

City Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn said the city is not receiving the arrest processing reports it should.

“The contract said this would be done, but it is not,” she said. “And that was one of the questions from the Public Safety Committee: Can we withhold this payment until we get the reports?”

She said the Public Security Committee had also reported that the prison was not accepting some detainees.

Dallas County Sheriff Marian Brown responded:

“People are only turned away if there are special circumstances,” she said. “Here is a special circumstance – the person has medical needs that cannot be met in our facility. So we tell the officer that they have to get them to Parkland first before we can admit them. In those cases, yes.”

“If it's exclusively a Class C misdemeanor, then we actually don't accept it,” Brown said. “We haven't changed that policy. We don't exclusively accept Class C misdemeanors.”

The council members ultimately approved the contract.

The agreement began in 1978, and in 1997 the contract included a payment of $4.7 million to the county.

By 2019, the payment had grown to over $9 million before declining in response to COVID-19 measures.

Housing inmates at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center costs about $18 million this year.

At one point, more than 7,000 people were housed in the prison, with most arrests occurring in the city of Dallas.

Price said that suggests the city's contract does not cover its share of jail costs.

“You have 49 percent of our population, 2.7 million, and you're basically housing about 40 percent of the individuals in that facility,” he said. “So when you look at that and you're talking about $8 million, you know you're a little short.”

The county is considering building a new prison facility that could cost up to $5 billion and be largely completed by 2032.

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