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Harris County, TX, June 26, 2024 – Judge Lina Hidalgo issued the following statement today after the Office of County Administration (OCA) identified issues and inefficiencies in the Harris County jail competency restoration process. At Commissioners Court yesterday, OCA identified a case where an individual stayed in the Harris County Jail awaiting trial for nearly 18 years due to these inefficiencies. 

The Harris County Jail transfers people to state hospitals when they are determined incompetent to stand trial. Under the current competency restoration process, individuals are booked with a new booking number when they come back to the jail after a stay at the state hospital, which effectively ‘sets back the clock’ on their length of stay. That oversight can lead to situations where individuals with competency restoration issues end up in the jail for excessively long periods of time, contributing to overcrowding. 

“The deaths and the stories coming out of the Harris County jail are tragic. We’ve been looking at what’s going on that’s causing us to have such problems with overcrowding, and one of the things we’ve learned is that people are staying too long in the jail because of inefficiencies with competency restoration – like the extreme case we learned about at Commissioners Court this week with the gentleman who has been in the jail for nearly 18 years. As much as that case and other cases like it break my heart, I am glad that we’ve found it now and are working toward solutions that will actually help us make things right at the jail,” said Judge Lina Hidalgo. 

At Judge Hidalgo’s direction, OCA and Commissioners Court have made solving the issues at the Harris County jail a priority. As part of this effort, OCA conducted a jail population analysis, which identifies priority populations that are driving jail overcrowding so Harris County can work toward solutions to reduce overcrowding at the jail. OCA identified the individual who was in the jail for nearly 18 years due to issues with the competency restoration process while conducting the jail population analysis.

OCA presented initial recommendations for improving the competency restoration process at yesterday’s Commissioners Court and will bring more detailed recommendations at the next Court. Among their initial recommendations, OCA will look into maintaining and expanding the Jail Based Competency Restoration program, which was funded by the American Rescue Plan through this month. Harris County will also look into establishing a system or database to streamline and digitize the manual process of communication within the competency restoration process, as well as improve data collection and tracking of individuals with competency restoration issues.

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