More coverage of the Citation Option:

• Daily Texan
• Grits for Breakfast, Part 2
  
• Austin American Statesman editorial re. stressed police budget
• KXAN

Check out coverage of the report:

• Austin Chronicle
  
• KUT
• KLBJ News Radio
• Grits for Breakfast
  
• Austin American Statesman online
  
• News 8 Austin
  
• KVUE
  
• KXAN
  

New Citation Option Report Released Today!

Millions Wasted Every Year as Public Safety is Compromised

Today at noon, we released a report that illustrates how at the apex of the budgeting cycle, and as police union officials negotiate for their labor contract with the City, we don't need more officers. By prioritizing how police respond to offenses, we can save money and improve public safety by keeping officers on the street to address Austin's most serious public safety needs.

Chief Acevedo should keep APD officers, who make about $90,000/yr. average before bonuses, busy solving our serious crime problems. It turns out that 37% of all Austin Police Department (APD) arrests qualify for the Citation Option! In the meantime, APD is only clearing 42% of the violent crimes in Austin, and 12% of our property crimes.

High arrest numbers allow APD to compete for money from the federal government and bargain for more money from Austin taxpayers in their labor contract.

Please send Chief Acevedo an email or call him and ask him to implement the Citation Option now! We will update you here as the situation develops.

One City, One Chief, One Policy!

The police chief continues to claim he is not able to implement the citation option because small bits of Austin are in Hays and Williamson counties. He repeats, "we can't have three policies," but we don't NEED three policies. Austin police have jurisdiction in every part of the City and Austin just needs one clear policy. Hays County Sheriff deputies can follow whichever policy they choose, just like Travis County has.

In fact, the Travis County Sheriff is implementing the Citation Option, Chief, so it looks like, thanks to you, we currently have two policies in this city. An Austinite who is stopped by APD will be arrested and incarcerated but the same person stopped by the Travis County Sheriff Department will be cited and released.

When the Chief says "he can't" it means "he won't." This long-awaited meeting with our neighboring counties, that won't happen until September, is a delay tactic.

Please contact the Chief today and ask him to stop the unnecessary delays ...one city/one chief/one policy!

Chief Acevedo sets first meeting for after the new labor contract is signed!

Chief Acevedo said he wants to meet with Hays and Williamson County officials before he implements the Citation Option and after months of stalling he FINALLY set up the first meeting ... but it's in September!

The new state law allowing the Citation Option was finalized in June, 2007, and went into effect September 1, 2007. Chief Acevedo has set up his first meeting about it for September 4, 2008. Why the delay? Could it be because Austin Police Department is set to have its new labor contract signed with the city by then? Does APD want taxpayers to pay for all of their unnecessary arrests for the next few years?

Who will be at this meeting and what are they there to discuss? State law gives the Chief authority to implement the Citation Option with the stroke of a pen. Weeks ago APD said they plan to meet with Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley to ask for his permission. We hope not. The Williamson County District Attorney doesn't handle misdemeanors, only felonies, so he has no business at such a meeting. We will let you know if we find out the guest list or the agenda for the September meeting.

There is NO reason to wait to implement the Citation Option. Please help by letting the Chief know that we do not want meeting after meeting while thousands of Austinites continue to be arrested and jailed for no reason in the meantime. Ask Chief Acevedo to put the Citation Option in place now!

Please ask your organization to endorse the Citation Option!

Some great organizations have endorsed the Citation Option:

• ACLU of Texas, Central Texas Chapter
• Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition (a coalition of dozens of organizations)
• City of Austin Human Rights Commission
• Grits for Breakfast
  
• LULAC, District 7
• LULAC, District 12
• PODER
• Texas Civil Rights Project
• Texas Jail Project
  

The City of Austin Commission on Immigrant Affairs will meet tomorrow night to vote on a similar resolution, and we've heard that several other organizations are meeting to consider an endorsement.

These groups agree that APD should have an official Citation Option policy in place. Some organizations are seeing APD’s failure to implement the Citation Option as directly related to the current meet and confer negotiations - the budget crunch should have us looking at where we can tighten our belts, not entertaining hiring more officers we don’t need because APD likes to increase their arrest numbers by arresting people unnecessarily. Neighborhood groups want the officers we do have patrolling, not down at the jail for hours doing paperwork on someone who’s license was expired or who was caught with a joint.

Take a look at the organizations that supported the Citation Option bill (HB2391) at the Texas Legislature last year:

• Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas (CLEAT)
• Travis County Commissioners Court
• Travis County Sheriff's Office
• Travis County Sheriff's Law Enforcement Association
• Houston Police Officers Union
• Texas State Lodge & Fraternal Order of Police
• Texas Conference of Urban Counties
• Texans for Public Safety Solutions
• Texas Public Policy Foundation, Center for Effective Justice
• Texas Criminal Justice Coalition
• Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association
• Texas Fair Defense Project
• American Civil Liberties Union of Texas

With this amazing group supporting the Citation Option at the state and local level … Will you ask your organization to endorse? Have we missed organizations that have already voted to endorse? Please let us know if we should add your org to the list or if you know of a group we should contact!

What are they hiding?

The City of Austin's responses to our public information requests have trickled in, but we still lack an important piece: the cost to Austin taxpayers each time APD chooses to arrest, book and incarcerate a person whom they could have given a citation.

Not only did we request this information, but so did the chair of the City's Public Safety Task Force (PSTF), Councilmember Mike Martinez, at the June 2nd meeting. APD was charged with bringing this info to the July 7 meeting, but lo and behold that meeting has been canceled so APD got a reprieve until the next PSTF meeting on August 4th. Meanwhile, the contract negotiations between the police union and the City are at their apex with the union continuing the long-held mantra "we need more staff!"

Why would APD hide these costs? Is it because they know that we might be able to make a VERY strong case that implementing the Citation Option would save taxpayers from having to foot a public safety bill we simply cannot afford? It's hard to believe that officers on the street would want to continue to arrest people when they could just give them a citation, freeing up their time to handle more serious issues. It's hard to believe that the City would want to negotiate to sacrifice important social services and infrastructure our city needs in favor of more police we don't need. This act would not only strain the budget, but increase liability by unnecessarily placing people in jail. Our new City Manager seems like a reasonable, fiscally conservative and non-politicized man. Hopefully, the outcome of the negotiations will reveal these observations to be true.

Meanwhile, who at the City is standing in the way of revealing the costs of APD's unnecessary arrests?

Feel free to make your own requests of this information to our City Manager, Mayor and Councilmembers. Unless they know that Austinites care about how their tax dollars are spent, they may not act in the public's best interest. They'll act in the interest of those closest to them ... with all of their political intentions.

Learn more here and send the Chief an email asking him to implement the Citation Option!

What does it mean when Austin police measure success by the number of arrests?

Yesterday’s story in the Statesman http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/06/10/0610crimestats.html highlights the sad fact that Austin police continue to measure success by the number of arrests. A perverse incentive, like the proverbial ambulance-chasing lawyer who hopes that more people are severely injured each year, this measure of success encourages police to arrest more people every year. The only way they can succeed by this standard is if crime goes up, or if they just arrest and incarcerate more and more people who don’t need to be arrested.

Conveniently, it also feeds into their current labor contract negotiations and the false premise that Austin police need more money. Austin’s crime rate is on par with comparable cities. With our “high” number of 30 murders per year, we are not in the same league with other cities like Washington DC or Baltimore which suffer hundreds of murders each year. Even Fort Worth, which is less populated than Austin, had almost twice as many murders as Austin last year. It’s time that we question the methodology and the claims made by our police when they boast about making more arrests every year.

National long-term aggregate research shows that for nonviolent offenders, arresting them and locking them up increases their criminal behavior.

Austin police could spend more time solving serious crime right now, for free, by implementing the citation option but they refuse to do so. We want to know how many nonviolent individuals were arrested and incarcerated in Austin when they could have simply been cited and released under the new state law which has been in effect since September 1, 2007. Austin police refuse to implement the citation option thus wasting taxpayer money, taking thousands of police off the streets for hours at a time, and unnecessarily exposing nonviolent offenders to violent ones. The city is due to respond to our open records request about this on Friday so we will let you know.

Let’s take a closer look before Austin taxpayers give police a free pass again and get treated like a bottomless ATM machine. An increase in arrests is more an indication of failure than success. Austin police could reduce crime, save taxpayers money and reduce racial profiling right now by implementing the citation option. Click here to learn more and send an email to Chief Acevedo asking him to fully implement the citation option in Austin.

Austin Public Safety Task Force Considers the Citation Option

Yesterday evening, instead of appearing before the Austin Public Safety Task Force in person, the Chief of police sent a person from his staff who had little, if any, background with the policy.  The officer explained that the police are still trying to set a meeting with the district attorney from Williamson County and the district attorney from Hays County so they can agree on a process for the citation option.  When asked why APD would be discussing this with the district attorney, and not the county attorney who handles misdemeanors, the officer had no idea.  (Most district attorneys only handle felonies, but those who follow criminal justice at the Texas legislature know that the Williamson County District Attorney will do everything he can to stop the citation option from going into effect.)

The good news is that the Austin Public Safety Task Force obtained an agreement that the police will return for their next meeting with concrete data, specifically:

- how many people are arrested and jailed each year in Austin when they could be given a citation,

- how much these optional arrests and incarcerations are costing the city  (Council Member Mike Martinez made it clear that he wants to see all costs, including all of the officer time which is lost, costs of arrest, costs of magistrate court and municipal judge time, costs of incarceration, etc.), and

- the racial breakdown of all of these optional arrests and incarcerations that the Austin police choose to make.

The police made it clear that they do NOT need to obtain permission from Hays or Williamson county to move forward with the citation option.  They say they are simply attempting to work it out in good faith and by consensus.  We don't know how much longer the Austin police will be willing to wait on the Williamson County DA, but the state law allowing the citation option has already been in place for 8 months.  How many tax dollars have already been wasted and how many lives have already been impacted?

Please stay tuned ~ we will update you as things develop!

Chief Acevedo to Report on the Citation Option Today

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo will provide an update to the Austin Public Safety Task Force today on the citation option.  Check out the meeting in person at City Hall today at 4pm, or watch for it later on Ch. 6 if you can't make it.  We will have a complete update here also.  Stay tuned ...